Phil Stacey Day

tuesday, may 29 was designated phil stacey day by the mayor of wichita at the phil stacey benefit concert last night.

let me start at the beginning. when we woke up in the morning, my mom and i went shopping, got our toes done, ate at n and js, just generally had a grand ole time. then, jeremy and i took max to all star sports where we rode the go karts (i won, jeremy says he let me, but i was like a whole lap ahead of him and max), the boys did the batting cages, and we played in the arcade. max and i did the dance dance revolution thing, and although i won this time, it was an unimpressive showing. we had it set on a super fast speed and neither of us did very well at all. jeremy beat us in basketball. me more so than max.

after the arcade, we went to see phil stacey. he was in wichita (he graduated from northwest) for a benefit concert for the greensberg? greens boro? greensville? tornado devastation etc. the central auditorium was packed. the opening band was quite scandalous. one of the three girl singers jeremy went to high school with. they were all wearing skanky clothes and sang lady marmalade and zz top and any number of other not as much churchy songs. it was hilarious. some people really dug it, and some people were shocked. phil sang alot of his idol songs, and a couple originals and some covers with the band. there was a rumor that martina mcbride was going to be ther ebut she wasnt. the mayor of wichita was though and he declared yesterday phil stacey day. so happy phil stacey day everyone. i didnt get you a card, but i did get this:

apparently the camera does not lie. he is as bald headed as ever.

after phil, we went home and ate lamb that i made. not my mom and max because they "dont like lamb - your flavoring was really good but i just dont like lamb" yeah right. mandy call came over and the 6 of us helped my dad work on his joseph song then played catchphrase for several hours. it was really fun! we had a few hilarious moments soe of which are encapsulated below:

palace

catastrophe

on golden pond

soundtrack

air

you kinda had to be there. but trust me, it was funny!

Memorial Day = Penguin Day

we went to the zoo for memorial day, along with half of wichita. we took a picnic basket and met some really strange people waiting in line to see the penguins. the sedgwick county zoo has a new penguin exhibit. these guys are from south america and are kinda funny looking if you are expecting an emperor penguin. there were about 15 or so of them swimming around and they were really cute though. some of them swam with their heads above water, and some looked like they were snorkeling. the bears were another super cool exhibit. the two grizzlies that were in the habitat were running around and looked like they were trying to jump over and se us. the gorillas were also running all around. two of the males were play fighting the whole time we were watching them. it was super cool.



after the zoo, which by the way, was another classic example of "just because the sun cant see you etc" because it was cloudy all day but i definitely got sunburned, we went over to lauras house for dinner. joe and william and sydney were there. we had deep fried turkey, which was a new experience, with all kinds of veggies etc etc. it was so yummy! sydney is like a foot taller than when i saw her last. she is a middle schooler now and i am proud to say, she reads like me. walks around reading. reads while she eats. reads while playing video games. ok she doesnt really do that but i think we are secretly twins separated at birth or something. joe took a family picture with everybody in it - just ignore my moms pants. long story.

Day 2

Sunday we went to church in the morning with my family. we did not get to hear the new pastor and i was kinda disappointed about that. i did learn that one bushel of wheat can produce 50 some odd bushels per acre. so that was exciting.

after lunch missy (aka mindy) came over and we went to the mall. we walked around for a little bit then went to jugo juice aka jamba juice aka zumo juice and got some orange carrot juice. yummy! we went out to trinity and saw all the construction on the fine arts wing - it is gonna be pretty sweet. we went to her house and i got to see her parents again... we grabbed the brian regan "i walked on the moon" dvd and watched it at my parents house. he is one funny guy!!! (say 8! say 8!)

after she left we all went to kobes for mothers day dinner. YUM! except i got sick afterwards. but it was good while it lasted. heehee. we took a mothers day picture (bryce was at work) in the backyard. joe and laura and william came over and bryce came over and we played guitar (we in the broadest sense of the word - i watched of course) and watched mitch hedburg on youtube and just hung out. it was fun. bryce has written some hilarious songs about his apartment and working at dillons and other such nonsense. when he finally posts those on youtube i will give the link out. you will laugh. hard.

kansas part 1

kimmy's party was fun. her friends are good cookers!!! lance and kris took us to the airport last night and we took off at 12:45 this morning. we flew to cinncinati (because geographically, that makes perfect sense) and spent a couple hours there. we landed in kc at 10:45 this morning. my mom came and got us and brought us to wichita. we went to lunch, then my mom and i went to the grocery store (yay dillons!) and whole foods (not to be confused with the whole foods chain that is in california and lots of other places). my dad cooked steaks on the grill and we ate yummy salad and corn on the cob. does anyone else feel like i blog about food alot? i think i might and that is because i LOVE to eat! we are getting ready to watch west wing.

ceci had her baby and he is happy and healthy! hurrah!

kobes tomorrow.. (food again!) also jimmy johns for lunch (jessie be jealous!)

!m!

now i know

well, emily just loaded up the babies to take them to her house for the next week. i know that they will take good care of those crazy hamsters, but now i have the very smallest inkling of how a mom must feel on the first day of kindergarten. i miss them already.

several people at work suggested the name kahlua for the new baby hamster. i havent asked jeremy yet what he thinks but i kinda like it. what do you guys think?

we get on a plane tonight but first we party with kimmy! yay!

love, love, love, all you need is love

welp i guess it is official. jordin is the new idol, but i am saddened by that. she drives me crazy so hopefully she is one of those fall off the map idols. i shouldnt say that. at least blake was something different. honestly, none of this year's group really caught my attention the way some of last year's group did.

really, i am just waiting for kelly clarkson's new cd and tour. thats it. american idol couldve stopped there for all i care.

babs last night was verrrrry disappointing i am sorry to say. CORRECTION: it was bette midler, which is worse. babs, if you are out there, sorry for slandering you.

the beatles tribute was odd.

the group songs were pretty good - loooooved the take 6 arrangement for the guys.

ford commercials - not as good as the ones last year!!!!

funniest part: during the golden idol awards... replaying the bit about the high heels and ryan says simon stay out of my closet and simon says (hee hee simon says) well then come out!

classic american idol banter. loved it.

36 hours and we will be en route to kansas...

ceci is going to have baby javi while we are gone and that means it will be forever until i get to meet him.

cosmo and that other hamster are staying with dan, emily and sara. i hope that new one doesnt bite sara (or dan or emily but especially sara).

!m!

darn you seamus!!!

seamus is the leprechan that lived with cassie and me in college. he would beat us in our sleep, leaving us with unexplained bruises and scrapes. he has followed me to california and decided that bruises were not enough... oh no... he has called in his cousin paddy and paddy's specialty seems to be electronics. paddy went out dancing with us girsl and caused me to drop my camera, busting the lcd screen. luckily i can still take pictures with it. then, a few months ago, he pushed my cell phone off the bedside table and bounced it into a water glass, completely frying it. more recently, he allowed my power strip to surge, destroying my computer. this weekend, we go to watch a movie we rented from netflix, and sure enough, the dvd player we bought right before christmas... completely broken. cannot use a single function on it. jeremy had to pry the thing apart to get the dvds we had in it out. ridiculous!

this morning, he just went a step too far.

i was blearly-eyed, stumbling around the kitchen trying to make toast and coffee and warm up some egg casserole when zzzt. all the kitchen small electrics stop working. jeremy gets out of bed (side note - every week day i get out of bed at least 30 minutes before him and eat breakfast. if you know either of us at all, you will know that this is a BIG DEAL) and comes and fixes it so at least the coffee pot and toaster work. i attempted to warm up my casserole on the stove (which was completely unsuccessful) and ate my toast. at least the coffee pot was fixed. thats all im saying.

!m!

Just Because You Can't See the Sun...

does NOT mean the sun can't see you! as evidenced by my very slight sunburn from the beach yesterday. even though most of my was covered with a towel because the breeze blowing off the water was slightly chilly...

we went with the slovaceks "after church." i say that because although that was the original plan, we did not actually make it to church. we drove out to zuma around lunch time. it was great becasue of the marine layer in that there were very few other people there (except for the family reunion right next to us - why does that always happen?) the sun played peekaboo behind clouds all day but we all put our earbuds in, read magazines (meaghan and lottie: glamour and martha stewart living, al and jeremy: handgun and hunting magazines), watch the dolphins and seals, and eat.

but it was significantly warmer than last time we were at the beach with al and lottie so maybe next time we will be able to actually wear just our swim suits and no blankets. :)

!m!

it's ok, i'm with the band

we are soooo cool. last night we went with the knoxes to bakersfield (waaaaay up the grapevine) to a really strange church called olive drive church for a sonicflood concert. my best friend anna's husband justin is their lead guitarist so we got to see him on stage performing. very cool. (that's him on the left.) the opening band was supposed to be kevin max (max - he is from dc talk) but his wife was having a baby so he pulled out at the last minute (of all the nerve!!!) after the show, we got our autographed pictures (justin wearing make-up that is something i will treasure forever) after standing in line in a freeeezing cold auditorium. then, we went back to the overflow parking lot, we parked there because we are cool and took a tour of the tour bus. that is pretty sweet. except for the bottom bunk - talk about clautrophobia! we went to the after party (ooh la la!) at this sweet house not too far from the hotel the guys were staying at. we basically showed up, ate the food, hung out with justin and left. we didn't meet the host until we were leaving and i never met the hostess. kinda strange. it was a smallish church, so it hink everyone there knoew everyone else. we took justin and the other guitar player (don't know his name...) back to the hotel, then began our long trip home. i think i fell asleep in the middle of a sentence talking with kevin and jeremy on the way back.

the concert was great - they did a mix of old and new stuff, some more worship-ish than others. the kids were really into it (who would have thought - a mosh pit at sonicflood). the second jhalf of the show they got a lot of kinks worked out with the sound system so it was really good. we had a great time and are looking forward to seeing them again at the end of june.

!m!

This morning we had a goodbye brunch for the yengs... they are moving far far away to a foreign land called texas. :( and they are taking our precious baby rachel with them. lots of our bible study was able to come and celebrate the time we spent with them and let them know how much they will be missed (which is a LOT!). austin: look out for these yengs - they will rock your face off... baby boys of austin in 10 or 15 years you better stay far far away from rachel or uncle jeremy will get his shotgun out. no seriously. (is she not the cutest thing ever? don't you just want to pinch those chubby little cheeks?) so they are leaving on a jet plane tomorrow and we don't know when they will be back again. they are the first members of our group to move away and it is a lot harder than one would think considering we have only known them for about a year. i know today will not be last time we see them but austin is a heck of a lot farther away than woodland hills!!!

on a much happier note, it was good to see everyone in one place again. some people came over that i had not seen in several weeks and that always makes me happy. kimmy made her grandma's "famous" souffle and i made mdf blueberry muffins. we had yummy crepe-ish things (yay christina!) and delish hash brown casserole. it was a great time!

tonight we are going with the knoxes to bakersfield to see sonicflood (featuring the one and only justin ostrander - woo hoo!)

how could i forget dave and busters????

last saturday night we went to dave and busters to celebrate several of our friends graduating from the protege program/seminary. ben and kristin were in town visiting kevin and nikki so the six of us got to hang out. we had a yummy dinner then watched a funny movie that some mosaic types put together with a little five minute segment on each protege. it was great. then the real fun began: arcade games. Probably the highlight of the night was meaghan vs. kevin dance dance revolution. i am SO ashamed to say that he won. kevin, if you are out there, i demand a dance off!

it was great hanging out and celebrating the accomplishments of kevin anad sarah and so many others!

p.s. congratulations chantal!!!!

Welcome to my little slice of the blogging pie...

apparently the hip thing to do is have a blog. so here i go:

this will replace my semi-weekly emails - so you guys can check here (or maybe subscribe - i am not sure how it works yet) every so often and i promise to keep posting.

last weekend was really busy. friday after work i went to xi with emily and (of course) had fun. jeremy met us there and he and i went to the pet store to buy hamster food for cosmo. while we were there, i fell in love. with a little grey ball of fur. saturday jeremy went back out there and brought her (and a new huge cage) home with us. so now cosmo has an as-yet-unnamed sister.

we also went to best buy and i fianlly got a computer to replace the one that just stopped working a while back. so that is SUPER exciting.

after shopping we met up with al and lottie for dinner then went to arianna's art show. she had some amazing photographs. some of the other kids had some cool stuff too, others really not so much.

saturday was kinda a normal at hoe sort of day. we played with the new baby hamster and she bit me. i may have cried. (that hurt!!!)

sunday was one of the busiest, most mosaic-oriented days we have had out here so far. we had to be at beverly hills high school at 8 because we were directing. service got over around 1 and we grabbed some lunch and headed over to the mayan club to stage manage the music festival awaken humanity was holdin to raise money for missions work. we were there until after 11 (i had already taken an hour nap in the green room) and rode in complete blessed silence the whole way home. i was using ear plugs (how old does that mke me sound? but at least i didnt have custon molded ear plugs zac) but i had a daging headache from all the music. and it was good music too but just alot and really loud. the artists were for the most part very fun to work with (not to name names, but daniel bedingfield was not one of those - jerkface). project 86, christafari, and several of the unsigned bands were all totally cool. overall, it was a great experience.

paj and raj were back this week. at least they didnt try to talk to me then ignore me after i left the comfort of my itunes and computer games. :)

!m!

p.s. if anyone has name ideas let me know! :)