Leak Friday

I don't normally feel the obligation to get my Christmas tree up on the day after Thanksgiving, but I decided it worked well for the kids to do this:

While we were dealing with this:

Good ol' leaking shower head behind the tile in our bathroom! We finally discovered the source of the water on Friday, even though judging by the water damage to our closet and Cindy's, it had  been leaking for a very long time :{  I guess my itch for a bathroom makeover is about to be scratched! It could have been so much worse- we are so thankful we can take care of this all on our own.  Tender mercies, yet again.  

Turkey Trot and 17 Pounds of Food

Another year, another Thanksgiving day where my crazy dad agreed to come with me to my morning 5K.  I am not sure why he continues to wake up so early on a Holiday just to watch me slowly run around Lake Wales. I guess the promise of an egg McMuffin is just that powerful.  This year we were sans Luke, who opted to go with Jacob to our ward's Turkey Bowl.  But like last year, it was cold! I didn't have to run with gloves and a hat, however, I was wearing a shirt which made me able to be seen from space, so hopefully the guys on the ISS had their sunglasses on.  

I stole my pictures from the official race Facebook page and I have to say these pictures accurately capture my racing technique.  

Beast mode for the first 20 minutes....

...Almost dead by the finish line.

My official age group results are below:  

Pam needs to calm down and act like a normal ancient 38 year old

I was thrilled with my run!  To be honest, I have not run that close to 26 flat in about 3 years.  I guess running twice a week in the dark all summer is finally paying off. 

And after all that hard work, it was time to head over to Chris and Molly's house to get the caloric disaster underway!  These pants weren't going to tighten themselves....

After consuming about 7 pounds of appetizers (you know, the food before the food?), it was time to "muscle through" our dinner.  Honestly, I didn't find it too hard, I mean, the food was pretty fantastic.  And we were eating off chargers, people!  We're so fancy. You already know.  

Kids table was pretty fancy as well!

Okay, some of us had a harder time "muscling through" the meal than others, *cough*ChrisandMolly*cough*, in fact, Chris, as usual, got the meat sweats.  

Don't cry for him Argentina, he recovered just fine :)

The rest of the night was spent living this meme over and over and over...

link

Thanksgiving is one of the best holidays around.  

Take time to think even more about how blessed you are?

Done.

Mrs. Sweeney, In the Living Room, With a Laptop

With Black Friday and Christmas fast approaching I have been scouring the Internet for good deals on presents for the kids.  The other day a great deal came up for the board game Clue.  I remember having that game as a kid and really liking it but I was not sure if Cindy would be interested in it if I bought it for her.  I casually asked her, "Hey, have you ever played the game Clue before?"  She looked confused and said, "I have never even heard of that game."  I was kind of shocked and said, "Really? You have never even heard of it?"  "Nope. What is it?"  I explained, "It's this game where you are trying to find out who killed someone, and in what room and with what weapon."  Cindy was now even more confused and looked at me kind of horrified and said, "This is game for kids about murder?" And then I was a little confused and slowly said, "Well,.......yeah......when you say it like that it sounds kinda....creepy...." But I still bought it anyway. Unless you are reading this, Cindy, in which case I most certainly did NOT buy that horrifying thing and I bought you "Great Female Inventors underwear" instead.

How You Know It's November

Piano lessons look like this:

Cindy starts growing her mustache:

We legitimately get to do this again:

(Have a fire, not endure Cindy's disdain for picture taking.  That knows no month, my friends.)

Luke gets another one of these:

(I mean the trophy, not the Hitler mustache.)

And best of all, we get to help with this:

Food drive 2014!  Weird donations yet again! Film at 11...

Blog Post of A Doting Mom

Cindy got a leettle taste of the glory this week when she was part of a small panel discussion that reviewed the latest Diary of A Wimpy Kid book, and then was consequently featured in a newspaper article. 

Schooling the boys

We all love the Wimpy Kid books here in Sweeneyville.  Personally, this latest book is not my favorite, but it is still entertaining and worth the read.  And for the record, I am not sure I was on the same family vacation Cindy mentions at the end of the article...

You like how I hacked that article all up into a million pieces and different sizes for you using the Google snipping tool? Don't hate for me this, but I really think it's time I took it to the next level with my ability to do things sufficiently, but incorrectly.  In fact...

 PDF converters are a lie, Stephen!

 

Boom Cat, She Killed Me a Rat

Yesterday morning when I went to feed the cats, I found this on the front porch mat:

(Out of respect, I gave him a filter.  But seriously, do you even SEE the size of that tail??!?!?)

Which made me wonder...

I'm Not Programmed For This

Our Primary program for sacrament meeting was this past Sunday.  I always get really nervous about it, but to be honest, it really isn't that big of a deal.  I mean, if your Primary kids can read, you can have a program with little to no practice.  This year everyone remembered their talks and only two kids had a moment of terror and bailed on me just before making it to the podium.  And bonus, we ended pretty much on time! Which makes me look like some sort of evil genius, but it's really the kids, the chorister, and my counselors behind the scenes who deserve all the credit.  Although, I have been thinking over the past few days of ways to make the program even better for next year. Watch out, Highlands Ward, I got some big plans...

TOP TEN CHANGES I AM MAKING TO THE PRIMARY PROGRAM NEXT YEAR

10. All songs will be selected from the hymnal, children's songbook and anything written by Boyz II Men
9.  Upgraded seating assignments for kids whose parent's send me cat videos
8.  15 minute intermission to allow everyone to eat a Dairy Queen Blizzard
7.  T-shirt cannon revamped to increase range all the way to the overflow
6.  My secretary will live tweet everything the Sunbeams are doing #myshoelacesaresnakes
5.  CTR 4's assigned 20 minute talks
4.  Live reenactment of Noah's ark will NOT include wolf spiders
3.  Cub Scout air guitar quartet will have two musical numbers, not just one
2.  Teachers can sit with the congregation but will not be exempt from Dizzy Bat competition
1.  More cowbell

Bring it on, 2015.

Because relationships.

My mom got the best fortune cookie ever for her birthday dinner...

I don't know if this is just a glorious typo or if there is some sort of underlying cosmic message. Either way, win-win.

A Cindy Quickie

Yesterday on the way to my mom's house to celebrate her birthday, I realized that I left her gift on the counter at home.   We were too close to her house to turn around, so I decided I would just take her the gift today. Cindy was skeptical of that plan and said, "I think Grandma is gonna make you go home and get it."  (She obviously knows my mom well.)  I replied, "No, she won't. Besides, she didn't really even want me to buy her a present anyway."  Cindy was really confused at that answer and said, "That doesn't make any sense.  What kind of a person would not want someone to buy them a present?"  Yeah, Grandma! What kind of a person are you??

My Official Review of Interstellar

It seems that it takes a lot lately to get me to go to the movies and actually be excited about it. (Hey, wanna burn 25 bucks and 2 hours watching a movie about a guy and girl who overcome the odds to end up together? Not really. There will be a chase scene! Well, okay.)  But when I saw the preview for Interstellar while going to see Captain America two months ago, I instantly knew that I wanted to see it. I don't know why. Maybe my inner Trekkie was intrigued, but Jacob and I made a date out of it today and here is the takeaway...

Pros
No aliens. Finally!
TARS is the best space robot since R2
The TARS/McConaughey bromance
Surprise! Guess who's in the pod on Dr. Mann's planet!
Michael Cain and his wonderful British accent
Got to use my Fandango credits and upgrade to IMAX for free
Having Jacob there to explain the answers to the 134 questions I had after the movie ended
Sound editing, score and music were incredible
Space visuals were stunning
Ever wondered what it would really feel like while traveling through a wormhole? Well, now you know.
I cried. Twice.
Even though I was in the movie for 3 hours, the rest of the world did not age 21 years.
I did not look at my phone one time during this movie.

Cons
Not a lot of plot setup on this one.  It's OJT style, my friends.
LOTS of spinning.  (Which is literally my worst nightmare. A few of those scenes were dicey for me)
McConaughey's mumbling
2 hour and 49 minute run time
Time travel, my achilles heel!
I cried. Twice.
No cats.
Contrived bonus scene after the end credits where they all go and eat Schwarma together


Overall this movie is what happens when the movie Inception marries the movie Gravity and has baby. Inception was a mind-bending adventure.  Gravity was visually stunning and realistically captured space and distance.  So you put them together and you have a pretty fantastic space movie that completely confuses the heck out of you.  (Hey, wanna spend $30 bucks and 3 hours watching a movie about a guy who leaves his family to travel through a wormhole, to two alien planets, and back through a black hole and still looks the same even though he is 124 years old? Absolutely!)  Seriously, go see it. Well worth the money.  It's emotional, it's exciting, it's intense, it's intriguing, and best of all it's not in 3D.

Color and Glow 5K

A few months back I noticed that there was a glow in the dark 5K listed on my local Groupon.  I thought it would be a good bucket list experience and Cindy could come along with me for the exercise. Having never done one of these quirky-type races I imagined it would be like a 5K while running through some sort of paint car wash.  Not exactly the way it works.  It's more like walking an untimed 5K on a conveyor belt where you approach the paint sprayers every half a mile and get as much or as little paint as you tell them to spray on you.  Which is not to say it wasn't fun, because we had a blast. Cindy was a maniac with the paint. She ran the race just fine and the 50 degree weather didn't really even phase her once we got going.  By the end she was covered from head to toe and when she got to church this morning I was quick to notice she still had tons of pink paint on her scalp and a nice collection of neon green paint in her ear.  Just so you know, no, it does not come out of your clothes :)  It did come out of my spandex running pants, but definitely not anything made of cotton.  Or my headband.  Or my shoes.  But my wedding ring cleaned up nicely. But not my socks.  And my phone still has some pink paint in the home button. Yep, it gets EVERYWHERE.  A bunch of other friends from church signed up for the race as well and were so kind to share most of the pictures we took.  Overall, it was probably the best $20 "race" I will ever do.  Cindy hugged me several times during the night and told me that it was the best night of her life.  Food won't motivate her, money won't motivate her, but paint will. Who knew?

A little cold before the race

Painted up and ready to go!

Do not underestimate this wild bunch

Well, at least my shoes aren't boring anymore

With my favorite girl :)

Another Halloween in the Books

Once again Halloween lasted for about two weeks here in Sweeneyville.  With the Primary Fall Festival the week before, and then the Bartow parade the day before actual Halloween night, this holiday never seemed to end.  But I am not necessarily complaining, just ready to move on...

Remember that stick from our visit to Georgia?  

Well, it made an awesome staff for my little Malificent. All that work to haul it home by opening up the back seat into the trunk was totally worth it.  Luke's costume actually has a foam shell that you stuff with newspaper to make it stand up. He told me at the end of the night that he put all his empty candy wrappers in there.  Better than on the floor!


The Fall Festival turned out great again. Everyone in our ward helps out so much that it's a huge success without even really trying.  Wait, just kidding, it's actually very, very hard and I almost have a nervous breakdown every year.  And I should be released. Possibly.


This is the only picture I have of me in my pirate/swashbuckler hat and outfit.  And I didn't really get any more pictures of the kids from that night at all. Hey, when you are running the cake walk and making announcements, it's kinda hard.

We had a fantastic time at the Bartow Halloween parade once again.  The kids begged, I mean, worked hard for their candy.

The girls

For actual Halloween night we headed over to a friend's house to go trick-or-treating as a big group. I think it's the start of a new tradition.  Perfect neighborhood, perfect group :)

At the full-sized candy bar house in the neighborhood, Luke chose the regular Hershey bar.  Of course.  And Charlotte McKendrick chose to photobomb me and Cindy.  Of course :)