Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo

There was magic this weekend. At least according to the guys.
My whole family except one brother spent the weekend at one sister's house while cheering another sister on in the Grandma's Marathon in Duluth. It was craziness. There were my parents, the running sister, her (almost) fiance and his mom, the hostess sister and her husband, my youngest brother, my youngest sister, me, the LT, and Cee. And 5 dogs. Uff-da.
We all showed up on Friday. Half of us stayed with the hostess sister, the other half at the hotel in Duluth. There wasn't as much magic on Friday night. There were screaming giggles from my overtired sister who's almost 3 and my overtired daughter at the restaurant. There were gutblasting laughs as those of us who stayed with the hostess watched Old School. But not much magic.
The magic arrived Saturday. We watched the runner sister cross the finish line. There was a 73-year-old woman who finished the marathon. I can hardly run 26.2 feet, and this woman ran 26.2 miles. Wow. Then we went back to the house where the hostess sister's husband spit a turkey (boy, that sounds funny when you first read it) and the wine/beer/other alcohol started flowing. And holy cow, did we have too much food. I ate so much junk that I couldn't eat the spitted turkey. After I put Cee to bed and my dad had also gone to bed, I found that the guys had pretty much banished the girls to the house so they (the guys) could drink beer, eat s'mores, tell obnoxious jokes, and pass gas. The guys ranged in age from 19-30, but under those circumstances, they were really all about 12. Evidently the girls ruined the "magic" or "mystique" in the words of the LT. So my sisters, mom, the almost-fiance's mom, and I crashed in the living room, joking about guys and their "magic" and talking about feet. Yes, it was just as weird as that sounds.
The next morning, the guys were telling us about the unicorns and pixie dust and how the wizard arrived just as one of the little dogs was humping a dwarf, and then the wizard turned the dog into a real boy, but only until midnight.
This is my family.

Enjoy Your Picture Show

Last night was the AFI's 10 Top 10. They had the top 10 movies in 10 different genres. It was really kind of cool. It should come as no surprise that the Animation category had Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs taking the top spot, or that 2001: A Space Odyssey was the #1 Sci-Fi film. What I thought was neat was a Charlie Chaplin film called City Lights was the best romantic comedy.
There are so many films I want to see, not only that are out now, but oldies and classics. My husband, the LT, likes to tease me about the movies I haven't seen. I remind him that I grew up with 4 younger siblings and am thus well-versed in such genres as Disney and the Muppets. My sisters and I can recite whole scenes from Beauty and the Beast and The Great Muppet Caper.
Actually, we can recite the whole movies from start to finish, songs included.
The LT and I love to watch movies. We've been subscribed to Netflix almost since it started and we've seen all kinds of films that you can't find at Blockbuster or your local convenience store. We've found that foreign films are best if they're subtitled instead of dubbed. You actually forget that you're "reading" the movie, but you just can't get around the lips moving out of sync with the audio. Quirky, independent movies are our favorites, like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and I Heart Huckabees. But you can't go wrong with a gut-blasting comedy like Anchorman and Knocked Up.
We got a PS3 a few weeks ago, which has a Blu-Ray player. With the PS3 we got 6 Blu-Ray movies. We watched Swordfish with Halle Berry, John Travolta, and Hugh Jackman. NOT the greatest movie ever, and since we have a really great TV, we couldn't actually see the improvement on graphics.
But that's okay. We got a couple of hours cuddling on the sofa and Cee actually stayed asleep the whole time, so it was kind of like our movie nights of pre-Cee which don't happen very often anymore. Hopefully we'll get more movie nights this summer, since Cee is sleeping better at night these days.

Truly Wonderful the Mind of a Child is

Boy, if anyone wants proof that kids watch and learn from their parents, all they've got to do is have a toddler. Cee emulates us in so many ways these days, it's incredible and a little scary to realize what responsibility we have in what she learns.
For example, ever since Cee learned to crawl, I've fed the dogs while she was in her high chair so she'd stay out of their food. They would eat and then I'd pick up the dishes, stack them together, and put the dishes up on the fridge. Well, a few weeks ago, Cee started going around and picking up each dish, handing it to me, and pointing up at the top of the fridge to tell me where it went. (She doesn't have many words yet, but she's fluent in "point and grunt.")
She also helps me unload the dishwasher, and lately she's noticed when dishes are dirty as I'm loading the dishwasher, and she now leaves them alone. She can also say "dirty" since I've been drilling it into her head for a few months now.
But the best one was this evening. Daddy came home from work (he's working weird hours this week) and was sitting down on the sofa relaxing before going to bed, as he's going back in to work at 1am. She walks over to our entertainment center, picks up the PS3 controller, and hands it to Daddy. She's OBVIOUSLY observed how much Daddy enjoys his video games.
As the wise Yoda said, "Truly wonderful the mind of a child is."

So It Begins

Hi, everyone.
I'm not entirely sure what this blog will be about. Probably a little bit of everything. I have a lot of interests and a lot of things to say about them. People who know me know I talk A LOT. This way, I can say what I have to say without boring the pants off people who don't want to listen to me.
I hope you find this blog interesting. I certainly think the things I have to say are interesting, DUH!