What's Up?

Tooooo much, my friends!

The past week was so much busier than normal, preparing for my mom’s visit and hosting a graduation party for my nephew. It was stressful and tiring and blessed and relaxing and so many other things at the same time. And now it’s all over but the crying. That may be forthcoming. Who knows? Family can have that effect sometimes.

Thursday after work I lacked the motivation and creativity (and ingredients) to put together a decent meal for the family, so we headed towards Red Robin.  I am not sure why Red Robin because none of us has any specific memory of their food being good. It was probably the shakes. On the way there I foolishly suggested that we try out The Shack…and I have regretted that suggestion ever since.

There was a long pause in between being seated and our waiter greeting us. Time enough to peruse the somewhat overpriced menu, experience the loudness and consider bolting. We decided to stick it out because we had heard from some not so close friends that their food was good.

Scott's dish, the seafood courtbouillon, was really good and the kids' meals were the best because they were only around $5 and included drinks. My meal (the grilled seafood platter) was the worst. None of the fish tasted fresh and I gave away the single frog leg to 3/4 of the rest of the family to sample after thinking about the tadpoles in our pond.

I am forever spoiled by the fresh fish we get to eat when we visit my mom. To add insult to injury, the “Key Lime” pie was not good…even with the addition of the liquid green goop that tasted like a melted lollipop.  This is what happens when we don’t heed the hunch! We should have gone to the The Garage!!!

So I took off work Friday to work in the yard. We still have lots to do, but we did enough for the party. We worked our butts off mowing and weeding and bagging and cleaning and then we met up with some friends in town for various reunions.

After the Mont, we should have been responsible and gone home, but we ignored more signs (3 black cats on the walk from the restaurant to the car) and headed across town to PubW. We like the place a lot - good drinks, good food – but we had a busy day planned for Saturday. So we stayed out waaay past bedtime to make it more of a challenge.

When we got home we had to bring in the zombie head, I mean, durian that my mom spent a small fortune on at the Asian market.  It was so stinky that we hung it under the Magnolia tree while we were out, but we were so worried an animal would get it, we put it in the sunroom overnight. I worried that the smell had permeated my metal bike it was so horrendous. The ripe durian smells like a dead animal! How's that for a "delicacy?"

Sort of looks like Hellraiser in there, doesn't it?

In hindsight (which is 20/20, friends) we would have been safe leaving it outside all night as the fruit is also very difficult to access with the thorn covered husk.  I am sure that Durian is something that's been featured on Fear Factor...

Nothing would have gotten into that death fruit! Just look at it!

So Saturday before the party, my mom, sister and I gathered together and rolled lumpia. We fried most of it for the party and the rest was fried the next day for mostly the same group.  I wish we'd rolled more so I'd have a stash ready to fry up right now, but at least I have the wrappers. Next time we'll roll a lot more extra!

My sister-in-law’s mom (who is full Navajo) made Indian Fry Bread and the fixings for Indian Tacos!



We hung out in the back yard all day Saturday. The kids swam for almost 7 hours straight.  It was a long party and it was nice to see the cousins playing together making memories but I was glad to hit the sack that night.





The next morning, the kids served Daddy breakfast in bed and we let Dad have some time alone to relax.

My mom, brother and sister came over around lunch to visit before my brother took my mom back to Texas with him.

Saying goodbye to their lola...

Later we made it to a really great outdoor concert. I was dead ass tired as you can see in the picture below but I really, really wanted to see honeyhoney especially after hearing and seeing My Little Toy Gun.

if you feel you should pray, pray for my little toy gun

Towards the end of the night when we still hadn't heard My Little Toy Gun, we sent David up to the stage to request it. He forgot the name of the song on the way up and Suzanne said over the mic that he asked for "Boy Drum"(the crowd laughed). honeyhoney was kind enough to play it as their last song of the evening.



What a way to wrap up the weekend! The weather was so nice everywhere we hung out all weekend in Norman. So happy to live in such a cool little town.