It's a TEA shirt

Somewhere along the way, I decided that tea towels made excellent souvenirs of our travels. They were lighweight, relatively inexpensive, and plentiful in western Europe. I have tea towels from Scotland, from London, from Rome. I have tea towels with recipes for Wiener Schnitzel and Salzburger Nockerl. I even have a tea towel that features a portion of the Bayeux Tapestry. So when Karla the Texpatriate was heading off on her fantastic adventure to Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, I asked her to snag me a tea towel if she happened to think of it.

Well, as it turns out, tea towels are not a big thing in southeast Asia. So she sent me this tea-shirt instead (get it?):



How cool is that?! I am the only girl at Fort Knox--heck, probably the only girl in all of Kentucky--wearing a Beerlao shirt today!

I was wondering what I could possibly send to Karla to say thanks for the shirt, and I was coming up blank. I think I know now though what Karla likes.

The greatest American hero

Do you remember the first day of school last fall, when I wrote this:

Annabelle slumped off her bus a half hour later looking very solemn indeed. By the time she reached the front door, she was sobbing her heart out. She says she is the slowest person in her class at everything and that she feels like a big dummy and is going to be totally STRESSED! And why, oh why, did she ever have this stupid idea of going to school anyway?! AND they have to take in a picture of their American hero. And Andrew Lloyd Webber? He's BRITISH! And TS Eliot? BRITISH!!! And WHY DON'T YOU TRY DOING 5 DIFFERENT TYPES OF MATH IN ONE PROBLEM AFTER TWO YEARS OF DOING NOTHING, MOM?!? (ouch)

Fortunately my father saved the day when a little googling revealed that TS Eliot had actually been born in the good ol' US of A.

The kids have been dragging home a year's worth of work this week in preparation for the last day of school on Friday. Annabelle brought home her TS Eliot portrait, and she looked so pretty tonight, trying on her outfit for the honors assembly tomorrow, that I just had to snap a picture of her with Mr. Eliot:



In case you don't know what TS Eliot looked like:



I think she really captured him!

Field trip

On Thursday, I chaperoned Annabelle's class on a field trip to the Louisville Science Center and had a wonderful time. The museum was really crowded, and I was a little nervous about losing a kid, but we had a great little group, and everybody hung together well.

I was so busy counting kids (1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, etc.) that I have little to no memory of the exhibits except for one really cool machine that took a picture of a child and then "aged" the image to show what said child would look like at various stages of his or her life. That was a really popular exhibit with a huge line.

After lunch we watched the IMAX film "Australia: Land Beyod Time." The movie was great, and it was nice to just relax in the comfy seats and take a break from counting kids.

When our bus arrived at the science center that morning at 10 a.m., I was worried that 4 hours wasn't going to be enough time to see and do everything. By 2 p.m. though, my feet were killing me, and I was ready to head for home.

Here are a few pictures of our group enjoying the museum:

Redecorating my keys

My new keychain arrived in the mail this morning! Here are my old keys:



And here are my new, improved keys:



See? My old keychain had a ridiculous little clown and my new keychain has a . . . hmmmm. Maybe they're not so different after all.

• Get your own Bush countdown keychain here.

Feelin' short

Please ignore the dust on my mirror:



I've got nothing for you today. There are huge happenings over in Rodentia though! I suggest you hustle yourself over to Rodents on the Roof and check it out. Please remember--Annabelle loves comments as much as the next person!

Does Derby pie go bad?

I just discovered 2 forgotten slices of Derby pie in my refrigerator. Derby Day was over a week ago. Do you think it's still OK to eat? Now that I know it's there, I can kind of hear it whispering to me.

Happy Mother's Day!

I last saw my high-speed internet connection on Friday, and it is making me very grumpy. I would love to come up with something witty and meaningful for Mother's Day, but the grumpy is getting in the way.

Fortunately, my friend Gretchyn found this little video clip, which made me laugh out loud. Hope you like it, too:



We are probably just going to spend a nice, quiet day at home (sadly without a high-speed internet connection). Fred is making his famous pancakes as I type this. I might just stay in my pajamas all day!

UPDATE: It's 2:30 p.m., and I have my cable internet connection back! Oh, happy day!! (I'm still in my PJs though. Odds of me getting dressed today are NOT looking good.)

If we're ever homeless, we can live in it

Mike has decided that he wants to join band next year. His new instrument? Upright bass:



I'm looking forward to watching him march:

Beautiful day for a derby

We are in the middle of a nice, long weekend. The kids had Thursday and Friday off from school, and Fred hosted a picnic here at the house yesterday for the Fort Knox JAG offices. The weather was amazingly cooperative, and we all had a blast. After lunch, we divided into teams for a rousing game of Taboo:



Today was Derby day, but we decided not to take part in the Derby festivities this year. Instead we have hung back and watched and planned what we want to do next year. For example, we want to get a hotel room downtown for Thunder over Louisville. And we want to go have breakfast at Dawn at the Downs. And I want to go to Kroger to watch the floral department make the garland of lillies for the Oaks winner and the garland of roses for the Derby winner. And I want a hat, a really big hat. If we leave Kentucky and I don't have a hat, I shall consider this entire tour to be an utter failure. Oh, and I want to drink a mint julep too, even though I googled it, and I think it sounds rather disgusting. Maybe I'll just take a small sip.

We all drove up to Louisville this afternoon for a lunch of Indian food and a shopping trip to Whole Foods. Then we came home and watched the race on TV. I was pulling for Sinister Minister because, let's face it, he had the coolest name. It looked for a few seconds like I had picked a winner, but then Barbaro came blasting through for the big win. Oh, well, it's not like I had any cash riding on it.

We capped off our lowkey Derby day by having Derby pie for supper. Nothing like a meal of chocolate-pecan pie smothered in whipped cream!

Better Boyd family pic

My dad had this picture on his camera, which I think better captures us than the picture I posted earlier:



We were all about the kick lines that night!

Happy birthday, Fred!

Wow, can you believe that Fred is 45 today? I tried to find a baby picture in honor of the occasion, but the only one I found was the one I used last year. So instead of a baby picture, here is his senior picture:

Cousinpalooza--we got da booza!

My plane touched down in Louisville a little after 4 yesterday afternoon, and I was immediately overwhelmed with the feeling that the whole weekend never actaully happened. Did I really go to Florida? Did Becky really get married? Did Julie and I really take the best roadtrip ever? It all seems like a (very nice) dream, but it wasn't a dream, and I can prove it. I've got pictures!

Julie and her kids (Liam, Blake, and Emma) picked me up at the Miami airport Friday afternoon, and we immediately headed back for Julie's house. Once the kids were in bed that night, Julie and I ordered sushi and cracked open a bottle of wine. We had to practically rip her kitchen apart to find a corkscrew--doesn't drink much, that Julie--but we did find one, and we had a terrific evening.

Saturday morning, we were up and out by 9:30, which was only a half hour later than we had planned. For us, that's practically on time! This was the first time Julie has left her kids overnight for any reason other than birthing another baby, so I had to take a picture of her emancipation proclamation as we pulled out of the driveway:



We pointed the minivan towards Tampa and settled back for 5 blissful hours of nonstop talking. We left no stone unturned--we analyzed ourselves, our husbands, our kids. This was the first time we've been alone without at least one of our kids in 10 years, so there was a lot of catching up to do.

We arrived at the hotel in Tampa just ahead of our sisters and roommates for the night:



Once we had changed into our wedding clothes (Hey, Jenny, are those your wonder unders, or did you accidentally wind up with a pair of Emma's leggings?) and freshened up a bit, we all went downstairs for the wedding. We popped "backstage" to greet the bride and the mother of the bride:



There was a brief delay in the ceremony while one of the bridesmaids was being stitched into her dress after the zipper decided to call it a day. As you can see, Eric (the groom) was eager to get things started:



The ceremony was beautiful and went off without a hitch. We hung around afterwards for a big family photo and then milled around on the pool deck for the cocktail hour before the reception. (Hey, Julie! Who died and made you Kate Moss?)

The reception was a blast! All of us cousins were at table 8, along with Eric's sister and her husband and a friend of his from Orlando. Table 8 was THE party table. We weren't too shy to ask for seconds and thirds (and fourths) on champagne. In fact, eventually we just suggested to the waiter that he leave the bottle on the table, which he did.

Toward the end of the evening, we wandered out into the hotel lobby to take pictures. Here's one that I call "Girl Cousins Gone Wild":



It was also a siblingpalooza. Here are my aunt Suzie (mother of the bride), my uncle Johnny, and my mom:



Here's a shot of me with my sister and my parents. I swear my sister and I didn't PLAN on dressing like twins. It just kind of happened:



As you may recall, every time we cousins get together, we lie down on the floor to take an updated picture of our classic cousin pose. Becky wasn't keen on the idea of wallowing on the floor of the hotel lobby in her white dress, so this time we had to take a picture like grownups:



The rest of the evening went very smoothly, and Jenny even caught the bouquet. Don't hold your breath though--Jenny appears to be immune to the desired effects of bouquet-catching.

After the formal part of the evening concluded, the 5 of us cousins who were NOT the bride moved to room 438 for the post-party party. We tend to go quite a while between reunions, so it's always nice to get back together. We catch up on all the family gossip and look back on the good old days and wonder just what the hell ever happened to Grandma's huge starfish pillow. Saturday night we did all that, but we did it over 3 bottles of wine, which was a nice addition to the tradition. Our entertainment for the evening was watching Julie (who, remember, couldn't find her corkscrew the night before and is seriously out of party training) tie one on:



Cousinpalooza wound down around 2 a.m. when Danny left and we girls went to bed. We slept until 9:30 that morning and awoke feeling (fortunately) none the worse for wear. Julie and I were on the road by lunch time and enjoyed another nice long afternoon of constant talking. We arrived back at Julie's just before 6, and Emma was very happy to see her mom (and her "Cousin Bonnie"):



Julie and I capped off our adventure with another round of sushi after the kids went to bed but decided that we had had quite enough wine for one weekend. We are, however, counting on Danny or Jenny to get married sometime soon so that we can have an excuse for another Cousinpalooza!

• If you want to see these photos plus a few more, you can go here.