Never A Dull Moment...

It has been an adventurous few weeks for our family. We've jumped and played around at four birthday parties, had our inaugural family road trip as a party of five (which luckily was only two hours), and several other "moments" in between.

I love Jon & Kate Plus 8. If you're not familiar with the show, the Gosselins have twin girls (7) and sextuplets (3), and the show, obviously, is about all that is invovled in that! I'm always impressed with their candor when it comes to dealing with the "crazy" in their lives.

"Every day can be painfully the same, but yet vastly different!"

Kate Gosselin, Jon & Kate, Plus 8.

Brooke Lives!

Since I have nothing else to blog about today, let me give a big shout out to Brooke! That's right, my favorite has made it to the AI top five, and despite "no love from the haters" (and I mean you, Steve), she has, once again, been "safe"!

While "Performing 101" may tell you to keep going no matter what, I admired Brooke's courage for starting over this week... especially because you know she had to realize she was going to get slammed for it. Simon and Randy were right - it was her best option. And so what... yes, it wasn't her best performance - but none of them were really great this week.

And for the record, where in the world does Paula Abdul (who my utter disdain for has now reached the same level as that which I have for Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Paris Hilton) get off being so upset and saying to Brooke "You must never start and stop". Of course, that would certainly never be a problem for Paula since I'm sure whenever she "sings live" she's got a VOCAL TRACK backing her performance!

Long ago, back in the "Straight Up" era I was all about "Forever Your Girl," and loved Ms. Abdul along with her music and dancing. But these days she just acts like an idiot and seems literally high 90 percent of the time... I think she's "drinking like there's no tomorrow."

"Operator, there's an alligator in my kitchen!"

Again, with my "odd news" addiction, I couldn't help but notice this one (which most people probably saw because the lady was on the Today show).

A Florida woman found an 8-foot long alligator prowling in her kitchen late Monday night, authorities said. Ms. Frosti called 911 after finding the alligator in the kitchen while she was investigating the source of some strange noises. “I heard a noise from the kitchen and it was much too loud to be my cat, so I went to check it out,” Ms Frosti said. "Much to my surprise, a very large alligator was in my kitchen.”

A recording of Ms Frosti's phone call to emergency services number 911 has since become an internet hit. Ms. Frosti called from a phone in her bedroom, but the disbelieving operator asked if the reptile in her kitchen was actually an iguana. “Oh-no, no, no, no, no,” Ms Frosti told the operator.

An iguana?? Who mistakes an iguana for an alligator??

Tiny Iguana.

Gigantic Alligator.

Big difference.

According to Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, the alligator pushed a screen door to the house open and walked into Ms Frosti’s living room. It then walked down a hallway before reaching the kitchen. Ms. Frosti said there were indications that her cat’s life might have been at risk.

"Might have been at risk," you think?? I'm thinking her cat is long gone...

This particuarly caught my attention as I have a major alligator phobia! I saw this really dumb movie years (and years) ago about a killer alligator, and in one part this poor kid gets tossed into the pool where the alligator is hanging out. I've hated them ever since... I don't even like to go near their cage at the zoo, and I wouldn't let Gracie even get near a baby one they had for "petting" at museum exhibit once.

I love how this lady finds the alligator in her kitchen and then goes into the bedroom to make her 911 call. While I suppose I couldn't say for sure, I feel fairly certain that upon finding an alligator anywhere in my home I would have left the house, you know, immediately (probably running in a hysterical state), and called 911 from the neighbors!!

Lost Highway...

Big week for me! I took a break from my usual glamorous routine and ventured to Dallas to see my favorite rock star, and imaginary boyfriend for the last 18 or so years... Yes, Bon Jovi pulled into Dallas Monday night, and me and my sister were there to see them in all of their "Blaze of Glory"! HA!

I'm just a big goofy Jon Bon Jovi fan - I can't help it! And on my 4th time to see them in concert, I finally got out of the rafters! My fan club seats paid off and landed us in the 14th row - aisle seat, towards the middle, on the "Richie side" of the stage! VERY CLOSE, and quite exciting!! Jon Bon Jovi's smile is every bit as "dazzling" in person as on TV.

My camera is not super fabulous, but some of my pictures did turn out okay and you can get the idea of how close we were! I had to lighten some of them up so we sort of look a bit discolored. That's the stage behind us!

Giving us double joy (especially for Amanda), Daughtry was the opener for Bon Jovi, who was awesome - and his guitar player is such a hottie! HA!

In addition to the Bon Jovi/Daughtry eye candy, as a bonus, the "people watching" was very entertaining. The cleavage was quite abundant as I've never seen so many woman over 40 sporting low cut halter tops all in one place! Amanda and I were the median age in the Bon Jovi concert crowd. There were plenty younger than us, but I'd say the majority were older. The couple right in front of us were well into their 50's and were quite unafraid to break out their groove thing several times.

Here's Richie singing "I'll Be There For You," which he dedicated to the fans for "being there for him" throughout these last few years of divorce, tabloid love triangles, and DUI's... bless him. It must be rough being a "sidekick rockstar". While he was doing that, Jon stepped out to put on a clean shirt and wipe all the sweat off (such a gentleman - Ha!) before coming back out (and as usual) pulling a girl up on stage to dance with! And in my only disappointment of the evening, it was not me... boo hoo!!

But aside from not getting to dance with Jon, it was such a great show, and he did manage to sing all my favorite songs! But after two hours and four encore songs, Jon and the boys loaded up and headed for Oklahoma City... sniff, sniff. And I won't see them again until the next album... hopefully! So after our "rockin good time" we headed back to Little Rock with no voice left, a ringing in our ears, and "Wanted Dead or Alive" playing in our hearts! HA!

Breakthrough!

Well, after three months of essentially staying the same (gain a few, lose a few), etc., etc., I weighed in at UAMS today finally seeing a new lower number and adding an extra pound to the grand total lost, which now is officially 42! Hopefully breaking past the "plateau" I've been at for a while here will finally have me on track to shed these last 40 (maybe 30) pounds!

In other updates... Trav did take Tessa back for her initial speech therapy evaluation a week or so ago. Of course, she did much better for him, and the evaluation was able to be completed. However, he described Tessa as sporadically cooperative and the overall process as "very challenging." So, at least it wasn't just me!

And The Thunder Rolls...

We have grateful hearts this morning... as the crazy tornado that brought havoc on so many parts of Arkansas left us unscathed. Trav was at a birthday party for a friend, when the sirens rang out, the lights flickered, and I grabbed three kids out of bed and into the only window free part of our house. Luckily, it passed right by us - literally.


Unfortunately, however, as it blew by us, it landed less than two miles from us and put a big hole in my sister's roof. After hearing what sounded like a freight train coming through her neighborhood and hiding in the bathtub, my sister had a knock on her door from the neighbors telling her that the whole front part of her roof was gone.


So Trav, who was back home to check on us by now, armed himself with a tarp and headed out to scale her roof and "stabilze" the situation. After two hours, several tarps, and two very helpful neighbors later, the roof was patched for the night. The insurance people are supposed to be out today to put a temporary fix on it for her.


Amanda's electricity is out, of course, and probably will be for at least a day or two, as is that entire area off of Mississippi. So I drove over there this morning to retrieve the food from her refrigerator to take to mine. Here are some pictures I managed to snap around the neighborhood.


This house is practically right across the street from Amanda's.



And this one is less than a block away.

In the almost eight years we've lived in this house, we always hear the tornado sirens go off every Wednesday at noon when they test them (at least I guess that's what they're doing). They are very close to our house and while they're loud, of course, I never realized how alarming that sound could be until last night when for the first time I heard them go off when it wasn't noon on a Wednesday. It's so unbelievable how a tornado whips through and can level one house, leaving the one next to it with no damage at all.

Amanda was especially grateful for Travis last night, who apparently was the crew supervisor of the newly formed construction team made up of Amanda's very kind neighbors. He scaled her roof in the pouring rain, dragging tarps and wood from the ground that had fallen, and all while wielding a nail gun. He also then managed to made it to work on time this morning too after voluntarily sleeping on the couch because two little girls were too afraid to sleep in their own beds. Bless him! Hopefully any customers shopping for cars will go easy on him today!