Happy Birth Homer

(cuz "birthday" didn't fit on the cake)

Homer turned 5 years old. ::Sniff::

This has been the fasted 5 years of my life.

Homer had a birthday party and invited friends, which is unheard of around here. In fact, this is only the second birthday party with friends I've ever had for my kids (the first one being Cord's infamous 9th birthday party, and I can't write on here why it was infamous because it's too scandalous but most of you know as it's one of my fave scandalous stories to tell.) Gus has never had a birthday party before, and he's been begging for one for years. That's not fair. So I think I'm going to throw him a surprise party this year. Mums the word, K? I had a surprise party once when I was little and it was one of the best days of my life. Which brings me to my point: I am 100% sure that today was the best day of HOMEDIGITY's life! It was a good day for me too, watching him open his presents and freak out over every single one of 'em ("awesome!' "woohoo!" "yessss!"). I wish I had had my camera. Alas, it's still in Denver, so these celly pics'll have to do, pig.

The whole gang:

Note the number of children. I was the only adult. Not good, as I am still weak and fragile from previous mentioned illness. The older kids pitched in and stuff, but still, by the time it was over, I felt terrible and crashed for the rest of the afternoon. But it was so worth it.

Lots of Bad News

Bad news #1: We got home from our trip last Tuesday and realized that we left our precious camera in the Denver airport, gate C31.

(which is why I haven't posted about our trip)
Luckily, Gty was able to pick it up for us at the airport on Friday, and Landee is going to hand deliver it on Tuesday, and I'll be a blogging machine by next weekend, which is good news for you, I'm sure.

Bad news #2: When we picked up our car from the Excalibur casino (we had parked there and took a cab to/from the airport, as it's cheaper than parking at the airport), the battery was dead. After two tries with two different cars, we finally got it to jump start. Car was out of commission until Thursday.

Bad news #3: On Friday, I had to spend the afternoon at the dreaded Las Vegas DMV.



You can't really tell from this picture, but the place is pure evil. I waited in a line for almost an hour just to get my picture taken for my new driver's license. Then I took a number and the real waiting began. Evil, I tell ya. Plus, I had practiced my smile/pose in the mirror for my new picture, was determined to have a gorge picture, and when I got to the chair, the lady made me take off my glasses, so I would be "recognizable". Um, I guarantee you wouldn't recognize me without my glasses. Needless to say, this turn of events caught me off guard and I look totally caught off guard in my picture.

Bad news #4: I woke up at 4:30am on Sat morning, violently ill, and by 7am, Tony was carrying me out to the car to take me to the hospital.
I'm pretty sure I nearly died and this morphine drip saved my life.

Ah! Morphine! This was the best experience I've ever had at a hospital to date, I was so glad Tony made me go, and I never wanted to leave my morphine drip. I don't even care that it'll probably cost us a fortune. The rest of the day was a blur, slept through most of it, but I couldn't have gotten through it without my sis Erin coming to the rescue, and my neighbor chipping in with the kids. I'm much better now, just weak and fragile and I smell faintly of puke, but I'm going to shower when I'm done here.

Bad news #5: Homedigity's birthday is tomorrow, and I had planned to get his presents on Saturday and have his little party all ready to go. Now I have nothing done, and I'm worried I won't be 100% better in time. Stressing.

Bad news #6: Laundry. Loads of it.

Any bad news to share?

Yodel lay he who

Yeah, we're still outta town. This alpine slide was all kinds of fun!

Twelve, say it ain't so!

My new born baby is tweleve years old today! Can't believe it. Doesn't
he look like a baby still? He's having tons of fun in the landerson's
basement with his new roller blades.

In other news, happy fathers day to all you fathers out there, namely
Tony and Gus--my dad, not my son. And a very special happy bday to my
very special friend, memzy shederton! May all your dreams come true.

Denver Mint

We made it to the Denver mint by the skin of our knees!! Onward to
Molly Brown's house!

Della where?

Just five hours before we had to get up for our flight out of
Philadelphia, we somehow found ourselves in Delaware (famous for their
Olive Garden restaurants). Smart, eh? Next came the worst 12 hours of
my life, but alas, we made it to good ol' Colorado! Yeee haw! Them
Landersons are puttin us up. That's right kindly of em.

PS. Gus is a blur cuz he's sneezing into his arm.

Intercourse

(Pennsylvania)

We weren't shunned in Amish country, as Cord had feared. Elsie, our
young Amish tour guide, was particularly friendly. She likes to play
volleyball on the weekends with her friends. She told us lots of Amish
secrets, I'll tell you gize all about later. Until then, rumspringa!

Haunted Hotel

We stayed at this neat old hotel in Gettysburg, right in the center of
town. I highly recommend visiting Gettysburg and staying at this exact
hotel. Loved it. On to Amish paradise...

Gettysburg!

Where the streets were paved in dead bodies! The bodies are gone now,
only the ghosts remain. We just finished a walking ghost tour of
downtown Gettysburg. It was delightful! Super interesting! Can't
wait to go through my digi-film and see if I captured any orbs or
blurs (aka ghosts) with my camera! (Follow the path of where homer is
pointing. See the tiny ghost orb?!)

Milton Hershey is Rich

We just finished a trolley tour of the town of Hershey. Super
adorable! Learned lots of interesting facts. Tell you all about it
later. Off to Gtysbrg...! Don't even have time to spell it out! Hang
loose!

Hershey Park

Hershey has to be the prettiest town I've ever seen. It is ltrly
perfect. Hershey Park (theme park) opened in 1907. It has a lot of
classic rides, but the park overall is modern, inventive, and clean.
It's huge too, with a water park and a zoo attached.

A theme park built around a giant walking chocolate bar with a cartoon
face? Brilliant I say!

Valley Forge

It's only 85 degrees today, but it feels like 120. This humidity is
brutial. The sweat is dripping off us, can't breathe, and my glasses
keep fogging up. Now I know exactly how those revolutionary soliders
felt, time to get in my air conditioned vehicle and drive to Hershey,
where the streets are paved in chocolate.

Please Touch Museum

Way cool unique museum for little kids, where they ask you, very
politely, to touch everything. (Don't worry, there's hand sanatizer
stations all over the place.) This is the Mad Hatter's tea party.
(Note Cord's extended pinkie.) Lots of cool pics from this museum,
can't wait to tell you all about it.

The Franklin Institute of Science

Where you can walk through a giant replica of a human heart and come
out without a drop of human blood on you. It's amazing! The kids are
loving this place.

Independance Hall

Did you know that only 2 out of every 3 colonists were interested in
independance?

City of Brotherly Love

It only makes sense that we'd go to Philadelphia. It's practically
required, right?

Packed, ready to go...

I cut this very close! Things have been so busy around here that we didn't get around to booking our last hotel and rental car until late last night. (Or it might have been due to my crippling indecision about where we should stay.) Stressin' big time. Wondering if it's all worth it. Thinkin' it is.

Stay tuned for real-time updates on the Esplin family travel adventures. Lots of plane legs, lots of destinations... who knows, we might even show up at your house. (Don't hold your breath, tho, k.)

Long Weekend, No Money (plus, end of school year wrap up)

Today is the last day of school for us, and I couldn't be gladder. Finally, I can stay up as late as I want! I can't wait to escape my air conditioned house in the middle of the night, and wrap myself in a blanket of warm summer night air. Diet coke, good book, various desert bugs. Life just got a whole lot more relaxinger, eh?

Next week we're leaving for our annual Esplin family vacay (more on that later), so we decided that over Memorial weekend, we wouldn't spend a dime. (It's expensive, ya know, taking 5 people on vacation.)

So, we occupied ourselves over the weekend with a few big cleaning projects. The pinnacle of which was cleaning out our garages. We've been binging on clutter and trash and old things that don't fit, and it was time to purge it all from our lives.

My dad would be proud:

I'm not going to show you a picture of our other garage bc there's still stuff in there, and although it's organized in a way that makes sense to us, you wouldn't understand. Just know that we donated car loads of stuff and the garbage men hate our guts.

On a side note, Homer found a bike helmet when we were cleaning out the garage and has been wearing it around ever since.



Why do kids think they can get away with stuff like this? Is this Lady Gaga's influence?
_________________________

K, Here's my quick, end of school-year wrap-up.

Homer graduated from preschool:

During the ceremony, Homer sat at the back of the stage, and his teacher sat right behind him, within grabbing and whispering distance. This set up was no coincidence, I'm sure.

Cord had his junior thespian induction ceremony, and was also given the outstanding performance award for his performance in "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead." He was either Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, can't remember.



Notice that they spelled his name wrong on his award. But they might argue we're the ones who spelled it wrong. I dunno.

Gus had his final drama production. He portrayed an unappreciated spider, brilliantly.



I was very surprised with how comfortable he was on stage. He has really come out of his shell this year. I've always described him as a shy kid, and I can't say if that description fits him anymore. Good for him!

Here he is with his award for completing his first year of Drama Kids.



(I have way too many pictures of my boys in this same position^^. Next time, Cord's in the middle.)