AVATAR ROCKS!!!!

I almost didn't see this movie, cuz people told me that Avatar was an alien Dances with Wolves. I hated that ending of that movie on so many levels, but I knew I wanted to see it if anything for the graphics so we went. But I was happily surprised. Avatar was very good and far surpassed my expectations. (Never fear!!! Quite literally these wolves can bite back.)

I loved the amazing imagination of this world. The animation was incredible!!!!!! (And I didn't even get to see it in 3-D - though I may have gotten vertigo on some of the flying scenes or at some of the cliff edges/tree limbs.) The "sex" scene is G (french kissing and some groping). One bad word - bitch. You do see people and blue guys die but not overly done or added gross factor.

Overall - Avatar is a solid A and if you can see it the theater you should. (Best gift card I've used yet this Christmas.) Definitely worth going to see!!!! Some of the comments from my FB friends was that it "restored their faith in Hollywood" and I totally agree. Good plot, great characters, amazing animation, and "not a totally sucky ending." (I don't want to ruin it so I'll leave it at that.)

7+ hour Kenny Chesney concert

We had a blast at the Kenny Chesney Concert on August 1st at Qwest Field. I think he set a record for attendance.

Barc and me hanging out waiting for the concert. She was quite the little trooper!! (country music is not her favorite.)

CJ, Meg and Me clowning around.

Meg and Me.

Sun City Carnival....

Brooks and Dunn were AWESOME!!!! I love those guys!

They did a good show and I really enjoy their music.

Lady Antebellum kicked off the 7 hour concert.

Nose Bleed Seats in Qwest Field!

But for $20 each it was worth it! It meant we got to enjoy a fabulous lunch at Cheesecake Factory and we could see just fine. We were in the shade and could dance around and have fun.

The only down side was the loooooooonggggg hike up the ramps to get to the 3rd level.

THAT was crazy!!!!

Kenny's Concert started just as the sun went down over the Sound. It was very pretty.

WOW!!!! Kenny Chesney puts on an AMAZING show. It was non-stop for over 2 hours. (We finally had to leave at 11pm to go home. I had a 2.5 hour drive home and Chris had to finish packing for his week long scout trip. Kenny was still going strong as we got on the interstate.) Like I said....WOW what a performer!!!

Withdrawals

It seems that I am suffering severe computer related withdrawals. It is very hard to carve time in my schedule right now to get on the internet and write. I keep meaning to and remember and such great ideas, while I'm in my car or at work or at a game...but can't do anything about it until I have time at home. (My poor Facebook account is very neglected as well.) Yes, I'm developing quite a serious case of "Internet Guilt." (kind of like a mild case of Catholic guilt, but more high tech.) Big sigh!!!!


I did do a little updating with my site. Pruned some blogs (sorry Bella) that haven't been posting in a while and added a couple of my new and old faves... still can't load one of my all time favorites... O'Malley's on the Web. He's way too "techy" for me and has some funky interface that won't let me link with him. Another sigh.... You just wait O'Malley! I'll get you and your little dog too.... (evil chess cackle wafting in the background)


I promise I'll have to tell you about a few of the Summer Solistice Full Moon craziness that have shown up recently. (There was a guy who was arrested for burglary / stolen car due to his distinctive and excessive colonge and another guy who was driving backwards the wrong way on the interstate for several miles laughing himself silly all the while. - I haven't seen him yet because he refused to get dressed and wouldn't come to court.) These are both stories that need to be highlighted. Oh and the funniest story I've experienced ever in court....it revolves around industrious indignant cops, ribbed condoms, illegal drugs and non industry approved containers. :) Totally cracks me up!!! That one needs it's own entry cuz it's just too darn funny!!!

I've also been getting a lot of funny, crazy phone calls as well this week. This isn't an example of those, but will give you a flavor of the my "normal" phone calls.
I usually answer the main phone line, "Superior Court Administration. This is Alice. How may I help you?"
On Friday, I had three calls right in a row that replied to me "Hi. Is this Nancy speaking?"
"No, this is Alice. May I help you?"
After the 3rd call in less than 4 minutes, my coworker turned to me stared in amazement and shook her head. I laughed. What can you do?



In my future blogs, I also want to make sure I share my experiences at the wonderful parish mission we had this past week. I learned so much about my faith and have been filled with a lot of peace. Thanks to Father Tony Judge and Father John Kuehner and the Redemptionist Order of priests, I was pleasantly surprised attending my first Catholic "holy roller" revival. It was very uplifting and I learned that one of my childhood goals was met.... (Hurray! one more thing to check off my bucket list.)

Well, now that I've left you some teasers and me some inspiration, I think I'll turn in.

Come Top the Rock

This Saturday is the 5k fun run/walk to save the Castle Rock Library. Several years ago the city couldn't afford to run the library any more so they had to authorize an operations levy every year to fund the library. (Last year, it failed to get the super majority vote by 7 votes.) The library has been running on donations (yes those little cans at the grocery store) since it ran out of money in February. This Saturday, the Friends of the Library are hosting a 5k Fun Run & Family Fitness Walk, called "I Topped the Rock". It starts at 10am Saturday (6/20) It will start at the Library and following the Riverfront Trail to the top of Castle Rock to get your commemorative wristband and then ending back in downtown for free food, music and awards. There is a Storybook Theme... Everybody is encouraged to dress as their favorite storybook character - with prizes being awarded to the best dressed in several age categories. There will also be live music from the Carl Wirkkala band (grew up in our house) and M's best friend's dad is the drummer. (They are actually quite good and Carl has been going to Nashville quite a bit in last couple years.) There is also a silent auction which includes a guided fishing trip for 4 on the Columbia River and a tandem skydiving trip - just to name a few prizes. The entry fees are $10 individual / $25 for family of 4. (2 adults / 2 kids) Check & money orders made payable to Friends of the Library - ITTR and sent to P.O. Box 638, Castle Rock WA 98611 or dropped off at Lacey Rah's Cafe OR.... The online registeration is powered by active.com go to: www.active.com/page/Event_Details.htm?event_id=1740376 For more info email is itoppedtherock@gmail.com or www.myspace.com/itoppedtherock WE ARE PLANNING ON DOING THIS, SO HOPEFULLY ANYONE ELSE WHO IS AVAILALBLE CAN GET OUT AND HAVE SOME FUN WITH US - AND HELP A GREAT CAUSE

Most Improved

Much to her surprise, M was voted "Most Improved Musician" at last night's Spring Concert. This is because she just started learning how to play the alto sax in October. She has gotten prettty good (proud mama talking) and I guess it was a landslide because she had a steep learning curve. Their band got a Superior plus in the 15 band competition last week.
Good job guys!!

Extreme Sheepherding

My brother sent this link to me and I thought it was really cool.
Now you know what those poor lonely sheepherders are really doing with all those sheep.

If my link doesn't work...
http://www.buzzfeed.com/lindseyweber/light-up-sheep-art-ru/

Do you feel lucky?

On Saturday, a bunch of my friends and I hired a bus to take all of us (nearly 30) to a casino "RedWinds" in Olympia for their "fabulous Saturday Nigth All You Can EAt Seafood Buffet". It was supposed to be a much bigger group, but an entire bus load of firefighters had to cancel on us after they had picked this date - some awards banquet / fundraiser they had to go to. Oh well, we'll see them in the Spring when we go back...so let me know if you're interested in hitting the "Seafood Express".

Speaking of the all you can eat buffet.....Wow! Some of our group can really pack away the king crab legs, lobster, prawns and prime rib!!!! Since I'm very allergic to shrimp I had to be relatively careful. So I had oysters on the half shell - which were not bad; the bacon-wrapped giant scallops - rather fishy but everyone else raved about them - but then again they WERE bacon wrapped scallops; I also had some fabulous lightly sauteed garlic asparagras (I went back for seconds); some good swordfish and a very nice piece of prime rib. The raspberry dark chocolate cake was also very good and the favorite of the group.

After we stuffed our faces to our heart's content and tummy's near discontent, we decided to walk around and see the sights. We meandered around for quite a while and watched other members of our group and cheered them on. I'm not much of a gambler. I work too hard for my money to just throw it away. (In fact, I haven't been in a casino in probably 15 years.) So I brought up about $30 to spend / lose. I was very happy to see that they had penny, nickel, quarter slots in addition to the dollar slots and the other traditional games of chance. I tried my hand at the nickel slots, but didn't know what I was doing (too conservative) and quickly lost $2 of my initial $3. Then I bought a $20 card and played around on the penny slots waiting until the bus was supposed to come at 10pm. I was doing pretty well, until someone convinced me to try one of their "favorite" penny machine that they had just won $90 and $80 on - different machines same game.... Within 20 minutes I lost $6 and told them I was done there.

So I went back to the game/ machine I had been playing. The lady to the left of me, won $606 dollars which was pretty exciting. The lady to the right of me won $40, so when she left I moved over to her game to kill the hour of so until the bus came at 10pm. What I like about it was that it took a lot longer for the winnings to show up (each little penny had to plunk into place) - thus prolonging my losing until the bus showed. (While playing this, I found out that the bus now was leaving at 11pm. I had a headache and wasn't too happy. All I could think was that while I'm in here -and the casino's jamming devices are not letting my cell phone work, something bad was going to happen to my kids and the headlines would read - "Children barely escape burning house while Mom gambles at casino".) Yes, I'm a little gun shy from C's carving knife as a can opener escapade the last time I went out for the evening.

Well, to make a long boring gambling story short and interesting.... I wasn't betting very much - remember I'm pretty conservative when it comes to this kind of stuff. However, I discovered that the best rate of return was to do 20 cent bets. But the gambling gods were not smiling on me.... I lost most of my money (only had 13cents)
until my luck turned. The clock hit the "magic hour" and the gods smiled upon me.

Yes, after 10pm I won $127.37 on this same little patriotic penny machine. Hurray!!!!
Now I'm glad we waited. I know that it's a total fluke and won't happen again, but it was a nice ending to story and I was glad, since it paid for my bus ticket, dinner and tips. And... I had money to buy pizza for the end of the season football party for C.

Broadway Hits

We went to a fabulous show last night and if you ever get the chance...It is well worth it. Make the effort and go see it!!!! The kids loved it. After the 2 1/2 hour show, C turns to me - give me a HUGE hug and says "Thanks Mom! That was awesome!!" M who loves Broadway show tunes also agreed. B who is my accomplished singer loved how amazingly the singers could project and other technical aspects. What show would inspire such excitement?....

We went to Neil Berg's 101 years of Broadway Hits. (He started it last year to celebrate Broadway's centennial, but it's so popular he came back.) Neil Berg is a Broadway producer and composer. (He did Prince & the Pauper, The Man who Would be King among others and is composing for the new show Grumpy Old Men which should come out next year.) I liked the fact that he introduced each song (there were over 40) and then gave a background about why this song, show, or composing team were so important.

He brought 5 real Broadway stars who have starred in at least 2 hits shows. (We had the female lead from Chicago and Grizabella in Cats who was nominated for a Tony for her work in It Ain't Nothing' But The Blues (Carter Conway). Rita Harvey was Christine in the Phantom for 5 years and is currently Hodel in the revival of Fiddler on the Roof. Danny Zolli (best known for his monumental number of performances as Jesus, Juda and Annas in more than 18 productions of Jesus Christ Superstar and has sung with The Three Tenors. Words fail to describe how amazing his performance of Jesus in the Garden of Gesthemene was. Wow! is all I can say!!! The two othe men were also incredible and not just because they were in my favorite musical of all time!! I in fact heard them both when they toured and performed Le Misrables. Charles Bergell (amazing baritone) performed Jean Valjean both on Broadway and during the National Tours. He was also Andre for the one of the national tours of Phantom of the Opera. The final singer was Erick Buckley who was the first person in the world to perform both roles of Marius and Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. He was Piangi in Phantom, Dave in the Full Monty and Roger in Grease! As you can tell this was an amazing cast of performers.

The show started out with Big Spender, and was followed by Send in the Clowns, He Had it Coming (one of C's faves), Nothing but a Dame, Tonight from Westside Story, This Nearly was Mine from South Pacific, Camelot's If Ever I Would Leave You, Over the Rainbow, a Judy Garland medley, If I Were a Rich Man and Far From the Home I Love from Fiddler on the Roof , Suddenly Seymour form Little Shop of Horrors, and many, many more. It was awesome! I loved the surprise ending!!!!! What an awesome idea!!! Go see it!!

Things I HATE!!!

Some of things I hate!
--------------------------------------------

Walking into a wet spot in the bathroom floor because someone didn't wipe up after a shower.

Mean people.

Gangsta Rap videos.

Rude people.

Walking into a wet spot while wearing socks!!!

Taking a dish out of the dishwasher to find that it's STILL dirty.

Incompetent people.

Finding a large pile of clean laundry on the floor next to the laundry basket.

Bird poop on windows.

Runs in brand new hose right before a big event.

People who badly micromanage

Oyster Stew

Total Drama Island

I just discovered the funniest show today while processing beans and plums for canning. Cartoon Network was running an "all-day" marathon of one of their shows. We don't usually watch Cartoon Network but somehow it caught our attention and we started watching it.

The show is called Total Drama Island and is a parody of the Survivor shows. It was really funny and well written. (PG-13 rating but a very mild PG-13) All of the shows build on each other because of the challenges and the teams competing with each other to 'stay on the island'. (The goal is to get a "marshmellow of immunity" so that you don't have to walk down the "dock of shame" and get on the "boat of losers" to leave the island ....and NEVER come back.) Some jokes and grudges carry from previous episodes. I now want to watch on Thursday when the "new" episode (both groups combine) comes out.

I probably won't get to, but will definitely keep my eye out for it.