But I want to do something. So let's play a game of "Caption the Photo"! Yay!

Here's the photo:


Click to see it bigger.

Now, you give it a caption. Yes. You.

Labels: Nada, Pictures

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So! Last night Mom, Heather & I went to see Bon Jovi. They played at the Pepsi Center up in Denver and put on an awesome show. A lot of energy, a lot of music...a ton of fun.

When I was in junior high, Slippery When Wet came out and every girl was in love with Jon Bon Jovi. But not me. No siree, I had to be different. My man was Richie Sambora, the guitarist. I adored him. And when I saw him last night on stage with that double-necked axe, his black hat and long black leather coat it's like I was 14 again! He still looked good, even with his puffy face. He sang with Jon on "I'll Be There For You" and did a lot of solo vocals on "Wanted Dead Or Alive" (which Jon called "Our National Anthem") and sounded great! It's too bad his solo attempts in the early 90's went nowhere, he's got a strong voice.

Tico Torres is a great drummer (what do you think, Andy?) - and he always looked like he was having so much fun. Dave Bryan, the keys master, was adorable still with Weird-Al like hair...they're still a well oiled band after all this time.

Mom's guy, however, IS Jon Bon Jovi. Mom's ticket was a Christmas gift from Derek, Heather, Collin & I and I also picked up Bon Jovi's new CD "Have A Nice Day" for her. So she had a heads up on all the new songs and when they opened with "Last Man Standing" she was singing along like there was no tomorrow. I have to admit, Jon still looks pretty hot for 44 - great body, great smile, great voice...

Jon is one of the owners of the AFL team the Philadelphia Soul and he made sure he got some good-natured jabs in at the Colorado Crush owner, Mom's ultimate man, John Elway.* During "Bad Medicine" he was saying that John was at home, sitting in his rocking chair while he was out there, still looking good and working hard. Jon Bon Jovi is a great showman, I'll give him that.

They did a lot of new songs, which is expected but since I don't know them all like I do the older ones, I ended up doing my fair share of just standing there listening instead of singing along like I like to do. I was impressed that they sang "Raise Your Hands", "Keep The Faith" and "Born To Be My Baby", all of which I hadn't heard for years!! My one disappointment was that they didn't perform my favorite song, "Lay Your Hands On Me." They also did "Blaze Of Glory" which surprised me since that was a solo project for Jon.

Jon spent a lot of time performing in the crowd. Sadly, we were in the next to last row waaaaaaaaaay up on top so there was no chance of getting Mom next to her man. On the Jumbo-Tron they showed Jon walking by a lady who reached out & touched his butt. Heather said something about it and Mom replied, "He's right there! How could you not touch him???" She had the cutest smile on her face when she said it, too...she loves her some Bon Jovi, that's for sure.

All in all, it was a great show. They still rock and know how to entertain a crowd. I give him 8 out of 10 stars.

*=Ooo! If you like/love/adore/eatsleepbreathe John Elway, follow that link...the intro gave me chills!!!! It was great!

Labels: Music

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Two weekends ago, Collin, Jordyn & I had the pleasure of going to watch Shanon's daughter Elena's dance recital. Elena was so adorable and danced very well. Now I will share the journey with you! P.S. I'm going to see Bon Jovi tonight!!! Eeee!


This was at the end of the dance. Sadly, the little room at the Security Community Center where it was held (And where I took ballet lessons in 4th grade!) was packed with observers and I was unable to get a good shot during the dance. Trust me, though, the girls all did great! They dancd to "Under The Sea" from The Little Mermaid.


Elena, the pooped performer. Look how her shoulders droop as from the weight of her newfound stardom! :-) You can also see the master job her mother did on her hair! Top notch!


Elena receiving a hug from mom Shanon. It's also a good shot of the adorable tutu the girls all wore.


I was trying to get a good picture of Elena in her outfit but so was everyone else in her family. Poor thing didn't know where to look so Jordyn took it upon herself to direct her my way. As you can see, it didn't work out.


I love this picture. I snapped it as we were leaving. They're both so cute!

Have a great Thursday everyone! I'll tell you all about the BON JOVI CONCERT tomorrow!!

Labels: Elena, Pictures

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Happy Birthday to my 19th cousin 32 times removed George Washington! Yayayayay! He would be...umm... 274 years old today. Wow. Wonder what the 1st President would think of the old USA today. They dedicated the Mini Page in the Gazette to him Monday...of course it was written for kids but it was still interesting to look at. There were a lot of good pictures. I saved it to add to the genealogy pile. Derek & I are related to good ol' George through my father's mother's side of the family but I always thought he kinda looked like my Mom's mom with the white hair and the set of his mouth. Anyway, let's all celebrate Geoge's birthday with some Chocolate cake. I'm always in the mood for chocolate cake!!

Labels: family

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I'm not sure how old I was - probably jr high or high school, but one day I took thin-sliced roast beef and wrapped it around nacho cheese flavored Doritos. It was the most wonderful thing I had ever eaten. In fact, writing about it now makes me want to head on over to King Soopers and get some!! Mmmm....

Anyway, my point is that after I found that great combo, I started experimenting a little here & there, finding foods to go together. My first success was bagged popcorn from Albertsons and stick pepperoni. Don't know why but it tasted incredibly yummy together! Then a couple weeks ago I started dipping Fritos Scoops into peanut butter. Considering that I think Fritos are the only way to go chip-wise with a PB&J, this made perfect sense to me.

But last night - last night was the oddest. And it tasted pretty good. Fritos Scoops dipped in caramel. Yep. That's right. Caramel. You know that dipping caramel you get for apples? Well, I'd eaten all the apple slices I had and still had a half tub of caramel left and a big ol bag of Scoops just staring me in the face. Why not, I thought. The salty mixed with the overpowering sweetness somehow worked. Amazing.

Not sure I'll make a habit out of it but maybe every once in a while....

Labels: stories

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Last weekend, Collin & I stopped into the north Best Buy to look around and noticed that in the center of the store they had Guitar Hero set up for people to try out. There were two young boys, maybe 10 or 11, playing. Not very well, either. It was obvious that was their first attempt at being a Guitar Hero. We watched them a while then I finally got my chance...I played Ziggy Stardust and while I didn't wow anyone with my playing, I finished the song and did much better than the younguns. Collin mentioned on our way out that we should take Jordyn & Justin up there so they could play in front of an audience.

So that's what we did. Saturday evening we wandered in there and found the game unattended. Jordyn started off first with Thunder Kiss '65. While she was playing, a woman & her husband walked up, accompanied by their young son, maybe 3 or 4 years old. They were watching her play in awe. Jordyn was doing great, only missing a couple notes here and there. She swung the guitar neck up for double points so fast it was almost a blur! When she wasn't singing along with the words, she had her tongue sticking out in the utmost concentration. The lady looked at her husband and said, "She's singing with it! She's the coolest chick ever!!"

Justin & I each had a couple turns, doing really good but it was Jordyn that brought the crowd. Here was this 6 year old girl playing songs like Smoke On The Water and I Wanna Be Sedated like she was born to.

It was obvious, however, that the employees were not thrilled with our Saturday night excursion. They glared and said loud enough for us to hear that they wished they could put a note on the Playstation that the system would lock up if you played the same songs in a row. At one point, two of them actually brought the manager over as if to have him kick us off the game. The guy told the loser employees to leave us be and get back to work! HaHA!

At the end of it all, Jordyn closed out the show with her Tony Iommi impersonation. The woman and her husband had wandered back over to watch. When she was done, the husband picked up the game and walked off. We had successfully convinced someone to buy the game just by playing it! It was amazing!!

I did go ahead and purchase Franz Ferdinand's 2 CD's, just because I felt that would lessen the heat on us from the glaring employees. When I went to pay, Jordyn told the young girl waiting on me that we rocked at GuitarHero. She replied with, "I think that thing's annoying." Way to encourage the kids, girlie.

I wish we could get her on tape so you could all see Jordyn playing. It's amazing. Watch out, Gary Hoey!

Labels: Games, Jordyn

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Tuesday night, Collin & the kids came to have dinner with me on my lunch break from work. We went to Culver's and as we were sitting there waiting for our food, I was talking and gesturing with my hands. Jordyn, who was sitting across from me, suddenly says, "What's that red stuff on your finger?"

"Huh?" I'm looking at my hands & fingers and I don't see anything.

"Underneath your fingernail, it looks like blood." I really look hard then but still see nothing. I showed my nails to her and said it must have been a trick of the light.

The next morning, I was at Collin's, playing with Sam the hamster.

I was reading Collin's post while Sam was trying his best to escape my hands. He got annoyed with me and bit my finger hard enough to draw blood. We put him back and I washed the blood off, not thinking too much about it. A bit later we were driving and I said, "Hey, there's still blood underneath my fingernail from Sam biting me."

Collin looked over at me and said, "Just like Jordyn saw." Oooo....spooky!!!

Plus - a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my baby, Collin!! I hope you have a wonderful birthday!!

Labels: Jordyn

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I mentioned last week about the Thank You cards that I made - well, after long last, here they are for your viewing pleasure! Remember, this was my first attempt.



This one was for Shanon. I stole the fish stickers from Jordyn. She didn't seem to mind.


Here's Mom & Dad's...this one is overloaded in glitter glue. I just couldn't stop myself!


I think this might be my fave - it was for Derek & Heather. Since Derek is evil I picked the devil girl and made the card appear as if it were aflame. I also like the way I decorated the glass.

Sorry this is so short but I gotta go! See ya!

Labels: Pictures

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I'm really busy here at work this week with handtest - the only good thing about this is that it's a long test and it gives me time to read. Tonight I started reading the latest Dean Koontz book, Forever Odd. So far it's excellent, just like I knew it would be but...I just read something that I think insulted me. There's a character in the book who calls herself Datura and Odd Thomas, the character who's viewpoint the book is from, has decided that she gave the name to herself because it meant something to her & that she was born with a common name like Mary or Heather.

Heather?? A COMMON name?? Excuse me, Mr. Koontz - you may be my 2nd favorite author but I am not COMMON!! My name is not common. At least I don't think so. Common names are names like Mary (he was right about that one), Elizabeth, Ann, Barbara, Joan and Susan. Even though I'm named for a flowering weed, it's still not as common as other flower names like Rose or Daisy.

I feel so affronted. But that won't stop me from finishing the book! Have a great Monday!

Labels: Books

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Yeah, yeah - I know I promised to show you all the Thank You cards I made today but Collin didn't upload them into Flickr like I thought he had and I don't know how (yet!) so today you get the silly fun of Random Thursday! Yay!

Last week Jordyn & I went to have lunch with Collin. On our way to Schlotsky's, Jordyn starts talking about this boy in her kindergarten class. "You know, that Calvin doesn't have much going on in his head." While laughing, we managed to register our shock that she would say that. "Well, it's true," she continued dilligently, "He's only got the Land of Silly filling his head!"

- - - - -

Dad was up in Parker for 4 days this past weekend watching my cousins Mandy & Amy while their parents went to Vegas for a vacation. Through a roundabout way, Dad & Amy got to talking about suicide. Amy asked Dad how he would kill himself. "I wouldn't kill myself," he replied. Amy said, "I'd eat 40 teaspoons of salt. That'd kill ya!" Dad told her that she'd never get that much salt down and she said, "Yeah, but it would kill ya!"

- - - - -

Hey, how about a picture or two, just to round out the randomness?


Derek in his Popeye impersination. Can you see that little red thing on his eye? Over on the right? That was like a blood blister that never went away! It got knocked off twice and always grew back. He finally had it removed by a laser - I remember being in the waiting room looking through a Highlights magazine (I was only in 6th grade maybe so he was in 3rd) and hearing him screeeeeaaaam.....scared me to death!


It's Collin!! He's so cute!!!


Here's Brando/Otto trying his damndest to get out of his cage. You can see the determination his beady little eye and the way his teeth are gnawing for all he's worth!!

Well, that's all I got today. Have a great Thursday!

Labels: amalgams, family, Jordyn, Pictures

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For my birthday, Collin bought me the Bret "Hitman" Hart DVD - it's a 3 DVD collection all about my favorite professional wrestler. I'll admit that I used to be waaay into wrestling...Derek & I used to sit in front of the TV in anticipation every Saturday at 4pm to watch an hour of WWF Wrestling. One afternoon it was preempted for something stupid and Derek actually called the TV station to complain!! But we were hooked! We had a favorites - mine were usually the good guys like Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat and The British Bulldogs. And then one day The Hart Foundation came out to wrestle - I took one look at Bret Hart and was down for the count. Man, he was CUTE!!!

I got to see him wrestle live once up in Denver and I brought along a handmade sign that said, "Bret Hart I Love You!" I was about 13 rows back but he saw it and smiled at me! :-) There were 3 guys sitting in front of us - my Mom had accompanied Derek & I to this event...we dragged her along to a lot of wrestling things... - anyway, these guys were making fun of me because I liked Bret Hart. One turned to me and said, "You know Bret Hart is gay, right?" And I immediately shot back, "You wish!" Mom was shocked. She thought I was always the quiet one...not that what I said was bad or anything...

Anyway, anyway...I'm blathering on here so I'll get to my point. The other day I was in Target and I bought a pink & black Mickey Mouse sleep tank. It's cute & comfy and I wore it to bed the first night I had it. Subconsciously, I must have thought, "These were Bret Hart's colors when he wrestled" because I had a dream* about him. I was backstage at a wrestling event and all these wrestlers were walking past me - I remember seeing Hunter Herst Helmsley and Nikolai Volkoff but I was there to see The Hitman! I was standing behind some barriers and there he was! The girls were going crazy, chanting his name and he was kissing them all on the lips! I was so excited cuz I was gonna kiss Bret Hart! Well, he got to me, looked at my pink & black tank top in appreciation then laid one on me! Then I woke up.

This dream made me realize that I hadn't yet watched the DVD that Collin had bought me so Sunday morning when I got home from work, I popped it in to watch while I worked on my Thank You cards.** The first disc was like a biography of him and his matches & titles. They showed snippets from the match where he & Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart*** won the WWF Tag Team Championship and I started laughing. I couldn't help it - they showed the date: February 2, 1987. The reason I was laughing was because I now knew the exact date that I got kicked off the cheerleading squad when I was in high school!!

I missed 3 games because I didn't have transportation and per the rules of Cheerleading, I was kicked off the team. I got home and was telling Mom who was lecturing me about the responsibility that I had thrown away, blah blah blah and during a lull in the conversation Derek piped up with, "The Hart Foundation won the Tag Team Championship last night." I was all excited and started asking him questions and Mom blew up! "You care more about some fake wrestling belt than you do being kicked off the team!!!" Well...yeah. But it amused me that seeing that match on the DVD could bring back a memory like that!

* = I called Mom last night and was telling her about the dream. When I got to the part where Bret Hart kissed me, Mom yelled, "It's Bret Hart!" I was like..."Yeah, he was kissing me!" But she said he was on TV. As soon as I mentioned his name, he was on TV, talking about some Bret Hart Fan Club or something. What are the odds?

** = I've started a new hobby - making cards. Shanon started doing it a while back and I thought it was a great idea. Something a little more personal than a Hallmark card. I made 3 Thank You cards and Collin scanned them for me...I'll post them on Thursday for you to see.

*** = Mom cracks me up. One afternoon we were driving somewhere (I was in high school) and out of the blue she piped up with, "If you married Bret Hart but hyphened your name with Knight, you'd be Heather Knight-Hart...like Neidhart! Hahahahahahahaha!!!" I loved that she was thinking I could marry Bret Hart! But to come up with the pun on his partner's name...classic.

Labels: entertainment, Mom

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Theme? I don't need no steenkin' theme!!! With that in mind, welcome to sheer randomness! Have fun!


To start off today's festivities, we have Collin's daughter Jordyn and her Christmas hamster Sam/Sunshine. She keeps switching between the name I gave him and the one she thought of. The poor guy is going to have a personality disorder soon! How cute are they???


Here's the other hammy-wammy, Brando/Otto. This is why he's called a teddy bear hamster!


Last week we had a game night at Mom & Dad's and while we were playing the hilarity-infused romp known as Mad Gab, Dad fell asleep and stayed asleep! His little "T Rex arms" crack me up!! I don't even think he knows this picture was taken. Until now!


A familiar site - Derek's open mouth! I took this at the Avs/Stars game last week. Much fun was had by all!


The view from my porch. Pikes Peak after the snowstorm we had a couple weeks ago. I did have a great shot from my bedroom window but the screen ruined it!


My favorite picture of the moment. I was trying to get a shot of Jordyn with Brando/Otto in his ball and the camera didn't work so she pulled the pizza out from behind her back and "POOF!" Picture taken. I think it looks like she's threatening him..."See what I'm doing to this pizza? You're next!! Argh!" And Otto's like, "AHHHHH!! I can't run away!!" Something like that. Anyway, have a great weekend!!

Labels: amalgams, family, Pictures

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Not only am I a giant Broncos fan, I love football as a whole. I will watch any game, pro or college, even if I'm not rooting for one particular team. I just really like football. And I think I'm passing this on to Collin's 6 year old daughter.

Tuesday night we were sitting in Culver's having dinner when Jordyn says, "I was watching Alan today..."

Collin: "Alan?"

Jordyn: "Yeah, you know...the show? She's really funny."

Me: "You mean Ellen?"

J: "Yeah, Ellen." 6 years old and her favorite show is Ellen Degeneres' talk show. Go figure. "Anyway, I'm watching Ellen and she starts talking about how happy she is that the Seahawks won and I'm all like, 'Ellen, I love you but the Seahawks?? Come on!'"

I had to hide my face, I was laughing so hard. I finally was controlled enough to tell her that it's okay that the Seahawks won because they weren't playing the Broncos. She nodded sagely as she ingested this piece of information. Then she blithely informed us all how much she likes football. I'm so proud!

Labels: Broncos, Jordyn

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