July 31, 2007

2-Week Update Time!

So, I have gotten some requests for updates...here is the last two weeks!!

My cousin Geri got married.Chris & Geri Anderson
Notice how gleeful Geri is...she had just smooshed the wedding cake into Chris' face after making him promise that he wouldn't do that to her.... she had fun licking the frosting off his face!

The next afternoon, Janet and I headed to Sisseton, SD for Horse & Buggy Days. Sisseton is where Janet grew up. I got to meet her parents, sister (Marianne) and brother (Allan) and his family (Jill, Michael and Ashley). It was great fun. I played Spoons for the first time...it is a full-contact sport with Janet's siblings! Brutal. Ask Janet about that one time that she was ready to give up her spoon to make it stop!! lol

Jill and Micheal

Marianne and Janet

Allan and Janet
(he'd just flipped her hair...thus the looks on their faces)

'Toothpick Tower'

Micheal

Janet's Mom, Beth

Ashley, the newest member of the Schmidt family

Foxy

The Siblings: Allan, Marianne, and Janet.

"If you moo, they will come."
Yes, there is a story behind this....
but you have to ask to hear it!!



We came back Sunday night, and Tuesday we went to Katie & Marcus' to visit before we headed out again. :-)




Then came Wednesday, the day our vacation started. We (being Janet and I) didn't know where exactly we were going, we just knew we were s'pose to be on the road for Sioux Falls, SD by 9 am.

As you can tell, we obviously weren't. Thanks to the car dealership that took forever liven long to CHANGE THE OIL, TRANSMISSION FLUID & BREAK LIGHT! They were s'pose to have done that the day before, but...they didn't. If you want to see Janet's blood pressure rise, ask her about that!

We eventually made it out on the road by 2-2:30, and made it to Sioux Falls in time to get HuHots for supper. MMMMMMM! NUM! Think Khan's, only BETTER (minus the gooey balls of goodness)! The next morning we headed out and decided to go to the Black Hills and take in Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands....among other things.


Once all the pictures are (finally) on Flickr, they will be here.

And once my wrist quits hurting I will bring you more Vacation Details!

~ Worst First ~

- Bad bathrooms – esp. hotel bathroom (lilac flavored pee!)
- Glorified port-a-potties in Badlands (smelled really bad! Almost as bad as the hotel bathroom).
- No bathrooms when needed.
- Having to pay $5 for crappy, old, freezer burned ice cream just so we could use a bathroom in Keystone.
- Maple-flavored Orange Sherbet Truffle
- Really bad Mt. Rushmore chocolate (gasp!)
- Wet chocolate (cooler leaked melted ice into chocolate containers)
- Car dealership not getting car done in timely manner.
- Truck with camper almost rolling in front of us.
- Idiots Out Wandering Around squeezing a semi…
-…and then pinching us!
- Keystone had no gas stations (a TTT*, no less!!)…
-…so we almost ran out of gas on Mt. Rushmore.
- Allergies so bad that Osgood needed allergy meds!
- Cold showers (Janet seems prone to them)
- SLOW DRIVERS!
- Sunburned heads.
- Biting flies – them biting us, not the other way around.
- Photo-nuts family in the cave.
- Crabby children everywhere.
- Bumps in Roads (and the last of our allergy meds being eaten by Osgood!)
- Kills: A bird and 2 dragon flies on the windshield.
- Suicidal Tendencies: had to talk driver out of driving us off a few different ledges in the Badlands!
- More Suicide: bugs on the windshield obscuring photo-ops. No matter how often we cleaned the windshield!

* Tourist Trap Town

~ Best Next ~

- Mostly Chocolate (we have our priorities straight!)
- Seeing: Deer, buffalo, prairie dogs, bald eagles, golden eagles, mountain goats and kid (of the mountain goat variety)…
- Golden Corral. Need we say more?
- Rattle snakes – heard but not seen…or felt.
- HuHots. Khan’s will never again be the same!
- Seeing old friends and making new ones.
- Best friend type conversations with total strangers
- Laughing at each other while driving. (see ‘Funniest Moments’ for more on this!)
- Barefoot driving.
- The Rushmore Cave: Amazing, but LONG!
- Badlands: Better now than before!
- Mt. Rushmore: seeing it up close on the new walking trails.
- Comfort Inn: Julie’s basement
- Not running out of water (or any other good drink for that matter!)
- Nature’s Kodak Moments
- Eating in Jordan
- Clean parks
- McDonalds: the McDonaldland cookies!!!!!!!!!!!
- Gas for $2.72 (being as how most gas was over $3!)
- Strawberry-Orange Sunny D!!!!!!!!!!!
- Having enuf memory for all the best pictures.
- Best steaks ever.
- Sunsets
- Avoiding The Cosmos and The Reptile Gardens.
- Lukas and The Dinner Rolls.
- Forgetting about those things called “Days of the Week”.
- Before-the-Dead-Rise breakfast with Chris and Marissa.
- More good and funny than bad and annoying.

~ Best for Last: Funniest Moments ~

- Mimicking the Moos: Cow Emotions
- Moos or Baas? They are white and move!
- Roos or Moos? Black faces and butts collide.
- Motel Beds: Sleeping Apparatus or Bowl of Jello – You Decide!
- Flying Water and Ice: Does Chris need the Drunk Sippy Cup?
- Creepy Stare: The Zone
- Not your child’s Veggie Tales: ‘these dishes are faded/the edges are shit/this rose is on backwards/and this one is flipped’
- “I feel the need. The need to pee.”
- “If I move, Kandi will wake up.”
- “Look – a big bull head!”
- “I’ve wanted one of those my whole life!” (4-yr-old girl in store)
-“It’s 1am. We are on vacation! Let’s get up and go do stuff!” “SHUT UP!”
- Being stalked by 2 biker couples in Keystone.
- Tasty pea-shooters.
- Mixed-up words galore.
- Forgetting how to talk.
- FRIENDS
- Free notepad
- How did you choose this hotel? Because it had a fridge and microwave in the room!
- Mooing and oinking at cows.
- If The Fonse was a cow, what would he sound like?
- Saving edibles for later. And the funny looks from waiters.
- No need for ginkgo – I wasn’t forgotten!
- Watching Brits eat their hamburgers and salad with fork and knife.
- Bouncing off the bed.

Our Vacation Commercial

Janet and I had fun coming up with this one!

Because...

...when you are driving past a lot of potentially dangerous situations, and you have not much better to do (we were too full to eat any more!) these things happen...

July 29, 2007

Vacation was a Hit!

We are home.

More later....

July 23, 2007

Some Laughs for You...

...while I sleep...




Brad Paisley's Coming

Have I mentioned yet how badly Janet and I really really REALLY want to go see Brad Paisley at the Fair?

 

 

 

Or how incredibly bad my wrist hurts?

 

 

Or how much fun SD was this past weekend?

 

 

Or how much I’m looking forward to the rest of this week – whatever Janet and I end up doing…

 

 

Or how much my wrist hurts??

July 20, 2007

Some School Humor

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual similes and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country.

 

Here are last year's winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E.Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are known to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

July 16, 2007

Brad Paisley in Concert

Janet and I would love to go see Brad Paisley at the Fair in September…

 

We are now accepting donations to the J&KW2CBP Fund!

July 15, 2007

Sunset

Jordan's Dedication

Jordan, Parents, Grandparents, and Great Grand Parents.

The Grandma's praying over Jordan during worship.

Hailey & Ezra