Pearl Harbor with Mimi

Board-Game by Candle Light

~RM

The Sad, Sad State of Modern Man

Last night, horror of all horrors, our electricity went out. At the time I was on the computer browsing http://thepioneerwoman.com/, and my siblings were upstairs with their guests playing on the Wii. Dad, Mom, and Bear were at the NEX. I was just enjoying a cookie and a good post when all the lights went out. Naturally I yelled "Hey!! I'm still down here! ... Abi? Isaac?" They were yelling angrily about their Wii game being interrupted. And then realization dawned. Power outage. I noticed I was the oldest one here; I needed to take charge and lead the search for a flashlight! No, our family is not prepared for times like these and flashlights are scattered randomly around the house. My first act as OAL (oldest available Lopez) was to tell everyone to calm down, "Let's all just take a deep breath and find a-AH!" My brother had found a flashlight. And was shining it in my face. "Oh, nicely done Isaac." The next 10-15 minutes were spent milling about in a tightly packed group looking for more instruments of light. I heard the questions: "Where's Mom and Dad?" "Micaiah, where's Mr. and Mrs. Lopez?" "Ah! where's Riley?!(our dog)" over and over again. "Mom, Dad and Bear went on a walk. Riley's probably still asleep downstairs on his bed unless our ruckus has woken him up." "When's Mom and Dad going to get back?!" Oh yeah! My cell phone still works, right? Right. Haha! I called my parents as they were coming around the corner to our house. My dad answered with, "Hey, it sounds dark there..." "You're standing right outside aren't you?" "Yes." "See you in a minute." No, I didn't catch the whole sounds dark....I was distracted.... Soon we had at least twenty candles burning, the kids were outside running around and I was sitting on the back porch with my parents. My Mom and Dad were discussing plans for the next couple of weeks when my grandma is in town. I was thinking of all the things I could be doing right now. Like browsing Pioneer Woman posts on the computer, reading Gulliver's Travels for Omnibus, watching a movie, eating popcorn, sewing, drawing, writing....the list goes on and on. Then my Dad interrupted my grumbling, "You know what we could do? We could grab the laptop and watch the chase scene of the Bourne Identity. The only problem with that is the Bourne Identity is stuck in the DVD player." "It's ok Dad, it was a good idea .... Why don't you and Mom just reenact it for me?" Mom laughs. Silence. "You could plug the battery thing into the van, plug the DVD player into that, eject the DVD, and then watch the chase scene of the Bourne Identity." "It's ok, really Dad. If you want me to see it that bad you go ahead and do that." Mom laughs again. Silence...again. "No, I just needed to know that there was a solution." "Ok." It sucks how much we depend on electricity. I had to suffer the night away with no central cooling! Do you know what that does to me?! I was not able to snuggle under my comforter for fear of suffocation. I know how spoiled that sounds, but I am a central cooling kinda gal. There was a really loud dog yapping right outside my open window. I don't do well with headaches at around 11 pm. Good thing there wasn't a heavy missile-type object lying around my room or that dog would be the one with the headache. But! Everything is good now! Our electricity decided to come back around midnight. I woke up with my windows closed, my fan on high and my bare feet frozen. Central cooling, don't you ever leave me again!
~RM

The Event of Which We Do Not Speak (But I AM Kinda Excited)

You all would be so proud of me if you knew how much junk I cleared out of my room this past week. That is, if you knew how much junk was in my room in the first place...Well, anyways, I have been cleaning and organizing my room before the 'event of which we do not speak' happens. Our move to Germany. I am sorry my Hawaii friends, I know I promised I would not speak of it, but it is going to happen sooner or later and I have to blog about it sometime. If you are one of the two people who do not want to hear me talk about 'the event' stop reading now.....
I'm actually quite excited about moving to Europe. Just not excited about leaving people, again, to travel halfway across the globe, again. I make it sound like we've done it loads of times, but it's only our second move with the Army. Oh the places we'll go! Rome, Paris, Luxemburg, the list goes on forever! I'm learning French! Wait? You're moving to Germany, wouldn't you be learning German? You wouldn't believe how many times I've been asked that. My answer: FRENCH IS JUST PRETTIER! So there! We are going to be stationed at Baumholder (say: bomb-holder :D) which is about 3-4 hours away from the French border. So many things to do before the move though. I've got my room cleaned, check that off my list. Things still to come: packing, garage sale, Mimi's visit!, getting tickets, movers, oh yeah, and finishing our first semester of school. All before December. Busy? Nawwww, us? Yes, but it's an exciting busy!

~RM

Being Wet and Wild

Well, not exactly WILD, but we all did get quite wet. Dad had a day off, so our morning was spent at:THE WATER PARK!! The water park that my brother has been dying to take us to since he went with his friend. It was a buy one ticket, get one ticket free deal. Otherwise we would not have gone. :) We rode slides.We swam around in the wave pool.Which isn't looking all that 'wavy' (wavy? yes, wavy.) at the moment because this was during the 15 minute break so everyone could catch their breath and find their shorts that had somehow slipped off during the excitement .... We attempted to cross the pool on large floating things.Abi crossing on the very fake-looking, buoyant log.
Sometimes I begin to think that being able to balance on one foot for extended periods of time might actually be helpful.
And...Isaac's attempt (which failed) to cross the fake, floating log. He doesn't share my talents.
We had a blast running (excuse me, walking...) around Wet and Wild, but now that I've showered and am busy helping my Mom prepare for guests ('cause that's what I'm doing right now, not typing up a blog post...) I realize that I am very tired...and sunburned....I never seem to remember to reapply often enough.
~RM