The schedule’s been a little non-stop lately.  Sorry I haven’t posted in a while.  This week will be pretty busy as well.

Kristin and I are flying out to Ft. Smith, Arkansas tomorrow.  My great-grandfather passed away late last week, and we’re going to attend the funeral.  My great-grandfather, Raymond Rippy, was 95 years old.  He lived a long full life.  Our family is definitely saddened by the loss, but we are also grateful that he lived such a long and healthy life.

Even though we’re not traveling under the best of circumstances, I am excited about seeing my family.  I’m glad that everyone is able to be together.  I’ll be posting regularly again very soon…The way air travel is these days I’m bound to have a blogworthy story or two when I get back.

Most nights Kristin goes to bed earlier than I do. After we both get home from work we usually enjoy a little dinner, maybe some TV or a movie, and then she hits the hay. I then stay up for another couple of hours reading and doing school work. Kristin doesn’t believe that every night when I come in she’s sleeping in some position that makes it impossible for me to get in bed. So, last night I took a picture. This is fairly regular. Please notice that Kristin is not only on my side, but she is also sleeping corner to corner providing as little room as possible for me. It makes it even more exciting that she spooks easily when she’s sleeping. I’ll lightly tap her shoulder and whisper, “Honey, can you move to your side?” She then generally hits me in some manner and says, “What happened!?” To which I reply. “Nothing. You just hit me again.” To which she says, “No I didn’t…Goodnight.”

Of coarse, after this post I’m sure I’ll sleep just fine tonight…in the guest room.

Today I did some laundry at “The Mat”…Alone. When I say alone I don’t mean that I didn’t know anybody else there. I mean that I was the only person there including employees! Apparently they just open the place up and let people come and go as they please… Good thing I had a book.

Well, as you know last weekend Kristin and I took a trip to Montgomery to visit my family for labor day. We had a great time. We hung out at the pool with Taylor and Charlotte and the whole gang took a much-needed trip to Bruster’s Ice Cream! The kid’s loved it. Especially Ashley. Ashley is my almost 24 year old (pregnant) sister, but she got the most childish ice cream of all. It was some sort of cotton-candy concoction that was multi-colored, full of candy, and topped off with a gummy worm. At one point we were all talking and all of the sudden I hear this curious crackle. I look over to see my sister with her tongue out, “There’s pop rock in here!” She exclaimed. It was quite comical. Here are some pics of Taylor and Charlotte:

THEN this weekend Kristin’s family made the trip over to Lakeland for a weekend-o-fun. It was unfortunate that due to my crazy weekend schedule (and the CLAST test) I barely got to see everyone. Luckily I was able to get in several invigorating games of Hungry Hungry Hippo and some tastetacular lasagna (thanks Mel Cell). I found out after they left that the whole family was pretty much freezing the whole time they were here. Kristin and I keep the house fairly chilled.

LR: Cade, Melony, Madison, and Billy

I like to create words. Here are two words that I have made up for everyday use that I hope you will incorporate into your vocabulary. The first is a word that I made up many years ago and have used often ever since. The second is more recent, but has entered the vocabulary of many people in my “inner circle”. That’s basically just Kristin right now. Here are the words, pronunciation key, and definition. Oh, and your welcome. Enjoy my words.

1) Tastetacular [taste-tak-yuh-ler]- adj. – Refers to food or beverage. A joining of the words “taste and spectacular” meaning that something tastes spectacular.

“These cookies are tastetacular!”
“Who made the tastetacular hors d’oeuvres?”

2) Ridonkulous [ri-donk-yuh-lus] – adj. – Beyond ridiculous.

“That hat is ridonkulous!”
“It is completely ridonkulous to suggest that my client is anything but innocent.”