Mostly-Mommy

I’ve been putting off writing about the Fabulous Child-Free Weekend we had a couple weeks ago because, honestly, is there anything sadder than reading about someone else’s fantastic vacation from the comfort of your very own couch? Is it just me? Well I’m going to write about it anyway because I’ve been asked to but feel free to skip this post if you’re bitterly in need of a vacation like I am most of the time.

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I’ll start with Friday evening, the official start of our Fabulous Child-Free Weekend (thanks mom, Bob and Karsen!)

First off we checked into our hotel, the Intercontinental on the Plaza. From the sixth floor we had a lovely view of a parking lot, unless I angled the camera like this:

The room was very nice and comfortable, very modern. And I was so impressed to find our little friend, the elusive African Towel Elephant.

Next it was Happy Hour at the Melting Pot! Super yum. Especially the chocolate fondue. Afterwords you should really fast for a week but it’s worth it.

Later we saw They Might Be Giants at the Beaumont because I WON tickets from KTBG! Can I just plug them for a moment because they totally rock. Seriously awesome music and they do great concert tickets as well. You! Turn your radio to 90.9 right now! Okay, now drive to Kansas City so you can listen to this station, you won’t regret it. And bring me a sandwich while you’re at it.

One dude on accordion, the other on bass drum. So cool.

So here’s something weird. The VIP area where we were is called the Capitol Federal Top Spot. Capitol Federal is my BANK. MY BANK sponsors part of a bar. Does anyone else think that’s weird?

Saturday morning we slept in then lazed around reading our complimentary copy of the KC star and drinking coffee maker coffee until we couldn’t take it any more. We showered and headed out to breakfast at the Classic Cup where I finished the crossword AND the sudoku puzzle because I am a dork, a dork with some time on her hands. Afterwords we had a bona fide Celebrity Sighting!

Hey, it’s Gary Lezak and Breezy! Yes I went all paparazzi and snapped pictures of him out of the car window. What, it’s not like I see him EVERY DAY or anything.

After Mike died of embarassment I slid over to the driver’s seat and took us to the movies. Star Trek to be exact, which we found to be awesome.

Later we stopped into Latte Land, Land of All That is Right and Good in the World, for some spro. Out the window there were some ridiculous shenannigans going on. Mike, having just been revived, died again of embarassment as I openly pointed and laughed at Syssiphus across the street.

See him there, on the left? You know, the one pulling the huge tire on the chain?

I was like, dudes, I can give you some REAL work to do over at my house. Something a little more productive than swinging a ball on a rope at the side of a brick wall. How about instead of flipping over some huge tire over and over again you can come and paint my damn house?

Anyhoo, later we swam in the hotel’s lovely pool, ate dinner at Ted’s Montana Grill which was pretty tasty, then took advantage of the hotel’s limited cable. Cesar Millan, you rock my world.

Sunday morning we slept in, showered, and picked up our kiddos. It was good to see them, I actually missed the little pains-in-the-patoot. Now who’s keeping them next weekend?

WOW have I been busy lately! Mike’s dad came into town on Friday so I spent a good chunk of time preparing the house. Mostly by completely trashing it and filling our dining room with massive amounts of crap for the garage sale we had on Saturday. It was a neighborhood thang so we thought we’d join the fun. Yes… fun.

The sale was actually pretty slow but we made a few bucks. Good thing too because it paid for our air conditioning to be fixed on Sunday. Old houses, gotta love ‘em. Right? Just say yes and we’ll move on.

I have to say though that I am kind of in love with our HVAC guy. Not romantically, I just want to have him around because he is so handy and I’ve never seen anyone quite like him. Seriously such a hard worker and SO polite. Like so polite that he saw we were having a sale so he parked his van a few houses down so as to not be in the way. Craziness. If you ever need some work done this is your guy.

Okay I’m done with the shameless fawning over Scott Bartmess now. I have every intention of keeping my word and telling y’all about our magical weekend… just not today. So… tired… snore.

(New pictures up at Karrmedia. Go!)

That is a direct quote from Mike, just now, which is really saying something. Yesterday he took half the day off work so we could take Nick to see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D at the IMAX… AND IT WAS SUPER DELUXE AMAZINGLY AWESOMELY FANTASTIC! Ahem.

This movie was made for the 3-D but it was so much more than that. The story was great and it was actually hilarious! Nick sat through most of it which I thought was huge considering that for his very first theater experience we took him to a 3-D IMAX movie. Overwhelming much? He got a little scared toward the end but kept it together by holding hands with me and his daddy. We also kept him plenty busy with a large bag of popcorn. Kid can put it away. He is definitely my son.

I highly recommend you all go out right now and see this movie. I can’t wait to see it again! Probably won’t be as SUPER DELUXE AMAZINGLY AWESOMELY FANTASTIC next time but I bet still pretty fun.

Friday my mom got called to a birth so I went with my little bro (he’s almost 20) to get some wisdom teeth yanked out. Had to bring the kids which was interesting, especially while we waited with him in recovery. At one point Karsen pulled his phone out of his pocket and was trying to text while in a state of delicate consciousness. I shut him down so he mimed that he needed to write a desperate message. Here it is:

Did you get that? Yeah, me neither but it was really hard to stifle my giggling while he was very seriously writing it.

Saturday morning began with this:

Thank goodness it wasn’t permanent marker! We got him cleaned up and headed over to Lowe’s with some friends to build a firetruck.

Had some fun, came back home for a nice brunch and let the kiddos play for a while. While someone was supposed to be watching Zoey (certainly not ME) I discovered her looking like this:

SOMEBODY PICK UP THAT DAMN MARKER ALREADY!

Later Nick and I took a looooong trip to Target while the little one napped and we got her a backpack. I figured it was time so she’d have something to put her jammies in when she sleeps at her Grandma Sarah’s house (HINT, HINT).

She likes it. A lot.

Then Saturday night my mom and I made dinner for the whole lot of us. It was miso soup, Thai basil chicken with rice, edamame, and the main attraction was homemade CRAB RANGOON! Nice dinner huh? I didn’t get any pictures because dinner was promptly scarfed up by a pack of starving hyenas. We need to learn to shut our doors.

Nick spent the night with the Grandparents and we watched Zodiac. That was a weird movie because it was simultaneously interesting and BO-ring because it was about an hour too long.

Monday was Mike and I’s sixth anniversary so we celebrated by pawning off the spawn and going out to dinner, then over to the Uptown to see Beck! MGMT opened — they did a few great songs, a few fine songs, and a few frickin’ annoying songs that felt like a cheese grater going at the base of my skull. Fun though. And Beck was AWESOME! They were really interactive with the crowd and for one song they brought out “KC’s best tambourine player” to do a song with them. That guy was hilarious! Plus there was this old dude sitting across the aisle that would play air guitar and spontaineously throw a vigorous double THUMBS UP THUMBS UP THUMBS UP!!! Dude cracked us up. Great show, great company, and home by 11:00pm. Super. No pics though, not allowed, meh.

And that was the (long) weekend. How was yours?

Mike went to Phoenix today to help his parents electronify their new digs. I know they will have a wonderful visit, but dang it I kinda like having him around here. And it would have been so fun if Nick could have gone with him. Especially for me.

Tonight I cooked frozen pizza using only the broil function of our oven. Both doughy AND burned! Just how I like it! Our oven (electric) started crapping out a few months ago, but the stovetop still works so we have been reluctant to shell out hundreds of dollars to replace it. Plus the oven works sort of, sometimes, you just never know IF it will work or HOW or AT WHAT TEMPERATURE. It’s like gambling. Once in a while I win big, baby! But most of the time the casino thugs take me to an unmarked room and beat the hell out of me. It’s the mystery that keeps me coming back for more. Well, that and my hungry kids.

I watched Hitman tonight. The main character didn’t scare me at all. In fact he reminded me of Joey Lawrence, not the creepy over-buff Joey Lawrence of now, but the goofy Joey Lawrence circa Blossom, but still bald.

Recently I discovered a recipe that I will guardedly share with you, my devoted readers. If I did not love you all so deeply I would not share the recipe for the most decadent, amazing, lick-the-bowl-then-go-back-for-seconds delicious, good-luck-not-eating-the-whole-dang-batch Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream. Joy issues a warning that it will make you sick. She is right. TRY to show some self restraint. You will fail, but at least you tried.

Nick is firmly in THAT place. You know THAT place within the fourth year when you hear the word “Whyyy?” roughly 27,362 times an hour? THAT place that makes me want to scream “BECAUSE I SAID SO!” (and I frequently do), change my name and move to Bolivia.

I guess that’s it for now. Goodnight!