Don't Rain on My Parade, Dang It

All you naysayers just need to quit. Jamie and Sarah! I'm talking about you! The July 4th festivities WILL be held in Hamilton. Because it's my favorite holiday, and they have to be. :) And besides, all they need is to have the stuff on the green and then the parade - I don't care as much about the fireworks. They're nice, but as long as the rest of the day happens, I'll be happy.

And it WILL happen! Because I say so. So there. (And if they don't happen, I'll be very sad, so think good thoughts, okay? No more of this "what if they don't have anywhere to have them" stuff. 'Kay? 'Kay.)

Lonely Now

I don't know why this hits me at night, but it does. I come home from work, I hang out and watch TV or DVDs or read a book or play the Sims, and if I keep my mind occupied, I'm okay. But then I'll hit a quiet stretch, like now, and I just get...well, lonely, I guess. I've lived alone for most of my adult life, and sometimes at night I feel like I can't take another day of it. But somehow the days just keep piling up, so I guess I can. But I reserve the right to hate it sometimes.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this. It's too bad us lonely people can't find each other on nights like this. We might be much less down about it all.

I haven't done this in a while, so for a change:

Just finished reading: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Check one off my reading lists!
Just starting to read: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
Listening: to Willow lick her dog bed. I have no idea why she's doing it, but at least she isn't growling at nothing. For a change.
Wishing: That must be pretty obvious by what I wrote above.
Looking forward to: maybe mini golfing with Jamie, Sarah and Jeff this weekend (we have to plan when/if we're going to do that). Also looking forward to July 4th and then my birthday. Maybe I could convince one or more of those people I just named into hanging out and having fun on those days? Hmm...Well, my birthday is on a Tuesday, but maybe on the 4th? Guys? What do you say? Fireworks? Fun, right? Ooh, and cake on my birthday. Yummy.

Muddy Flood

When I got home from work today, it wasn't even raining, but it started downpouring a little while later. Now, outside of my window, I have this going on:

I've lived in this house since November, 1999, and this is only the second time this has happened. It isn't much of a flood as floods go - I'm not in any danger here, it's not even coming up on the lawn, much less into my house - but it's pretty messy and dramatic for this house. I guess I'm lucky that I can look at all that muddy water running down out of the field and think how cool it is, instead of having to see it as a reason to worry about my house and myself and my animals. It is pretty freaking neat, though.

Also going on in my life right now, there is work, work and more work. I am back to my full-time job this week, and it is keeping me busy just about every minute of every day so far, and in addition I am also beginning to work on an editing job for my good friend Sally (Hi Sally!), so my evenings are full of work, too, and this weekend will be as well, because I want to get the job done before the 4th. I plan on enjoying the 4th to the fullest. For most people here in the states, the 4th is just a random day off, but it's my favorite holiday, and here is why.

First: I spend the whole day with my sister and as much of her family that is around. Second: we go to the green in Hamilton in the morning (a green is basically a town square, for those unfamiliar with the term - a large grassy area for public use) and look at all the stuff that is set up there for sale. There are plants and veggies/fruit, and lots of crafts, as well as a few different kinds of food tents. Third: after we walk around the green, we stand on the side of the road and watch the parade. I love parades - I think I inherited that from my mother and grandmother. They both loved them too, so I come by it honestly. Fourth: after the parade, we go back to my sister's house, and hang out and have a barbecue. Always a fun time. Fifth: if they aren't rained out, there are fireworks to go to that night, and they are always cool. And sixth: it's a great family day, in the summer, so the weather is guaranteed not to be snowy and horrible (although it's not guaranteed to be hot or even warm), and best of all there isn't the pressure of gift buying that there is at Christmas. See? There you have six reasons why it is my favorite holiday.

And I didn't even plan on writing that, but I guess it's what was in my head. And now I'm out of here. I'm going to go back to listening to the rain and watching the dirty water washing down my road (although it's already receding, just since I have been writing this). I hope you are all having great Tuesday nights.

Bored Now

Okay, one week of vacation, and I am totally ruined. I am so bored! Give me one day where I don't have anything fun planned to do, and I sit here at my computer with the TV on, completely bored and not knowing what to do to occupy myself. Even the Sims didn't draw my attention. Help! I have forgotten how to be alone!

On the other hand, Days of Our Lives is on Soap Net right now, and I know almost everyone on the show - and I haven't watched it since like 1989. Cool. Plus? I had it on for roughly 20 seconds, and saw three bare chested, 6-pack ab having men. Bonus!

But, really? Bored now! (Anyone who recognizes that reference is an instant friend of mine. Jamie? You know, right?)

Sigh

My vacation week is just about over - it's back to work tomorrow. And just when I've actually managed to sleep until 8:00 for two days in a row! It took me a whole week to get myself to be able to do that, and now I am going to have to go back to getting up at 6:30. Yuck. Oh well. I only have to work one full week and then it's July 4th, so I'll get one or two extra days off there.

And of course, my birthday is exactly two weeks from the 4th, on the 18th. Fair warning for anyone who reads this and knows me and might want to buy me something. :)

Well, I just had a little bit of excitement. First, so that you can picture this - I'm still in my pajamas, which today means a pair of Jimmy Hendrix pajama pants (I like men's pajama pants, and they didn't have much of a selection - this is not a statement on any kind of fanship or anything) and a Santa Fe t-shirt (no bra), with flip-flops on my feet and very flat, uncombed bedhead. Super attractive. I hear a knock on my door, and I look out and see an animal control truck, so I answer the door. There is a lady out there (and a man in the truck), asking me if I have a ladder, because there is a fledgling bird (grackel, she said) that she just took out of the road - it was apparently trying to take its first flight, and it isn't quite ready. She wanted to put it back into the tree. So I go into my (horribly messy, very spider filled and therefore usually off limits to me except for the part where my lawn mower is stored) garage and get my ladder, and they put the fledgling in the crook of the tree, and it promptly flies right back out onto my lawn. Silly bird. Meanwhile, the parent birds are chirping like mad, yelling at us for messing with their baby. The lady picks the fledgling back up and puts it on my side lawn, where it will hopefully calm down and figure out how to stay in the air and out of the road so that it doesn't get hit.

And I'm sure the animal control people enjoyed the sight of me outside in my PJs. Score!

Anyway, back to my end of vacation entry that was interrupted by bird craziness. I had a really great vacation week. I got to go to Maine and fall in love with a coastline, I got to spend a lot of time with my sister and her husband (although I would have loved a little bit more alone time with my sister, but I am very glad that her husband was with us too), I got to go on a whale watch and see a finback whale, and I even had a few days once I got back to hang out and relax and get the dogs settled back in and used to our usual routine. And I got to see Sarah for a little while and I got to hang out with Jamie for a while, and basically have a great time.

And Jamie gave me a Superman lunchbox, for no reason other than that he saw it and knew I would love it. Yay! Unexpected gifts rock, especially super cool ones like that. Thanks Jamie! Okay, I'm off to enjoy the rest of my Sunday. Later gators!

Photo Link

In case you missed it, there is a new post below - my last vacation post from Maine (posted a day late). I couldn't get blogger to upload my pictures, and since I have that problem a lot, I decided to be like the cool kids and get a flickr account. If I have the correct link, you can go here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36112851@N00/

to view my pictures. If that doesn't work, because I am an idiot when it comes to these things, my username there is avidreader2466. The pictures are all public, so you should be able to see them. Now, go! Enjoy! Pictures of water and rocks and beautiful scenery never get old, right? Right. :)

And entry a day late

I tried to post this yesterday, but the wireless connection wasn't strong enough to load the pictures, so I'm trying again today.

******

Our day was started today with a whale watching cruise. We sailed out from Bar Harbor at about 9:00 in the morning. We had a nice cruise out about 25 miles out to sea. Along the way we saw puffins, seals and a couple of lighthouses. It was a nice, leisurely cruise. But one thing is for sure - it may be nice on land, but when you get out to sea and get moving at up to 30 miles per hour? It gets pretty stinking cold. I had on a t-shirt, a zip-up hoodie and by the time we got going, I was wearing a coat that I bought here too, and I was still cold. And the wind! Oh man, my eyes almost couldn't take it. I was beginning to wonder if it was worth it, and then suddenly it was.

The whale that we saw was a finback. He (or she) surfaced plenty of times, so we got some pretty good looks at him (or her). My pictures didn't come out great - a small digital camera isn't quite up to this kind of situation. It didn't matter, though. The experience is one I'll always remember.

Thsi afternoon we hung out for a while, and then we went to play some mini golf. I had made a bad choice and had a piece of chocolate cake for dessert at lunchtime, and it was a little too moussy and milky for me - my lactose problems acted up. I felt pretty crappy. But we left to go back to the shore where we went yesterday. And I'm so glad we did.

By the time we got there, I was feeling much better, but even if I hadn't, I think that I would have once we were there. High tide was at just about 8:00 tonight, and we got there a little after 7:00 to watch the show. Nature puts on one heck of a display, too, let me tell you. The surf came crashing in to the rocks on the shore (the rocks that Jamie loves my pictures of oh so much), smelling of salt and fish, and splashing anyone who ventured too close to the tide line as it moved. As we were there, the sun was setting and the light was amazing. It was the most calming, relaxing place we could have been at that moment. And it is officially my new favorite location on earth.

Tomorrow our trip is over, and I have to say I am a little sad. I will be happy to see the critters again, and to see Sarah and Jamie and give them their souvenirs (I'm not telling you what I bought - ha), but I will miss being able to drive just 20 minutes or so to get to that beach.

*******

Okay, the pictures won't load on my home network either (I got home an hour and a half ago or so), so I'll just post this and load the pictures up later.

Vacation Post

Hello from Maine! We have had such a great day. We started out this morning going for a ride to see a lighthouse, and stopping along the way at a couple of places on the coast - the pictures I posted earlier are from those places. The scenery here is absolutely gorgeous. I seriously would love to pack up the critters and move here for at least a few months out of the year. It's just fantastic. We saw the lighthouse at Bass Harbor, which you saw below. We had to climb down some steep wooden stairs and across a rocky area to get a good view. My brother-in-law climbed out for that picture in the entry below - I wasn't about to climb out there myself. I like my neck in one piece, thanks.

This afternoon my brother-in-law went golfing and my sister and I went shopping in Bar Harbor. I spent way too much money, but it was a lot of fun. We even spent half an hour or so browsing through a bookstore, so you know we had fun. After we were shopped out, we went and sat on a bench by the harbor. And as if that wasn't enough sightseeing fun for one day, we then drove up to the summit of Cadillac Mountain. The clouds were rolling in and fogging it up a bit, but it was still pretty amazing. And now we're relaxing for tonight.

Okay, enough talking - here are some more pictures.

This is the harbor where we sat and relaxed after our strenuous day of shopping. Very pretty.

This is on the way up the hill in Acadia National Park.

From the summit of Cadillac Mountain. The white spots on land in the distance are Bar Harbor. The above picture was taken from the shore in front of those islands.

Another view of the town spread out below. It is indescribably beautiful here. Tomorrow we're going to take a whale/puffin watching cruise, if the boats go out. The water was too choppy for them to go out today, so cross your fingers for us. We also might go out on a beautiful four masted boat. More pictures tomorrow, if this crappy wireless connection holds out!

Wish You Were Here

Beautiful, gorgeous - wish you were here.

Getting ready to go

About 20 1/2 hours from now, I will be on my way to Maine. Yay! I'm so excited. We're going to have a lot of fun on our trip.

I've been spending this weekend getting ready to go. I went shopping yesterday and got some new socks and pajama pants (which I really only got because I needed them, not just for the trip), some new sandals (they were for the trip) and I don't know what all else, but I spent a ton of money. I also got some groceries for my nephew for while he's here and of course for the animals so that they have everything they need while I'm gone.

And the best purchase of the day - I got a quart of the juiciest, sweetest, freshest strawberries ever, directly from the farm stand. Yum. I love fresh June strawberries. I refuse to buy the ones from the grocery store, because they are horrible in comparison.

And today I've been cleaning up a storm, and sweating like a madwoman doing it. I've got about half of the house cleaned, and still have the other half to do, and then it will be presentable for my nephew when he comes to watch the critters. I have also started to pack up what I don't need between now and tomorrow morning - by the time I go to bed tonight, all I will have left to do in the morning is all my regular morning stuff to take care of the critters, I'll have to get myself ready to go, and I'll have to pack up my bathroom stuff and my laptop. Everything else will be done.

I can't wait to pull out of that driveway tomorrow morning and hit the road. Woo! If the wireless card that I borrowed from Jamie works in the hotel we're staying in, I'll be posting while we're there, so watch this space - I'll share some of my pictures with you. I hope you're having a great weekend!

"Cuddles Bit Me" la la la

I was outside with the dogs last night, and we lingered for a while, because it was absolutely beautiful out. When we came back in, I had a message on my machine, and it was from my Aunt - my father's sister. I've probably mentioned that my Dad died when I was two, but I may not have mentioned that I haven't really known any of his family since, because of a falling out between my Mom and my Dad's Mother. Anyway, I couldn't remember the last time I saw or spoke to this woman, so it was strange.

We had a nice conversation. She had called because her mother died last winter, and in her will she had left all of what she had (which wasn't much, I'm sure, since our family has never been what you'd call well off) to her ex-son-in-law (my Aunt's ex-husband). But there was a life insurance policy that was apparently left from when my grandfather died, which wasn't named in the will - all of her descendents would have been owed a portion of it. It apparently isn't for much money, though, and once it was divided among my Aunt, my four siblings and myself, it would have amounted to a few hundred bucks or so for each of us. The ex-son-in-law had papers sent out to everyone asking them to sign off their share so that it could go to him for his expenses in taking care of her estate.

Anyway, everyone signed off except for her, because she's thinking of fighting for her share, and me, because I'm a lame-o and I forgot to send the papers back. Since we didn't sign off, we were sent a summons to come to a court date next week if we wanted to contest it. She called me to see if I was going to fight it. Of course I told her no - I didn't even know the woman, I'm not going to fight to get any of her money. Once that talk was over, we had a nice little conversation, and just before she hung up, she told me that the last time she saw my father before he died, he had come to the house where she was living with her parents, and he had me with him. I was two years and 10 months old, and she said I was singing a song about Cuddles biting me. (Cuddles was my Mom's Pekingnese dog at the time.) So just like that, she gave me a little snippet of my toddlerhood that I would otherwise have never known about, and she let me know that sometimes I got to go places with my Dad all by myself - the other kids must have been in school. It was very cool. I just wish I could hear what my almost three year old self sounded like, and what kind of song I made up.

Ready too early

I got up too early this morning, and can't leave for work for another half an hour, so I thought I would check in here. Do you like the rubber duckies? I bought them this weekend at Bath & Body Works. Two dollars each! What a bargain. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them - I don't have much surface space in my bathroom. For right now they're sitting on my desk.

I only have five days to go before I leave on vacation. It's so exciting! I'm going to have a lot of work to finish up this week so that I'm not leaving a ton of unfinished projects on my desk while I'm gone, but that's okay. It'll just make the rest of the week go more quickly. I hope. Although yesterday felt like it would never end.

Anyway, every day since Monday I've gotten up and thought of where I would be a week from that moment. Monday it was in the car on our way there, and yesterday and today it's just "there." Because I don't know what we'll actually be doing at what time. I can't wait to go, though. I need a break. The hotel we're staying in has wireless Internet, so I'll probably be posting while I'm gone. And I'll take plenty of pictures!

Woo! Vacation is almost here!

Okay, I guess that's all for now. I should go finish getting dressed and let the dogs out again. They never finish their business in one trip, because they're too anxious to get their breakfast. Silly dogs. Have a great Wednesday!

Thinking...

...How great it is to spend a day with friends.
...How lucky I am to have found two great friends through work.
...How lucky I am to have found another great friend through a previous job.
...How great it is to have a house full of critters (even though I'm kind of looking forward to a vacation from them in a week and a half - a few days away is sometimes a good thing).
...How great it is to have a sister that I can be close to and share things with (like our upcoming trip).
...How much I regret having forgotten about and missed my niece's party last night.
...How much I love being in the middle of a great book and having seven more sitting on my desk waiting for me.
...How I have everything in my life right now that I could ask for, not counting material things, with the one exception of that someone to share my life with in a romantic, spend the rest of my life with my best friend kind of way.
...That I shouldn't complain about the weather, because I'd rather have it cold instead of blistering hot, but that I also would like to not have to run space heaters in June to get my house above 60 degrees.
...That a certain person in my life has no idea how attractive he is, how great he is, and how important he is to the people around him - myself most definitely included.
...That a certain other person in my life has turned out to be a very funny, fantastic person to spend time with, despite the fact that when I first met her, she never said a single word the whole first day that we spent sitting next to each other at work. :)
...That a cat's purr might just be the best sound in the world, especially when the cat in question is sitting on my shouler, purring right into my ear, at a time when there isn't any other sound in the house but for the sound of the space heater by my desk, the computer fan on my desktop, and the clicking of my keys on my laptop.
...That weekends need to last forever, because they fucking rule. Especially when they include Chinese food for dinner and the possibility of yummy soft serve ice cream on Sunday.
...That I'm really happy that I haven't taken the flannel sheets off my bed yet (yay, warm toasty bed on a cold summer night).
...How much I love the fact that I bought two rubber duckies today - one yellow, one pearly white.
...That Sarah is going to love what I bought her today, and how much I love teasing her by mentioning it here but not telling her what it is. :P

I'm a Bad Aunt :(

When I was at my sister's house on Monday afternoon, her oldest daughter was there, and she mentioned that she was having a party tonight for all of the family (my sister has six kids, three of whom are married, so they have a LOT of family), and she invited me too. She just moved here from Colorado a month or so ago, and she just got an apartment that I haven't been to yet, so I don't know where it is. See a problem here?

Well, the problem could have been avoided if I had called my sister and asked where my niece lives and what time the party was going to be, but by the time I got through the week of work, I had forgotten about the party. So I didn't think to call her. I had been home for a couple of hours when the phone rang. I let the machine pick up, because I always do (I get a lot of calls from solicitors) - it was my brother-in-law on the phone. I could hear the party in the background, so I smiled and got up to answer the phone. One more problem? He hung up just as I was getting to the phone. And he didn't tell me where her apartment is. Sigh. Oh well. I called and left a message on my sister's phone. If they call me back, I'll find out where she lives and go. Otherwise? Well, next time I'll have to make sure that I know where the party is and when to be there! And maybe they better call and remind me at some point the day before the party. :)

Numbers thingy

9 lasts (taken from Sarah's myspace blog)

9. Last place you were: outside with the dogs
8. Last cigarette: Never in my life
7. Last beverage: water
6. Last kind of candy: Brach's malted milk balls. Yum, yum, yummy
5. Last phone call: Jamie, at work
4. Last CD played: Barenaked Ladies, on my mp3 player
3. Last bubble bath: I have no idea. I used to take a lot of them when I was a teen - not so much since
2. Last time you cried: I honestly don't remember. I may have teared up at a book or movie or something.
1. Last alcoholic drink: I don't remember when, but it would have been something mixed that masked the taste of alcohol, because I hate that taste. I seem to remember something green, that tasted like a Sweet Tart, but I don't remember it's name.

8 Have you evers

8. Have you ever dated someone twice. No
7. Have you ever been cheated on? Not that I know of
6. Have you ever cheated on someone? No
5. Have you ever kissed someone and regretted it? No, I don't think so
4. Have you ever fallen in love? Yes, and got my heart stomped for my trouble
3. Have you ever lost someone? Sadly, yes. Too many
2. Have you ever been depressed? Yes, because of the above
1. Have you ever dumped someone? Yes. Everyone I've ever dated except for the one I fell in love with and one other guy.

7 States you've been to

7. NY
6. HI
5. VA
4. TN
3. FL
2. IL
1. NM
And I could go on to add more.

6 Things you've done today

6. Had dinner with my sister
5. Hired my nephew to watch my dogs and my house while I'm on vacation. Yay!
4. Read a little of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
3. Skated during lunch
2. Hugged my dogs
1. Cleaned out Willow's disgustingly dirty ears

People you can tell pretty much anything to

5. my sister
4. Sally
3. Sarah
2. Jamie
1. Um, I guess I only have four

4 places you want to go

4. Maine (in two weeks, yay!)
3. Italy
2. France
1. Hawaii (already been, but want to go back)

3 favorite colors

3. Dark green
2. Blue
1. Red

2 things you want to do before you die

2. pay off my bills (although if number one never happens, they won't have anyone to get the money from after I die, so screw 'em)
1. Get married, or at the very least fall in love with someone who actually falls in love with me, too, and live together until we get old and decrepit.

1 thing you wish you could change?

1. I would go back in time and go to college right after high school.

Maine Pics, not taken by me

Well, blogger still won't let me add more pictures to my last post, but for some reason I was able to add them to a new post, so here they are. Sigh. Blogger, you make my life difficult sometimes.

This is a view of a Bar Harbor street. I'll be walking down this street in about two weeks! I hope the shops have some cute stuff.

A Maine lighthouse. We hope to get to tour one of these while we're there.

Views of the beauty that is Acadia National Park. It's pictures like these that made me fall in love with Maine in the first place. I couldn't care less about lobster, but give me a rocky sea coast and I'm in love. I am so looking forward to this vacation.

All of these pictures were taken from a brochure that is available in PDF form from www.downeastregion.com.

Vacation!

My sister just came over, and we did the beginning stages of planning our vacation. We booked a room at a motel in Bar Harbor, Maine...and wait, it occurs to me that I never told anyone who reads this and doesn't know me in real life that our trip to Virginia is off. My sister couldn't afford the whole Busch Gardens trip, so we decided that instead of going away for a week to Virginia we'd go for a couple of days someplace else, and we've decided on Maine.

We're going to Mt. Desert Island, and staying in Bar Harbor, right close to Acadia National Park. We looked up some information online, and so far we've planned on going on a puffin and whale watching tour one day that we're there, my brother-in-law will go golfing one day while my sister and I go shopping, and we're of course going to go into Acadia and do some hiking/sightseeing. There is a 27 mile loop somewhere that you can drive that goes up a mountain, and we want to do that. We also want to go and watch the sunrise over the ocean one morning. It's going to be a great trip.

I haven't had a real vacation in a while. I went to Tennessee to visit my brother last year, but that was staying with him and just seeing a few things around his area. It was great, but it wasn't a going away, staying in a hotel and sightseeing all the time kind of trip. So this will be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to the trip. I've always wanted to see Maine. I feel like I've fallen in love with it just from pictures - it'll be great to see it in person. And my sister has been very stressed out from the family stuff that has been going on, so I know she needs the trip. It will be good for her and her husband to get away. And we're going in two weeks! Woo!

The only down part is that I am going to probably have to board my dogs, and I absolutely hate HATE the idea. I just don't have anyone to watch them at the house for me, though. Jamie doesn't want to stay here because he has cats of his own, and he doesn't want to leave them alone for that many days. Sarah has a dog of her own, and doesn't seem sure that my dogs would be okay with her staying with them in my absence (although I'm sure they'd be fine Sarah, and I'll pay you! I gave my nephew $150 last year!), and my niece is already dog/house sitting for someone else. My nephew who has done this in the past for me is living with someone now, and old enough that he probably doesn't want to house/dog sit for me, and my other nephew is allergic to cats. Sigh. I hate boarding my dogs. I know they're okay while they're there, but I always worry about them wondering why they're in such a strange, loud, uncomfortable place, and wondering where I am and if I'm abandoning them. And now I need to quit talking about it.

Anyway, short of the dog boarding stress, this is going to be a very fun trip, and it's going to be here in just two short weeks! I'm so excited!

Also: I had two more pictures that were supposed to be in this entry, but for some reason blogger isn't uploading them. It tells me it did, but they don't show up. What's up with that? How are you people going to be jealous about where I'm going if you can't see where I'm going? Sigh.

Ice Show

Tonight I went to an ice show with my sister, her husband, Jamie, my boss, her husband and two of their kids. The show was to benefit the Freedom Guide Dogs organization, which raises and trains guide dogs for vision impaired people. They had a bunch of local skaters of all ages, and four professional skaters. It was a fun show, made even more fun because I got these tickets as a gift for doing the ad layout for the program, and we got to sit in the expensive seats on the ice. These people were skating inches in front of me. It was fun.

Wanna see pictures? You know you do. I had to take the camera to get some pictures for work, so I might as well post a few here. Before I show them, though, you should be aware that I was taking them with a digital camera that does not handle action well, so any movements come out blurry. Have you ever been to an ice show? Skaters don't stand still very often. Also, of course we couldn't use flash, so the lighting isn't the best (not that a flash would have done much good in these circumstances, but still).

Jozef Sabovcik did some amazing moves on the ice, and you could tell that he is a fun guy to be around. He was up dancing on the ice at the end when all of the kid skaters were going out to get their applause.

Steven Cousins was pretty amazing too. It's incredible the moves these guys can do with apparently no effort.

John Zimmerman and (a blurry) Kyoko Ina. They did some breathtaking moves. I've seen things like the death spiral on TV, but it's so different seeing it in person somehow. I mean, if her head had crashed into the ice, it would have been so close to me when it happened! Scary. I was most excited to see John, because I watched Skating with Celebrities, so I actually knew who he was. The rest of the skaters I had never heard of, really (sorry guys, if you ever google yourselves and find this). They were all amazing to watch, though.

And this little guy I'm only putting on here because you can't really see his face, otherwise I wouldn't post his picture on the Internet. This kid stole the show! Since the benefit was for the guide dog organization, they had a bunch of their smaller skaters dress up in dog outfits, complete with doggy face make-up, and skate around the ice. They were extremely cute and funny to watch, but this little black doggy here stole the attention from everyone else. He was such a ham, mugging for the crowd. And he never fell once! Way to go, little kid!

Okay, and now it's past my bedtime, so I'm going to post this and hit the hay. I just had to share the good time that I had with everyone. The only thing missing was Sarah. Sarah? They had black lab puppies there. You would have fallen in love! You should have skipped your cousin's wedding and come with us instead. :) Good night everyone!