The Never-Ending Birthday Week -or- Karenpalooza 2012 Part 1

Monday Day 1 - Nice leisurely trip to the gym to burn off some of the weekend after being hungover and sleeping almost all day Sunday.  While I was there, Trainer Brian was there and we caught up on things.  He looks like a Beatle now.  Hadn't seen him in months...hair's all grown out and he's rockin' an interesting mustache configuration.  Got home and cleaned up and Willie stopped by to give me some shit about something and brought up Dave & Buster's.  So we went.  And proceeded to get a bit of lunch and a little drunk and a lot excited over some pretty silly games....  Like, video lawn darts (my shit) and a Pirates game we fuckin' pwned through all 3 acts, and a Spaceballs game that was a big ticketer that was basically just a rubber ball version of Plinko from Price Is Right (also my shit).  We had some >3,000 tickets and went crazy snatching up cheap toys & candy from the winner's shop.
The next morning I would realize that I'd left my check card at the bar.

Tuesday Day 2 - The night before there were talks of waterpark action.  Aquatica or Typhoon Lagoon?  Typhoon won out because I used to work there and hadn't been since.  13yrs?  So we stopped by Dave & Buster's to grab my check card and cruised out to Typhoon.  After a quick stop by the bar, The Crush'n'Gusher made me dirty giggle and we grabbed a dual tube to jump on the Bananas slide first.  Got a workout up those stairs and jumped in to immediately start screaming down the slippery slopes and yell "SHIT" on turns when I thought we'd flip over.  Zippy bags full of cards were lost & found more than once.  Mayday Falls flipped me backwards.  Gangplank was shorter than I remember and still pretty lame.  Keelhaul was fun and I scraped my foot on the bottom of the Creek in the same spot Pannacakes pool attacked me from the weekend.  The water seemed low.  Terry made green crazy shots. They were tasty.
When I got home, Matthew and I were supposed to dance.  After another couple of jager shots, I ended up passing out in the car on the way to dance.
Being the Awesome he is, he went in to check out the situation (explaining that I was "not feeling well") for a solo dance with Instructor Brian's instructor lady friend, Lindsay but she was busy, so he rescheduled us and had a cider at the bar we frequent next to our dance studio.

Abbey

This is my 6 (almost 7) year old cousin, Abbey.
She's obviously a shit ton of fun, but for whatever reasons, we don't see her that often.
We saw her this past weekend, but I think the last time I saw her was in September?...when they stopped by to see our deck that her dad was working on.  Until I stopped to think about it, it really didn't seem like it had been that long.
That time, she came upstairs to my lair and started pokin' around.  She disappeared behind the closet curtain and reappeared with a fake plastic chainsaw and a huge grin.
She also saw this print that I have in the hallway, and when we were sitting downstairs chatting, she tells me, "I like that picture of the girl with the lollipops."

Anyway, back to this recent visit.
We got monster hugs before we could even put down the things we brought and then she ran off to show Matt her tennisballyellow shoes (he has a pair of these that he wore at her request).
After visiting for a bit, she disappeared and reappeared holding a box.
This box was full of game.
My eyes lit up after reading "Memory" on the lid.
Memory was one of my freakin' favorites, too.  I even have a memory game on my ipad.
This Memory game took up the entire table.
Everyone said I would lose.  They said that she stacks them up and you get either one match or none.
I think I racked up a whopping 7, maybe 8 matches.
Abbey's a little shifty though - you gotta watch her.  She doesn't like showing the 2nd card she flips and will put them back down in different spots.
I told her she should always say, "IN YOUR FACE!" when she wins whatever she's playing.
Later on & just after dinner, she sat on my lap and made up a game using the napkin rings that were on the table.  She was playing with my mom, sitting next to me, when mom said, "HA!  I win!" and I said, "Mom, what do you say when you win?"
Mom shouted, "IN YOUR FACE!"
Shortly after that Abbey won her made up napkin ring game and there was more shouting and then she looked at me with big blue eyes, giggled, farted* on my leg (three times, she'll tell you), and then hid under the table.

Later, from the living room, she grabs my hand and says, "Come here.  I want to show you something."  We go to the computer where she pulls up some Barbie Game page where one of the games is like a babysitting thing and there's a little girl you have to navigate through a Barbie Dream House with obstacles and the object is to get her to the toilet before she pisses herself.  Once she's on the toilet, she makes a face, you hear a noise, and when she gets off the toilet, you see yellow water and a floating turd get flushed.
Here - if you don't believe me, go ahead and see for yourself.

Abbey's coming over this weekend to go swimming.  I'm sure there will be more similarly entertaining stories to share.
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*farts are called "boom-boom"s in their house, apparently.  doesn't exactly roll off the tongue & "farts" is funner to say.

YouTubesday - hiimrawn

For all you Minecraft nerds out there:

YouTubesday

Hopefully this will get stuck in your head, too.

Mondays Suck

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this important message about a 4 day weekend in Toronto.

We flew out Thursday morning and when we got to the airport, Matthew was upset that the airport bar was closed - we settled for coffee & bought a bloody mary & a vodka/cran in flight.

Had a stop in Atlanta & grabbed a beer there.

When we got to Toronto, we hopped a cab to the hotel, checked in, got an upgrade, stopped for another beer & when we got to our room, this view welcomed us....

Steam Whistle was love at first taste.

Shortly after bliss, The Balls welcomed us with open arms.

They actually have the only good picture taken of us as we were leaving the hotel for Pier 4.

Where we were finally able to get Matthew some Jager, had a pint, and ordered some of the best fish'n'chips EVAR. Made with halibut.

Later on, we walked around Rogers Stadium and the CN tower and found a corner bar to get pissed in. We made right asses of ourselves....including Kim putting sour cream on my nose and me licking it off (talent)....which was, of course, immediately followed by a fellow bar patron asking for a repeat performance so he could take a picture (fame).

After we taught the bar staff how to make Washington Apple shots (notoriety)(they mistakenly forgot the apple schnapps), we left and found a dog walker in the park & got her dogs riled up and prevented her from moving on about her way.

This was followed by a slight & failed attempt at playing cards with a spiced rum/root beer nightcap.

This night ended in pass out.

We woke up on day 2, got our free breakfast that was included in our upgrade, and then met up with The Balls to walk down to St. Lawrence Market which looked like this:

If you're done rolling around in that delightfulness, we'll move on. If not, feel free to linger.....

Steve & Kim regaled us with tales of "peameal bacon" rolls....which is cured ham rolled around in a fine cornmeal, sliced, & usually grilled, then stuffed into a soft fresh baked roll. They'd waited a whole year to have a bacon roll from the market so we were there to witness their reunion.

We wandered around and Matthew found some samples of a bacon "jam" or spread that was paired with a soft cheese served on a small cracker. We have a jar sitting in our fridge currently. We also bought a bag of cheese curds to snack on while walking around.

There was so much wonderful foods to look at - I could seriously go on and on here, but will save you the reading.

Once we left heaven....we walked through a church garden and snapped some photos:

Steve was the squirrel whisperer.

LOVE this shot Matthew grabbed of prebloom tulips and a napping man on bench.

The only thing to do after this was visit a brewery and wander around Yonge square - similar to Times Sq.

Wish I knew who this dude was so we could tell him we have a badass crosswalk picture of him.

Later on, we went beer shopping for that evening when we were to be hangin' out with a local and eating pizza. Wandered through a LBCO and discovered how expensive it is to be a drunk in Canadia.

$13friggin' for a 6pack of Steam Whistle.

This night finished out with 2 quick rounds of Bastard* and a cranky boy.

After the cranky boy went to sleep, I picked up 4 tickets to the 4pm BlueJays/Tigers game for the following day.

Woke up on Day 3, revealed said surprise to a now noncranky boy, went and had upgrade package free breakfast (equipped with peameal bacon), and went to meet Steve at the pool for a swim & a hot tub soak.

We met a fella who was also attending the baseball games (I'd told Steve about the surprise tickets just minutes before) & we all commiserated about expensive beer.

Once dressed and ready to go, we hopped atop a double decker tour bus and rode about the city.

Casa Loma was used in XMen movies for the shots of Xavier's School for Freaks.

We got dropped off in Chinatown, wandered around there, passed a comic shop that had some characters out front for FCBD, stumbled across the Active Surplus store (so much randomness under one roof), and grabbed a bite at a pub before heading to Rogers for the ballgame.

This was the last photo we were able to squeeze out of the canon before the battery died (dumbass me forgot the charger).

At least it gives you an idea of our last minute score on tickets. The Tigers pitcher had an almost perfect game. Matthew was excited and kept trying to explain to Steve & Kim why that was such a big deal.

We walked back over to Pier 4 for more drinks, a cigar, appetizers, & then Matthew and I stopped at a shawarma joint for wraps. We met Steve & Kim back at theirs for another beer and a chat before crashing out.

The next morning, Day 4, the final day.....went down for free breakfast, packed, dropped our luggage & checked in for our flight home. Went on a boat ride around the harbour & grabbed some poutine and a few pints at an irish pub before buying our bus ride to the airport and heading out.....

I would show you pictures of this but the battery died, remember??

BUT I do have video to share as soon as that comes together.

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*I haven't been able to find a good rundown online about how to play by The Balls' rules....which leads me to believe they've made this game up.

Sunday Doodles

Favorite Green Bay Pics

Weekend without Matt

A couple weekends ago, things looked pretty much like this:




Camped out in the living room playing Lego Batman & playing with the camera & watching movies. It was great!

Been super busy during the week with work stuff, so the weekends have been just a little catlike.

This weekend, Matt was home, & we were slightly more productive.