The king's mum's trip to the east coast

The king's mum took a tour of the east coast in March. Among the highlights (and not necessarily in the order they happened):

Seeing Mary Poppins on Broadway in New York City--her favorite part of the trip. Moving the props was amazing.

The king's mum, her brother, his granddaughter in front of the White House.


A statue of Paul Revere and the Old North Church behind it where the whole "One if by land, two if by sea" happened.

The queen's mum in Florida

A few fun shots of the queen's mum, sister, and neice in FL in February!




The queen's mum has a "thing" for posing with statues. We have many photos of her with various "stiff" men!!!

Belated St. Pat's day photos

The girls, killing time with a self-portrait while waiting for the parade to start!

The prince is 2 to the right of the guy in green hair--sort of leaning over and waving, wearing the black hat!

Sleep, I want sleep...

So it's around 2:00 AM. The prince just threw up for the second time tonight and the princess threw up for the first time.

I'll back up and say that neither of them was feeling well when they went to bed. By about 10:00, the prince threw up. By 11:00, the king had moved the princess to the floor in our room. By 11:30 the prince was also on the floor in our room.

At 1:30 the prince was moaning and groaning so I put him in my bed and decided to sleep on the couch. About that time the princess woke up to tell me she did didn't want to sleep anymore because her stomach hurt. I told her she could sleep in the tv room w/the tv on. Meanwhile I take Pepto to the prince and come back into the living room to hear the princess being sick in the bathroom. Clean that mess up, get her settled with the tv, and I hear the prince, in my bathroom, being sick.

Great! He didn't quite make it to the toilet this time so there is "stuff" all over the bathroom floor and toilet. The king, who has mostly been sleeping through all of this, says to me, "Are you going to put the rugs in the washing machine?" Mind you, he says this FROM THE BED THAT HE HASN'T GOTTEN OUT OF!

Sure. And I'll scrub the toilet and mop the floor while I'm at it. So I did. At this point, I'm not feeling all that tired and decide to go watch tv with the princess. But she assures me that, should I turn off the tv, she can go back to sleep now. Lucky her!

I don't know; the washer has turned off. Maybe I can go to sleep now too. On the couch. Away from all the sickies, but close enough to hear them when the next round begins.

By the way, we all ate the same dinner, and the king and I aren't sick. We went to brunch this morning. I can't think of anything they ate that one of us didn't also eat. Who knows. Maybe they're both just sick! It happens. The good news is that we have no school tomorrow so at least we can all nap!

I hope you're healthy! The queen of puke, signing off!

Google Names

Have you ever googled your name? Mine is unusual so how many hits could there be? Try OVER 61,000. I just checked out the first 12 pages or so, and saw nothing that references me, which I guess is good because I like to be a little bit anonymous. I did find a 21-year-old with the same birthday, many of Indian decent, and several businesses! Now, if you add the last name, you'll quickly get hits on me! The wacky internet!

Happy Easter!

Bright Lights of Vegas

Did you hear about the transformer blowing in Vegas last week? Took out power to Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and Excalibur. For those of you not familiar with Vegas (and why I haven't converted you yet, I'm not sure!), Excalibur sits on a major corner of the strip with the Tropicana across the street, MGM kitty-corner, and NYNY across the other street.

As "luck" would have it, someone I know was staying at the Excalibur but happened to be at Mandalay Bay when the power blew. Here's what she had to say:

1. They happened to be walking through the casino when it blew. She grabbed a chair and held on, thinking they didn't know how long it would be out and she might want to sit down as time went by. It was pitch black because there are no windows in casinos (part of their ploy to keep you there longer not knowing what time it is.) She said it was at least one minute before their generators kicked in. (Could this be any more like Oceans 11, 12, and 13??) After the generator kicked on, she said casino people were scrambling to go to each individual machine where people were playing and had to open them up and figure out how much money the player had in the machine and pay them out in cash.

2. My friend and her husband decided to walk back to Excalibur, but walked out and saw a HUGE traffic jam because the light at that corner where those big hotels are was also out. They decided to people-watch, and she said it took an HOUR for a cop to come and start directing traffic at that light.

3. When they went back into their hotel they found that:
A: All the elevators and stairs were shut down. (The stairs automatically lock in case of a power outage.)
B: Their room keys no longer worked because the power going out automatically scrambles all the lock codes for the rooms.
C: There was a lady (youngish) in the lobby dressed only in a towel because she was on the 28th floor, taking a shower, when the power went out, and she freaked out and ran down 28 flights of stairs dressed only in a towel. Why hotel management didn't help her out is beyond me, but I'm sure they were busy!

4. My friend said from the time the power went out until the time it was fully back on and they were able to go back into their room was about 3.5 hours.

When you couple this with the recent fire at the Monte Carlo, you've gotta wonder why anyone would want to go there, but all I can say is I CAN'T WAIT TO GO BACK!!!!

LOSERS!

My girl is gone. And, mind you, she didn't even get voted out. She QUIT!!! There goes my chance of winning $50. But there's always next season! (Ever the optomist!)

Cool Amanda

I blogged earlier about cousin Amanda winning a big essay contest. Here's some more info and the essay! You ROCK, Amanda!

Her mom writes: This was quite an honor She was a guest of honor at the Chuckwagon breakfast that included the governor and the mayor. Her essay was one of two that were selected out of 800 entries. She is such an amazing girl. This was the 39th essay contest. It was a great day! She received a $500 savings bond and $200 check from the artist Neil Patterson.



I like Charlie Russell Because ...I like Charlie Russell because he is an inspiration to me. He showed me that if I want to do something I could do it. Not only did he go to the West and do what he loved to do, his art, but also he successfully started a moneymaking business. I enjoy the way he loved, yet never hunted, animals. He drew pictures of buffalo being hunted and he never saw that. He just had heard it.

I was inspired by his will to go to the West, and when he was 16, his parents sent him on a trip there, and then he never permanently came back. That shows me to never forget what you want to do. Charlie grew up far different from me, yet Chaz, his parents called him, had the life I want. He got to spend the day doing what he always wanted to do. He married Nancy Cooper, and became a very successful artist, as I have already said. Charlie grew up to be what he had always wanted to, even though his dad wanted him to go to college and be in the family business.

So, eventually, he ended up a cowboy and creating over 2,000 paintings! Charlie’s paintings were unique to me. They were unique because he drew them with feeling. He drew what he has never seen before, and he became a very good friend to the Indians of the West. So he settled in Cascade with his wife, Nancy, and all of his Indian friends. The Indians told him of the buffalo hunts, and that put his imagina-tion to the test. The description of the buffalo’s eyes, and the way he drew the description and the fear in his eyes. I know what the buffalo is feeling because of that.

The paintings talk of him, his family and his family and his experiences. Right now, I live on 20 acres with one horse, and I go to parties all the time. Charlie showed me that no matter where you are, or where you live, you could change.

YUM!

Heaven, a little slice of heaven--that's what my new FAVORITE coffee creamer is--MARSHMALLOW Chocolate! Gotta LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!!

And then there was one!

My girl--still in, but by the looks of the previews, she's going home this week!

The princess' guy, voted out this past week! And he needed to go!!

The prince's guy, long gone!

It had to happen...

It had to happen. The prince is now taller than the queen!

1964

Look at me just blogging away!

Since the king and I were both born in 1964, here are a few fascinating financial facts from that year:

Annual tuition to Harvard: $2,400


Hershey chocolate bar: $0.05


Ford Mustang: $2,330 (starting price)


Movie ticket to "Goldfinger" (starring Sean Connery as "007"): $1.00 (THAT ONE WAS FOR YOU, MARY BETH!)

I*KID*AROD

Okay, so here's the deal. Every year the 7th grade class follows the Ididarod races. Each student aligns himself with a real racer, and they follow the progress. At the end of the week they get to watch the movie, Eight Below (about the race) and have their own race. They are broken into teams with one musher, a lead dog, and then 4-6 other dogs. They travel a 1.5 mile course (see the hill in the background of the photo) that includes climbing a big ol' hill TWICE. The musher has blankets, pillows, etc (the things you would need if you were doing it for real) in the sled. They stop at check points where they have to answer school-related questions. If they get a question wrong, they lose a dog! Mitch's team finished with only THREE people so they were awarded the "Most Inspirational" award! It's very fun and it was a pretty nice day yesterday!

From the Gazette:

A team starts the Ikidarod cross country sled pulling race Friday at Lockwood Middle School. The teams pull one member in a sled more than a mile over a hilly course. Along the way teams must stop at five check points where they answer academic questions. An incorrect answer means a member is dropped from the team. The race also has mandatory rest stops like the Alaskan dog race it is patterned after.

This link takes you to raw video shot by the Gazette. In it, toward the end, you'll see Mitch, in the black tshirt and glasses and hear him say, "Who's going?" He's famous!!

http://videos.billingsgazette.com/p/video?id=1758199

American Idol

This is Michael. He's beautiful. And I believe that he will be the NEXT AMERICAN IDOL!!!

Dodged a Bullet

Mitch's loser who dodged the bullet. Possibly the weakest man EVER!

Sharmi's loser--she bugs the &*^% out of people.

Cara's loser. Pretty, but already gone--thus the black/white photo!

Calling all Survivor fans!





The kids and I are in a Survivor pool--winner takes about $50. Cara's guy was voted out last week, but we dodged a bullet this week when a strong player was voted out instead of Mitch's weak one. Not to fear, my weak one would have been voted out had the other tribe not won immunity!! It's hard being a reality tv junkie!

But stay tuned, you know we do!

Birthday Blues

Could this little sweetie really be turning 44???? Given the dated toy and carpet, probably! And check out the bells on my shoes!!

Wrestling Mania

Congratulations to our fabulous nephews for BOTH placing in a state wrestling tournament this week. You boys are the BOMB!!!!

Grandma's so funny!

My mom and sister are in Disneyworld right now. Today they went to Disney's Hollywood Studios where they promptly took Grandma on the Tower of Terror. She loved it! So they headed over to the Rockin' Roller Coaster--with high speeds and a loop-de-loop. When they got off, my niece asked her, "Grandma, did you like it?" My mom looked at Becky and said, "ARE YOU CRAZY?????" Tomorrow they're going to take in the more mellow Pirates of the Caribbean and It's a Small World. I hope they make it to Splash Mountain too--that's not Rockin' Roller Coaster, but it's better than It's a Small World!!!

Congrats to Beck!

Our congratulations to cousin Becky for placing 1st in a HipHop dance competition at Disneyworld this week. She and her teammates were pretty excited that a bunch of Caucasian Mormon girls beat out a black team from Los Angeles! HipHop on, dancing queens!!