I am so excited it's Ramadan...

I'm going to toss a rabbit down the stairs.

I'm one of only 5 people on earth who get that joke, and you're probably not missing much anyway since now that it's not 1 am Saturday night/Sunday morning, it's not nearly as funny. Nor is being tasered in the balls or having your last words be "Snowflake." In fact, there are only 2 things in this world I'm sure of. I love apples more than being noticed by boys and pumpkins at 6:00 are better than a corpse at 3:00. Ok, ball-tasering is still funny.

Why am I talking so weird/weirder than normal, you ask? Because I had a great weekend, and I just felt like sharing.

Thursday shouldn't count as the weekend as I have work and school that day, but on Thursday we got to see Justin & Mandi visiting from Nebraska, and I wanted to make note of that. Justin is my oldest friend I still keep in touch with, at least of those I'm not related to, and also not counting people who knew me as a kid who I will send or receive a message on facebook every other year. We went out to TGI Friday's since they were staying in Provo, only to discover TGI Friday's has been closed and there's a Magleby's there now. After a few hours of crying we opted to go to Pizza Factory and had a lovely visit there. Morgan loved Justin and Mandi, but then he loves everybody so they really shouldn't feel that special. ;)

He & I decided to start a collaborative/email story together, so I'll keep you posted on that if it's any good. Or if we do more than think about it. A couple of big ifs, but I'm just saying it like it if. I mean is.

Friday Tracie had to go to Salt Lake for work so Morgan spent the day with his grandparents and Charity. It was hard for Tracie, she kept asking me if it was difficult for me too, but I didn't have class that day so I actually got to see him earlier than usual! We were thinking about having family over that night but I was too exhausted and the house was too big of a mess to have them over, so we had a relaxing night of I don't really remember.

Saturday I had class in the morning and our friends we had planned tentatively to hang out that day weren't feeling well so we spent most of the day cleaning and watching "Better Off Ted" which I've been recommended by many people, and I really like it. Despite the fact that I passed out on the laundry and woke up a few hours later with towels for a pillow and underwear for a blanket. Haven't passed out folding laundry in ever.

I've been wanting to get together with my cousin Cameron since he got back from California, and Saturday seemed like a good day to do so. We also invited our cousins Brett & Charlotte since they live nearby and like Cameron too, and there aren't many of those. ;) Since I had napped most of the afternoon on a downy-soft bed, Tracie was understandably tired, so I let her nap while I finished cleaning and made dinner.

If you've ever been a dinner guest of ours, you'll know we're often late getting dinner ready, but it's always worth it. I said it's always worth it. Don't argue, it makes you look cheap, dear. So, Tracie rested and I made dinner all by myself. Not only that, it was a new recipe and the first time I've ever cooked shrimp. I made Shrimp Letillas, basically shrimp tacos with iceberg lettuce instead of tortillas. They were good, but I realized halfway that there wasn't enough shrimp for everyone. So I defrosted some ground turkey and improvised a taco type meat that wasn't half bad, in fact it was downright edible, though it was a bit spicy, which just means I loved it. If I had calculated the shrimp correctly, I actually WOULD have been on time, but it wasn't to be. Cameron and Brett had arrived and I was still cooking. The shrimp had gotten tough, not southside Compton tough but enough so they weren't the most delicious shrimp ever, but all the food was edible if not tasty, and as of this writing, no one is sick from it. Brett brought ice cream and a good time was had by all.

I may have stated before, but you can't get more than 3 Valantines together and not play some sort of game, it's a law or hard-wired into our DNA or something. First we played the game of things, which despite its non-inventive name is a lot of fun. The later it got, the sillier it got, but I think it safe to say a good time was had by all. (The multiple Otter pops/frozen sugar water sticks I'm sure helped as well.) Then we played some game Tracie and Charlotte wanted us to, where we each wrote a sentence on a piece of paper, then the person to our left drew a picture of that sentence. Then the person to their left wrote a sentence of that picture without seeing the original, then the next person would draw a picture of that new sentence without seeing the first picture and sentence, etc. until it returned to its originator. Hilarity ensued. Some of the best were the ones mentioned at the top, where a boy witnesses "the facts of life" becomes a boy so happy it's Ramadan he throws rabbits down the stairs, Jack and Jill going up the hill to fetch a pail of water becomes Robin Hood dragging maid Marian up a hill to drown her, etc. etc. You probably had to be there, but those of us that were there, well, it was one of the funniest nights I've had in awhile, thanks all for coming.

I guess I had so much fun with family Saturday night, I wanted to do it again on Sunday. This time we had my Uncle Jim's family (Jim, Jan, Nikita, Max, Ivan, Andre) over for dinner. Again it was ready later than the visitors were, (and they had called ahead to let us know they'd be late. The dinner did no such thing.) But in retrospect, it was a rather ambition dinner as well.

We wanted to try these "Indian Spiced Vegetables" and thought why not make a whole meal out of it. So we also made coconut jasmine rice and curry chicken. The first time we've ever made curry, but definitely NOT the last. At the risk of being sued by Campbell's, it was mm mmm good. Tracie made the majority of that, we also had Naan (sp?) bread, basically Indian flatbread that tasted better than Pita. Tracie made mango sweet rice for dessert, which in my opinion complemented the brownies Jan made quite well. Alas, since I was so slow in making dinner and because most of their family had school or work the next day, they couldn't stay very late, but we had time then to clean the war zone that was our kitchen.

Quite a fun weekend, much better than the last, which as I remember, was a whole lot of nothing. Happy Ramadan everyone!

And happy birthday to my mom!