Fancy Footwork

Months! That's how long I've been waiting to attend Riverdance. 

Well, actually I've been waiting for years. But it's been months since I purchased the tickets. 

I saw Riverdance years ago in Portland with my friends. I've been mildly obsessed with seeing it again ever since. Imagine my elation when I discovered that the good folks of Riverdance were coming to my town. 

It's about time, guys. 

I decided to take Sissy out on a date with me. She was lukewarm on the idea. Not about dating me, just about seeing Riverdance. Or maybe about dating me. Who knows.

ANYWAY - Riverdance, people!

Sissy and I brushed our hair and put on our nice clothes. We went to dinner. We held hands as we crossed the street to the venue. It was a proper date.

And then....magic!

Sissy quickly fell into the Riverdance trance and we had a marvelous time. We weren't allowed to take pictures until the end but I soaked it all up and hollered like a madwoman.

As we were leaving, the man sitting in front of me turned around and said, "I don't know which one of you was hollering..."

I thought, "Oh, no. He's going to yell at me for my loud mouth."

And then he finished, "...but you have the perfect cheering voice. I loved it."

Huzzah!

It was a wonderful night and I can't wait to start obsessing about when I can see the show again.

Thank you for coming to my town, Riverdance!

Ohh La La

It was Valentine's Day. I love Valentine's Day for the kids. I personally don't long for Valentine's Day for myself - I don't like being bossed around. How dare you tell me to be romantic just because it's February 14th!

But I am tickled to let the kids know I love them.

And love them I do.

I decorated their bedroom doors.

And left surprises for them.  

Baby drew cards for her sister and Papa, and I left a little treasure for Mykey - chocolate and some Thieves essential oil to replace the one Baby misplaced months ago. 

Mykey wrote me a love note. Don't ask to read it. That's rude. And weird.

Since it was Saturday, we headed out for our usual date night. We went to lunch to avoid the romance seekers. We hit up a local restaurant that everyone raves about. It was alright but didn't make my heart sing.  And then we hit up a new local ice cream spot. That DID make my heart sing. 

We went for a walk and explored a covered bridge, then headed home to the rascals.

Perfect Valentine's Day for all.

And guess what else? Sissy has a boy Valentine this year.

Oooh, lah, lah indeed.

BIGGER storm

Well whaddya know? 

Sometimes meteorologists can accurately predict the weather. Crazy!

After an abysmal and disappointing snowfall last week, the weatherfolks began predicting another storm. I was dubious and smug. You know - the usual. But then it actually starting snowing and accumulating.

Exciting! I love a good snowstorm. But only if it melts off within a week or two. I ain't into the whole winter-all-the-way-until-summer schtick. Idaho did me dirty my entire life.  

School was dismissed early on Friday. And then it was canceled.

It was canceled on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday.

How wonderful for us! Sissy was excited for the extra sleep and Nintendo time. 

And Baby ate the snow. 

Mykey and the girls made a sledding run behind our house. It was adequate but lacked speed. 

Once the roads were cleared, we headed to the pool for an exhilarating sledding excursion. It was fast and furious. We almost became stuck in the parking lot since we had the Prius, but we managed. (My snow-worthy car was at the dealer having the lift gate repaired...not great timing)

I even took my old bones down the hill multiple times. It was thrilling and made me feel young again. Well...until I had to schelp these old bones and bulky bum back up the hill. That made me feel like I need to eat more vegetables and less ice cream. But we had a marvelous time! Sissy even took off her coat and went down the hill in a tank top like a crazy person. Marvelous indeed.

We also made snow ice cream and enjoyed not having anywhere to be. 

    

 

Thank you for bringing us some snow, Mr. Weatherman!

BIG storm

It was the only topic of conversation around town. Every news outlet was reiterating the impact of the impending colossal storm. Panic was brewing. All of the bread had vanished from store shelves.

We braced ourselves for the impact.

And then the snow began to fall. It fell and fell and fell. 

It dramatically fell for 10 whole minutes and then stopped. 

It was irresponsible but I released Baby outside to play in the blizzard. She barely made it out alive.

If only I had some bread to carry us through this superstorm.

MLK Excitement

Surprise! Mykey had MLK day off from work. Since we didn't realize in advance, and since we have zero creativity in planning new things, we chose to drive ourselves to Pigeon Forge to see what we could see.

And all that we could see was the other side of the mountain.

Despite my worry that the entire world would be in our way since it was a holiday, we had a fantastic time and my worries were unfounded. The entire world was leaving Pigeon Forge as we were driving in. Fantastic indeed.

We made our usual stop at Buc-ee's to gorge ourselves on burritos and Icees.

And then we hit the WonderWorks museum.

It was delightfully uncrowded and we strolled around unencumbered and unbothered.

Hmmm...I beginning to see that I may be an unpleasant person. What can ya do?

Baby loved the large piano and the bubble station. She spent a lot of time running across the piano keys making...music?

Sissy did the ropes course, laid down on a bed of nails, and bravely went on a ride with her Pa that completely tipped them upside down. She screamed the entire time but she conquered! 

Sissy also drew a digital Spiderman horse named Tobey MaSquire. Clever girl.

And Baby went to space in Sissy's suit. 

Sissy and I also discovered that, based on our celebrity lookalikes, we obviously have incredibly masculine features. What can ya do?

We enjoyed our day so much that the girls fell asleep the moment we headed for home. Poor little lambs.

Hooray for a surprise day off from work!

Districts

Preparing for a spelling bee is difficult. Preparing for TWO spelling bees in a week is enough to turn your mind into slop. 

Good thing Sissy has a young and resilient mind. 

Spelling 993 words would melt my brain.

Sissy went off to the district bee and I stayed behind to nervously poop my pants in the comfort of my own home. 

Sissy started out strong, despite the microphone being at hobbit-height. 

She made it to the top 4 and then her brain went frantic and she misspelled enormous. 

She knows how to spell enormous. 

Sissy was upset and texted me from Michael's phone, "I OVER THOUGHT IT OK." 

It's absolutely OK.

I am incredibly proud of Sissy and all the time she spent in a whirlwind of practicing words. She is amazing.

Congratulations to Sissy! Now, please! No more spelling for a while.

Spell That

Sissy qualified for the school spelling bee again this year. She came home on the last day of school before Christmas break with the list of 450 words to practice. I asked her when we should start practicing. She said she didn't know when the spelling bee was so there was no reason to start. 

Hmmm. Seems to me that they sent the list home so you could practice over Christmas break.

Sissy respectfully disagreed. And sometimes not respectfully.

I prodded her a couple more times about practicing. She continued to refuse.

Imagine my surprise when Sissy returned to school on Tuesday morning and I received an email inviting me to the spelling bee on Friday.

Uhhhh....crap. 

Mykey quickly wrote her a program that would dictate the words and she would type them. The words would randomly appear until she correctly typed them 3 times each. That's a lot of typing and memorizing.

Did I mention there were 450 words and only 3 days to learn them? And did I mention that there were words on the list that I've never even heard before? And did I mention that I was worried about her ability to be prepared for this spelling bee? And did I mention that this line of questioning is incredibly annoying?

Sissy spent many hours the next 3 evenings clacking away on the keyboard. It was her only hope.

And then off she went to the spelling bee on Friday afternoon. Mykey had to attend because I nearly met my demise watching her last year - I'm much too nervous for that nonsense and didn't want my innards to explode. 

The crowd started like this:

And slowly whittled down to this:

And then it was this:

Sissy won! I was incredibly proud. The winning word was ensemble. Hooray for Sissy!

When I went to pick her up from school a couple of hours later, this was happening:

A poor old guy accidentally crashed his truck into the front of the school. The story is his accelerator stuck. Thankfully no one was hurt. And even though he demolished the aquarium, all the fish were rescued and survived. 

What an exciting day! We had a lot to talk about at dinner.

We celebrated Sissy's spelling bee victory with Knoppers cookies and coconut almonds.

And my parents bought us pizza for dinner.

Man! It was an exhilarating Friday for us.

Congratulations to Sissy!

P.S. The District spelling bee is in a mere 5 days...that list has thousands of words. Thousands!