poor, poor (totally awesome) mojo

My adventures for this week can all be seen in this informative and hilarious fake web ad:

2009-10 Season Pass to Brighton Ski Resort: $215

New Boots: $110

New Bindings: $100

New Board: $200

A new friend at Sports Autority who told us that we could go boarding with him as long as 2.0 doesn't make him tie her boots for her: Priceless.

For everything else, there's credit card debt. Accepted most anywhere but hardly acceptable.

Yeah. That's right readers. I'm so ready for this jump into awesomeness. Plus, just OWNING the gear makes me cool, let alone my sweet skills whilst wearing them. Ah, yeah.

2.0 and I went back to Sniagrab on Saturday and got our best friend (whom we met our first time there) to help us get the rest of the gear. Toni (aka, 'bluetooth') helped me pick out a good board and some awesome bindings.

Afterward we headed to Costco to meet up with some other friends and get some shopping done. It was fun running around the isles, pointing out great eats, trying samples of lime roasted shrimp and BBQed Beef. Nothing beats going there on a Saturday.

We were there with 2.0's little sister J who was extremely late getting home for a family party (which 2.0 was only planning to stop-by for some time during the night). We drove out and said hello to everyone. Well, it was quickly evident that we should stay (steaks on the grill) so we helped fix dinner and ate with the entire family. Now when I say entire family, I'm not exaggerating when I am saying ma and pa, 4 siblings, 6 nieces and nephews NOT including the 2 babies. It was a full house.

We had a great time talking a playing with the kids. I even found out I have a class with 2.0's brother. Who knew? Darn that university for having a class of 200 students!

an soep reunion

'Twas a Summer of Epic Proportions reunion! We drove to Magna and saw Urka (Erica) in her play at the Empress Theater. The play was Once Upon a Mattress. It was awesome. And don't you worry, we all wore our SOEP shirts. Each of the cast members, including Erika, told us how distracting it was to look into the audience and see a complete row of BRIGHT YELLOW shirts as seen below:
A delightful reunion followed by IHOP. Mmmm... Pancakes...

soep trip #3

You know, looking back on my blog posts, I didn't ever really write about Yellowstone, which was the inaugural Summer Of Epic Proportions trips, but I'm sure when I get some time, I'll write about it. But for now, trip 3: buoyancy.

We (2.0 et al) took a trip to the Great Salt Lake. For those of you who do NOT know about the GSL, you will be pleased to learn that it is one of the most salty bodies of water in the world. That being said, only one organism can live there. Brine Shrimp.

These little buggers are a delicious treat for most fish, but since the water is so salty in the GSL, they seem to thrive without the natural predator. They are tiny and if you are not looking for them, you won't see them, but in the lake, THEY ARE EVERYWHERE AND NUMBER IN THE MILLIONS! It's kinda gross to swim with them (including the stink of the lake), but that is in fact what we did.

We had stemware with bottles of sparkling apple cider and other good beverages. We got out in the water, and watched the sun set as we drank cider and played. One would think that as soon as you got out far enough, it would be hard to keep afloat with all the stemware, bottles, etc. Not the case in the GSL. Because we are more buoyant, it was in fact hard to be completely immersed in the lake. I tried. Floating is so easy, that it's hard to sink, if not impossible. It's quite the experience. If you can stand smelling horrible for the next 48 hours (with showers... showerS) it's amazing to try.

After some frisbee and such, we got out and headed back to Sarah's house for some treats. One of the group members has a hot tub in the apartment complex so we headed over there. We all rinsed off as best we could and got in the hot tub. Even with the best rinsing, when we got out, we still found little brine shrimp not-so-enjoying themselves in the hot tub. ...Sorry to those that have to clean it...

Quickly heading to the Pi Pizzeria for a bite, the night came to a conclusion. Good times. Although smelling myself even after a shower, hot tub and a shower... this is going to be an interesting thing to explain to those around me. Although with the salt deposits after swimming, you come out feeling like you are COVERED in sand (which is purely salt), your skin does look amazing!

an ode to breakfast

There's something to be said

For having white bread

with mustard and some smoked ham.

You want to add cheese?

You can do as you please.

Nothing's better than a sandwich in hand.

Readers (I put a plural on that because I think I have two now), I thought you just might want to join in the praise of a delicious breakfast. I hear it's the most important meal of the day.

burgers and donuts

Okay, tonight pretty much rocked. Laursen called me and we decided that it was high time that we got some food. We were pretty hungry. Well, one thing led to another and we were off to Alby's to grab some fixins for burgers and dogs. $10 later, and we had enough food to feed enough for the impromptu BBQ.

One or two invites seemed to escalate into a few more which seemed to take another step, and before we knew it, it wasn't just three or four people, but rather we had a good ten or eleven.

2.0 came and brought a salad that she had made. It was freakin awesome. She had composed her own raspberry vinaigrette dressing on spinach and mixed lettuce. (No iceberg junk for this masterpiece)

A mutual friend Heather was there and shortly after leaving, I got a call from someone she drove with named Angela. Angela explained that Heather had gotten a flat tire just after leaving my house and needed some help. I was on my way to the rescue.

Now, I'm no MASTER at changing tires, but I know what I'm doing. But this tire was a MONSTER to get off. A very kind officer of the law stopped and helped us with the light. We chatted with him while we got the tire off and he told us about how we was working the night shift on this particular street for just a little while. He had come from being undercover ("a long haired dirtbag with earrings, not to say long hair or earrings make you a dirtbag...") where he had been working for the last 5 years or so. Before that, he was a homicide detective. Wow.

Well, with the donut in place, Officer Long-Hair was off and we all parted our ways. I drove Sarah home while she got the update of her nephew who was in the hospital for having a nut lodged in his esophagus. Fun. Now I'm off to bed to sleep until eight AM work... yippy...

j-e-l-l-oh, it's alive!

Let's see, what type of fun can you have with Jello?

First comes Moses

Then Kristina and Ginny

Well, here's Moses again, parting the Jello Red Sea...

Yes, he also had a orange jello aura.

And here's the soldiers who followed...

And after completing said story, I jello-through-a-straw-eating competition.

Need we say more?

russkiys and card sharks

We've been having fun with our Russian visitors. I've had my phone
with me since Sunday night, always expecting a phone call from
neighbors and friends, asking if I can help with a translation. I
even appended my phone's answering machine message to have, in
Russian, "If you need a translator, please leave a message and I'll
call you back in a few minutes." Fun times.

I think that I have forgotten how different this culture is. They are
so funny. Instantly walking into the house, they asked if they could
have some house shoes. I told them not to worry about it because we
don't normally take off our shoes in a house here, but they insisted
that they CANNOT walk around the house in the same shoes that are
"dirty from walking on the street."

It has been fun having them around though. But holy hannah, my
Russian grammar is awful! I keep catching myself saying things that I
KNOW are not right, but I just spit them out like a bowl of cereal
with 2-week-spoiled milk. (Nice and chunky) I should practice more,
but I don't really have a lot of time (or opportunity) to do that.

So Natalie came over tonight, toured the RFC and met the russkiys.
Sergei (18) blushed way beyond the Soviet flag's crimson red. We all
pointed it out to him, and he got even worse. She and I had a good
time. Let's just point out the awesomeness of the evening:

Kung Pow Shrimp & Lemon Chicken - Both coming from the resturant where
they normally say, "We thought that was you on the phone."
Checkers (a version called "Russian Checkers" that I'm sure does NOT
derive from Russia)
California Speed
Five Crowns
Mojo crying like a baby when he got WORKED at each of the events.
(Including the shrimp)
Delilah crying because she was locked in the bathroom all night (and
because I was crying)

Oh yeah. Totally awesome.

it's a christmas miracle

It was a longer and busier day at work today, but there was something that made it much easier to get through. It was a Christmas Miracle.

Yes, homemade bread.

Ah, the powers of delicious bread. Well, the snow started

The roads got bad for driving...

But I made it into work and we had a great feast of fresh bread and jam. (and there was much rejoicing.) But the fun part was after work, when I got home. Ali-G (Most people call her Ali) came over and we made honey butter (and one honey "butter" made of margarine) for the delight-filled treat. We made them into Christmas gifts for people.

What a good day. It really was fun to take a day, bake bread, make honey butter, talk, laugh, eat, breath, digest, you know, the good stuff.

I'm so thankful for family, friends and the chance to take the time out of my day to do something for someone else.