Shooting the Breeze, Polluting IPs: Spring Break

I haven't updated this guy in about a month. Sorry! Here's a synopsis of my week. You can't have anything from the 3 weeks I skipped though...they will be lost forever!

*For those of you wanting the condensed version, I'll save you some reading and say that I worked, sat around, and saw an awesome concert. The end. Read on for detail.

I left Ames with the Lopez brothers in tow on Friday evening as we embarked for the sunny beaches of Pella, Iowa! While the sun was shining on Lake Red Rock, I was disappointed to see it was still mostly frozen (even though the ice is a great place to see some bald eagles--I saw 9 of our feathered friends on my trip across the dam).

I arrived home to find the house abnormally quiet. You see, there are normally as many as 8 people living in our humble abode, depending on whether or not my 2 sisters and I are around. I arrived to find that everyone but my dad and sista Jenna were gone for the weekend. The weekend consisted mostly of doing very little and falling asleep on the couch before midnight, with SNL reruns playing. I worked Sunday night at Smokey Row, too.

Monday and Tuesday were uninteresting, other than this is mostly when I got to see my my little half-siblings Kate and Adrian (aged 2 and 9 months, respectively). Kate is a goofy little munchkin with a motor that never stops. Every time I see her I'm blown away by how stinkin smart she is. She moved into the 3-4 year old room at daycare on her 2nd birthday, and she apparently has a better grasp of shapes/numbers/letters than a lot of preschoolers there do. I was also informed that she correctly used the term "faceplant" at daycare when she fell down and bonked her head. Not sure where she picked that one up, but she got a high-five for it! Adrian crawls all over the place, and is starting to venture to pull himself up on things like the sofa and carefully walk along it. I don't talk to him much though, because he's afraid of me. It must be the mustache...

Wednesday night me, Andrew, Taylor, Kory, and Wes piled into my car and drove to Omaha to see Copeland's farewell tour with I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody's Business, Person L, and Deas Veil. We met Ace Enders from I Can Make a Mess/The Early November outside the venue beforehand and talked to him a bit. Sweet dude. The concert was incredible. I've seen Copeland three times in the last 8 months and I am impressed every time. They are SO GOOD live. I'm pretty bummed that I won't get to see them again, but this show was a good one to go out on. Aaron Marsh held the last note in "You Have My Attention" for like 64 counts, no joke! Pice.

The concert got over a little after midnight. We hung around a little bit so Wes and Andrew could get a picture with Kenny from Person L/The Starting Line, and after a stop for Taco Bell and a brief tour around Council Bluffs following a missed turn, we were on our way back to Pella at around 1:15am. Unfortunately my car is a manual, and I was the only one who knew how to drive it, so it was up to me to get us home in one piece. We arrived back to foggy Pella at about 4am, so I was able to grab 2 quick hours of sleep before waking up for work. I worked my 8 hour shift before going to Oskaloosa to work with my cousin on the new hospice being built there (he works for the contractor that is building it). We put in four hours of cleaning the deck and windows, and putting screens on all the windows. When I got back to Pella after 12 hours of manual labor on 2 hours of sleep, I was ready for bed.

The next few days were filled with more Smokey Row hours. Everyone but my dad and I left again for the weekend, so we spent some quality time shingling the roof of our new garage addition that we are building ourselves. I feel manlier every time I go home, as I can now add roofing, framing, and concrete pouring to my list of know-how's thanks to this addition.

MOVIE UPDATE!

Over break I saw: About a Boy (decent until the end), The Interpreter (nothing special), Alice in Wonderland (a bit disappointing), Absolute Power (Clint Eastwood is a BAMF), and Elmo's World (kiddos love it).

Out this week: Chloe