We had a fun Easter weekend this past few days. We started off on Saturday with an Easter egg hunt at which Becky found two (of only ten!) special eggs with redeemable prizes inside (she scored her parents some gift certificates to Port of Subs and Baskin-Robbins!). Her aunt Bonny also won a 77-piece easter puzzle. We then had a nice brunch at IHOP. Here's a photo of Becky with two eggs that she found all by herself:



Becky likes to help her mom fold laundry these days by sitting in the basket and pulling all the folded clothes back out. It's very cute (click here for photos). On Saturday, we also helped the Nord's with their backyard project, but since the sun was shining so bright (and hot), we were afraid that Becky's little head would get sunburned, so we soaked a dish towel in cool water and tied it on top of her head. Gene made the comment that she looked like Lawrence of Arabia, to which Misti promptly replied that she was more accurately "Lawrence of A-baby-a". It was hilarious! Later, we watched "Zoolander" at Gene's house after ravaneously consuming some dinner from Pizza Plus (pizza, mild wings, fries and veggies w/ ranch, and A&W root beer). Easter Sunday was spent at a wonderful church service with some excellent talks, and later at my parents' home with a scrumpious ham dinner.

I recently bought a Neopets Scorchio at Limited Too in the mall. Orange juice is the best. We (me, mostly) drink about 2 quarts a day. We went into the Speakeasy Casino the other night to try and have dinner (we scored a 2-for-1 coupon from the back of a KBUL bumper sticker), but not only is the restaurant closed on Monday nights, but they can't spell either:

In the past few days, we've done lots of varied things: Misti bought some insoles at Good Feet; we watched the videos "The Princess Diaries" (Julie Andrews, Mandy Moore), "Deep Impact" (Morgan Freeman, Robert Duvall), and "Superman" (Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder); Becky is almost walking now (she takes 5 or 6 steps in a row), Becky also has two really cute bottom teeth now (it's almost impossible to get a photo, but I'm trying); Misti determined that the Lindsay Pagano song from the AOL commercial ("Everything U R" [All I need..., repeated 470 times]) is better in the commercial than in real life because the rest of the phrase is kinda goofy (i.e., All I need is everything you are...). We also got the newest Eiffel 65 album "Contact", which is near impossible to find, by the way. Nobody at The Wherehouse knew anything about it, and not only did they not have it, but neither did Borders, Wal*Mart, nor Target. Finally Sam Goody pulled through for us. It's a pretty great album.

Becky is hilarious at night, because sometimes the only way she can get to sleep is by scratching my goatee. I guess it takes her mind off of whatever is keeping her from sleeping, but is probably just a reassurance that I'm near. It's cute. We ate at El Pollo Loco again (as we do from time to time), and I've finally decided that I really don't like anything on their menu too much. Misti likes their huge chicken tostada salads, but I have yet to find anything really good there. Their burritos are just plain yucky. Taco Bell's new Club Chulupa (or Chub Culupa as I've been known to call it), on the other hand, is definitely worth eating. Mmmmm.   =)

Speaking of mmmmm, Misti makes a mean peach crisp. We bought another video for Becky, called "Baby Mozart", but it's not as good as the other one we started with ("Baby Bach"). I got a new toothbrush, the Oral-B CrossAction brush (#53, soft 60 full). Misti bought me a snack pack/gift box from Dan the Sausageman. It comes in a little metal lunchbox with smoked Chedder cheese, summer sausage, canned salmon, stone crackers, sweet mustard, and chocolate truffles. Misti also attended a Pampered Chef party, and we stopped by Treasured Memories to see what they have in stock.

Well, yesterday I had one of the [almost] famous "boxed lunches" from Jason's Deli. It was quite tasty. I'd like to take this moment to thank the agency that purchased the lunch for me: Economic Opportunity Board of Clark County. (I flew down to Vegas in the morning for a 6-hr meeting, and then flew right back.) Actually, a couple of interesting things happened in the airport, now that I think about it. Firstly, my colleague and I noticed a suspicious bag that was left unattended (but we didn't want to say anything for fear they'd evacuate the airport and cancel our flight), and secondly, I tried a wonderful BBQ burger thing at Burger King (I can't remember the exact name of it), but it was only $1.79 as opposed to all the regular-type burgers around three dollars. Oooh, it was tasty. Mmmmm.

I also had the time to read some interesting articles in the Southwest Spirit Magazine about new drugs to treat Parkinson's disease, Thomas Kindade, Wendie Malick and her horses, and the new Mazda RX-8 (with the Wankel rotary engine). Also had a rather tough time finding the Spam^TM at the "Find-the-Spam" website.

Well, today wasn't such a good day for Misti, as we just got her back from urgent care for a pretty good case of dehydration and strep throat (again!), but we're glad she's feeling better now. If she wants more said about the ordeal, I'll leave that up to her. I finished another audiobook yesterday, entitled "Smokescreen" by Dick Francis. It's a pretty good one, so I've decided to try some of his other mysteries as well.

Squishy really likes this video we got her, called "Baby Bach". When it's on, she can actually sit and watch TV for a ½ hour straight! She has also started imitating the chicken that's in the video. (Bach, bach, bach, bach...)   It's cute.   =)

Disney's "Black Cauldron" was so boring that I couldn't even sit through it, had to turn it off. Have read and enjoyed Brad's whole durian fruit saga. Becky tried her first Krispy Kreme doughnut yesterday. She didn't like it much... =(

Watched a History Channel video that I checked out from the mobile library, called "Celebrating the Green: The History of St. Patrick's Day". Misti hosted a scrapbooking party yesterday with Ronda, my "sister-in-law-in-law". Squishpot has two really sharp teeth now that have poked through. It can really hurt now if she bites you. Apparently the dye that they use to turn the Chicago River green each year for St. Patrick's Day is orange, not green. Go figure. By the way, the phrase "Erin Go Bragh!" means "Ireland Forever!"

I had a bowl of the absolutely best soup in the world today: Campbell's Chunky Baked Potato with Cheddar and Bacon Bits. You should definitely try it if you like a great soup.

Some recents videos we've watched: "Chisum" (John Wayne), "The Apartment" (Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray), and "Decoration Day" (James Garner, Larry Fishburne). I think I'm becoming a John Wayne fan. "The Apartment", however, pretty much sucked. "Decoration Day" was alright, but nothing special.

We also realised something bizarre: the music from the recent Subway commercial ("Clay Henry, Clay Henry; He got real big on burgers and fries, but thanks to Subway he's a smaller size...") is the same as the theme music in "Chisum". Weird.

Richard, Becky, and I picked up Bonny this morning and went to the 2002 Kerak Shrine Circus. It was a lot of fun! We saw elephants, bears, monkeys, sheep dogs, and little ponies perform - and, of course, clowns, flying trapeze performers from Peru, and a few other things. At the intermission, Bonny, Becky, and I rode an elephant and then Bonny rode a little pony at the end of the show. We then got our faces painted, too.



At one point in the show there was a lady in one of the rings who was a professional hula hooper. She did many tricks with her hula hoops. She started one at her ankle, brought it all the way up her body, and threw it off over her head without using her hands once. It was crazy! She also had about 6 going at the same time from her head to her ankles. And, while she was hula hooping, there was another gentleman and lady in one of the other rings doing a balancing act. There was a table with four champagne bottles on it with one chair on top of the bottles. The man got on top of the first chair and then the lady handed him three more chairs, one at a time, until all four were on top of each other and he was standing on top of all of them. He even did a handstand on them at one point. It was pretty amazing.



It was all very interesting and we had a great time! We were kind of bummed that they didn't have tigers or lions there, though, like they advertised. We were really looking forward to seeing those but they must have been kept back for a later show or something. We had a great day nonetheless.