Let's See . . . It's Wednesday, right?

My days are still so screwed up, but I guess things are finally getting back to normal this morning. A long 4-day weekend really gets you confused! But today, the tell-tale signs are here that life is back to normal . . . Gary up and going to work this morning, me sleeping an hour later than I need to, McKenna still snoring away at 10 a.m., and me sitting here now trying to get a blog post online.

To get you all caught back up on my life happenings, thought I'd share a few fun memories from this past (LONG) weekend--

* "Luke, I am Your Father."

We celebrated with a fun Star Wars party for Garrett's 6th birthday. Danielle went all out--she had pretzel sticks made up to look like light sabers, decorated with Star Wars quotes all over the room, even had a Star Wars trivia game (which I was AHEAD in, until my two smartie-pants 6- and 7-year-old nephews stole the victory from me with their knowledge of some obscure planet in Revenge of the Sith. LOL!!).

One of the gifts Garrett received was a Darth Vader helmet that you put over your head and can talk into; then it changes your voice to sound like Vader. When Delaney put it on and said, "Luke, I am your father" to Sydney, Sydney promptly replied, "No, your not my fadder. You're my sister." Ha!!

A few pics from the party--

(Gary re-living his childhood. If only he'd had a Millenium Falcon this cool??)

* A Celebration in the Parking Lot (or "Where did the big hair go?")

On Sunday afternoon, we enjoyed a few hours with some friends at an outdoor patriotic celebration at Crossroads Baptist. Our friends Les, Greg, and Doug are in a Christian rock band and they played a few sets for the crowd. All I could think of while listening to them play and sing some awesome Third Day songs was all the stories I'd heard about them (at least Les and Greg) as crazy bandees back in the 1970s and early 80s. Stories of police cars chasing them down . . . and late nights with too much drinking and carousing . . . and lots of Big Hair. Oh how age can change a man! LOL

Here's the group rocking it out . ..


In the midst of all the music, Delaney and Jenna spent the afternoon sliding down giant water inflatables. (Of course, Delaney didn't have her bathing suit. But did that stop her?? Of course not!)



* Baked Beans for an Army & "The Glitter Incident"

Skip to Tuesday, the 4th . .. We awoke to very little cold air coming out of our air conditioner (ugh! double ugh for a July morning!!), so quickly decided to get somewhere a bit cooler. Went to the grocery store, drove around in a cold car, etc. then got an unexpected invitation from our friends Ty and Christy to come hang out that evening. We'd already decided to not go down to Tuscaloosa (we were just so tired and didn't want to drive an hour away), but thought that cooling off with them in their pool would be a nice, relaxing way to spend the day. It turned out to be really nice . . . and boy did we have some laughs!

The guys grilled out pork chops (yum!!) and we planned several different side dishes. One was baked beans. Now, I was thrilled that Gary actually went to the grocery store and bought everything we needed, but I could hardly stifle the laughter when he came home with the Army Sized Baked Beans (you know, the 7 pound can that can feed a small army or a school cafeteria?). He said that Ty told him to buy a "big" can of it and seemed a little offended that I thought it was TOO big. Let's just say that all night long, the BIG can of baked beans was THE running joke. ("Anyone want more baked beans?" "All the corn's gone, but there's some beans left." "You know, if we'd thought about it, we could have tried baked bean homemade ice cream." TOO funny!)

The other "excitement" of the night was what will now be forever called The Glitter Incident. Halfway through a rousing Phase 10 game, the girls rushed to the table to show us Sydney--covered with glitter!! It was in EVERY crevice of her body; ALL over her hair; IN her eyelashes; EVERYWHERE!! We were all a little frantic because we couldn't tell if it was IN her eyes, so we washed and washed and washed and washed her, trying to get the glitter off of her. We eventually had to put her into the kitchen sink and pour water over her head and body. Sydney was NOT happy with us and she eventually cried herself to sleep. We were so traumatized by the incident, and the girls were upset that they had let her make such a mess. But it turned out okay . . . (The funnist thing was when I realized I didn't have any photos of the incident to either scrapbook or blog! I'm SO bad!!)