take that, bunny

after our rockin’ easter eggs last year, we were a little disappointed that the best egg kit we could find this year was star wars. luckily, we also found a build-a-bunny-house kit, so at least there would be some variety during dye time.

we prepared everything just so – perfectly filled glasses of colored water, a pile of stacked bunny-house lumber ready for construction… the one factor we forgot to consider: boys.

bill was over for the easter party and our new friend saxon came over with his art skills. saxon coincidently also came with us on friday night to a flashlight easter egg hunt. what we didn’t know was that everyone there was under the age of 7… okay fine, maybe we did know that…

meghan and i were diligently creating the cutest bunny house known to man (minus the freaky bunny with red eyes and a gun meghan pasted on the roof) while the boys were working away with the star wars stickers. then it started. c3po made his way over to the bunny house to visit. then he climbed on the roof and attacked. he was soon followed by the whole star wars cast in egg version. the horror was unbearable. meghan and i excused ourselves to make dinner (cry). we’d check in every so often to scenes like this:

hard-boiled mice climbing up the roof

c3po, r2d2 and yoda (red eyes added for effect) watching guard from the roof (notice the insane amounts of frosting used to glue things down. that would be the workings of my craftsman boyfriend. yoda’s not going anywhere)

darth vadar decapitating a bunny (it shames me to admit that this was actually my idea)

once again notice the gobs of frosting

and saxon eating a frosting filled hardboiled egg (it also shames me to admit that i dared him to eat it)

we took a break for dinner with some happy stuffed artichokes.

and what’s easter if it doesn’t end with a friendly (?) game of monopoly. it’s very worth noting that meghan kicked bill’s trash, even though monopoly is the “game that defines” him.

easter rocks

st patrick's favorite color was actually blue

it’s funny because green is my favorite color and at least 80% (probably an underestimate) of my wardrobe is green, but every year i wake up on march 17 and something inside of me says “let’s wear not green today.” maybe my subconscious likes getting pinched. anyway, i caught myself yesterday. i was wearing pink and brown (and running late i’ll have you know). but i took the extra three minutes to throw on a green shirt instead. no pinches for me.

i have no problem eating green foods on march 17 though. nor does meghan. that’s why we decided to have a green dinner. in high school, i knew a couple of girls who decided to go on a color diet. every day they decided a color and throughout that day, they could only eat foods that were that color. not sure either of them lost weight or got healthier, but i’m sure their urine was interesting on blue day.

here’s the makeup of our deelish spread:

green juice. threw your tastebuds right off because it was actually mango juice. take that tastebuds!

veggie chips (we had to pick out the green ones) with what had potential to be the best green salsa ever. it sadly wasn’t.

green rolls with mint-apple jelly. we had to get the jelly. it was so slime looking. maybe you think it sounds like a good flavor combination but sorry to burst your bubble – it’s not.



we had bamboo rice (who knew that existed??) with the normal green veggies. oh yeah, and green sauce. another tastebud shocker – it was teriyaki. and dreamy.

we made pistachio pudding for dessert, but our stomachs and tongues were plenty green by the time we finished dinner. it’s still sitting in the fridge. sad lonely pudding.

i bet meghan $20 she wouldn’t eat all of the green jelly. (at least we weren’t in public, mom)



the best part was, i ate dinner in pink and brown and meghan was in black and brown. we’re so festive.

i got jipped an hour on my birthday

i always assumed i was a supporter of daylights savings. i guess supporter’s not the right word. i just never cared enough to figure out why they (whoever “they” is) decide to give us an hour here and take an hour there. until this year. they stole an hour of my birthday away from me. jerks.

i made up for it though. well, other people made up for it. i was just along for the ride. that’s what birthdays are all about. it started off with a “surprise” trip to gold lake with the boy. it was a surprise because i wasn’t supposed to know where we were going, but i assumed i figured it out and he assumed that i assumed that i figured it out, so then he planted a bunch of misleading clues to make me think my guess was totally off-base. it worked. i thought we were going to the frozen dead guy days. and then we went to gold lake instead. and it was perfect. check it:

we almost got lost on a snowshoeing expedition. good thing i wasn’t wandering around by myself. sometimes i feel like christopher columbus – trying to reach india but ending up in america instead. is it funny that i never knew until just now that christopher columbus was arrested in spain? what kind of a history teacher did i have? (answer: one who made us watch casablanca all the time because he was obsessed with ingrid bergman) anyway, bill led us through the wilderness – wet butt and all (his snowshoes kept kicking up snow onto his pants. (i used that pair the last time we went and it did the same thing to me (that’s why i wore snowpants this time (i didn’t need them with the pair of shoes i was using.))))

we continued our day by ice skating (he skated. i more or less crawled) around on the lake in our bathrobes. it only made sense to be in our bathrobes because we went to the hot tubs after skating. duh.

then the massage. dennis massaged me. dennis looked like this. nuff said.

i can’t tell if my favorite part of my present was the gift or the wrapping. every time bill gives me a gift, he uses the exact same piece of wrapping paper. it never fits the box, but he carries that piece of paper around everywhere (don’t worry – he put it back in his suitcase after i opened my gift) just in case he needs to wrap something for me later on. my gift was awesome! an instant hot water spout. does he know me or what? he has one at his house and i spend hours turning it off and on. even if i don’t want tea, i’ll pour some just so i can use the instant hot water. it was probably one of those gifts that was more for him than for me – probably now his water bill will go down a bit.

we had full intention to get back by noon, per meghan’s demands, but because of somebody’s dumb decision to make daylight savings time on my birthday, we were an hour late (you do the math). but i made it home all the same to a houseful of streamers and a giant bag that screamed “birthday gift”.

inside that bag was a little thing i like to call a tickle me elmo. brilliant. i proudly admit – i got an original tickle me elmo back when you couldn’t find the thing anywhere. this is version 2.0 – he slaps his knee, rolls onto the floor…it’s hilarious. we probably played with him for a good hour or so. meghan rocks.

then meghan took me to a recorder concert. yes – recorders. as in 3rd grade music class recorders. there were hundreds of them – all different shapes and sizes. and some incredible people watching. poison ivy was even there.


and then meghan reminded me how old i am by shoving 26 candles in a piece of angel food cake. the cake was good except for every bite came with a surprise helping of wax. thanks, bug.



so all in all, it was one of the best birthdays yet! and i decided that the only fair thing is, since they took an hour away from my birthday, i should get it back when they add an hour next time our clocks change for daylights savings. so mark your calendars, i have an hour to celebrate my birthday on november 2.

all i need to know i learned in vegas

i spent the past week of my life in good ol’ vegas for a conference and some play time. i had never “done vegas” before. and probably don’t need to do it for another 25 years. i need to give it credit though. it was very fun to have the mom there for the first part of the week and the boy there for the last part of the week. we had an amazing place to stay – thanks kale! and got to do some amazing things – thanks bill! plus i definitely learned some things that i may not have learned otherwise.

1. las vegas is not veggie friendly. that’s such a funny phrase. it’s not like i was arrested for being vegetarian or anything, but maybe that would have been a nice alternative if the prisons have vegetable options. i figured one of the world-renowned buffets would have at least a salad, so on the one night that i was by myself, i went to one. now in case you haven’t seen a picture of me recently, i only have two arms, which means i could only cart back so many plates at a time. it’s not like i’m a huge pig, but you can’t very well mix your soup with your macaroni casserole or whatever it was, so you need multiple plates. plus, since i was alone, i didn’t dare leave my purse behind, so i had that in tow too. so i would go and get a bowl of soup and drop it off at my table and then go and get a salad and take it back…and my soup would be gone. and then i’d leave to get a roll…and then my salad would be gone.

now maybe (definitely) i’m just stupid to the ways of proper buffeting, but nobody told me the secret. so, everytime i got up, i’d strategically leave something behind – my chapstick, a piece of important-looking paper…so the waitstaff would get the idea that i wasn’t actually leaving. finally, my waitress came up to me and told me i had to leave my ticket on the table or else she’d keep taking my uneaten food. what a thrifty little system. she ended up taking my uneaten food anyway because the only thing i liked was the soup.

2. if this isn’t enough meat for you, try visiting bodies: the exhibition. very cool. plus i learned that women have more taste buds than men. i think that expands past food – think style, decorations, movies…

3. good taste includes giant pretzels from giant pretzel stands. especially ones where the employee actually shushes you when you ask her for mustard.

4. david copperfield is the only living magician to have his face on a postage stamp. cool.

5. if it weren’t for vegas, i may have never found out the bill’s secret aspiration of becoming a magician himself. after copperfield, he sold his soul for a couple of coin tricks and spent the entire weekend wowing our drivers, waiters, concierges… my favorite was when one of his coins dropped onto the restaurant floor and half the waitstaff came over armed with flashlights and knee pads to help find it. i didn’t help look. the visual from my seat was much more priceless.

6. bill doesn’t like roller coasters. period. i thought he was just kidding for awhile, but it turns out he was telling the truth. i finally believed him after forcing him to go on one and watching his face turn from green to ghost white to polka dots. that might be a dealbreaker if it wasn’t for his killer goatee:

7. i have elf ears. i already knew this (the doctor told my mom to tape my ears to my head when i was a baby). this picture is a reconfirmation though. my coworker says its endearing to have elfish ears. and then he sent me this picture and said this is what i look like. p.s. i really did look like this when i was 5.

8. if you get a chance to see any of the cirque du soliel shows, do it! we saw love and o. both amazing productions. plus it’s just a really good confidence booster to be able to sit in something semi-resembling a circus act and not want to pee your pants because of how scary the clowns are. although the contortionists in o were pretty…um…. interesting…

viva las vegas! only viva it without me – i’ll be in colorado eating veggies!