Packed Weekend

Mother's Day!

I awoke early and picked up breakfast for the brood and after big hugs from Ape on the sweet card, we slowly made ready to head out for the day's festivities. We stopped at our shopping center so Ape could get some gifts for the other moms who would be joining us for dinner later. I went to get my hair fixed. Remember the hair sorceress who did my first 'do? She was there and fixed me. I think she was genuinely disappointed in what the other stylist had done. I have her card now and will make sure to always have an appointment with her!

Then it was time for the movie. Which was /incredible/! I won't go into specifics, but whoever said this one was all flash and no soul was watching something else. My one nitpick was the Monaco Historique GP. Go watch and see if you see what I didn't like to see ^.~

From there we went to a great restaurant in a historic part of town. Most of us really enjoyed our food although Sis wound up giving me more than half her French dip. Two of the boys colored their menus and I took them for my wall at work. After a quick ice cream cone stop and a pit stop at home to get the kids ready for bed we headed to Sis' for the Amazing Race finale.

After a cheesy move at the airport by Jordan, the Brothers never lost the lead. At ILM, the Cowboys had a pretty good chance to gain ground but played fair and waited their turn, refusing to stoop to Dan & Jordan's level. Well, maybe a little. At the ILM challenge, Cord tried to goof Dan's directions up a bit by yelling randomly over the cube wall dividing them. See, Jet and Jordan were wearing mocap suits and Cord and Dan were watching their virtual siblings (cyber-cowboy hat FTW!) and directing them through Star-Wars themed levels. One misstep would "reset" them so careful coordination was key.

Anyway, after a surprisingly-boneheaded move by Cord, it was too late to catch the Brothers who would go on to win. Extra fun at the finish line courtesy of Caite and Brandy!

I was very disappointed but I loved how Jet summed up their run: "There are things that are more important than money. The experience of being able to travel all the way around the world with my best friend and my brother and then in the end having our character and integrity intact. We can walk out of here with our heads held high and look people straight in the face and tell 'em we won second."

DH is so-so (getting a little dramatic, and yes, I know it's a soap), B&S ended with a very touching solo by Scotty - He sang "The Parting Glass", originally by the Pogues. Anyone who says music isn't powerful isn't listening right...

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Saturday

When we woke up, the plans were for hair appointments, Iron Man 2, and Daytona for the speedpark pass and then maybe dinner in Daytona. However, when we started getting ready, Elder was not up to it. He was very nauseous and so we had to make a call. Ultimately we chose to save Iron Man for Momma's Day, but continue with the hair and Daytona plans, sans Elder. Maybe I should have skipped the hair appointment too.

Basically, I wound up with a wreck. I specifically asked for a cut that would compliment long hair without looking like a mullet. So when I wound up with a mullet I was pretty torn up over it. And then the extended fam made fun of me. And then I realized what I should have asked for. The "Casey James". So now I have to see if it can get fixed and find out how far back this puts me. It was after 3:30 before we left, stopping for McD's before hitting the highway.

From there, we headed to Daytona and made it in at close to 5. We found the speedpark quickly and braced ourselves, hoping the gift card would get us something fun. Did it ever - we thought we had to pick and choose a couple of things off the list but it turns out we got it all! So we took the freebies (two tickets for the dragsters and two unlimited go-kart armbands) and got to the fun.

Ape declined, leaving the adrenaline to Younger and me. And we had a riot of a good time! On the dragstrip, I took Heat 1 when he red-lighted. He took Heat 2 by .027 seconds, and I bested him on the third by nearly 2.5 seconds. From there, it was a couple of long stretches on two of the three go-kart tracks with the usual putt-putt slow cruise. In fact, the dragster operator jokingly warned us to do the karts first or have our expectations dashed. I basically told him that happened when I walked in the door. I've raced real karts. I've done SCCA and a Skip Barber school. I was there mostly for Younger and for what adrenaline I could get from the sensations of motorsport.

I didn't realize it then, but I wound up with a pretty large burn on my back, plus gasoline on me from one of the karts. Remember this point as it will be back later.

Feeling the heat, we cooled off inside and I took a turn at DDR. I hadn't played in a couple months but muscle memory is a persistent thing. Even on new songs, and being a little achy from the track, I surprised myself. I think a lot of it is the fact I'm continuing to lose weight and found it easier to move quickly.

Anyway, we left and found a mall (of course!) and spent a little time there. I wound up buying new shorts and a "Poke Me" Pillsbury Doughboy shirt. I shucked my gassy clothes and washed up and felt *much* better. The rest of the shopping was pretty standard stuff. So then it was time for dinner. Which was Outback and a fantastic dinner!

We headed home after 10 and I thought I was on the way to another Valor Knights Dynamis run. Nope - after leaving Ape watching SNL I found out they ran at 8. But Med was on again and was hankering for more CoP fun. I joined a Minotaur run and we took a light beating but made it. I left with Med's orders to work out the next set of cutscenes prior to the next run.

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Friday

Aerin is no longer a Holla-back girl. Or maybe she is. I dunno. Does anyone know what the heck Stefani means in that song? But I'm getting ahead of myself...

After my marathon roll, ending at 3:45am, I (sort of) slept in until about noon. I didn't have any messages, so I wasn't expecting there to be any fallout from the roll. After all, everything looked good. But when I walked in close to 1, our BSA was looking really stressed... Turns out the biggest piece of the roll was nonfunctional outside of Jax. Oh boy... I didn't leave until after 6...

Anyway, it'd turn into a lazy night as Ape wasn't up to much and we knew Iron Man 2 wasn't going to be a night-movie due to the cost. We wound up renting Sherlock Holmes and ate chicken and noodles. Well, we didn't get to the movie until close to 10. And Ape kept leaving for phone calls and Bran fell asleep. I watched to the end and was pleasantly surprised. I'm not sure I'd have wanted to spend the dough for all 4 of us to see it in theatre.

What I liked was the way they'd stop from time to time for Holmes to recount all the steps used in his inductive reasoning. And the story was a pleasant surprise. Action was fun too. Downey is really growing on me with this and Iron Man. And other stuff.

Ape crashed early so I wound up logging into XI and very quickly was presented with a Holla run by Med. Budeko, Ktulu, Safira and Kiosuke joined us. I've been on 10 of these before, and many of them featured looong pre-fight preps like Med's tonight, but even so, none went so perfectly as this one. Super-cake. I wound up in Lufaise Meadow with Ktulu and we made our way to the Tavnazian Safehold.

Very quickly, we wound up doing Dem as well, which closed out Kiosuke and Safira. I was beat but I was so happy to finally be done I didn't care. I didn't care I missed the map quest either ^^ But now it was bedtime. Past, even.