Chicken in the morning, chicken in the evening, chicken at suppertime

Remember me?

I don't know where the last two weeks went. I fell asleep the night after we came home from Puerto Rico, woke up this morning and it is almost Easter.

Macey had a Father/Daughter Activity Days. For those readers who are not Mormon, Activity Days is a church activity for girls between the ages of 8 and 11. Because DJ was in Pennsylvania at the time, she asked my dad (her only living grandpa) to accompany her. They arrived in style:

 

Macey thought that arriving at a church activity on a motorcycle was the coolest thing ever. Chancho, I mean DJ, sat at the living room window resting his chin on the back of the couch waiting for their return. And his turn for a ride. It was very sweet.

 

The only other thing I remember from the past two weeks is the 24 hours that I spent camping in the Chick-Fil-A parking lot. Here I am, 90 minutes into the 24 hours. Looking clean and spry. And happy.

Here is a link to an article about the event, including a videocast wherein my sister and I make total cretins of ourselves for the whole world to enjoy. Please note our cleanliness and excitement level.

 

Here is my sister, Carrie, roughly 10 hours into our adventure, looking a little sunscorched and tired, but she still kicked my bum at Scrabble. I mean, look at my letters! Ridiculous.

 

 About 12 hours into it this happened:

The thing about these Chick-Fil-A First 100 campouts is that you aren't allowed to have visitors and you are not allowed to leave the property. Ever. So it's kind of like the world's most posh concentration camp.

 

We conned my other sister, Marianne, into bringing her inflatable mattress to us. She inflated the mattress with the car charger-operated pump and then handed it to us over the barbed wire. It was our job to get it into the tent. Our neighbors were laughing at us and posting pictures of the spectacle on their Facebook walls.

 

Long story short, we won a year worth of free meals from Chick-Fil-A and got sunburns on our faces.

You can read what I wrote about it here. The link also includes a humiliating post-parking lot campout videocast wherein I am wearing a goofy Chick-Fil-A paper hat. Enjoy.



Puerrrrto Rrrrrrico!



Whenever my friends go on trips I love vacationing vicariously through them. I love looking at all of their pictures and basically being a creepy stalker. I am running on the assumption that you do, too.  Today I have A LOT of pictures for you. These pictures are not in chronological order or in order of importance since I am too lazy to drag them around the screen. A week on the beach will do that to a person.

 

Puerto Rico was wonderful. Here is a compilation I have labeled, "Random Crap We Saw on the Beach":

 

 A tractor, toaster oven, a sad homeless dog, a very rare scorpion-tarantula-crab hybrid, and some other things.

I call this next grouping, "Things that I loved about Puerto Rico: the beach and pina coladas."

This deserves its own picture:



It is mofongo - a Puerto Rican dish comprised of mashed plantains stuffed with meat and onions and stuff. I could eat mofongo every Sunday for the rest of my life.

Here we are waiting to go to dinner with DJ's big boss man (the man responsible for sending us on this little holiday, as well as our livelihood - who was spotted walking around the hotel in a t-shirt which read "Trust me, I'm a salesman." I hope I am so cool when I am a multi-millionaire).

 Here is what my kids were doing at home:

 

My poor mother watched my kids all week. She did the carpooling, the ballet, the homework, the laundry, the boiling of macaroni and cheese noodles, and much more. She deserves the Nobel Prize Purple Heart Medal of Honor for sainthood. They should make one of those.

 

Here is the view from our hotel room balcony:

Our resort backed up to the El Yunque National Rain Forest. (Wouldn't that be "The THE Yunque National Rain Forest"? Yes, it would.) Every night we opened our balcony door to let the moist rain forest-y air in and to listen to the frogs chirp. DJ SWORE he could whistle at them and they would respond.

One thing that this trip succeeded in was reminding me why I love DJ:  because he is partially insane. I present exhibits A through F:



Remember how I said that these pictures are not in order of importance? I lied. I saved the best two for last. Here is the piece of seven-layer chocolate cake which I ordered from room service and ate in bed:

If that is not the definition of heaven, I don't want to go to heaven.

 

Finally, this:

I mean seriously, seriously love it.

The end.

(P.S. On a vacation-related note, this week I wrote this thing about how I've never been to the Grand Canyon. Yes, it is true. Don't judge me. Hop on over to St. George News and have a read. I am sort of embarrassed about this.)

Easy like...

...Sunday morning.

Tess woke up at 6:00, per her usual - she is too young to understand Sunday morning. Now I can't get back to sleep. I am equal parts excited and freaking out. Tonight my husband and I are leaving my children with my mom so that we can go on a week-long trip.

It has been a long time since we've left our kids for this long. Like, since 2007, before the recession hit. Hence the freak out. But the excitement part is because we're going to Puerto Rico to do nothing but sit on the beach and eat food. That's what I'm planning, anyway. DJ keeps talking about things like zip lines and kayaks and all I can think of is sand and water and sunshine. Eighty-degree sunshine.

If you don't hear from us for a while, that's where you'll find us - on a beach in the sun, eating junk food. Living the dream.

Speaking of junk food, lookie what arrived this week:

 

On March 1st I ate four Samoas. They made me sick. No more sugar for Elise. The end.

 

(Here's what I wrote this week at St. George News. It is the story of how I found an elk in my Tahoe that one time. How did this tale NOT make it to the blog?! I don't know, but you should give it a read.)