End of summer burger feast

We out for went for our traditional end of summer/start of school celebration dinner to Five Guys.



I really don't have the words to express how much we love Five Guys. But thanks to that You Tube guy who reviews restaurants from his car, and those other guys who Auto-Tune You Tube videos, now I don't have to.

Pedicure party

The kids start school on Monday. Jacob was off playing with a friend on Friday afternoon, so I decided to make Caroline's dream come true and take the girls to get pedicures. I think I was of legal age to rent a car before I got my first pedicure, but apparently they are targeting the kids these days, as evidenced by the kid-sized pink princess pedi chairs at the salon:



I'm not a fan of pedicures myself; I view them as an occasional necessary evil, mainly because of the extreme tickling that is an inherent part of the experience. Apparently the girls have inherited my ticklishness (although they don't seem too troubled by it).





Elizabeth kept asking what they were doing, but there was a bit of a language barrier, so we just kept repeating "that will make your feet really soft!" Both girls liked the foot bath part the best (the water kept changing colors -- pink, blue, purple, etc. -- which is a huge added bonus for the under 10 set!)

I gave the girls carte blanche to pick their own colors, so of course the final result was . . . unique. Their feet will definitely illuminate in the dark. And they went with alternating toe colors, because, why not?



I'm so glad it was them and not me. :-)

Marine life and coca cola

David had to go to Atlanta for work a couple of weeks ago, so the rest of us decided to invite ourselves along for the trip. I'm sure that exactly what David needed the night before his hearing was for five of us (including three violent sleepers who only sleep crossways or diagonally in beds so as to maximize the physical space they occupy) to be squeezing into two double beds. Jacob actually woke me up in the morning to tell me that Dad was missing. I mumbled that I was sure he was somewhere in one of the beds, but Jacob insisted that he wasn't -- and sure enough, we found him on the floor, where he had stacked some pillows to create a makeshift cot in the corner. He said that he actually slept great once he finally abandoned the beds.

In any event, we (I) figured that the kids and I could go to the famous Georgia Aquarium while David was in his hearing, and then he could join us after he was done. And other than the poor night's sleep, it worked out great!

Of course, penguins are a big draw at any aquarium.

Caroline with penguin friend:



Jacob & Elizabeth & penguins:



We went back to see the penguins once David joined us. Here they are, peeking at the penguins:



The belugas are amazing. I could watch them all day long.



The tropical fish tank:





The kids and I went to see the Dolphin Tales show before David got there, and everyone loved it. It's like this lavish broadway musical slash dolphin show slash laser light extravaganza -- seriously, what's not to love? Caroline was so overwhelmed by the magic of Dolphin Tales that she burst into tears when it was over, nearly hyperventilating as she tried to express her distress: "I . . . I . . . wan . . .wan. want . . . t-t-to . . . sw-sw-swim . . . wif . . . the . . . the . . .the . . . dooooolphins (SOBS)." She was basically inconsolable. Thankfully, right around then David texted me to say that he was on his way, and we met up with him, had some lunch, and she rebounded nicely.

We saw the rest of the aquarium, went back to visit a few other things one more time, and then made our way out. Caroline posed with every painted dolphin statue outside the aquarium:




I had heard that the GA Aquarium is huge, and while it is certainly big (as a matter of fact, it is the largest aquarium in the world), we got through it in less than a full day (coming on a weekday probably helped), so we decided to hit the World of Coca Cola next door before heading home. The World of Coca Cola is living proof that if you package something as a tourist attraction, Americans will pay money and brave crowds to see it. Even though I knew that I was basically paying Coke to advertise to me, I still enjoyed the vintage Coke exhibits and other features that Coke World had to offer.

Here we are in front of supersized, intricately painted Coke bottles from around the world:



It totally made sense at the time.

The Vault, where they keep the secret formula for Coca Cola:



The kids, attempting to create that perfectly balanced Coca Cola taste:



We all had fun in the tasting room:



The family consensus was that the best drink was Bibo, a pineapple-flavored drink from South Africa, and the worst was Beverly, a dishwater-flavored drink from Italy.

We're glad that David let us crash his business trip!

What's worse than NBC's horrible Olympic coverage?

Not having access to NBC's horrible Olympic coverage for five days because AT&T keeps flaking on appointments to come restore your TV/Internet/phone service, which has been out since Tuesday night's thunderstorms. I swear, I almost never care about live (or, er, live-ish, as the case may be) TV events, but every single time I care, my freaking TV won't work. Granted, nothing will ever be as bad as missing William and Kate's wedding last year, but missing out on a full 5/14th of my once-every-four-years fix of water polo, badminton, and synchronized diving comes close. Thankfully we have family and friends offering us the use of their TVs, and Samuel L. Jackson's twitter feed.

Jacksons Gone Wild!

Following celebrity gossip, even just casually, is a thankless business. You have to slog through way too much Kardashian and (shudder) Tara Reid in order to get the occasional quality, Johnny Depp-caliber nugget. But I feel like 25 years of sort of paying attention to all of this has finally paid off.


This one "All of the Jacksons are Kidnapping One Another" headline will sustain me through another 1000 Lindsay Lohan bits. If you aren't paying attention (and you really should be), apparently some of the Jackson siblings have kidnapped Katherine (the matriarch) in order to brainwash her into challenging Michael's will (they took her to Arizona to play Uno, naturally). Paris, who is rapidly becoming the nation's favorite Jackson, took to Twitter to reveal her aunts/uncles malevolent scheme. There may or may not have been a physical altercation between Janet and Paris as a result of Paris's airing the dirty family laundry on Twitter and the whole kidnapping of the grandmother business. TJ, Tito's son, has been granted temporary custody of Paris, Prince and Blanket. Conspicuously missing from all of this is LaToya, who may have actually been the most normal Jackson all along. Who would have thought?

Edited to add:

Gawker has just published a handy user guide to Jackson family craziness, here

Barbie gets a haircut

Caroline rediscovered her Barbie stash last week and has been playing with them pretty much nonstop ever since. She set up a spa for them, and one thing led to another, and the next thing I knew she was asking me if she could cut their hair. My first instinct, of course, was to say no, you can't cut their hair, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she would probably get more enjoyment from giving one Barbie haircut than she would from not cutting the hair on 1000 Barbies. Or something like that. I issued the standard disclosures: "Caroline, with Barbies, the hair is not going to grow back. Once you cut it, it's gone forever." And she responded: "I know! But it's a spa!" I just couldn't argue with that logic, so I got her a pair of kid scissors and told her to have at it. She was in heaven.

10!

Jacob just turned the big 1-0. He was nearly insane with excitement in the days weeks months leading up to the big day. And I do not think the day disappointed. He spent the morning at a state park with his cousin; spent the afternoon bowling with friends (and then battling them with a cornucopia full of Nerf weapons); and then had a "flat round food" party* (pizza and a cookie cake) with family and frinds. *He is 10 now so it seemed like the right time to dispense with a party "theme," but I found the lack of a theme to be oddly disconcerting, so I seized on the flat round food and mentally made that my own secret theme, although I didn't communicate it to anyone else.

At the end of the day I told him about how I'd never forget about the time a few hours after he was born, when he was in the nursery and I started sobbing uncontrollably because I missed him so much. So David helped me hobble down the hallway to the nursery, sniffling the whole while (me, not David) until I could finally retrieve my baby and take him back to the room with me. David and I both remember how easy it was for us to spot Jacob in the room -- up until that point I thought that all newborns looked the same, but once I had one I realized that your own newborn looks totally different, go figure! I told Jacob that story to illustrate to him how immediately and completely we loved him {although I suspect the story also has sub-themes about post-partum hormones, etc.}.

In any event, it's ten years later and I still can't imagine life without him. Happy birthday Jacob!