The Big Five-Oh!!

Yesterday my mother turned 50. For such a monumental occasion one can not help but celebrate. We made her all her favorite mom foods (that means lots of vegetables) Thai chicken curry (combo effort: me, grandma, a. Pat), crab won-tons (by Clark) and special bubbly (by Taylor). Then we entered phase 2 which was desserts (because we wanted more than one). Clark managed to fit all 50 candles into the pie.
Now check out this flame...
Cousin Brady and my mom share the same birthday so they shared this special moment together.
It was a good time and well worth the effort to celebrate the life of the woman who gave me life. I love my mom!!

Culinary Geniuses

Contrary to some people's opinions I have been known to be quite the genius in the kitchen. This weekend was no exception. My grandma and Aunt Pat came to visit from California which meant that on Sunday we had what my grandma terms a "Grandma Party". That means that any relative in the area is welcome to visit her at my mom's house and eat lots of food. So my mom suggested that I make some homemade oreos (you know the kind with the devil's food cake mix and cream cheese frosting). So I did and my Aunt who IS an official culinary genius was assisting me and we started talking about the variety of cake mixes my mom had in the basement (apparently they were on sale 2 for a dollar). I mentioned that lemon cake mix makes a good cookie as well so we decided to try it.
I give you... LEMY-O's

This is the picture of the official Lemy-o's unveiling ceremony.

Please note that it is pronounced "Lemy-o" not "Lem-o" (mom) or "Lame-o" (Clark). Ok that wasn't the official unveiling. That was a posed picture that my mom thought would be better for marketing purposes. This is the original picture...
I love it because my aunt is laughing so hard probably because of everyone's faces looking at us. I don't think they were expecting such a formal presentation. But once they tried one... they understood.

Nice day for a flat tire!

So this morning as I was pulling out of the driveway I felt oddly unbalanced and sure enough... flat tire.

Between Taylor's muscles, mom's umbrella holding skills and my reading the manual skills we did a stellar job removing the flat tire.

Turns out there was a nail in the tire but thanks to the guys at Discount Tire and $0 later... all fixed and ready to roll!

"Like this White People"

Recently, whilst again not working on my capstone project, I stumbled upon a blog dedicated to "Stuff White People Like". They had an official list of 92 things that "White People Like". While reading through this list I found myself saying, "yes, yes again, yes also" to several items. I thought it would be funny to post some of those items here in no particular order:
-Dinner parties
-San Francisco
-Bottles of Water
-Juno
-Sushi
-Multilingual Children
-Apple products
-Arrested Development
-Breakfast places
-80's night
-Traveling
-Being an expert on YOUR culture
-Farmer's Markets
-The Colbert Report

Then again there were things I DO NOT like from said list:
-GRADUATE SCHOOL!!! (That is my number 1)
-Toyotas
-Co-ed sports
-Snowboarding
-Yoga
-Not having a T.V.

Some things I thought were just funny and reminded me of other people (you know who you are):
-Standing still at concerts
-Oscar parties
-Knowing what is best for poor people
-Marathons
-Musical comedies

Now if you want to see how "white" you are you can check out this list for yourself!

P.S. As a side note I wanted to add this quote from the SWPL blog in reference to Arrested Development:
Even though most white people prefer to say that they don’t watch television, one thing they agree on is that Arrested Development was the best show on TV. They love it so much! If you are ever at a white person’s house, and you see an orange box in their DVD collection, you should say “oh, you have Arrested Development, I love that show!” To which you will be offered a glass of wine, and perhaps an invitation to 80s night.

AGREE!

Easters!

My mother is convinced that holidays would be a lot more fun if she had grandkids. Clark and I, on the other hand, are not convinced and we spent most of this weekend proving otherwise. First we dug up our old easter baskets that were made for us when we were little kids. Then we had to make a few repairs because Clark's bunny was losing it's nose and my bunny had a deformed leg (which you can still see). Then we dyed easter eggs and watched Nacho Libre (an easter appropriate movie).

On Sunday, after more lamenting about having no grandkids, we had our traditional easter basket hunt. Every year my dad would hide our easter baskets and we would spend hours looking for them. My dad is the master of hiding easter baskets and he prides himself on his creativity. (His best being taping John's basket above the door frame.) Even though we are in our later twenties and dad was limited to one level of the house it still took about an hour and a half and several hints to find our baskets. Overall, pretty good Easters...who needs grandkids when you have immature children! That's what I say!

SUCKERS!!

We are at the movies...and yes it is 1:15 pm on a Tuesday afternoon.
The best part about going to the movies on a Tuesday... 50 cent Popcorn!!
BTW- Last week we saw Vantage Point which was a much better movie... but as Mike says, "watching a crappy movie is better than working!"

Off-Track, Hangin' wit... Mom

Well it has been exactly one week that I have been off-track (translation: no work). Since I am in the process of building up the old bank account, after the India extravaganza, I have been keeping it low key which means I have been spending a lot of time with my mom.

Here we are after an intense 15 mile bike ride.
The intense part was the cold bitter wind.

She even talked me into purchasing some killer boots with her.
Twin Stuff!!!!