VACATION
This past weekend I took a few days off, including Sunday, and went to STL for a mini vacation. Here are some out of context highlights: (listed in no particular order)

1. Visiting my best friend Julie Bradley. You may recognize her name from the world renowned podcast: These People Are Crazy. We had a great time and the chance to hang out was by far the best part of the trip. Seriously, I have yet to meet a female that matches her great sense of humor and timing (much like my own). Probably the coolest girl i'll ever know. Same would be true for you if you met her. :)

2. The food. I had Talayna's (pizza), Remey's (great mediterranean) where i ordered something I couldn't pronounce (which is against life rule #17) and actually loved it. I also went to Village China Wok which is my favorite chinese buffet and unmatched in my current living area. Then there's the food that Julie cooked. Buffalo Chicken Dip - this may be the most manly nacho chip dip in the world. Carne Asada steak - I was amazed at how quickly this all came together with a premarinated steak and a george foreman grill. And pizza rolls - yes they still are awesome. Insert about 5 or 6 trips to starbucks and some movie theater candy and you can see that I ate well.

3. Fun with Dick and Jane. What a great movie. It's nice to see a comedy that doesn't just rely on dirty jokes and off color humor. A good mix of quirky, slapstick, and clever humor. I give it a 3 out of 5 TPACs (+1 bonus point for the robot noises).

4. Deven's inquisitive nature. When a young child gets to be about age 4, all conversations begin and end with questions. My favorite phrase of hers these days is, "are you trickin' me?" And of course my response more often than not was, "yes, I'm just trickin ya." Good thing she asked though...otherwise she would've just gone on believing that I'd actually gone to the moon. j/k Deven is Julie's daughter who turns the big 4 on Tuesday. Happy birthday!

5. Visiting friends. It was good to see everyone from HCC on Sunday and you all made me feel missed and loved. You are missed and loved in return. Oh and sorry if I didn't catch you in the short ammount of time I was there.

6. The fish smell. After a few minutes of warming up the george foreman grill for steaks, this horrific raw fish smell filled the kitchen. The story behind this is hilarious. Some time ago, Julie was going to cook some salmon on this grill. After the meat was on for a minute or so, she noticed that it smelled bad and decided to toss it out. In all of the commotion the grill was never wiped off...simply placed back in the cupbord. It was funny when Julie and I were in the kitchen waiting for the grill to get hot and looking at each other at the same time with a look of terror on our faces..."do you smell fish?" We washed it 3 times that night.

Many other things happened on this trip that made it all around a very fun vacation. All the libraries in all the world would not contain them if I were to write them out.

EDIT: I almost forgot to put that we watched Innerspace (Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, Meg Ryan). This is a childhood favorite and I can honestly say that I still adore this movie even in my wise old age. I give it 3 out of 5 TPACs (+1 bonus for still being funny despite being made in the 80s).