Busy stuff.

This weekend was equal parts awesome fun, and exhausting.  The Woodchopping Festival came to town, which meant that there was a ton of stuff to do, funnel cake to be had, and no place to park.  Anywhere.

On Saturday morning we dropped Marissa off to ride the float, and then we went back into town, found a parking spot, and waited.  For, like, an hour.  I'm too impatient to wait for things like this.  That's my excuse for being late to everything.

The whole town was decked out for the weekend, and I've never seen the town so packed.  The parade was great - cute, small, but fun.  As soon as Marissa came back from riding the float, we changed her out of her dress and took off to the festival.

There was a meet & greet thing with Josh Stewart, and Marissa really wanted his autograph.  We wandered around for a bit before we finally found where he was signing autographs - I kept looking for this big, long line of people, but no one was there.  Seriously no one.  Bryan and I joke that everyone in this town is related to each other, and it's not so much a joke as a fact.  I guess most people know him, and grew up with him, so it wasn't as big of a deal for people to see him as I had thought it would be.  Marissa got his autograph, and we took a couple of pictures with him, and then Phoebe started screaming about riding the swings, so that was that.

I have to commend this guy for coming back to this hokey little town and going to all the trouble to do this -- as it turns out, he didn't receive as warm a welcome back as I thought he would.  From what my uncle and grandfather said, people out here are actually kind of..... well... annoyed, for the lack of a better word, that he's an actor and has some measure of fame.  It's ironic to me with how clannish and proud these people are that they wouldn't be more proud of him, but that's hillbilly mentality for you.

Sunday was my grandfather's birthday party, and I made my first ever pineapple upside-down cake.  It was pretty.  I worked very hard on the arrangement of fruit on top.  I stressed out about whether it would be good all night and the next day.  And then we ate it.  It was good.  I guess that's pretty much the nature of cake.

My sister and my nephew flew in to visit, and they're staying with my dad. We went over there today to visit, and MAN I came so prepared.  I brought the kids water guns, a frisbee, and bubbles, so the kids could play outside together.  Which really meant that the adults stole the water guns, and all manner of water shenanigans ensued, while the kids tried to steal the guns back and play with them.  It was super.

I'm pretty worn out from all the excitement, so I'll be taking a nap on the couch.  Until Friday.
 

Suck on that, East Virginia.

I have some news.  BIG NEWS.  Well, big for us.  The Woodchopping Festival is this weekend (don't make fun - it's serious bidness) and we're having a celebrity Grand Marshall for the Parade.  Josh Stewart is coming out, y'all.  My sister's flying out to visit -- and I made the joke that she has to leave SoCal to come out here to meet a celebrity.  I know -- it's the BEST JOKE EVER.

I'm totally taking the credit for this -- haven't I been saying that I'm going to make this state cool?

You're welcome, West Virginia.

Potty genius up in here.

Bryan's been working with Charlie to try to get her to use the potty, oh, for about the last hundred years.

I finally decided to help a brother out, and lend a potty-learning hand (I'm a potty guru, don'tcha know).  Also, the warm weather totally requires nekkid baby time, which helps the situation.

So, for the last few days, Charlie has been consistenly using the potty.  Like, REALLY FOR REALS.  She says, "pee pee!" so we put her on the little Target potty, and DUDE.  She so totally GOES.  She'll even POO in it.  And she's only had one accident (*furiously knocking on wood*).

I don't care if it's premature -- I'm doing a victory dance.  HARD. 

Well, it's May.

You know how I can tell?  All the birthday cakes.  Marissa's birthday just passed, mine is coming up, and Phoebe's is at the end of the month.  Oh, yeah, and there's also Mother's Day (happy Mother's Day, y'all!).

Plus, we had Marissa's pageant shenanigans, her Girl Scout ceremony, and birthday parties for her friends at school.  My dad is coming into town, then my sister is coming into town, then Marissa leaves for SoCal to visit her grandparents for summer break.

Yup. 

I have a ton of pictures on the camera that I need to edit and upload, but in the meantime, feel free to check out this video of Marissa at the pageant.  Bryan shot it, edited it, and uploaded it, so he totally gets all the credit.  BUT.  I was backstage with her, man, and that should earn me at least some points.  Right?  Little girls and curling irons.  AWESOME. 

Women.

I'm not very good in most social situations. I know this about myself. I'll usually keep quiet, off in the corner, until someone strikes up a conversation with me, or I run out of things to play with in my purse.

The past couple of weeks, I've been helping out with Marissa's Girl Scout troop. They called and asked me to help out because they were doing a sewing activity. Don't ask me how they knew that I sew, but they did. Living in a small town is kind of creepy.

Even with my natural aversion to other humans, I agreed to help out. Partly because the one activity I did attend sucked some ass, and partly because her troop leader is HUGELY pregnant. In my last trimester with, well, all the girls, I barely sat up, let alone tried to teach about 15 girls how to sew a button.

So, I decided to come out of my shell, and talk to people. On purpose. And smile at them occasionally.

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