Evidently, NOT the Last Airbender

The Husband and I ditched the Shorties and went to the beach with awesome friends for a few days last week. Basically, we slept, ate great seafood, watched a movie, swam, soaked in the hot tub, and lounged around. In short--PERFECT! (I'm such a slug.)

We went to see The Last Airbender. I repeatedly told The Husband over the past few weeks of previews that I wanted to see that movie, to which he'd ask, "What's it about?"

I responded the same way every time, "I have no idea, but M. Night Shyamalan wrote and directed it, so I'm in." Then he'd say, "Shama-lama Ding Dong? What? Who's that?" (insert big sigh here)

I must have explained Shyamalan's filmography to him ten times. You know, The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Village...M. Night Shyamalan. The last time he started singing like Bowser from Sha Na Na, I stared blankly at him and said, "Get in the car and drive me to the theater or I will kill you." That, he got.

So, we saw the film. That's about all I can say about it. There's a sequel coming, but I don't know if I care enough about it to actually go see it. It was just...hmmm...visually beautiful. And the costumes were cool. But I just didn't give a rip about any of the characters. At one point this princess is about to become the sacrificial character and  give herself up for the greater good, yada yada yada, and I'm wondering to myself if it's too late to go get popcorn.

(Side note to Hollywood: There's just not enough set dressing or CGI in the world to take the place of character and plot development.) I would have thought Shamalama Ding Dong had those parts firmly under control.

Steve didn't fall asleep during the movie, so he came out with some new "skills" which he practiced at random during the remainder of the trip. He kept striking these crazy poses next to moving water and announcing he was air/water/earth/fire bending. For example, the sprinklers at the shopping mall fired off, and he struck the infamous crane pose from the Karate Kid and moved his arms, legs, and hands in the tai chi focusing intently on the sprinkler system and announced that he was "water bending".

Let's see, he also bent some traffic, bent some water fountains, and bent some liquid in a tea glass using a straw. Then, when he had to excuse himself to use the bathroom, he announced to the table of friends we were eating with that he "had to go bend some water".

I want to see a marriage license. I need some proof that I married and bred with this man on purpose. Seriously.

Domestic Bliss

I try to avoid anything serious or difficult or depressing on my blog. Frankly, I have enough stuff trying to kill my buzz in Real Life to let it interfere with my Virtual Life. So, I tell what feels funny to me and share the absolutely meaningless anecdotes that when sewn together are the quilt that makes up my day-to-day life.

It's weird how we are just a series of random events strung together by daily, easily forgotten, menial tasks. Such as, ZOO, dishes, laundry, food, DATE NIGHT, dishes, laundry, change sheets, food, MOVIE PREMIERE, laundry, POOL, laundry, food, dishes, DOCTOR APPOINTMENT, dishes, food, laundry, and so on. For example:

We went to swim at JuJu's today and a youth was there swimming with the Shorties. JuJu and I were discussing a mutual friend and her new cabinets. Mutual Friend (hello Jennifer!) is building a new house, and we were going on about how excited she was about getting her new cabinets and how pretty they were.

The youth smiled and looked up at me over his sunglasses, "She's excited about cabinets?" I said, "You just wait. One day you'll be all stoked about rolling off the lot with the new family truckster and your cabinets." He rolled his eyes and I said, "Mark it down. The day your new kitchen is finished, you'll turn to your wife and say, 'There was this woman who told me once that I'd be all wound up about cabinetry. Go figure, she was right.' and you'll recall this exact conversation."

Funny about what gets you all excited in the middle of domestic bliss. Things like...

• Your kids playing sports
• New appliances
• Used cars that are new to you
• Clean towels
• Someone else making dinner
• The smell of Pine Sol, provided it's been applied, not spilled
• A new mattress
• Fresh vegetables

Of course these things fade, but they are joyful in those first precious moments. You might say they aren't particularly important in the greater scheme of things, and you might be right. But then again...

Watching my children play sports is so thrilling that I completely understand that psycho woman next to me screaming and jumping around every time her baby boy makes contact. With the T-Ball. The first time The Number One Son ran his five-year-old self five yards into the end zone making a touchdown, you'd have thought we were watching Alabama and Auburn play for the National Championship and he'd just scored the winning points.

New appliances--there's nothing in the whole world like having a really old dishwasher and getting a brand new super duper quiet one installed. You keep opening it, getting a face full of steam, just making sure it's running since it sounds nothing like the dinosaur you were using earlier in the week.

That little black convertible VW Rabbit given to me right after my 17th birthday was the finest thing on God's green earth. The first time I slipped behind the wheel and me and my girls rode Spiffy to nowhere, blowing through an entire tank of gas in one night driving in circles, is in my calendar of Greatest Days Ever. Right up there with the day we bought Yukon Sam and drove the mother of all family trucksters off the lot. (Side note: I don't trust people who don't name their cars.)

Clean, fresh laundry-smelling towels are like heaven. Especially if my mother came over and washed them while I was working. It's like a little personal laundry miracle of freshness.

What is is about sandwiches and hot dogs?
You make 'em: average.
Someone, anyone else makes them? Delicious!
Weird science.

Pine Sol means that the maid came!!!!!!! Praise Jesus!!!! One of the things I wish for you is a maid. (Sure, we need food and clean drinking water and access to medical supplies and absolutely sharing the gospel is right up there, but if we're talking Never Never Land, get you a maid. It will change your entire world view.)

Anyone who got "one more year" out of a mattress doesn't need any further elaboration. The rest of you? Next time you're in the furniture store, recline on the mattresses just for fun. You'll see what you've been missing.

Fresh veggies out of a garden make canned ones taste like dog food. If you don't garden, make friends with people who do.

It's the little things that make the most difference in your domestic bliss the older you get. Can I get an amen?

Bob and Chuck

Some of you are going to be like, "Why is she posting this on her blog? TMI!" But this isn't the sort of thing that I can keep under wraps; you're going to be able to tell what happened, and then I'll have all of these incredibly awkward social interactions where you want to ask, but don't ask, because it's Just Not Done, but you'll be whispering hot and heavy behind my back, "Did she have some work done?", so I'd prefer in typical Charlotte style to just put it all out there.

Bob and Chuck are about to hit the highway. (Yes, folks, my breasts are so enormous that I gave them names.) They take up so much room in space that I felt as though they deserved titles. So, Bob and Chuck were named somewhere in high school and it just stuck. (They were also called The Twins or The Girls until I actually had girl twins and then the nicknames felt a little creepy.)

Many of you know that right before Lillian came around I'd contemplated having Bob and Chuck reduced, but before surgery was approved and scheduled, I found out I was pregnant for the fourth time. Since I wanted to breastfeed Baby No. 4 too, I skipped out on surgery. But now, six years post Lilly, I've been rolling it around in my mind again.

And with that synopsis, I'm having surgery on July 12th. I wonder what it'll feel like to walk around without the equivalent of a toddler sitting on my chest or being able to actually purchase a bra that didn't come from a specialty catalogue or not having a panic attack because I don't think that Bob and Chuck will fit in the booth that the waiter is taking us to. Can't wait to find out! And now you can publicly acknowledge right to my face that yes, I DID lose a lot of weight all of a sudden like. Now, isn't that a relief?

Total Eclipse of the Heart

I know that this moves me into a whole new category of geek, but I don't care. The Wonder Twins looked at our large, dry erase marker calendar on the kitchen wall and saw that on June 30th it says "Eclipse 11:00" and on July 2 it says "Eclipse 11:30". They wanted to know what was up--was I trying to decide which day to go, were they going to go with me one of those days? What's up, Mom?

Um, no.

I'm going twice. On purpose. (and probably a third time with my Mother if I'm being totally honest)

I've already purchased tickets for the day it opens, because I simply cannot wait another second, and to go Friday with my girlfriends who are also Twihards. (aka Dorks. You know who you are.) How excited am I? I had to re-read the book (for the fifth or sixth time) to get ready to go see the film. (Hey. I know I have a problem. Chill.)

I can't wait to see werewolves and vampires and Bella and Edward and Jacob! I can't wait for snow and chase scenes and camping! I can't wait for jealous love triangles and smooching and more Cullens! I'M SO EXCITED!!!! (Is it just me or is the room spinning?)

To quote Heidi Klum, this is one of those deals where you are either In or you are Out. There is no real middle ground. Either you get it or you don't. It's like Banana Laffy Taffy. No one "sort of" likes it. In fact, there is quite a list of things that fall into either You Are Into It or You Are Not Into It with no gray areas.

• Roller coasters
• Harry Potter
• Sushi
• Tom Cruise
• Monogramming
• Men who wear pink
• Napoleon Dynamite and Raising Arizona
• Dungeons and Dragons
• Scary movies
• Okra
• Camouflage
• Jesus Christ

So, don't hate on me because you don't get it. :-) No one rains on my Twilight Saga Parade! WHOOT!

For the Love of Okra

So, for those of you who are out of the loop, my mother lives with us. She had a medical situation two years ago that rendered her unable to live on her own anymore. Now, she's almost fully back to normal (a relative term for anyone who actually knows my family members), but we've decided it's best for her to stay here since lymphoma is a slippery little booger and can strike back suddenly.

My mother is a Worker. She has to be productive and needs multiple projects going to be a happy little bee. (Must be where I get it from.) We had some septic work and fill line work done behind the house in early spring, and the men from church who were working on that deal let all of that dug up yard over the poopy patch, aka greatest fertilizer ever, sit there one day too long for my mother. She stared and stared at that fertile ground and simply HAD to plant something in the bare area.

But being my mother, instead of marking it off and making rows, she just flung seed everywhere. Well, that may be a little exaggeration, she did fling the okra in one spot and the cucumber and watermelon and peppers in another, but basically, I've got this random growth of vegetables in the middle of my back yard. It's classic Mother.

As ordered and organized as I am as a human being, my mother is the polar opposite. She's also Martha Stewart Lite (half the skills with twice the drive). It makes for an interesting home life. I come home to things like a garden in the dead center of my back yard (in between the play house and the trampoline. Naturally.) Or all of my closets reorganized (if anyone stumbles across my sleeping bags or ponchos when they are visiting, that'd be great).

Mother has gone to her sister's house for the week and she left me A List of Things to Accomplish including "cut the okra or it will stop producing". Hmm. Quite the conundrum, since one has to assume that I actually want the okra to keep producing, thereby making it where I have to cut it. The fact that I've gone out there in the heat and cut that blasted okra every morning and watered it every evening is a testimony to how much I actually love my mother, not how much I love okra. It's the same reason she cleans out my closets, I guess. Ahhh...the things we do for love.

The Last Day of Universal 2010.

We had another amazing day! This morning we slept a little later and headed right to Islands of Adventure. We started in the Dr. Seuss area, which was really amazing. Visually as good as anything Disney has (which hasn't totally been the case thus far). Loved the Cat in the Hat ride, and the tram that took us in the air over the land. Lovely.

We ate at Mythos for lunch. It was incredibly overrated. In fact, it stank. We had this strange tex mex pizza appetizer (and left half of it on the plate). Steve had fish tacos, which had some sort of watermelon salsa on them (again, odd). I had this Vietnamese wrap called a Fire and Ice Wrap. It came in a rice paper wrap thing, but it had the strangest consistency. Like latex gloves. Really gross. And it smelled odd. I ended up eating the chicken and bean sprouts out of the center and leaving the rest. I couldn't bring myself to put it in my mouth. Ick. So, this was the only bad meal we had on the entire trip. Pretty good odds.

The only bummer was that Harry Potter opens tomorrow when we leave instead of today. :-( We got to view most of the land, which was awe inspiring even from afar. Based on the foot traffic difference from Wednesday to today, I'd say we are getting out of Dodge at the right time. It's going to be crazy in here tomorrow. Hogsmeade and the castle open. I wish I'd gotten up close and personal. Harry Potter also shut down two rides since they are re-appropriating them. The Fire and Ice Dragons are becoming the Dragon Challenge, so we didn't get on that coaster, but we rode almost everything else!

Speaking of rides, the big funny of the day happened at The Hulk. They have these demo seats so that you can make sure that the bar or lap belt or whatever will fit over your particular body type. Anyone who has ever laid eyes on me would understand in great detail why I would need to do a seat check based on my bra size alone, and on The Hulk, the restraining bar comes down directly over your chest.

So, I walked up to the teenage male attendant working the tester seats and said, "I want to see if the girls are going to fit on this ride." He smiled and said, "Sure enough, ma'am, just bring them over and we'll see if they fit." I grinned, understanding that he thought I was referring to actual children, and I did the only thing I could do. I picked up a boob in each hand and sat down in the seat. He did a double take and busted out laughing. I didn't know for sure that you could actually make an African American blush, but you evidently can. Sufficed to say, The Girls fit without incident, and we were off and running!

Let's see...Spider Man was a favorite. It's a 3-D coaster experience. The Hulk coaster was awesome. Steve disagreed. He said that he may or may not be able to reproduce again after riding it. I told him no worries since I don't want anymore shorties, and then asked if he'd take me riding again. (no) :-) We also liked some of the shows. We missed most of the water rides since it started storming in the afternoon, and we had to go back to the hotel for a nap (sleep is never a reason for disappointment). It was a good day.

Tonight, we were lazy and ate in the hotel. This was one of the best meals of the entire trip, and the most inexpensive. (figures) We had an antipasta plate (salami, pepperoni, calamata and feta olives, mozzarella, tomatoes, en salat. YUMMY! We also had a pizza with fresh sliced tomato and mozzarella made on site. It was fabulous. Spicy and cheesy. It was so big we ate half, then gave the other half to a family sitting next to us. Then, to top that off, we split caramel gelatto with fudge sauce, caramel, and pecans. Hallelujah. Amen.

While we were eating, we were serenaded by tenors tearing up some opera selections. They sang from a balcony that overlooked the piazza. It was really amazing.

So, this has been an incredible trip, however, I'm bad ready to come home. I want to see my babies, my mother, the dog, my own bed. It's been fun to be away and hear amazing preaching, vote on important issues, eat great food, ride big rides, swim, sun, etc., but I want to come home to my little house in the country surrounded by the best friends and family in the whole world! I AM SO BLESSED!

Universal Part One

We went to the convention until around lunchtime, then checked out and headed on. The best part of being a travel agent for my living is the TRAVEL! We booked a look-and-see (on our own dollars!) to come to Universal. I'm personally a Mouse Girl. We LOVE Disney World, and I'm a specialist in traveling to Disney (so, consider this entire post an infomercial). I adore everything about it. But we  haven't ever set foot in Universal, so I thought since Steve and I are down here alone sans shorties, we could check it out more thoroughly. (yeah, that's the ticket.)

This is the nicest hotel ever. The Peabody was spectacular. This is Double Plus Spectacular. We are staying in the Loew's Portofino, which is the Italian-themed hotel of three available on site at Universal (Hard Rock and the Polynesian Pacific Royal). The biggest perk to staying on site is the Express Ride feature. You show your room key and you're at the beginning of the line. And that is so awesome I don't know how to express it. We saw all of Universal Studios in five hours. There are two parks, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. We have seen Universal Studios, and we are going to Islands of Adventure tomorrow. :-) Super fast. You can purchase the express pass, but it's expensive if you aren't on site.

Everything is spiffy here. We rode in a water taxi from the hotel to the parks, which is number one. The transportation shut down when the lightening and thunder started, so we started walking back. We spotted some rickshaws (no, I'm not joking), and since the sweat was rolling off of both of us, we decide to pay the tip (no fee). I felt sort of bad up this one particular hill since this man was pulling like 500  lbs (close enough). I'm telling you that he's totally ready for the Iron Man completion tonight. No one does cardio like that guy. It was amazing.

Your kids need to be 10 years old before you purchase tickets to Universal. Everything we rode was on the NO list for the Shorties. No way. Too scary. I'd have Carter Johnson sleeping on top of me for the next six months. I think not. Today we did Jimmy Neutron and Terminator and Twister  and The Mummy (loved it!). Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm a coaster girl. I love it! Today I met my match. The Rip Ride RockIt. How bad was it? One of the attendants who kept talking to me (Steve said he kept flirting with me, which can't be true unless he's into overweight mom-types), gave us free return passes to the ride (it's so new that you can't Express Pass it--everyone waits.) Well, he gave us express passes to ride again right away (yeah, okay, so maybe he was flirting a little). It was so terrifying that we gave the passes away, because I'm not getting back on that thing again. Never. Not in this lifetime. No way. Help yourself.

(because we always take this photo if there is a phone in the bathroom. Call it a Johnson Artistic Expression.) I'm sure there is more to come!