Mr & Mrs Peters

 Last weekend we went to the fair with our friends Brent and Jill, and their daughter Abby. We had not seen them in a few months, and it was amazing how Abby had grown up SO much since we saw her last. She is one smart little cookie, and cute too! The fair was tons of fun, and once again we enjoyed seeing the pig races and all the baby animals. On Saturday I went to see Alan Jackson in concert with one of my best friends, Chloe. We LOVE to people watch, and the concert goers we were around proved to be great entertainment. Also, the concert was great. Even the opening act was talented- a group called the Zac Brown Band. I haven’t heard them on the radio yet, but Clo says she heard their single on KFROG.

Tomorrow morning we leave for Utah. We are going to spend the weekend with Bryant and Amy, helping them get the nursery in order (painting, putting together baby furniture). I am sure we will also make time for other fun adventures too… Our nephew will be here in less than 3 months, and I can’t wait!!

I built a 16″ retaining wall in the front yard. It replaces railroad ties that had been there for over 30 years (according to a neighbor). It was a lot of manual labor and I got a few blisters on my hands. A gardener who was working on a yard up the street stopped by and said, “Is hard work, no? Is ok, you do good yob.” That was encouraging.

The last two days of the project I had help from my friend John H. He was a huge help being that I was very tired and sore from the previous days. Mel helped out too. She would bring me water and snacks as I labored in the sun. She would also whistle at me through the front window and tell me how much it turned her on to see her man working so hard. That was motivating…

While I was digging the trench a couple of neighbors I had never met before came over to see what I was doing. They were both long time residents of the street and I think they were happy to see me trying to improve on the house. I feel anytime some one works on their house it increases the value of the whole neighborhood.

The finished project looks good, but the true test will be after a couple of years. If it becomes uneven I may just knock it down and have a professional rebuild it for me. Regardless of the quality of work, this has given me the confidence to tackle other projects. Such as a sprinkler system, patio and building a large portion of a wall in the backyard. We’ll have to wait and see about money and Mel’s permission…

Click on the picture title below to view pics of the wall/project:

Pic 1 trench-before.JPG
Pic 2 rr-ties.JPG
Pic 3 trench13.JPG
Pic 4 trench21.JPG
Pic 5 trench31.JPG
Pic 6 ties-and-dirt.JPG
Pic 7 roots.JPG
Pic 8 jp-taking-a-break.JPG
Pic 9 load-of-bricks.JPG
Pic 10 bricks-and-supplies.JPG
Pic 11 finished-wall1.JPG
Pic 12 finished-wall2.JPG

Last night I attended a picnic in the park with the Kleinsasser side of Justin’s family (his mom’s side). I figured it would be pretty cruel to go on an outing to the park and not take Skyla, so she got to come along too. Once she figured out that she was going for a ride in the back of the truck she was wild with excitement. I love the times when she gets excited, because her whole body wiggles and she makes a squealing noise. Here is a picture of her waiting anxiously in the truck.

I imagine that at this point she was thinking, “I wish Daddy was driving.” As any of you who have seen our house know, our driveway is really narrow and with the truck I tend to get nervous and secondguess myself, meaning that it normally takes me about 3 or 4 tries to make it through. For whatever reason it took me about 6 tries last night. Poor Skyla!

Once at the park we enjoyed a nice picnic dinner with a group of family: Justin’s grandparents, parents, two aunts, two cousins and their respective spouses and two unborn babies, and Justin’s sister and nephew. Skyla was really good and did not even try to sneak food off the table.  

After dinner I played with my nephew Brayden. He is in a phase of thinking he is a dog. All night long he followed Skyla around on all fours, sticking his tongue out and panting. He even pretends to lick people! At the end of the night he was holding Skyla’s tail and I asked him, “Brayden, do you have a tail?” Without even a trace of humor, he looked at me and said, “No, I have a butt!” Hilarious.

Skyla’s favorite place to nap is on the side of the house, up against the fence/wall. Sometimes, if I am really quiet when I get home, I can sneak up and catch her sleeping. Today I managed to get about 10 feet from her before she woke up and saw me. (It baffles me how she missed the car engine, garage door opening, and squeaky gate yet somehow managed to hear me tip-toeing on the dirt). Anywho, here are a couple of pictures from this afternoon.

Here is a quick update of what is going on in our lives:

Justin finished the retaining wall he was working on in the front yard. It looks really good and I think he is glad to be done with that project. But, less than 6 hours after he was done with the wall, he announced that his next project would be installing a sprinkler system in the front yard. THAT ought to be interesting.

This weekend I am hosting (along with my mother-in-law) a baby shower for my sister-in-law Amy. (I hate using the phrase “in-law” because I feel like it makes them seem less like family… I only use the phrase so as not to confuse people who might not know which mom/sister I am talking about.) Amy flies in from Utah on Friday morning and the shower will be on Saturday.

Last Saturday my mom went and picked up her brand new kittens!! Their names are Monroe and Molly. I will post one picture below. I am going to visit them again tonight and am planning to attempt a small photo shoot. Last time I tried, however, they got a little freaked out by the camera. We will see how they react this time.

So, I’ll admit it- I have a tendency to act really weird when I am at Costco shopping by myself. I think it is a combination of feeling a little overwhelmed with all the people and carts/wanting to get out of there and done with my list as fast as humanly possible/throwing myself into “bargain hunter” mode. Normally my odd behavior isn’t really a problem, because as I mentioned before, I am by myself.
Well, tonight I was cruising through Costco making my way through the cheese/sausage area and I ran into this guy who was my internship advisor during my last semester at Biola. Now you might be thinking- no problem… that is a relatively simple social situation, right? For normal people maybe, but not for semi-retarded Melanie during her Costco madness. My first problem occured when I become terrified that he wouldn’t remember my name (I don’t know why, but I freak out when I think someone might have forgotten my name, mostly because I get nervous and insecure). So, in order to fix that problem, I practically pounced on this man’s poor wife, shouting out my name and a greeting in an attempt to alleviate any “awkwardness.” Next, I turned my attention to his baby who was sitting in the shopping cart (his wife was pregnant when I worked with him a year and a half ago). I commented on how beautiful she was, and I am not kidding, the following sentence actually came out of my mouth: “Oh, look at her cute little teeth. They are so nice. Good to know you won’t have to get braces for her, huh?” They both looked at me and nodded politely, which was nice of them. It was at that point that I began to slowly back away and murmur my goodbyes. Oh, and wait I forgot to mention the part where I knew his daughter’s name even though I HAVE NEVER MET HER. (I knew that all my hours on facebook looking at people’s pictures would come back to bite me in the ass sometime.)
So, all that to say… I am NEVER allowed to talk to people at Costco, ever again, no matter what.

Last night I attended the American Idol concert at the Staples Center with my mom and aunt. This is the concert where the top 10 contestants from the show have an opportunity to sing, dance, and try to convince music-business people that could potentially be in the crowd- “Sign me to your label, I am good!” (okay that isn’t officially the purpose but you know the 7 who haven’t already obtained a record deal are totally thinking that!)

 

The concert was great, but LONG. They basically counted down through the contestants in order of who was voted off first. Each contestant had a mini-concert with three songs in their set. Most of them sang at least one memorable song from AI but a lot of the songs were chosen because they were a personal fave of the person. 

Chikezie was up first and proved to be a great performer. He announced that his parents were in the crowd (he is from L.A.) and sang them a song that I am sure had them both bawling. Ramiele was next and annoyed me just as much in person as she did on the show. That’s all I can really say about her… Michael Johns came out next and ohmylanta, you should have heard the ladies go wild!! His set was awesome and I really hope someone gives him a record contract. He started with a medley of We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions and ended with Dream On. Basically, he was amazing. And then, the show took a very sad and pitiful turn when Kristy Lee Cook took the stage. Really the only way I can describe it for you is to say that the crowd was dead. No one was cheering, moving, or taking pictures. At the end of her first song she got polite clapping. But, tricky Kristy had a fast one hidden up her sleeve and busted out a sappy-patriotic speech and then sang “God Bless the USA” which of course produced some obligatory cheering in the crowd. (If you will remember, that was the song that she very shrewdly chose on “song from the year you were born” night.) Because of the train collision that was her performance, I don’t think anyone was fully prepared for what came next, when Carly Smithson came on stage and absolutely blew the roof off with a fantastic rendition of an Evanesence song. Basically, the girl sang her toosh off and and made me completely regret not voting for her on AI (she should have at least cracked the top 3). The last performer before the intermission was Brooke White. She picked three songs that perfectly suited her voice and talents. She started with Let it Be, then sang a really cute Feist song and closed her set with Yellow by Coldplay. She was just as gracious and charming as on the show. After a moving group number (starring the 6 who had already performed) set to video footage of American Idol Gives Back we were sent on intermission.

So Jason Castro started off the second half of the concert with one of my favorite songs- “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (the Izzy version). He even played the ukelele! Syesha was next and technically speaking was absolutely perfect. She has a gorgeous voice, but everytime she talked to the crowd in between songs I wanted to gag her… She never quite has been able to make herself lovable. She sang songs by Rihanna and Alicia Keys and then closed with “Listen” from Dreamgirls, and holy cow she hit a grandslam with that song. I then prepared to lose some of my hearing as David Archuleta took the stage. As I suspected, it was utter pandemonium during his set. He did a really good job and although all I could really think about was the fact that David Cook was up next, I did enjoy his versions of Stand by Me and When You Say You Love Me. Closing up the show was the guy we were there rooting for: David Cook. He is such a great performer, has a great sense of humor, and really got the crowd rocking. He sang Billie Jean during his encore and of course that made everyone happy! At the end all 10 of the AI contestants did a number together and I once again was reminded of the fact that a year ago all of them were just “normal” kids who had a crazy dream of making it big on American Idol. It’s pretty cool to imagine it through their eyes…

If you made it through this review; congratulations! I am sure you feel as if you were there now!

Approximately 45 seconds ago, something MAJOR happened… I finished the last of our wedding thank you cards! (For all of you judging me out there… I technically have a year to complete them, so I am actually 3 months ahead of schedule). I started writing thank you notes immediately after the ceremony and was done with 95% of them within a month. But, like many other areas in my life, I got distracted and pushed the remaining ones to the side and just now found them. It feels really good to be done.
This weekend has been a good one for Justin and me. We attended a friend’s wedding yesterday in the Newort Harbor. The boat we were on was really lovely and we had a delicious dinner. Today Justin is working on a project in the front yard and Skyla is “helping” him (she is laying in the shade making sure no one approaches him). I am currently holed up in the guest bedroom. It always is the coolest room in the house and I am trying to force myself to go through some boxes. You see, our guest bedroom is also currently being used as our storage room. We are creative with our space!

Today at work I decorated the employee cafeteria with a lot of 4th of July decorations. Mainly it was a lot of flag/star/Statue of Liberty themed items. This year will be the first 4th of July (as far back as I can remember) that I will not be attending a barbeque. Instead, we will be at the wedding of one of Justin’s co-workers. I am bummed that I am missing out on the annual family BBQ/birthday celebration (my sister’s b-day is the 4th) but I suppose I need to learn to be more flexible. I just really don’t like change!!!

On the subject of Independence Day: I recently read an article in Time Magazine about what it means to be “patriotic” according to each of the Presidential candidates. Obama and McCain both wrote a short essay, and while I was initially excited to read what they each had to say, I quickly got tired of wading through the b-s and closed the magazine. Throughout all this election hoopla I have felt increasingly frustrated with the absolutely ridiculous media circus that choosing a new President has turned into. Maybe it has been this bad for a long time and this is just me clueing in- in my defense this is the first election that I have not only been able to vote, but had major exposure to news outlets (in college during the ‘04 elections I didn’t have a tv, and I would estimate 98% of Biolans were pro-Bush at the time so there wasn’t too much fuss going on)..

All this to say,  I wish there was some sort of magic ball that would show us how each of the candidates would handle 4 years in the Oval Office, and then it would make my decision a whole lot easier.