Twilight Mania

I did go out to see Twilight last night. A group from the ward went; several of us carpooled in and then we had to meet up with the others. That was a trick in itself!

This is what the theater looked like. It was utter chaos and madness. Lots of screaming teenagers and just a mass of hyper humanity all stuffed into this hall. It was showing on 3 screens, and 45 minutes before it started, this is what it looked like.

They opened the doors 30 minutes prior to the 7:55 showing and I honestly thought there might be a stampede, with all the screaming and shoving. (Apparently the police were called for an incident in one of the theaters, but not ours!) My friends and I ducked into the #7 theater, although our tickets were mostly for #1. We had great seats, and settled in to visit till the show started.

Yep, we chatted and giggled and had fun. You can see S wearing her Twilight shirt. They were going to get me one, but I said no.

Me with R & D. We had a great time talking while waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And we waited a lot. At 7:55, a police man came in and told us anyone too rowdy or out of line woul be removed. The employees assured us the movie would start soon..... but it didn't.

I had a great time visiting with D. She is really cool, and I can overlook the fact that she is gorgeous as well, and we can be friends. Still, it was an hour late that the movie finally started. And it had no sound for the first 5 minutes. Grrrr. On the plus side, when the movie was over, they handed out free passes. Yay!

So, what did I think? Not impressed. I liked "Edward" much better as Cedric Diggory. Not attractive in this movie. I had a really hard time with the movie because I did not find Edward attractive at all. Other than that, I think it was good. Some artistic license was taken, but I liked it overall. Okay, so Jacob went a little overboard on the teeth whitener, and a few other minor complaints.... I'll have to watch it again to decide how I really feel about it.

Being Tourists!

Today was Mommy-Joshua Date Day. Joshua wanted to go see the Memorials in DC. Nevermind that its the coldest day of the year so far. Yep, it was suppose to be around 35 degrees today, and with that rotten wind..... it was miserable. Joshua and I took the Metro in, and when we started walking in that fridgid wind, I asked if he'd prefer to go to the Smithsonian instead. Joshua said no, he wanted to see the Memorials. So off we went.

We were hoping that sense it was so cold, the wait for the Washington Memorial wouldn't be too bad. No such luck. At 12:30 they were already out of all the tickets for the day. So we just posed for pictures.



We saw this very inaccessable memorial. I think it was the John Paul Jones one. Just a statue of this man who was a War Hero back in the Revolutionary war..... I think.

Then it was on to the World War 2 Memorial. We didn't linger, since we spent a lot of time there last time. And it was cold. Did I say it was cold?

We stopped by the Korean War Memorial. I don't think I had seen this one before. It was pretty cool. I liked it a lot. Love my face in this shot. I was concentrating too hard on getting the camera at the right angle. I really wanted the soldiers in the memorial in the shot.

Joshua was starving and we needed something warm. We spent an exhorbant amount on hot cocoa and hot dogs and it was delicious! It was cool too, because the birds would perch 6 inches from you, waiting for you to drop crumbs.


This was the thing Joshua most wanted to see. Thank goodness it has an indoor part that's heated. That's where the bathrooms were as well. So we spent a bit of time warming up and checking out the stuff inside, before going up to see Lincoln.

We saw this fine, fat fellow looking for lunch in the trash. I handed him a sour patch kid, which he took from my fingers and here he is, snacking on it.

I did not know there was a memorial dedicated to the signers of the Declaration of Independance, but here it is. Pretty neat, they have the signature of each person engraved in stone. We posed in front of Thomas Jefferson's.

We had seen on the map that there was a Jefferson Stone. Well, this is it. No clue why it is important, but by golly, we found it because Joshua wanted to see it.

And this concludes our trip to Washington DC. Which, if I may mention, took us 5 hours from steping on the Metro, to finding the car, which I lost briefly. And did I tell you how COLD it was?!! Freezing cold!

AAARRGH!

I finished exercising on my fabulous elliptical machine this morning. It was great- the girls were quiet and happy the whole 40 minutes. Wait..... that can't be good! I sneak upstairs to see what they are doing. They are playing very quietly in Callie's room. I check the mess on the floor. It looks like Callie has spread out all her "treasures" from her special box. And then I do a double take. There is a small pile of hair on the floor.

I at first assume that Callie found the keepsake of her "first haircut" which I never quite managed to get into her memory book. Then I come to the sick realization that it can't be. Its not much hair, but come on, niether of them has much hair! Callie denies all knowledge. Then she says Delaney did it. I can't see any bald spots. I check Delaney's head thoroughly.

Nope, no missint tufts of anything. Although she does have a snotty nose here. And she is getting a bit of a rattail in the back. If that had been trimmed, I'd have been okay. I'm just afraid to cut it because she has so little hair at all right now.

I turn my attention to Callie. The hair in my hand does seem to match Callie's color. Callie is also looking very guilty. Suddenly, I see it!

Can you tell where she trimmed?

Yep, check out that pony tail. She took a lovely chunk out of it. And check out tht face. She knew she was in trouble. Isn't she so cute?

Well, that's what I get for not dragging them out into the 30 degree weather! I could have gone running, but I was being thoughtful and letting them stay warm. Well, not anymore! Okay, that's a total lie. I don't mind running in the cold, but I have a tough time taking the girls out when its below 40.

Let us Rejoice!

This month, something amazing has happened. Yes, it has. Dan has paid off his student loans. I know. You are impressed. As well you should be. Dan made it his goal to have them paid off 5 years after they started needing to be paid. We were very good.

We both had a crummy summer after graduation BYU, but we made good money and were debt free at the end of the summer. Then Dan started Law School. He wasn't allowed to work, and I had a dreadful job and we lived on about $1200 a month.

We decided to start our family and along came Joshua, at the begining of Dan's second year. I didn't really work anymore and Dan could only work 20 hours a week.

We loved having Mini-Me.... I mean, Joshua. And then we had Marian, so I could have my own little clone too.

2 little kids, before Dan graduated Law school. 2 little kids, stuffed into our little two-bedroom apartment.

Marian was not quite 2 months old when Dan graduated. Yep, here is our cute little family. It was a proud day. And Dan had a few months before it was time to start paying back what he'd borrowed. By Fall, when the bill started coming, Dan had the goal of repaying it all within 5 years. Gulp!

This summer, we had the chance to go back and visit the Law School. Dan enjoyed it more than I did, I expect!

Callie just loved the duck that was nesting in front of the school front doors. That totally made her day.

The point here is to say that this week, Dan made his final payment and he paid off the balance of his loan. We are student loan free! We owe no man! Okay, not completely true, there is the house thing, but other than that, we are debt free! Whoopee for us! And Whoopee for my fantastic sweetie pie who made a goal and stuck to it!

Be Afraid; Very Afraid

I have been following a lot of Prop 8 stuff in CA. Partly because I have family there, but also because I see it as a trend that will continue. That is why you are getting more on that topic right here, right now. My Aunt Sue has some interesting and insightful things on the topic (actually, all my family does!), and I am going to quote her here:

You have probably all been following the news on the demonstrations by the “no on 8” people. They say we have taken away their civil rights. For those of you out of the state, domestic partnerships are legal in California, and those people have all the legal rights of a married couple. They just don’t have the word “marriage”—that’s what the fight is ostensibly about.

Never mind that Mormons are 2% of the population of California and 5% of the voters—we are a convenient target, and we don’t fight back. In Massachusetts, it was a Methodist church that was sued for not allowing a gay wedding on their property. They lost the suit, and their tax-exempt status as well. This led me to my belief that the gays are being used as pawns in a much larger agenda that has as its goal the loss of our freedoms of religion, speech and association.

Just this week, I read a quote that expands on that. I wish I could give it attribution, but none was given, other than it was in a publication called NRO. That person said: “The current conflict over marriage is in part a proxy for a larger ongoing conflict about the role of religious people and religious values in public life. As courts come to endorse the principle that sexual orientation is just like race, American government is going to find itself in the position of treating traditional faith communities just like racists.”

That means that anyone who opposes homosexuality on moral grounds will be prosecuted for hate speech. That has already happened in Canada. All the anti-discrimination laws we have put into place to protect the downtrodden will be used against any religion that does not accept homosexuality as normal. The lawyer who defended the Methodist church in the Massachusetts case said he found it incredulous that the court put a supposed civil right in front of a constitutional right. But those are the times we are living in.