San Fran

Who would want to see New Moon opening night at their local movie theater, when they could fly all the way to San Francisco and see it three times with a bunch of nerds?
That'd be waaaaay too convenient.

^^Check out my one-of-a-kind, handmade Renesme shirt. Staying ahead of the trends n stuff.

Here we are at our first showing of New Moon.


^^I must have snapped this shot right when Edward revealed his Mr.-Burns-like chest. (GSN) We were utterly confused.

Day two, I got lots of public transportation pics:

Bam!

Booya!


And check it out, this was our first time meeting Stands IRL, and already her and Sara were standing back to back.

Memzy was our professional photog:

Katie, alone:

Katie, socializing with other people:


^^Notice the body language. Knees turned out, hands curled into hooves.

Anyway, I don't have any pictures of our first day in San Fran, cuz it was pouring rain. We ended up seeing New Moon again, on account of Jacob's abs the rain.

Later that night, we decided to ride the trolley. Some of us bought scalped tickets from this homeless dude named One-Tooth Willie.


^^Memz and Landee are wearing the exact same expressions.

One-Tooth told us all kinds of outlandish stories (see Stands's face):



And then Katie and Landee started flirting with him shamelessly:

^^Later, they reaped what they sowed, if you know what I mean. And what I mean is, One-Tooth-Willie later told us he had an "inappropriate" dream about "The Girl in the Green Coat" and "The Jersey Girl".

My new MySpace profile pic:

The trolley broke down, so we were granted a quick photo opp. before jumping on the rescue bus:

The next day was all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.

Here we are on our infamous double-decker bus tour:

^^Sara looks gorgeous here, no? Amy too! She looks like a Carmex model.

Our tour bus guide highly recommended going inside the Japanese Tea Garden sometime, but not today. Unless we wanted to walk back.

This next pic I took specifically for my mom:

^^lawn clock.

These next two pics are inappropriate, and made me giggle in a grade school kind-of way:

Here's a string of pictures that show San Fran's distinctive architexture (sp?), just to show that I appreciate fine culture too.

And finally, the house from Full House:

Yeeeahhh!! Uncle Jessie!!!

The rest of these pics are from Pier 39 on our last night, and quite self-explanatory.

^^I think this is when we decided to go see New Moon for the third time.

The End.

Thanks for the memories, girls.
I'm glad I had fun. Are you glad I had fun?

Happy Thanksgiving...

...from the Esplin Family!

We were on our own this year, but we made enough food to feed all our family and friends, just in case.

Check out that bird. Eww.

Hope you all had a great day and ate way too much!

Lonely Guy on bus #3

Lonely Guy on bus #2

Lonely Guy on bus #1

Dirty San Fran Bus...

Oscar Worthy

Jacob's abs. They deserve an Oscar. New Moon was leaps and bounds
better than Twilight, no?

Fanatic

Homer had his first trip to the dentist a few weeks ago. He loved it. So it's kind of lucky that he ended up with a cavity and got to go back for more fun.

Here's a cute/sad picture of him watching "Bee Movie" on the ceiling TV/inhaling nitrous oxide.

He had no idea what was about to happen, but the "laugh gas" distracted him from that ginormous needle and he was fine. He got slightly annoyed when the dentist blocked his view of the TV, but that was it.

So, he saw a substitute dentist because his dentist doesn't work on Fridays and I didn't want to wait too long to get him in--wanted to get it over with. The sub-dentist was this young, fresh-out-of-dental-school-type guy, real friendly and stuff, and oh-so-obviously LDS. He kept calling Homer "Arch" (as that was the name on the chart) and I was too lazy to correct him. But then the dentist would ask "Arch" to open his mouth or something and Homer wouldn't respond, so finally I had to tell the dentist that he goes by "Homer".
The dentist acted all confused and uncomfortable.
Him, "Why does he go by Homer?"
Me, "It's his middle name."
Him,"Is that a family name?"
Me, "No."
Him, "Oh, are you a fan of... um... isn't there a TV show... er..."
(^^second-guessing his question, cuz clearly he thinks it's offensive)
Me, "You mean the Simpsons?"
And he's like, "Ooh yeeah, Homer Simpson."
And I go, "Yeah, we like the Simpsons," because who cares.

It's weird when people think that question would offend me. As if I would name my kid Homer if I had something against The Simpsons.

Ironically, on the way out of the dentist's office, we saw a dad with a huge Homer Simpson tattoo on his leg, and Homer goes, "Ooo yeah!" like it was the coolest thing ever.

Who's the biggest fan, I wonder? The mom who named her kid Homer or the permanent tattoo guy?

^^confused that one side of his face is numb. He doesn't even have the vocab to describe what's wrong with his face.

Linksville Kentucky

Guess what? I have some Links for you. Starting with (don't faint, Markie)...

...this precious hand-crocheted Link doll. Those wide-set eyes are enough to make my heart melt, not to mention the missing legs!

Revisit the fuzzy, world-weary Link HERE (see the lackadaisical angle HERE), and help me decide which one to bring home for Christmas, K?

Anywhos, have you tried Frosted Mini Wheats Little Bites yet?

Whoa! Frosted Mini Wheats are delish, but these little bites are freakishly good. Freak-ish-ly! They come in both chocolate and honey nut, but I can only recommend the honey nut, as I've yet to try to the chocolate.

Print your dollar-off coupon HERE. (on page 2, one per comp)
And get another one HERE. (click "next page" until you find it, two per comp)

They are on sale at Albertson's for $2.69, (with the coupon, only $1.69 each), and if you get three boxes, you'll get a coupon for a free gallon of milk at the register. Your taste buds will thank you for it.

Nextly, grab your TiVos remotes, because S. Meyer (who's been AWOL for the past year) announced on her blog that she is going to do ONE interview before New Moon comes out. Guess who's the lucky interviewer? Yep, it's Oprah.

How'd she land that exclusive interview? I can only assume that Oprah's producers, once again, called this more famouser person to arrange it. (Cuz Oprah needed an "in").

The interview airs this Friday (Nov 13th).

Moving on...

I stumbled upon this website (Item Not As Described) that examines real-life items for-sale on Craig's list.

If you're in the mood for a laugh (pishaw, who isn't?), I suggest you check out this ad for a wedding ring, and this ad for one o' them time-out dolls, and this one for a cardboard tube, and this one for a bucket o' beer bottle caps,(<--which has me kicking myself for not hanging onto my childhood bb cap collection). You gotta read all the words, tho. That's the funny part.

Last, but certainly not least, shout-out to all our US Veterans today (namely, Gus Morgan).



Hope you had a nice, relaxing Veteran's day!

"That's a pretty good price for an alligator head..."

I couldn't mention this before, as I didn't want to open myself up to the possibility of being raped and murdered, but Tony has been out of town on his little gize vacay for the last four days. The kids and I picked him up from the airport a few hours ago.

He was in Texas and Louisiana for some pivotal footy game of some sort, and this is what he brought home for the boys:



It's an alligator head. A real live dead one. Gross. And he got three of them:

And they smell funny.

When I said, "Why'd you get three of them?" (Cuz, ya know, I thought maybe the boys could share one disgusting alligator head.) He goes, "Well, they were only $11.99. That's a pretty good price for an alligator head, wouldn't you say?" Um. I dunno.

Anywho, the boys are going googoogaga for their alligator heads. They ran and got their alligator toes (the ones uncle Tom got for them in Louisiana last year) from their keepsakes boxes, so they could play with the alligator toes and heads together.

Now they want to collect alligator body parts, until they have a whole real live dead alligator!

Glad Tony's home. We missed him.

Swedish Vish

I just discovered Swedish Fish.

They're succulent and soft, and I had no idear. I've tried all kinds of gummy-type candy and these are like nothing else. They're very special. How did I go my whole life having never tasted them? Deprived.

I'm not a big candy eater, I more prefer box cake, but every Halloween I discover a new scrumptious candy that I had never eaten before, and I go through my kid's trick-or-treat stash and eat them all. How about you, huh?

On an unrelated note, I hate baseball and I hate the World Series and I wanna watch Glee on Wednesday, not baseball.

Raise your finger if you agree.

Halloween '09

Happy Nevada Day. Sort of. Nevada day is the 31st, but they want to give us plenty of time to celebrate, so there's no school today or Monday. Kind of like two snow days that extend our weekend, but without the snow and with perfect weather.

The kids had their school Halloween parties yesterday. Gus was a mummy:

I tore strips in this stretchy white fabric I had laying around and hot-glued it directly to his PJs that morning. Then I made this head piece that he could wrap around his head. He kept putting it over his mouth. I didn't ask him to do that. He's already a quiet kid.



Here he is at his class party.



I tried to get a picture of this kid who dressed up like Michael Jackson, but he turned (yes, he) right when I snapped the picture. He was the spittin' image of Blanket Jackson, no lie.



Homer was a viking.



It's a Legoland costume he pulled from his toy box. He wears it on a regular basis. Those Legoland costumes have gone a long way. I swear, Lego makes the best dress up clothes. Super durable material, and quite inexpensive. We have lots of them. Love 'em.

Here's a pic from his preschool party:



Cord's school Halloween party was an informal dance. I wish I could have seen that/snapped a few pictures so you could have seen it too. He dressed up in one of his Lego knights costumes that used to fit him when he was about 6 years old. I wish I could have seen that/snapped a few pictures so you could have seen it too. The kid has no shame.

In other news, who wants a duct tape wallet? Quick, while I'm in the mood, place your orders...

Trouble

Are you watching So You Think You Can Dance this season? Anyone else feel sorry for the trio of tap dancers? It was painful to watch them flail their little arms and legs across the stage last night. I was halfway closing my eyes, and trying not to notice every time they fell out of sync. Very uncomfortable. Tap doesn't translate to the small screen I think. It's one of those dance styles you have to see in an elementary school multipurpose room.

Yeah, those tappers might be in trouble.

I might be in trouble too. See, I decided it would be fun to make duck tape wallets with my cub scouts tomorrow. I bought a bunch of tape today, and made a couple practice wallets. Turns out, I'm brilliant with duct tape and exact-o knives.

These are 100% duct tape. Did you know it comes in all those colors? Even this purple plaid color, which I used to line this wallet, all professional-like:



I added little pockets for credit cards etc, cuz what if the eight year old who's going to use this has a credit card?






The checkered pattern is woven pieces of folded tape:

About halfway through my first wallet, I started to worry that duct tape might be too hard to handle for the 8-year-old's in my scout group. To test my theory, I did a dry run with Gus. He's exceptionally good with crafty-type projects, so I was expecting him to do all right.

Yeah, the duct tape kicked his butt.

I had to jump in and help before his wallet turned into a giant tape wad. So I guess that means I'll have 1 hour to make 12 duct tape wallets for 12 impatient boys tomorrow. Trouble, indeed.

Gus's finished wallet turned out pretty sweet...

...but it's non-functioning, as I had to cut off about an inch of bunched up tape on the ends.

Good thing he doesn't have any credit cards to not-fit in there.

Costumes...

We decided to go as total gay wads. We waited until the last minute,
so we had to just pull something from the back of our closet. Good
thing we keep gay wad clothes in the back of our closet just in case.
You should see the costumes our kids came up with. They were on their
own.

Backwards

We've had wide-spread illness at our house for about a week. And when I say wide-spread, I mean Cord, me, and Homer became feverishly ill, in that order. Tony and Gus never catch anything, as per their freakish immune systems. I am very glad they never get sick. Yes, I'm 99% happy for them.

Here's Homer in his sick cocoon, compared to his earlier self-portrait:

He nailed the eyebrows.

He's been drawing people a lot lately. He has his own signature style, that includes Brillo-pad hair. I like this picture he drew of himself with his favorite person:




For some reason, he wrote his name backwards at the bottom of this one:

Creepsville.

But he out-creeped himself when he wrote his name backwards and upside down across his stomach:

Speaking of backwards names, there is someone in Las Vegas named Sexxy Lewis.
This is not an old lies tale. Proof:

He's the second cousin of a victim. Sadly, I think his name is the real tragedy here. Sexxy, spelled with two x-es? That kreatif spelling is gonna give him grief for life! "No, it's Sexxy with TWO x-es."

Seasons

Why are there so many songs about rainbows? Let's count them.

1) Somewhere Over the Rainbow

2) Rainbow Connection

Two.

And why are there two songs about rainbows? Because of awesome pictures like this:

Yes, I spotted a tiny rainbow over Gus's school this morning and snapped a picture with my phone. It must have rained in them there mountains.

It looks more like spring in my backyard than fall. We haven't had any rain in the city, but we've had lots of hose water and drip systems. My un-manicured planter is in bloom like it has never been before.



And see how my ground-cover cascades?



When I planted that stuff, I pictured "Disneyland landscape." Getting there, no?

Here's a pic I took at the park the other day with Homer and his friend, which I enhanced to look more like fall:

What do you think? It was about 85 when I took it, but it could pass for 65 after photoshop.

Ah, photoshop-fall is in the air. Good enough!

Monday morning

I woke up to little scratching noises, and found Homer sitting beside me with a note pad, sketching a self-portrait.

He's like a sad little clown whose mommy won't wake up.

What's going on...

We took Cord to the eye doctor last week.



We knew this day would come. Not only are both of his parents legally blind, but also, he had been failing school eye exams for years. Even so, we decided not to bother with glasses until his vision started bothering him... and it finally has. This is the first year that he's had problems seeing the board. But only in his science class, so that particular teacher must write like an ant.

Ironically, his prescription is exactly the same as mine was when I got my first pair of glasses. If only I knew where the H I put those glasses. It would have saved me $59.

It was not easy finding the perfect pair of glasses for Cord's tiny face. Not many styles to choose from for boys at Eyeglass World, either. Luckily, we found these inexpensive vintage glasses. Are these perfect for sciencing or what?

The good news is, he's nearsighted so it's best if he only wears his glasses for distance seeing stuff, and otherwise leave those bad-boys off his face.

Change subject.

We had company come stay with us last weekend, so I spent a lot of time making my house shine like the top of the Chrysler building. I got rid off all those papers that I was emotionally attached to, so I'm cured of my hoarding disease.

Before: After:



(Note to self: Do not open the blue tote.)

Here's Homer, vacuuming his bedroom like a mad man:

And here are our esteemed guests, the Hineys (aka the Landersons).

We went out to the Hoover Dam one day, and that's the only day I pulled out my camera, otherwise I would have gotten some pictures of me and Landee at Cafe Rio and playing Bananagrams, and lots of pictures of Gty playing Homer's DSi.

Cord went with us to Hoover Dam, because his school called right as we were leaving for the H-dam and said I had to pick him up. He had a vicious fever of 99 point something degrees that went away before the Tylenol touched his tongue. And the school nurse said he couldn't go back to school for 24 hours so he had to miss two days.

Check out this adorable picture of Landee:

^^Piper McCloud.

Gty: "I didn't realize Hoover Dam was named after the president."
Tony: "Did you think it was named after the vacuum?"

Here's Cord standing in two states at once, Nevada and Arizona.

The Landersons left on Wednesday (frown), and then I sat on the couch and caught up on my intense TiVo schedule.

Change topic.

I still haven't decided on a Halloween costume for me and Tony, and I only have a little over a week to come up with something. AV (aka Carol) sent me this picture, and suggested I be the octomom:

I love it. The only problem is, what would Tony be? Her nameless, faceless baby daddy? Dr Phil? I dunno.

I was kind of considering something Alice and Wonderlandish, or maybe dress up as my two favorite internet people:

Hoover Dammin' It

I'm a hoarder

Shhhhhh