Hello Lake House. We're Home.

When we were little kids, this was our backyard.



This was dinnertime.



And this was how our dad drove to work.



Then when we were a little older, we moved to suburbia, where it's required that your garage is the largest, most protruding feature of your house.

We didn't mind because we liked our Nintendo and our Rollerblades (sidewalks at last!) our new accessibility to McDonald's (fast food at last!) and of course... (cable at last!) our MTV

But our dad... well, he was especially attached to that house on the water, and was never quite the same.



Mom and Dad did things to cope. Like build this pond with working waterfall in the backyard. But no bass to catch in there. Just giant goldfish. I mean, it did come in handy though...



... as a backdrop for Kathleen's risqué homemade (i.e., mom-made) Little Mermaid costume.

On a sidenote, Kathleen wore that costume constantly. However the day she did wear it to school for Halloween she shivered and waddled (no side-slits mom) all the way to the bus-stop. It was a chilly October day but she refused to wear a jacket over her costume. Anyone surprised? Didn't think so.



So flash forward twenty-some years and our parents have just moved into their new lake house. It's still in a suburb of sorts, in a neighborhood in the city closer to us kids. This has been a really big deal, because our parents house is basically the epicenter of all our weekends. That's Kathleen's car on left, mine on right.

Mom and Dad basically bought the place in one afternoon after looking at only one other house. They really weren't even in the market, but Jeremy saw the place on Zillow, my parents got Kathleen and Jeremy's realtor to take them by, my Dad conveniently had his fishing rod (yeah, how convenient) in the back of their tiny Honda Fit, dropped the line into the little lake out back, caught a fish, and yelled out (like screamed really 'cause mom and I were checking out the garden tub in the upstairs bathroom at the time and could hear him)... "SOLD!"

Simon the realtor said it was his easiest sell ever. We told him he should take a fishing rod with him on all his showings.



So hello new backyard, new weekends of hanging out on the back porch, in the hammock, on the water.

And all that's just the normal stuff. Ah.. new neighbors, what you don't know about the clan that just moved in next door could fill a book. Wait 'til we unpack the Halloween decorations (maybe that Little Mermaid costume is still in the bottom of a trunk somewhere, I'm sure Kathleen would love to squeeze back into it.) Wait 'til Donny's burlesque/vaudville troup comes through on tour, resting their road-weary trailer in my parents' drive at Thanksgiving. Wait 'til our entire family is trying to slide around on the frozen lake in our tennis shoes at Christmas, which my husband can't wait to try. They probably won't even realize that only our parents live there.

Hello new views, new nooks, new crannies, new piano room. Our history fits nicely here.

And of course...





Hello new place of honor for the Havalina. We think you'll like it here.



Dad sure does. Of course, he's only been waiting twenty-three years to come home.

Paper Plate To-Do Lists

This is what a to-do list looks like in the Thomas family. No, we don't just use paper plates to create our own post apocalyptic "bust-the-deal-face-the-wheel" tools of judgement. We also use them to remind us to get: "tickseed, tartar sauce, vice grips and squirrel food."

Our mom is really the one who invented this paper-plate planner system which is sure to be trendily re-designed for the masses and distributed in a cute Target office/day-planning/stationery aisle near you any day now, I'm sure.

But over the past week the paper plates have been multiplying at a frantic pace. Why? Well, because our parents have sold the house we've lived in for the past twenty years and are in the throes of getting the new house up to Thomas family standards. Pretty big deal. Lots of details. Many, many paper plates.

A perfect paper-plate example would be measurements for new curtains. Our mom is like a vampire, she cannot stand window glare, which is why Kathleen and I sang Cry Little Sister from Lost Boys to her all weekend. Plus, no one is cooking in all this chaos, so our dad is practically living off of Long John Silvers at this point (which is down the street in their new hood) and thus... extra tartar sauce is frankly, a must-have.

More to come on our clan's big move. Which involves mounting the boar's head, giving the dragons the perfect look-out point and trying to not freak out the neighborhood welcome committee.

Sunday Dresses & Studio Portrait Smiles

This is why Kathleen and I never smile with our teeth anymore. We're trying to come back from it, though. It's only taken twenty years.






This is also back when we used to have Sunday dresses, Sunday suits. We're a family lapsed. Case in point: a phone call I got from my mom two Saturdays ago.

Mom: "Don't forget the boys Easter baskets when you come down this morning."

Me: "Mom! It's not Easter!"

Mom: "Well, I know that it's not until tomorrow..."

Me: "No, like it's not Easter. At all. Not for like two weeks!"

Mom: "Oh. I have to go unhide all the eggs in the yard. Click."

We're about to drive down to my parent's this morning. It really is Easter this time. We won't be wearing ribbons, or ruffled collars, or checkered suits. It's raining, so the egg hunt in the backyard might be a little muddy. We like to take turns rehiding the eggs until they're a cracked mess. Kathleen, it's your turn! Charlie, it's your turn! Mom (that's me now) it's your turn!

And we'll be smiling. Teeth and all.

A Fair To Remember.

Oh, man, I could write these fair pun headlines all day. Just call me Carrie Of Clan Bradshaw. So as I wait for the pilot episode Game Of Thrones to kick off on HBO tonight (winter is coming... and I am a dork... and you are too if you know that reference) it only seems appropriate that I finally share our Thomas family trip to Medieval Fair from a couple weekends ago.





Sisters of The Royal Guard.



You shall not pass... ya'll.



I told you about those teen fairy wing girls. These were my favorites.



These bagpipe dudes are our Mom's favorite Med Fair performers. They get lots of teen fairy action I fear. Kathleen is showing me how to properly knee-clap as they play the soundtrack from The Last of The Mohicans, which is a bagpipe crowdpleaser. Especially when the crowd is filled with lots of the ladyfolk who then superimpose images of Daniel Day Lewis running through the woods in leather in their mind with these guys frollicking on the stage in kilts.



My dad, my husband and my youngest babe. The guys aren't really as much into this scene and have found alternate entertainment. This is as close as Chris gets to medieval garb. "Christopher Of The Hood"... more like "Chris Of The Easily Sunburned."



Meanwhile my mom thinks Charlie's "into it." But I think he might be checking out...



... the wench cleavage. I guess there's something for the guys after all.



Apparently cell phones go great with cleavage. All the wenches carry them.







Okay, but check out this bear. This was something we had not seen at the fair in years past, and it was so cool!





We all had to get bear hugs.

Then we started hitting the tents for some shopping. Dad especially needs a little impulse purchasing to lighten his mood when he gets cranky from waiting in line for turkey legs and roasted corn. So medieval impulse purchase number one...





A didgerridoo. Which only Charlie could get to properly play. He has this thing with tribal instruments in general.

But that was not nearly impulsive enough. So purchase number two...



Wait for it... wait for it...



"The Dragon Of Darkness."



Or, at least that's what this guy told us it was named. By the way, our dad challenged us to find one other person at the fair in one-piece coveralls (his signature look), but in that entire freakfest, our dad still won. And he wasn't even in costume.



Signing of Ye Olde Royal Credit Card Receipt.



Of course, then we had to carry it back to the car. Correction, Jeremy had to carry it back to the car...





... with a proper courtly procession. Mom, Charlie, Me, Chris, Sam (in the stroller), Jeremy, Kathleen and Dad in the rear, yelling out – no, really – literally yelling out to the hundreds of passersby:

"Make Way for The Dragon Of Darkness!"
"Hail The Dragon Of Darkness!"
"Bow Down To The Dragon Of Darkness!"

(My dad's coveralls are kind of cute from the back.) Then we finally got to the parking lot and stuffed it in the back of Kathleen's Scion. That dang dragon is now sitting in the backyard next to my parents' bird bath (because, you know birds just love black freaky dragons watching them bathe.)

But then the sales guy, you know that long grey-haired peasant shirt wearing fellow (who is apparently from Minnesota) called my parents this week to tell them that the dragon probably shouldn't stay outside after consulting with the artist (go figure, that ceramic dragon can't withstand 50mph winds and Oklahoma hail... huh). So now my dad has the dragon perched behind his armchair. It cried dragon tears with him the other day when he found out All My Children was cancelled.

The Family Of Tomorrow

"Look Pa!" As we gather around the family "hearth." One of our very first computers. Guess where it lived? In the piano room of course.

Won't be seeing my dad this weekend on our typical Saturday visit. He'll be fishing a tournament. But he's been texting me and Chris all week to see if the iPad2 we ordered has arrived via FedEx, yet. Like, he literally wants the tracking number so he can monitor its progress. (He also tracks my flights when I go on business trips).

He's basically living vicariously through our purchase, because he's frankly addicted to new technology. Our dad. The Oklahoma Bass Fisherman of the Year like ten freaking years in a row. One year away from retirement (he's always one year away, actually, and then chickens out and decides to 9-t0-5 it for one more year). Gets senior discounts. Remember watching Davy Crockett as a child of the fifties on his black and white TV set (that was probably the first moment of technology love, actually). Is what us agency folks would call... an early adopter. An early adopter that takes five minutes to type in his Google password because he's searching for his reading glasses and then uses the one finger typing approach, usually gets it wrong the first time, and then has to try again.

When our family went to Epcot for the first time as kids, one of our favorite rides was The Carousel of Progress. You follow this animatronic family through time until eventually they become the "family of tomorrow." Shag rugs, strangely mid-century living room furniture, but like with a computer (gasp!) in the kitchen! And technology all around them.

So flashback to last Saturday. I look around my parents living room, Chris is in the loveseat browsing his iPhone for the new iPad2 colors, Dad's in his armchair on his laptop (he once had an old Dell laptop that he hilariously just taped an Apple logo to the back of) comparing what color iPad2 cover he would buy if it were his (he-can't-stand-it) purchase, Mom's on the couch playing Words With Friends on her ancient iPad classic, Charlie's playing the Xbox while standing in the middle of the room, Sam's sidling down the couch trying to ditch his iPod for mom's iPad (but she's not giving in... yet) cause the Angry Birds are just so much bigger, and Jeremy and Kathleen are on the other end of the couch with me, looking up Costa Rica adventure vacations on their iPhones.

But dangit. We're all together!

Wait! Except Donny. So mom called him up (it was his birthday) and even though we got his voicemail (on his iPhone) we all screamed out this weird kind of Jesus version of the happy birthday song that our eighty-something grandma always just spontaneously sings to us without even saying hello when we answer the phone on our birthdays. But we got the words kind of jacked up (because we don't really ever hear this Jesusy birthday song except for that once a year ambush) but we're all scream-singing and laughing anyway.

Seriously, Apple should put us in a commercial. And Disney should make us into a ride.

Black Sheep. Black Banana.

Black Sheep.

Found this retro 70's looking yarn-crafted sheep art at an antique store and hung it in our first baby nursery. Now it's in our bedroom. Note how the black sheep refuses to face forward.

Black Banana.

It's Saturday morning and about to head to my parents house to hang out with the family. Mom's already informed me she's making banana bread. We tend to get on banana bread kicks every once in a blue moon. Translation: I want banana bread, Mom makes it. Then she just keeps making it 'til we all get sick of it.

This time the trend spread to my Aunt Lynda who lives near Austin. She told my mom on the phone last week that she was seriously craving banana bread, but none of her bananas were ripe enough. Until, that is, she found like this seriously black, like 100% black banana accidentally hidden away.

So she mashed it up with the kind-of-overripe-but-not-great bananas, and apparently it was like pure banana extract. It made her banana bread like banana bread crack. Thus, Uncle Pete got hooked and couldn't stop thinking about the black banana bread.

Fast forward a couple days. Uncle Pete goes to visit some friends for the day in the beautiful scenic Hill Country of Texas. Sees that they have this disgusting black banana in the banana bowl that they are about to throw away and asks if he can have it. Comes back at the end of the evening with a sly look on his face and his hands behind his back, and then proudly "presents" this black banana to Aunt Lynda.

She's like all breathless and excited "ahhh, you brought me a black banana" and then promptly whipped up another loaf of what is now apparently the banana bread of the gods.

By the way, unlike Kathleen, this is the closest I get to writing a cooking/baking post. And it's about other people cooking/baking for me. My specialty is literally tomato soup and grilled cheese. And probably some twisted reason why I like fake food.

Just call me the black sheep of the family kitchen.

Uncle Donny

I only recently found out what it meant to have a "funny uncle" in the family. It's not very nice. But Donny who is the uncle to my kids is a whole other kind of funny uncle.



One who plays video games with you. Aw. See, that's nice.



One who pushes you around Lowes while your parents shop for a new dishwasher. And entertains you by letting you pick out whatever you want to buy in the whole store. Kind of killing two birds with one stone here as it's a few days 'til Christmas and he didn't bring you any gifts in his suitcase.

Charlie is torn between the 40 feet of hunter's rope, a long gold chain (he's always a sucker for anything that is shiny and therefore possibly worth money) or the irresistible giant dangerous corkscrew looking thingy. Which Donny could probably shove up his nose.

Charlie was allowed to get the rope. The lesser of three evils.



That is until you get tied up with it.



Once that gets boring, Donny invents a new game. Creepy Monkey Feet. All the cool kids are playing it! It's easy, all you need is a pair of men's leather gloves and a funny uncle!







This is where Donny indocrinated Charlie into his world view. He is yelling "wake up sheeple!"

Basically, after the video games, before the creepy monkey feet and on the way to Lowe's, Donny started telling Charlie about how people are mindlessly following "the man." This was triggered by Charlie innocently pointing out his elementary school as we drove by.

Donny told him that's where they put you in a box. And trained him to yell "wake up sheeple!" (sheep + people) all through Lowes, and through the rest of Christmas break at any given time: the movie theatre, the grocery store, parking lots. The weird thing is, was that Charlie's trained cue was whenever Donny started to sing the chorus to Elvis's "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You," he would then interrupt him mid-lyric shouting "wake up sheeple!" And then Donny would high-five him.

Donny hiding out from the "man" in Charlie's bunk.



With a captive audience, Charlie is happy to show off every item in the treasure box he keeps under his bed. It's filled with spray-painted rocks, little vials of gold dust and fancy casino tokens from my father-in-law – and castoff Kathleen jewelry. I think he's hinting that the gold chain from Lowe's would make a mighty fine addition to this loot.

So fast-forward a couple days into holiday break. I'm walking into Target with my handlebar mustached brother, and my cute little blonde mop-headed Charlie...

Donny: (singing) "Take my hand, take my whole hear –"

Charlie: "Wake up sheeple!!!"

Donny: "That's right Charlie. Baaa Baaa – ooh, this Target has a Starbucks?"

Charlie: "I need to go to the bathroom"

Me: "Okay, there's a family bathroom over here, let's go."

Donny: "That's just the man telling you you have to go pee in a box. Just putting you in a box... uh, yes, sorry... I'll have a Grande Latte."

Oh yeah. We're really stirring up the status quo here.

"High-five Charlie."

"Right back at ya funny uncle."