what have we been up to?

well, i'm glad you asked. it's been a while since i've checked in and a lot has been going on. so here's the run down:

1. craftiness. i've been doing a lot of that lately. if you want to check it out, go to my other blog here. i have a couple of others that haven't posted, but you get the idea.

2. traveling! we have a friend from college who was getting married, so we made a road trip around to visit some friends from the "good ol' days" on our way to and from. first, we stopped in louisville (pronounced loo-i-vull...like your mouth is full of marbles. don't argue. just go with it.) to see our friends amy and clay and their beautiful family. amy is one of those people who make the rest of us look lazy, regardless of how much we get done during the day. and she makes it look relatively easy (as easy as one can make it look with three little kids and a baby on the way!). if she weren't so nice and funny, i'd hate her. we visited a really cool place called henry's ark with them and got to feed all kinds of animals: deer, ostrich, emu, goats, donkey's, peacocks, chickens, and i don't remember what else! the zebra and llama were inaccessible while we were there, but it was still pretty darn neat.

next, we headed to my friend shannon's in lexington (you are free to pronounce this one as it looks). her daughter amina was having her birthday party while we were there and my kids were so happy to get to join. they love amina and every time i say we're going to kentucky (where quite a bit of my family live, btw), they are certain that we must be going to visit amina.

we got to see a lot of old friends at the wedding, too, and got some dancing and cake in, too! afterwards, we went back to our friends heng and lara's house. we just kicked back and relaxed there and got to catch up while our kids played together (some advice: if four little children are suddenly quiet for longer than two minutes, worry. it probably involves perfume). we made it back home through the big storm later that night (that was the night a tornado ripped through joplin, and someone also threw a cantaloupe sized object off the overpass onto our van. scary. we called the police and they said that it was a popular spot for trouble, apparently. luckily there was no damage. buick just went up in my opinion) to a very hot house. we thought the HVAC system was broken, but after two days realized it was just a loose connection in the thermostat where we'd replaced the battery. the poor dog was stuck in that hot house the entire time we were gone, though!

for pics of these adventures, you'll have to check in with fai on facebook. i have no intention of waiting for blogger to upload that many photos. sorry!

3. hosting. after we invaded so many other people's houses, we had friends invade ours!! it's only fair. chava, who was in grad school with fai, came to visit with her husband mike and three kids. we haven't seen them in forever! it was fun to catch up. we went to the zoo together, then i sent them to the magic house and rec center pool. the kids loved having a sleep over, but it doesn't encourage actual sleeping, so we did have to separate them after the first night.

4. planning of the reunion. my family hasn't had a real reunion since i was a very little kid. i remember it. there was a pool and i had a blue bathing suit with a rainbow of sequins on the front. elementary school, people. so i thought it was about time we had another. because i suggested it, it was decided that i would plan it. it's going to be fun, people.

i think that's it. i bought a couch, painted a room, and i've done some yard work, but i won't bore you with those details. listing it all out has made me tired all over again. i'm out.