Rockin' in the Midwest

A good time was had by all in St. Louis. We puttered around town, shopping before the concert. We made a stop at Union Station and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe before the show, all while the temperatures steadily dropped from the 50’s to the 30’s. It was very winter like when we wrapped up the night.

The Blue October show was great. I’ve decided I really like that band, and the venue was a good one. The Pageant is small enough that you’re really close to the act, no matter where you stand or sit. I wasn’t the only person over forty in the crowd. Ha. I counted at least three others, and we were all with our kids. Teen Angel and her BFF worked their way to the pit where they got close enough to snap these pictures. This is Justin Furstenfeld, the lead singer for Blue October, and Teen Angel LOVES Justin. She was on cloud nine during the concert. He is her rock star crush. Her Paul McCartney. Her Elvis. Her David Cassidy. I couldn’t help but think back to my teenage rock crushes, which included Shaun Cassidy, Peter Frampton and the biggest of them all, Rod Stewart. I’ve had a crush on Rod since seventh grade. Truth be told, I still do. I know, I know. He’s sixty years old and looking a little ragged around the edges, but I still think he’s sexy. I can't explain it. I think it’s the bad boy syndrome. I’ve seen him once in concert and hope to one more time before he gets too old to tour, and I lose my hearing. Just last week, I was reminded by my old friend M. about the times we spent mooning over the Bay City Rollers and playing their records (yes, I said records) over and over. That seems like such a long time ago, and I would have been over the moon if I had seen my rock n' roll crush perform live at that age. That's why I totally understand why Sunday night was such a big deal for T.A.. I'm glad we went. And I'm glad I didn't die of thrombosis from standing in one place for so long. My hearing I'm not so sure about.

Fun Monday-Summer Vacation

Our Fun Monday hostess this week is Patience, and she has summer on her mind. She wants to know what we plan to do on summer vacation. Specifically:

Y'know, it's getting on to that time of year. Everyone's already thinking of what they'll be doing on their summer vacation. So, let's hear about it already!! (And pictures are always welcome!)
And if you're not planning a vacation, tell us about vacations past. (Please. Keep it clean! If you can.)

The Hula-gen's didn't take a vacation last year because we had a big federal tax bill, so we were determined to take a vacation this year. For the last few weeks I've been surfing the web for a good deal. We discussed taking another cruise and flirted with the idea of an all inclusive trip somewhere tropical, but we finally decided to stay within the borders of the U.S. because Hubby said there are several places right here at home he hasn't experienced yet. We settled on the beautiful Emerald Coast, Destin Florida.

Everyone we know who has been there says it's fabulous; beautiful emerald waves and white sandy beaches. So we plan to try it, and I booked a condo just last week. After much discussion, we decided to go in early October instead of summer. Florida is just too hot in the summer, and this way we kind of stretch out summer by taking advantage of the warm weather in Florida because all of the leaves are off the trees here.

In the meantime, we have some summer fun planned. We kick off the season by seeing Willie Nelson in concert on Memorial Day. For the last couple of years, he's been on our list of Music Legends To See Live Before They Kick The Bucket list, and he's playing in our backyard on that day. That should be fun. I love Willie. He's truly an original.

We will also travel to Cincinnati in early August to see Jimmy Buffett. That's always a blast. Last year we saw him in St. Louis, and the fans there weren't as...shall we say, lively...as the Cincinnati bunch, so we're headed back to Cincy this year. Fins up!

And somewhere in the middle of summer, we may travel to King's Island with the youth group from church. They have a new roller coaster there this year that's supposed to be phenomenal, and I'm sure my dare devil child will want to ride it. It looks something like this:

If we go, I'll have to decide if riding this is worth the two hours of nausea I'll have afterwards, or if I should just throw up my hands and quit pretending in front of the kids that I really enjoy riding stuff like this.

That should keep us quite busy in the coming months. While Fall seems a long time away, I'm sure summer will slide by us as fast as ever, leaving me longing for even more beach time than I will get. Sigh. I get giddy just thinking about it. Now, follow me over to Patience's place to see what everybody else is doing this summer. Has anyone seen my flip-flops?

Roooooad Trip!

The Hula-gen's are taking a little road trip this weekend. We leave tomorrow morning for this place: Where we'll see these guys in concert:And I will likely be the oldest person in the room, unless of course there are other adults there with minors. Small cameras ARE allowed, so I may have pics for you next week. I picked out an outfit that I hope doesn't scream "trying too hard to be young" and "oh my God, my mom is wearing mom jeans". I'm sure I'll get a roll of the eyes tomorrow evening, no matter what. Hee-hee. I also picked up a pair of these:In case it's really loud. We'll do a little shopping and goofing around town before heading home Monday afternoon. I trotted over to weather.com today where I found a big heaping pile of doo-doo called the St. Louis forecast. By the time we leave the concert hall tomorrow night the temperature will have dropped from the spring like 60's to the 30's. We're supposed to experience snow showers and a high temperature that feels like 29 degrees Monday. I have kissed winter goodbye and have no plans to see snow again until at least November, so I am not happy about that forecast. Did I mention my brother is in Florida right now? Stinker. I'm sure we'll have a good time, though. Say a little prayer for our safe travels...and that I don't get caught up in some kind of crowd surfing incident tomorrow night that winds up on sixty people's Facebook pages. Peace out, peeps.

Things That Tick me Off

Unexplained nausea that lasts all night and forces me to lose an outstanding pasta dish..and nearly choke to death in the process. I'll spare you the rest of the details. Let's just say I'm home today, reading the instruction manual for my camera and sticking close to the bathroom. Ack!

Sour Note

See this little Sweetheart? This is Little Miss Priss, my niece’s daughter. She was adopted two years ago from a Chinese orphanage. As daddy says, she’s a pistol. She’s so sweet it makes your teeth hurt just to be in the same room with her. She likes to sing, oh yes she does. She and her granny were babysitting a baby last week when Memaw suggested singing to the baby to get him to go to sleep. First, Little Miss Priss sang Jesus Loves Me.

“Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The bible tells me so.”

Sweet. But the baby wasn’t asleep yet, so she burst into the second song in her repertoire, and apparently she’s a Joey and Rorey fan.

“Cheater, cheater, where’d you meet her, down at Ernie’s bar? Tell me cheater, cheater, where’d you meet that no good white trash ho.”

I don’t think this is what the folks at the orphanage had in mind when they turned her over to our family to raise.

Family Fun Fact #17

In 1994 Hula suffered a blow to the head that temporarily eliminated all of her reasoning skills. She doesn't remember it, but it must have happened. Otherwise, she has no excuse for allowing her mother-in-law to dress Teen Angel in this gosh awful nightmare of an Easter outfit.

Just Desserts

Sometimes I don’t listen to myself very well. I’m great at handing out pearls of wisdom and then forgetting to wear them. Take yesterday. Hubby and I were surfing through the TV channels when he stopped briefly on one of those infomercials. It was the one where the short woman with the curly hair makes 16,000 kinds of dishes out of a piece of bread, a tablespoon of apples and a sandwich maker for just two easy payments of $19.99. She pulled two tasty looking tostada cups out of the gizmo, and I looked at Hubby and said, “You know, that stuff always looks good, but when you get right down to it, it still tastes just like a piece of bread and a hunk of meat”. Insert smug laughter here. And flash forward to two hours later.

Mama J. called and said she had made two banana cream pies and we could have one of them if we wanted it. Since it was dessert we naturally wanted it. Not to mention the fact that we should take advantage of the fact that Mama J. cooked, because that won’t happen again for another six months. Hubby loves banana cream pie, especially his mama’s banana cream pie. It was also his one day of the week when he relaxes his diet and eats dessert…if you don’t count that vanilla shake he has on Tuesdays that he thinks I don’t know about. He was positively salivating over that pie and told Teen Angel to hop over and get it since fetching is the reason we birthed her. She went next door, brought it home and promptly dropped it on the back step. Upside down. It splattered in nine directions and wasn’t salvageable in any way. Trust me, I considered scooping up the parts that landed where I thought the dog hadn’t walked recently but didn’t think my weakened immune system could stand it. Teen Angel cleaned it up, and I broke the news to the Man on a Diet. I thought for a moment he was going to cry. He looked like I did the other night when Missouri beat Memphis and screwed up my NCAA bracket. He whined about that pie for an hour.

I thought I’d make it up to him by making the closest thing to banana cream pie I could with the ingredients I had on hand. Now, before you laugh, you should know I’m pretty good at this kind of trick. I can usually open the cabinets and whip up something tasty with the stuff that’s sitting there. I’m not braggin’, I’m just sayin’ I could do a little Iron Chef sumpin’ sumpin’ if I had to, and no one would walk away hungry. I kind of like the challenge, which is why I didn’t just make a regular pie crust out of some flour, water and shortening. Instead, I grabbed a package of refrigerated crescent rolls, a small box of instant pudding, some bananas and some whipped cream. I lined a muffin tin with the crescent rolls and baked them up like puffed pastry cups. I let them cool, filled them with pudding and bananas, topped them with whipped cream and proudly handed one to Hubby after dinner. Insert more smugness here. He gratefully thanked me, gobbled it up and said, “Mmhmm”, when I asked him if it was good. He didn’t elaborate, but I thought he was still mourning his mama’s pie. I was too full to eat my concoction. When Teen Angel came home from church youth group she foraged around in the fridge for something sweet, and I told her about the pudding cups. Her reply? “Yeah, I tried one but it tasted like a big roll in the middle of some pudding.”

Would someone please hold my pearls?