Mother Goose, Rest in Peace

All right, let's see how much ya'll remember from your youth. Remember Miss Mary Mack? All dressed in black... with silver buttons, all down her back. She asked her mother for fifty cents to see the elephants jump over the fence. She jumped so high, she touched the sky. And she didn't come back 'til the fourth of July. THAT Miss Mary Mack. Remember? Tell me I'm not the only one.

What about Miss Susie? Do ya'll remember her?

Miss Susie had a steamboat
the steamboat had a bell
Miss Susie went to heaven
the steamboat went to
Hello operator
please give me number nine
and if you disconnect me
I'll kick you from behind
the 'frigerator there was a piece of glass
Miss Susie fell upon it
and broke her little
ask me no more questions
tell me no more lies
the boys are in the bathroom
playing with their
flies are in the city
the bees are in the park
the boys and girls are kissing
in the D - A - R - K, D - A - R - K, D - A - R - K
DARK!

And if anyone tried a "yo momma" comment on ya, you could just reply:

Yo momma, yo daddy, yo sista, yo granny
got a hole in her fanny like frankenstien
going "beep beep beep" down Sesame street. Oh yeah.

You just can't say those types of things to people anymore. I think we should bring these out of our past and start them up again now that we are adults. Is there a guy that won't stop asking you out no matter how much you tell him no? Whip out U G L Y, you can't got no alibi, you ugly yeah yeah, you ugly!

Say something the exact same time as someone else? It's not coincidence, it's jinx! You owe me a coke! The king of France, wet his pants, in front of the boogey dance, Yodel ay he hoo, Yodel ay he hoo, ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni ni, HUH!

I'm just saying. I think this would make the world a better place if we could all go back to the wonders of childhood ramblings. Those were the best anyway. You could write an award winning novel and it's not even going to compare to the little songs you made up when you were eight. It's the truth, man. It just is.

And chances are that even before we started making up all these little rhymes to say when jumping rope or clapping hands, our parents were making our cute little toddler butts spout off nursery rhymes. And we would, we would so totally spout this shit off like gospel. If grown ups even had the audacity to start talking about current events, we would interupt with the "Itsy bitsy spider" counter argument. And they would listen, because hey we were adorable saying it. Think about it. How easy it would be. Ya know? If you had a coworker that always took off early, you could be all "Hickordy Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock, the clock struck one and down he run, hickordy dickory dock." That makes total sense. Seriously.

Then there were the more advanced and multi-cultured kids that would take it a notch higher and start singing rhymes in other languages. You know what I'm talking about. There was always the "Frere Jacques" kid. Dormez vous?! Say this shit in english, geek! And he would, just to make the rest of us other kids feel dumb. Damn.

Life was much easier back then, I think. You could just ramble gibberish and people listened attentively, hanging on every word you said, because hey, you were cute! It's much harder now. If you say half this stuff, you'll have someone eyeing a straight jacket. Looney bin, here we come!

Ah well, it was good while it lasted.

MGM Studios and Animal Kingdom

Our next day included visiting MGM Studios and Animal Kingdom. You know what? I'll just go straight into the photos, because I have quite a few and give commentary there.

The infamous Tower of Terror and also the boys' first ride of the day. Being that I had a very painful sunburn, I was reluctant to go on any ride that put straps over my shoulders. So I passed on this one. The boys loved it. It remains one of Kade's favorite rides.

This is Kade's other favorite ride. It's the Rock 'n Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith. Again with the straps, so I couldn't go *sigh*. It is one of the only coasters in the park that goes upside down. (My favorite kind of ride, too.)

Ok this one was a ride anyone could ride, young and old. Basically they put you in these mine car-like structures. You ride through animatronic scenes of classic movies.

Mary Poppins. I should note that these are all robotic. They look real when you're going through. It's pretty neat.

This one is hard to see (if someone would lighten this one up, I'd be grateful, because it's a great picture). We went through a dark section, when suddenly there was acid dripping everywhere and electrical wires exposed. Suddenly there was Ripley with her gun. We were so focused on her that we didn't see the alien coming out RIGHT NEXT to Chris. He spun and snapped this picture. The alien was less than a foot away from him. We had the best seats on this thing. Scared the piss out of him.

I put this one up especially for Chuck. Casablanca for those who aren't sure.

Ok, after the movie tour, we checked our time schedules and literally ran all the way to the stunt show so we wouldn't miss it. We have video of this. When it is edited and sent to me, I'll put it up. The skill and accuracy that these drivers drive these specially made stunt cars is absolutely amazing.

Next we entered the Star Tours area. This held my second favorite ride. You all know how much I love Star Wars, so I was excited for this one.

This is inside the building, where people would normally wait to get on the ride. Fortunately for us, there was no wait at all. Which was strange, because the park was packed. We zipped through this area, while Chris wandered behind to snap these pics.

They put you in a cargo ship (if you're a SW fan, you probably know the kind of ship I mean, it's just too hard for me to explain it). Once inside, you sit down, strap in and much like Soarin', you watch a movie while your seats move around to simulate flying in space. It's amazing and so much fun.

After that, we rode a bus over to the Animal Kingdom. This is the Tree of Life. If you look closely, there are animals carved into the trunk of this tree. Underneath the tree is where we went to see "It's hard to be a bug" starring all the characters from A Bug's Life. Kade rode every coaster available with no fear. For some strange reason, this movie scared the living crap out of him, even though it's meant for a younger audience. It's in 3D and trust me when I say that it really does pop out of the screen at you. Not only that, but you get squirted with water and when the "cockroaches" leave, you feel something move under your butt. There was this one part where one of the characters said something about mice and I know I felt something at my feet, but I'll be darned if I was going to look down and find out.

After that, we went on a Safari Ride. They load you up in these buses, which take you around to these different animal exhibits. These exhibits are not enclosed. When I say that, I mean, were you to get out of the bus, you'd be right next to whatever animal was there, no fences in between.

This baby elephant was the cutest. He was trying to play with that log and lift it in the air. So adorable.

Let me note that white rhinos are extremely endangered. There are only about 4000 living today. We were next to five or six of them. Pretty amazing, huh? This guy in particular made us wary. He actually turned and started coming toward our bus. The reason Kade has this expression on his face was because the rhino literally came right up to him.

Let me also note that we were going at thirty miles an hour on a highly bumpy road at times. Chris was still able to get some pretty amazing shots, like this one. He's pretty good with that camera.

The male was a little camera shy, so Chris was only able to get the female lion. Still amazing and beautiful though, isn't she?

After the Safari, we were wiped out. We went back to our hotel to relax. The next two days, Kade and I spent time running amuck at the hotel, while Chris went to his conferences. (He was technically there for work, hehe.) All in all, we had a fabulous time. Expensive as all hell, but I seriously want to go back someday.

I'll try to get those videos soon. They're pretty cool to see. If ya'll ever get the chance to go to Disney World, you should. I thought that I'd be disappointed because I wasn't seeing this all with the eyes of a child, but I wasn't at all. It's kind of funny that this place still appeals to adults too.

This trip was 24 years in the making for me. Ever since I was four, my stepfather promised to take me there. Each year came and went with more promises and each year he blew the money on other things. I grew skeptical and stopped believing him. So when my Chris told me we were going, I thought for sure something would happen that would prevent us. I remained skeptical. Isn't it strange that it turned out that my own Prince Charming would be the one to take me to the most magical place on Earth? I think it's quite fitting.

Magic Kingdom and Epcot

After eight or nine more hours of driving, we finally made it to our hotel. I wanted the Fantasia suite, but they gave us Mighty Ducks instead. Oh well, it was nice too. Our hotel had two pools, a laundry room, a cafeteria, a gift shop and an arcade. We were hooked up, seriously. The first night, Chris wanted us to relax as much as possible, because the next two days were going to be huge. Kade and I didn't listen to reason and went swimming instead. I am very happy and proud to say that after a traumatic pool experience when Kade was a baby, he did very well in the water and had gotten over his phobia a bit. This is huge, since during his toddler years, I had to literally fight with him to even take a bath. He feared water that much. I think this fear is fading and I couldn't be more happy about that.

We woke up early to catch the bus to Magic Kingdom. There are six different Disney theme parks if you count the water park (which we had no intention of visiting.) Our plan was to hit two theme parks a day. So we didn't go to Downtown Disney or Typhoon Lagoon. We were more interested in going to the parks with rides.

After we got to Magic Kingdom, we had to wait at the gates until the park opened. A train came by with all the main Disney Characters, Mickey, Donald, Minnie etc. They sang a song to open up the park and we were in. This is literally the first thing you see...

Here's Kade checking the map for all the cool rides. Isn't lovely how he uses my butt to prop up his map? Nice.

Kade meets Walt Disney and Minnie. He got right up there and sat on the statue's lap. Cute.

Around noon, the Magic Kingdom castle opens up and they start Cinderella's coronation. She is crowned a princess. All the other princesses come as well.

Snow White and her Prince. (What is his name, anyway?)

Jasmine wit the Fairy Godmother to her side. Chris was so fixated on Jasmine that I don't even know if we have Aladdin pics. Jasmine is pretty hot though.

Belle and the Beast in human form.

Splash Mountain. I didn't go on this one. I was wearing jean capris, can we say "chafed"? There's no way I was going to get them wet and end up being sore later. The boys loved this ride.

There's so much to tell, but I got a lot more to go, so I'm condensing this a lot. After all the thrills of Magic Kingdom, we went to Epcot for lunch. At three. I was starving. At this point, I told the boys that whatever country we hit first, we were eating at. Luckily, we hit Mexico first.

I have to say that Epcot has my favorite ride of all. It's called Soarin'. Basically they put you in these seats. When the movie begins, the seats come up in the air. The movie screen is all around you and it feels like you are flying. It's amazing.

Stupid me forgot to sunblock my cleavage. Who thinks to put sunblock there? So after spending all day in the sun, I had sunburned boobies. I thought I'd be okay, but a few days later, Chris worried that it might have been a second degree burn. It was truly bad. All blistered and nasty. My poor boobies! Anyway, I'm better now. But the side effect of this mistake is that I am now peeling like crazy. Yuck.

After day one of Disney, we were exhausted. We pretty much went back to the hotel and crashed.

To Be Continued...

Oh one more thing. We took 180 pictures along with video while we were there. I have no intention of putting every single picture up. Besides most of them were of Kade hugging the characters. Those pictures will be up at Kade's journal, Carl, along with his journal entries for this trip.

Ari's Amazing Travels: North Carolina

It seems I've been missing for the past two weeks. Some of you may have noticed this. Some may not have. For the latter, kiss my butt, I missed you too. Heheh. So where have I been? Here, I'll give you a little hint...



But first things first. We started off by loading the car with everything you can possibly think of, even the dogs. Yes, they came, too. We drove round trip. Our first stop was North Carolina to visit with my mother for a few days. We drove to Kentucky, then Tennessee. So after driving through Nashville (where I had a mini panic attack, because I hate when drivers surround my car, especially on a highway), we made it to the border of North Carolina. This is the point where after almost twelve hours of driving, Chris was too tired to go on. So I took over driving at this point. Do you know what is at the North Carolina border? Mountains. Not just any mountains, the Smokey Mountains. And I got to drive through it. Needless to say, although breathtaking, by the time I was through the mountains, I was reduced to tears. That shit is scary. It doesn't help that people drive like maniacs. Imagine driving in an area where if you go a foot to the left, you fall down a mountain. Yeah, scary stuff.

Eventually (after 17 hours) we made it to Mom's house, where we were rewarded with a comfy bed and good food for a few days. She was adamant that we go to the beach. John drove us to Atlantic Beach, where Kade and I touched the ocean for the very first time. It was amazing. And really, really cold.

Kade watches the waves come in.

Hitchcock would've been proud. Birds, everywhere, birds.

Kade watches a parasailer glide through the water. It was at this point that we saw a fin in the water. Chris swears it was a shark fin, but I think it was a dolphin. Chris was quite the alarmist being that he is petrified of sharks. I fancy them quite a bit, though.

This is the pier. Now something quite interesting happened on the pier...

These guys caught a sting ray. They were fishing off the pier and caught a friggin' sting ray. Weird! Anyway, both were too afraid to touch it, so Chris shuffled it back into the ocean for them. Don't worry, the sting ray is okay after his little trip to the pier. We made sure he swam away safely.

I must note that it was far too cold to swim (for me anyway, but I did notice some brave parasailers out there). So we collected shells for the afternoon, before making our way to a local restaurant called The Sanitary Restaurant. Now when I saw the name of this place, my first thought was "That's so wrong!", but now that I think about it, maybe it's a good thing that they pride themselves on cleanliness. Afterall, we ate there. I told my mother not to order crab legs. I was trying to get through the meal without anyone ordering them, but no, she would not listen to me. So she and Kade wrestled over them, until she finally gave up and gave him some. I kid you not, the kid was trying to grab them off her plate Helen Keller style. And no, I did not just sit back and let him do this. I tried to get him to behave, but there were crab legs and there are times when parents can do everything and still have a willful child. This was one of them. When we left the restaurant, Kade's belly was sticking out over his pants. He ate so much. Darn child.

After a few days of rest and relaxation, we started the second leg of this trip.

To be continued...

Birthday Parties and Crab Leg Brawls

Yesterday was my Chris' birthday. It just so happens that it is also the birthday of C2 (Caitlyn), so on Saturday we drove down to St. Louis to be at her birthday party. The kids had a blast in this big jungle gym type contraption. I, on the other hand, was smitten. You see, Donna was babysitting for a friend. This baby... she's got to be one of the cutest babies in the whole wide world. I gave her sips of Mt. Dew and she became my best friend. We sat together in the baby ball pit and handed balls back and forth to each other. It's the little things like that that make life good.

Caitlyn was a doll, as usual. She's so quiet and reserved. I have pictures, folks.

There's the birthday girl!

Okay, here's the rundown in case you forgot. Starting from the left, that's K2 then C1, Josh, C2, B2 holding Nana (so cute!), then A2. K1 couldn't make it this time. But I don't want to leave her out, so I'll show you a picture that didn't develope right the last time we saw her:

This one didn't turn out right, but it's still one of my favorites, because those are some cool effects going on around her.

Anyway, we had loads of fun. Now given that St. Louis has a Red Lobster and Quincy doesn't, combined with the fact that it's Lobsterfest, we decided to go there for dinner. Kade didn't want to go, because we told him it was a seafood restaurant. The kid had a bad experience at a chinese restaurant once. He ate three platefuls of shrimp, made himself sick and now refuses to eat it. It was his own fault. I told him stop eating it. So Red Lobster wasn't the most ideal place for this kid.

Chris and I ordered him a salad and figured he'd be all right with that. And he was... that is, until he saw the half pound of king crab legs on my plate. Suddenly he reverted back to ... I don't even know. Let me put it this way, every few minutes, I had to throw a crab leg over lest he start a river with all his drooling. And the way he kept licking his lips every time I cracked one open? Well, I didn't even get to enjoy my food. I was afraid he'd take my arm off if I didn't snatch it back fast enough. So yeah, he ate all my crab legs. All of them. Half a pound. We're never taking him there again. That was embarrassing. And I didn't even get to suck the crab out of the shell all sexy like. What a killjoy.

To celebrate Chris' birthday, I decided he needed an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. So I called to him, "I'm going to the store to get some more Mt. Dew!"

"You're full of shit!" he called back.

Damn. Through the years, it's gotten harder and harder to think up excuses to go to the store on his birthday. He was on to us, this year. That's all right. The cake was still good.

So how was my weekend? Well, I sat in a ball pit with a baby who was seriously jonesing on my Mt. Dew, had to fight to get some crab legs -- I lost, couldn't surprise my husband and to top it off, I have to wash ALL the laundry in the house. ALL of it. Because we have to start packing for Disney World. I'd say it was a pretty good weekend.

Water Burners Unite

I am not above bettering myself. Not at all. It's just that when you are so darn near perfection, there's not a heck of a lot to better yourself with. (I wonder how many people take lines like that seriously.) There is one thing I can do, though. Learn to cook. I'm not talking about cooking normal meals. I want to cook fancy schmancy stuff.

So for the past few weeks, I've been trying my hardest. I made chicken cordon bleu perfectly. My second attempt at a roast had me putting the meat in a crock pot at seven-thirty in the morning, then forgetting it until my stomach started to rumble. Hey, wasn't I cooking something? Turns out, it was so tender, I had scoop it out of the crock pot with a spoon. Ok, so aesthetically, it might not have looked appetizing, but it was tender and tasted like heaven.

I always do that. I will put something on the stove and then get distracted and forget I'm cooking. And this, folks, is how I have burned water many times in the past. How do you burn water? You cook it until it evaporates and seriously ruins the pan. Water Burners Unite.

But that's ok. I'm still learning. I've successfully learned how to make chicken and dumplings. I haven't conquered spadogies yet, given that it's a family recipe that no one else knows how to make. And my family lives far away. I'll have to wait on that one. Besides, it gives Mom a good excuse to come visit. Are you listening, Mom?

One thing that I learned early on was Swedish Meatballs. It is the staple of our diet. Mainly because it's all my boys want to eat. When my son was in first grade, his teacher set about making a recipe book, including all the things the kids love to eat. She asked each of them how to make their favorite meals. I kept this recipe book, eventually, it's going in a hope chest to keep forever. So without further ado, here's some of the kids' responses when asked for recipes:


Turkey: Keenen

Put yellow round things (I think pineapple) in the turkey. Then cook it on the stove in a big baking pan for about 80 minutes and 8 seconds. Then save the grease for all the other cooking stuff. It's delicious!

Mac & Cheese: Cassidy

Boil the noodles for 7 hours. Then put the cheese in and stir, stir, stir. Leave them for awhile (like 6 hours) and don't stir. Then, you get to eat it!

Swedish Meatballs: Kade

You need a can of peas and you need some big balls (not toy balls but I don't know what they're made of). Cook them on the stove for I think 6 minutes. Eat them with a fork - they're just a little hot!

Gravy: Kira

My mom just gets it from out of a box! I love gravy from a box!

Noodles: Ezekiel

Get the bag from the top counter. Open it and put the noodles in a pan on the stove (the pan looks dirty but it's just burnt inside). Cook the noodles for a short time - like 4 minutes. Put the sauce in and squiggle the noodles around. Then, eat them with a fork!

Chicken Noodle Soup: Bria

Get the can from the store. Open it with a can opener. Pour it into a bowl and put it in the microwave for 10 seconds. I eat it with crackers when I have a cold.



And there you have it. Who knew you could cook a turkey in 88 minutes? Oh and 8 seconds. Can't forget that. You know honestly, if you ask me, I think all these kids are gonna be future water burners. I'm just saying. I'm glad I'm not alone.

That's So Wrong: Final Edition

All good things must come to an end. Unfortunately, this will be the last That's So Wrong. To tell you the truth, these type of entries take a lot of time. And then sometimes the pictures are in the wrong format or won't work for some strange reason, yadda yadda yadda. Nevermind the fact that VH1 stole my idea of providing commentary on funny things we see on the web. Grrr... Anyway, excuses aside, this will be the final blowout. Let the images load. It'll take time, longer than usual. But just let it happen. Feel the experience. Let it wash over you like a ... a... I have no idea what the heck I'm talking about. Let's get to it, k?

And this is where the phrase "stuck between a rock and a hard place" comes from.

Joey and Bill practice their synchronized falling skills. Who knows, one day, they might even make the Olympics.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!

We told Jenny that going down that slide on that sack would give her rug burns, but she just wouldn't listen.

I don't know what's worse: the fact that he has a cat's tail in his mouth or the fact that the cat looks like he's enjoying it. Purrr for me. Geeeroooooowl.

Doctors in Amsterdam have just discovered a new rare cat disease, where the cat's head resembles a fish bowl. Ok that was kind of lame, but you can't win 'em all.

Ain't this the friggin' truth!

The next series of photos fall under the "how to know when you've had too much to drink" theme.

Notice the buttcrack is devoid of hair. Owwie.

You dumbass.

Reminds me of me when I try to cook.

I think I had a date that went a little like this one time. I wonder if I ever let him out of there...

Frank wasn't sure, but he had a feeling his roommates didn't really like him all that much.

Ok, yes, haha funny. But seriously, I'd like to know where his roommates got all them feminine products. Suspiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicious!

Ya know, this is kind of taking patriotism a little too far.

The only Oprah makeover that didn't make the show.

Feng Shui gone wrong.

This is a recipe from Lorena Bobbitt's new cookbook entitled, "Never tell a woman she can't cook."

I'd love to see the look on a guy's face when he tries to pee in this urinal.

Video Links

Check out this blog for more funny pics!

Use Condoms.

Beer Game.

Funny cats.

Camel Toe Song.

Jon Stewart makes a funny.

This entry is dedicated to all the contributors: Celeste, Judith and Julie, Brandi, Jod(i), Chris and my Mom. Thanks to everyone that has ever contributed and thanks to all that have read. I appreciate it. Let's give a few heavy sighs and wave good-bye to That's So Wrong. Thanks, guys.