Everyone I know needs to watch this:

The Way We Get By - a documentary film by Aron Gaudet & Gita Pullapilly about three senior citizens & Maine Troop Greeters

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....mostly because it is going to be AWESOME, but also because you are going to meet my new boyfriend. His name is Jerry... he happens to be 73; but the moment he says "Theres cellphones in there, free to use....talk all you want. Call somebody up... make 'em happy, ugly, or horny!" he steals my heart.

Transformers 2 grossed $201.2 MILLION dollars in 5 days. This movie will hardly been seen by anyone. I have to try to change that. What does Megan Fox have that Joan Gaudet doesn't? It certainly isn't heart? Get it together people, you can't possibly prefer to watch CGI robots crack jokes over real people making a huge difference. Go out of your way to watch this, and then be sure to tell everyone you know.

A HOT adventure.

Growing up I lived by some of the most amazing amusement parks. Every year for our birthday the kids in my family would receive season passes to some of them, and believe me our parents got their money's worth. I LOVE coasters and rides... except the swings, the swings are evil and should never be ridden! (you know them either as the yo-yo, the chair-o-plane, or the flying trapeze.) Avoid these rides, avoid even being a spectator near these rides; you will thank me someday. Why yes I DID have a traumatic accident on one when I was a kid, why do you ask?

Speaking of traumatizing, when my kids were all finally tall enough to ride a proper coaster I decided it needed to be wooden. So we bribed the heck out of them, and jumped on the first wooden coaster we came across. It turns out that this coaster happens to make the top 10 list for scariest coaster every year. There were actual tears, and threats to never ride another ride again. We couldn't even get them on a log ride after that. Oops! So every year we trek to some amusement park, and I end up riding the best coasters all by myself. Except this year. This year the kids are a little older, a little taller, and a little braver. This year they went on rides without any begging, bribing, or crying! It was awesome!


Aside from the fact that the heat index was 110°, the trip to Wild Adventures was great. The park is small enough that you aren't rushed to do everything, and the employees are super friendly. Because the park was so empty that day we got to ride most of the rides back-to-back, without even getting in line again. "And we're going again!" should be magic words to a ride fan, and they were... until the Double Shot.



Notice the VERY different looks on our faces? I had never ridden this ride before, which is strange because one of my all time favorites is the Demon Drop. First Born decided to ride with me, and I almost didn't because it was getting late and I figured this one was going to be too much for her. Ha! It turns out this one was a little too much for ME. I literally started to panic when it dawned on me that they might let us go back-to-back on this. I wanted off, and FAST. First Born ended up riding it twice more by herself. I think her new goal in life is to ride this. No thank-you!

.....it's my bithday too, yeah!

So today is my birthday. For Pops' birthday he wanted to go to an amusement park, so we went to Wild Adventures (more on that later). He isn't the kind of person who LOVES rides; but he loves to go to amusement parks. I will never understand this. I like my birthdays to be much more chill, even though my family usually tries to force me to celebrate somehow. It is pouring rain right now, so today hopefully I will get to do lots of this:

That is me, playing PS3, with an enormous dog in my lap. He really thinks that is a wonderful place for him to be. Neither of us are comfortable, but he would sit like that all day if I let him. Silly dog. I have no idea why it looks like he has frickin laser beams attached to his eyes, but I am not fixing it. You know why? Because it is my birthday and I don't have to if I don't want to!

They say it's your birthday.

No matter how old I get you will ALWAYS be older!!! I love you..... even when you demand ridiculous things at 5 in the morning just because it is your birthday.

Sometimes it IS rocket surgery....

So the second day on the boat did not happen. Engine problems. To help cure my heartbrokeness over this, I was allowed to go to a craft store. My family hates entering a craft store with me and I really can't blame them. I completely tune out and become a magpie; I just can't help myself. Well, on this fateful trip the famdamnly wandered into the "hobby" aisle. Did you know the hobby aisle contains ROCKETS? Once again I'm going to have to blame Pops' current ringtone , because they totally bought themselves a rocket.

After some cursing, the terrible smell of model glue, and huge crisis about Q-tips; we ended up at the abandoned airfield by our house. There was some discussion about how windy it seemed to be, and Pops declared the launch was most likely going to be a dud. We forged ahead, because that is just how we roll. Then this happened:



First Born took that video, and she got so caught up in the moment that she forgot the camera was still running. I didn't edit it because I think it is amusing. Several things about this should be noted. First off, yes that is a jail in the background. Second, yes... First Born was highly concerned that Middle Child and I were about to be killed by the rocket (to her credit she was not part of the building phase, and didn't know there was a parachute). Both Pops and she hid like little babies in the hatch of my car (Pops DID know there was a parachute, so I don't know what that was all about). Third, yes those are Boy Child's crutches STILL in the hatch of my car... what exactly do people do with crutches when they are done being used?




It turns out hobby aisle rockets can go pretty darn high, and really freaking FAR. The picture on the side was taken about halfway during the run to find it. I was sure it got stuck somewhere in those trees off to the left. I was not looking forward to finding it again. Middle Child insisted it had gone into the road that you can sort of see off to the right in the background. I thought there was no way it went THAT far, it is like 1/2 a mile from where we started!






For once she was right. The white thing in the grass is the parachute. I can't believe it went all the way across the main road! We totally got the side eye from those construction workers in the background. I can only imagine what the people driving as it happened were thinking! The damage was minimal, and the repair has already happened. I'm mildly afraid this is going to become a "thing".

Cast is off so we can cast off.

So Pops has been OBSESSED with boating.... I pretty much blame these songs. He finally got around to taking some boating classes and Boy Child got his cast off so that means we were finally free to rent a boat. I thought Pops was going to explode with excitement; I was tad bit apprehensive. Have I mentioned that our collective boat knowledge involves the above videos and watching several seasons of Deadliest Catch? Should I add that I am the only person in my family that can really swim, and First Born is terrified of all things marine? With all these things in mind we decided to make our maiden voyage a trip to this island... you know the one on the OCEAN.

Surprisingly we made it with only a few small problems. It was LOVELY, and well worth all the planning and worry. We saw tons of hermit crabs, the shrimp above, and lots of dolphins! Dolphins are hard to photograph, yo. On our way back home we might have gotten stuck on a sandbar; but the beauty of this is that a dolphin came right up to check us out. First Born swears it had red eyes and was ready to attack. I admit I jumped a bit when it surfaced RIGHT behind me and made its snort noise. All in all it was a great day. Hopefully tomorrow it will be just as lovely!

Got crabs?

Looks serene doesn't it? Ha! This picture was taken mere feet from a major highway. We are on the lookout for a new crabbing spot. Someone put up a gate and a bunch of security equipment at our last one. It was a little on the shady side; but that made it great because there was hardly ever anyone there. I'm pretty sure the feeling that you might stumble upon a rotting corpse at any given second is what did the trick. We tried out two new places yesterday. They were both empty, but also devoid of anything crab-like. The one pictured above had a bunch of stray animals there.... heartbreaking. I would have called Impound, but since I've seen their operations the poor things are better off left to their own devices. Tomorrow we will be attempting to boat our way to an uninhibited island, so if you don't hear from us for a few days don't panic. We are just lost off the Golden Isles somewhere. Pops packed a headlamp, so clearly we are prepared!?!

It isn't exactly rocket surgery.

Today we learned the two most terrifying words in the English language. If you would have asked me yesterday I might have told you they were giant squid or BK King. Nope, it turns out the last two words that you care to hear are dark spot, at least in reference to MRI results. So now we await appointments with neurologists, tests that I can't even begin to spell, and who knows what else. Who would have believed that two words could literally suck the air out of a person?

Bunday.

Since I have no news in the medical front, I thought I would show you a picture of a bunny in our yard.

We threw a carrot out there for him, but he didn't seem interested. He ended up getting freaked out by our interest and took off. We took this opportunity to check around the bushes for a nest, but never found one.

I'm hoping he will munch on the weeds in the flower bed and become my little gardener. Maybe eventually we will tame him enough to balance a pancake on his head. Maybe not!