Zombies, fruit snacks, and sadomasochism.

Last weekend was Kyler's birthday party.  We were invited to go on a tour of the Cowboy's stadium with the Strawinians that Saturday, and since everyone planned on leaving early, we left as soon I got off work on Friday.  Friday evening was spent playing football at Trista's house (Jason's sister) and watching Emily display her skills in Tae Kwan Do and her ability to put her entire fist in her mouth.  That one I must admit was my fault...I told her about Sarah and her pride in that ability, even though we all told her it isn't something to be proud of.  So of course Emily had to try it.

When it got too dark to see the football, even with the porch light on, we went inside and watched more football, until everyone got hungry.  They eat dinner much later than we do, by the by.  Then we drove out to New York Hill for dinner, where Trista and her dad (Frank) proceeded to quote the Gettysburg Address.  Trista also demonstrated that she has memorized all the states in alphabetical order.
From the kids' table, I heard Keaton say "Do you know the states in alphabetical order? My mom does."  It's good to hear that Nerddom is still valued!

On a side note, I was subbing a third grade class, and got a note from a mother, saying that she did not make her daughter write a sentence using her spelling word "its" because she (the mom) didn't think it was a word, and it should be "it's".  They were doing homophones.  Its and it's were both on the list, as were hole and whole, their and there, etc.  It made me die inside a little bit.

So we stayed that night at the Strawn compound.  Jason, Mandy, their daughters, her parents, and her sister are all living there, plus us.  It was quite the party.  Mandy's parents are the most wonderful, welcoming people.  We are truly blessed to have been brought into such a lovely family.  The next morning everyone woke up and watched sponge bob while eating their biscuits and bacon, and we loaded up in the Tahoe and made it out of the house only a few minutes behind schedule.
A couple hours later, we rolled up at the Cowboys stadium.  Now I'm not really into football, but it was an impressive building.  The ceiling opens up and the side walls are giant sliding doors, that if opened one at a time would create such a great change in pressure that all the windows in the place would shatter.  Of all the things we saw, that was the one I remembered...sometimes I wonder about my memory.  Anyway, after the tour, we went to Dave and Busters and played enough arcade games for Jesse to buy a little Zombie whose brains pop out when you squeeze him and who is now the Tahoe mascot.  After that we drove another 30 miles or so to go to Main Event, where everyone bowled a game, played Laser Tag (our team lost.  We definitely had inexperience on our side) and more arcade games.  The last stop was at a store alot like Cabela's but the name of which has escaped my memory.  They have a giant fish tank that you can walk around behind and see the fish like you're underground...you know, like at the zoo.  It was pretty sweet.  I didn't do much sight seeing there, because I was wandering around the gift shop on the phone with Courtney, which honestly was more interesting to me.  After a quick (ish) stop at Jack in the Box, we finally turned homeward sometime after 10, and decided to stay another night in Strawn, because Jesse was exhausted.  I slept most of the way home, but I was happy to go to bed as well.
Anyway, we ended up going to Strawn for a birthday party and staying for three days.  It was long, and it's always stressful for me to not be home and following my own routine, but it was a very good weekend, and it was good to spend time with the family.  I'm starting to feel more at home there, and that makes me happy.
The next week passed without anything remarkable happening.  We made a trip to Abilene on Saturday and finally got my name changed at the bank, and then on Sunday we went turtle shooting.  There's a guy here at

church who has the biggest tanks in town, and he stocks them with catfish that he loves.  Unfortunately, when the other tanks dry up, all the turtles go to his, and they eat the baby catfish, so he shoots the turtles to keep them away from his fish.  He says they're predators.  Ever since he told Jesse about it, they've been planning to make time for us to go out there and shoot turtles.  It's been hard because his wife had a stroke at the beginning of the summer, and can't get around too well, so they've moved into town and don't go out to the ranch often.  But he told us while we were at the potluck after church that they were planning on going out after lunch.  The nurse from North was sitting next to us, and said "shooting turtles! That leads to child abuse, you know!"  And everyone started laughing.  Apparently years ago she was chaperoning a youth group trip, and ended up giving a 30 minute speech on the dangers of basically everything, and predicting that they would all grow up to be mass murderers and sadomasochists.  She's never lived it down, but it doesn't seem that she's trying very hard to do so.
John has a beautiful ranch about 20 miles out of town.  It has trees!  I've missed trees.  They do exist around here, but there aren't many here, close to town.  It was beautiful.  I'm not much of a turtle shot, but it was good fun anyway.  He drove us around the property, and told us that if we ever want to come back to just text or call him so he knows, but he doesn't need to be there.  He's planning on putting a lock on the gate, but he said he'll give us the combination.  People have all been so nice.  He told us that they just want us to feel at home, and to feel that we have people that we can go to if we need anything.  They seem like a very sweet old couple, and I'm glad that we're getting to know them a little, although I'm pretty sure everyone is going to be heartbroken when we move to Strawn, which is the plan for the near-ish future.  A year or so, hopefully.  But that's just the nature of moving across the country, I guess.  You land wherever you land, and then it takes time to figure out where you actually want to be.
I have no smooth transition here, so thankfully I'm not getting graded on this.  My transitions were always the harshest criticized parts of my academic writing.

I attempted to make my own fruit snacks today.  They were super easy, but turned out a little spongey.  From what I've read, that's what happens when you add the gelatin without letting the fruit cool down enough, but they still taste good, and have to be better for you than the ones that I've been buying (only four ingredients, they use honey, so there's no sugar) so I'll have to get some more gelatin and try it again.  Although this time I do believe I'll buy the organic kind from amazon.  Apparently the Knox

brand doesn't have all the wonderful nutritional benefits that organic gelatin has.  Of course, I'm not totally worried about being healthy (I was eating starbursts and BBQ chips for my lunch as I made the fruit snacks), but it's cheaper to buy it in bulk anyway, and I've read that if you add it to your shampoo, it makes your hair super thick and wonderful.  I've been reading alot.  Nerding out.  You know how it goes.

And that's about it.  I'm off to go make some chicken nuggets for dinner.  Two new recipes in one day!  So exciting!