Jubilation! She loves me again

• Yay yay yay! I had a virus or three on my laptop at work, so they wiped it clean and now I can access my blog!!! I've been keeping a list of all the things I want to say, so here goes.
  


• I just got back from Las Vegas at about 1:00 this morning. We were pretty full of ourselves since we were able to pay for a good chunk of the trip ourselves. George (Jerry's dad) did take care of our rooms, though, and he paid for us to see the show called O at the Bellagio. This show was fantastic. I thought about the Harry Potter cave scene throughout. Inferi, you know. Anyway, a person could see this show ten times and still not see everything there is to see. The main purpose of the trip was to celebrate Eila's (Jerry's mom's) 70th birthday. This went really well. Highlights for me were small cousin silliness, looking at Lela (one fine work of art this woman is), meeting the cousins from Finland, and the polenta at the Bellagio buffet.



• Also in Las Vegas I got together with my whole fam damily. All the siblings together, Dad, Grandpa Morgan, and many many more. Pics to follow. Highlights include fancy dreamy cupcakes, that stinker Lexi getting in the hot tub fully clothed, cousins in the pool, and Sierra falling asleep on my shoulder because I sang her "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". The best smell of the trip: Sierra.



• Best part of the trip: walking in the front door after getting home and picking up my soft fuzzy kitty. Then falling asleep on the couch with the TV on. I think someone might have once said, "There's no place like home."
  


• Jerry, Rebekah, and I went to the free open house at the Kennedy Center a few weeks ago. We saw these ridiculously good tumblers, a ballet, and a jazz band. It was a good trial run for when I have to go back there 16 November: Rebekah and I have tickets to see Mozart's Don Giovanni.
  


• Also at the Kennedy Center, through the Jack Kent Cooke Young Scholars thingy, Aubrey was able to go to the National Symphony Orchestra's season opening concert for free. The reason: one of her fellow Scholars, Peng Peng, was a featured soloist at the concert. He is her age, and is a piano prodigy.
  


• Aubrey's 15th birthday was 23 September. She is having a sleepover this weekend. (She laughs when Jerry and I say "slumber party"; apparently this is passe.) We got her a bicycle. She had been riding around on an old rusty musty one, so she is thrilled. She likes to ride around until she gets lost, then find her way back home. And then try to make a map of the neighborhood. Silly girl. She bade her lovely fancy new lab book goodnight recently.

Her face is a map of the world

Is a map of the world

You can see she's a beautiful girl

She's a beautiful girl

And everything around her

is a silver pool of light

The people who surround her

feel the benefit of it

It makes you calm

She holds you captivated in her palm

Suddenly I see

This is what I wanna be

Suddenly I see

Why the hell it means so much to me

I feel like walking the world

Like walking the world

You can hear she's a beautiful girl

She's a beautiful girl

She fills up every corner

like she's born in black and white

Makes you feel warmer

when you're trying to remember

What you heard

She likes to leave you

hanging on a wire

Suddenly I see

And she's taller than most

And she's looking at me

I can see her eyes

looking from a page in a magazine

Oh she makes me feel

like I could be a tower

A big strong tower

She got the power to be

The power to give

The power to see

Suddenly I see

(by KT Tunstall)

• The other day Rebekah, out of nowhere, said, "I have a tummy full of blasphemy."


• Speaking of the legendary R (the ultimate nickname for Rebekah), she auditioned for, and was accepted in, the All-County Chorus and the elite Chamber Choir at her school. Also, the girl REALLY wants to go to Finland next summer. She has a standing invitation from her relatives over there. Wants to learn Finish too. Let's see what we can do about that....


• I hate mean people and cat pee.


• Every year my company SAIC rents out Six Flags for a free company party. We went again this year. Fun dat.


• Break a sweat today. Eat when hungry.


• House and Bones make Tuesdays worth living through. I also tried out Journeyman and Private Practice. Both are keepers.


• So nice to go back to eating oatmeal and string cheese and salad and such. Heavy food has its place, but enough is enough.


• Blogspot is not letting me attach pictures. I will come back and try to put some up later. Hopefully it will spontaneously regenerate. Formatting is also incredibly difficult on blogspot. Again, you get what you pay for. I can't complain, but sometimes I still do.