Meeting 37 People

Last Tuesday Shannon and I took Keagan on her first long trip. We drove through Wichita to Garden City. Driving time was about 7 hours. And she was good for all but 30 minutes of those 7 hours. She got hungry but we were close to my mom's so we just drove through.

So what did we do? Well, Tuesday we left around 3:00 and ate dinner with Mom, Jayme, Maria, Charles, and Nikki at Hanger One Steakhouse. It wasn't bad. The knives to cut the steak sucked a lot, though. After dinner, we headed to Garden City. We got there around 2:00 am and met Gary, Michelle, Jenette, Chris, and Cassidy at IHOP. That is significant because Michelle got back from England the day before. We hadn't seen her in about 6 months. And it was the first time we got to meet Cassidy! She is a cutie! (Number of people met: 4)


Wednesday we went to a funeral reception for one of Rhonda's friend's father. We knew him also from church and hockey. It was nice to see people we havn't seen in a long time (and some I've never met before). (Number of people met: 5 + 4 = 9)


We did a lot of hanging out. We had food, watched World Cup soccer, did some shopping at Sam's Club, played games, went on a walk to a garage sale, and other such things. My mom worked in Dodge City last week, but had a hotel in Garden City. So, she spent the evening hanging out with us too. :)


Friday, Grandma and Grandpa in Lakewood came down! They brought with Randy, Jonathan, and Major (Randy's beagle). That was awesome! So they ate dinner with us and and hung out on Friday too. (Number of people met: 4 + 9 = 13)


Then Saturday was the main event, Grandma Fuller's 91st birthday party. We went to her house around noon and were there till around 11:00pm.


There were a lot of people there! I'm not going to try listing them all, but Rhonda and all her kids and their families were there (1+1+3+3 = 8 people), Marsha and all of her kids and their families were there (2 + 6 + 3 + 10 = 21 people), Grandma Fuller, my Mom, some of the Dick family (3 + 1 + 1 = 5 people), and a bunch of Grandma's friends that I don't know! So, there were about 40-50 people? (Number of people met: 21 + random + 13 = 37)


We had lots of food and cake. More games were played. And I got to meet Mason! He is a cutie.


We put together the pirate kite that we got from Newgen a while ago and tried to fly that. The kite is sweet, but the wind was not good enough for us to fly it very well. Shannon got it up a few times, but it wouldn't stay up long.


We had a party of people go out to fly it and had some come out to Grandma's driveway to watch also.


Then Sunday (yesterday) we did our last day of hanging out. It was Father's Day and we had two first time dad's with us, Shannon and Chris, and 3 other father's too (Grandpa Dick, Gary, and Kevin). So we ate at Lone Star and they did a great job this time. Which means it will likely suck next time, that's how they roll. But it was really nice to eat a meal with everyone (there were 15 of us there).


I'm so glad that I am a part of two great families and that these two families basically act like one big family. I am very lucky to have been close to my mom's family growing up. It stinks that we are so far apart now, but I always feel loved by them and going back to see them never feels like I'm a foreigner. And now, I have Shannon's family to be a part of (and have for the last 9ish years). They are all great people, too!

I'm glad Keagan gets to have so many great family members!

Congratulations to the Saints

I didn't think they'd do it. I thought the Colts would easily win. And besides that interception for a TD, I think the Colts probably would have won... but they didn't. Crazy!

I should have been going for the Saints. Some years back they were my second favorite team (behind the Denver Broncos). I had no reason to like them, I just did. And they were pretty bad back then. It was a pretty good game. We had a party at Andy's in Wichita. The party consisted of Andy, Rusty, Rhonda, Jenette, Chris, Mom, Maria, Jayme, Charles, Nikki, Shannon, Gary, and I. And a deep fat fryer! That deep fat fryer made some delicious hot wings!

Also in fun weekend news, I got an embroidery machine! Awesome!! And Jenette and I had a baby shower thrown by Jayme, Mom, and Rhonda, with help from Maria. :) It was a good weekend and I plan to post pictures later. I have some other things to do at the moment.

Also, it looks like quilt #5 is going to be the winner. Shannon and I like that one a bit more than the others, but no work has begun yet.

Memorial Day Weekend

This last weekend was really great. Friday night Shannon and I drove to Wichita for another graduation party for Maria. We got to see Mom, Jayme, Charles, Nikki, Maria, Cody, a bunch of people I don't know very well, Michelle, and all the doggies!


I'll point out that Jayme has lost a lot of weight. She looks great! Not to mention that Nikki just gets cuter with age. Kinda like a wine.


Saturday, Michelle and Shannon drove up to Kansas City to meet up with Newgen, Jenette, Chris, and Andrea. They had some fun of their own, but I stayed in Wichita with Mom and Maria. Jayme, Charles, and Nikki headed to Oklahoma for a wedding for Charles' cousin.

On Saturday, Maria, Mom, and I went to Exploration Place. It was pretty awesome. They had some fun maze displays out, a neat whale exhibit, a really groovy wind wall, and a bunch of other entertaining things. It was a good time. Then we went to eat somewhere not bad, but not spectacular. We headed back to Moms, and basically just chilled. And by chilled I mean, ate some tiramisu and watched some movies on TV.

Sunday, Mom, Maria, and I headed to the Sedgwick County Zoo. That was pretty cool too! It cost more than the Tulsa zoo, but it is nicer also. So, worth it. They had a bunch of animals and everything was well kept and nice. We spent a good chunk of time there, then got hot and ate at Uptown Bistro. After that, we headed back to Mom's and met up with Jayme and Charles for dinner when they returned to Wichita.

After dinner, we all went to the Keeper of the Plains and took Atari and Hendrix. Oh, Atari is pretty large. Kinda like sausage dog. :)

That was a neat place. They have fire, but we weren't there at the right time. There was Indian music playing and for some reason it confused Nikki a good bit. She kept looking around for it. When I finally found a speaker, she kinda of tried to grab the music. Odd.

Monday was my last day in Wichita. Maria, Jayme, Mom, and I went to the mall to look at prom dresses for wedding dress ideas, then we went to David's Bridal and tried on the real things. Fun. There were a lot of really nice dresses. Jay found one that she liked enough for us to make! So after David's Bridal, which Maria had to leave early from, we met up with Charles and Nikki and looked at JoAnn's for a pattern and some fabric.

To finish off my trip, we had a good ol' BBQ at Mom's with Charles' parents, Sandra and Charles. There was yummy corn and limeades and hamburgers, and homemade french fries, and salad, and absolutely delicous watermelon.

I drove back to Tulsa all by my lonesome and was soon joined at home by Shannon and Michelle.

I don't get many chances to spend with Mom and Maria and Jayme. So it was a nice weekend to be able to spend quality time with all of them. :)

The Fitz

This weekend was full of 100's of sugar cookies, literally.


Friday night we drove to Wichita for our Superbowl party. We had it at Mom's house this year since that is a more centralized location.


On Friday, we just kinda chilled at Mom's house. Nikki entertained us (as usual), we played some "pool," and even got to sit on the couches downstairs! (That is special because usually the cat owns the basement, but Mom built her a little room so now she doesn't roam free downstairs, hairing and puking on whatever she pleases.)

Saturday we were joined by Rhonda, Jenette, Chris, and Michelle for lunch at La Galette. It's a cute little French joint with yummy pastries and desserts. After lunch, we went shopping for our Superbowl party. Then eventually met up with Andy and Rusty for dinner at Olive Garden. We conviced them to come back to Mom's house and help us frost our cookies for the next day. Shannon and I baked them before we went to Wichita.


On Sunday, we prepared the party and took Nikki and Dakoda for a walk. By kick-off we had all the food ready and there was lots of food to be had. We had the giant sandwich, hummus, salsa, guacamole, cheese dip, bean dip, cheese and sausage with crackers, perogies, 2 types of cheese balls, and 2 other cheese dips, veggies and dip, puppy chow, half of a butter pecan stadium cake (only half because a certain chug dog ate half of it while we all played Guitar Hero), Skittles, and our Superbowl Cookies. I think that is all. It was good! And we actually didn't have too much left over.


It's too bad the Carinals didn't win. All 10 of us were going for them. Mom even bought a sweet Larry Fitzgerald shirt. They played pretty good though. It was an awesome game to watch.

Proto-Hagus

Lookie whose home and on the computer! Here are some pictures of what I've been up to.

There was Thanksgiving with Mom, Jayme, Maria, Charles, Nikki, Tommy, and Shannon.


Then there was Thanksgiving at Rhoda's with about 17 other people.


The following weekend, Shannon and I returned to Wichita for the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert. Awesome.

The next day (which was 3 days after my mom's 50th birthday), Jayme, Maria, and I threw a surprise birthday party for Mom. At Laser Quest. Yes. That was awesome. Mom had no idea and everyone (almost 30 people) seemed to have a good time. Jayme made some foods, Maria got some drinks, and I brought the cake (with 50 candles). It was great fun and Laser Quest has their show organized. I mean, there were I think 3 parties going on and it never got annoying. Plus everything ran on time and was fun! Not to mention that Wichita's Laser Quest is the best laser tag I've been too. I've also visited one in Olathe and one in Colorado Springs.

Mr. Doctor

Happy Birthday, Nikki! Jayme made funfetti cupcakes into groovy flowers. It was cute and Atari didn't eat them!


Maria, being the girly-girl, bought Nikki kids make-up. Nikki loved it and looked very pink, because everything was pink.


Shannon and I found a neat little wooden veggie/fruit cutting set. She seemed to enjoy it. "I cut." And then she'd cut. :)

Lumpy Party

This past weekend my niece turned 2. Jayme threw her a good party on Sunday and then Shannon and I drove home. Nikki took a nice fall out of one of her new birthday chairs and slammed her head into the bricks for the fireplace (which can be seen above). She has a nice lump behind her left ear. She hit hard and cried hard. But after she realized everyone loved her and that she would be okay (about 3 minutes) she stopped crying and played with a different toy.

Graduation Party

I present my Masters report on Tuesday June 10th. But on Friday May 16th we had our family graduation party, me and Jenette that is. Guests included, but are limited to, Mom, Jay, Nicki, Randy, Gary, Major, Chris' family, and my Aunt Diana!! She came in for my graduation! It was awesome...I miss those NJ-guys a lot. Seeing them once-ish a year or two isn't as much as we used to see them (before we moved). Anyways, it was a great time. And I have some pics and video to prove it.

From Halloween

Here are some pictures from my weekend visit to Wichita a week back.


These are Matt's dogs. Cajun in the red lab. She is about 3 I think. Zeus is the white lab puppy. He is very young. About 2 months old.


He is a huge puppy, and adorable. Around the table are some of the party goer's. Jessica is one of Jayme's good friends. She is also dressed as a witch and about 4 or 5 months (?) pregnant.


After almost everyone left, we played some Wii. Here is Jayme and Lianna playing boxing. Lianna beat Jayme. It was entertaining. You can see my cute little niece examining something.

Renaissance Funstival

Sunday we headed out to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival. We included Shannon, Rhonda, Michelle, Jenette, Chris, and I. We arrived around 12:30 and stayed until close. It was a good time.

The ladies had tea with the queen. It turned into quite the gypsy party, but that was great fun too. The gypsy boys belly danced in the aisles and on the tables! We ate cream puffs, chocolate covered strawberries, cookies, fruit, cheese, and so much other tasties. It was well worth the 10$ for the ticket to the tea.


Last year when we went, they had an elephant and camels that you could ride. No one did. But this year, ah, this year. Michelle and I both rode the elephant this year. It. Was. Awesome. It wasn't a long ride, or even a fast ride, but it was a ride on an elephant! Sweet.

Other things happened too. We walked around and looked at a great deal of shops. I got some handspun wool yarn to felt me a bag with. Shannon and I also purchased 2 cd's from a band called Tartanic. They are a bagpipe rock band. They are really good. We sat and listened to their show, bought their cd, and then were pleased to see they provided the music for the post festival dance "outside the gates."


I'll post about our costumes later. Just know that I think each of us received a complement (independent of each other) on our costumes. Oh and Mom and Jayme, you really should come with us in a few weeks!

More Travels

After going to Newgen's, we came home and spent another 3 nights there. Then, Wednesday was my niece's birthday and Jayme was throwing her a shindig in Wichita. So we left to go to Wichita again.

Jayme did a good job with the party. There were about 20 people there, some family, some coworkers, and some friends. It was a nice time. There was plenty of food (not unexpected) and Jayme even frosted Nicole her own princess cake! But... one of the dogs (Atari?) got on the table and ate about 1/3 of it! She was so mad (as she should have been). But she cut off the dog part, so we could still she how hard she worked, and mom bought one from Wal-mart or something to replace it. Silly dogs.


I made her her red dress for her birthday. It was rather large on the small child. But that just means she can wear it for a while. Well, after the party, we all hung around for a day and then Thursday, I went shopping to buy and outfit for my interview on Monday.

We left on Thursday after meeting up with Rhonda and Michelle in Wichita for dinner. It was a nice short trip.

Then Saturday was our 6 year wedding anniversary! Mom bought us a cake and candle so we lit it and ate some cake. How cute. After eating the cake, we packed up the car and went to Wichita (again). We figured it would make our drive to Tulsa on Sunday a little bit shorter.

To New Jersey and Back

I went to New Jersey to visit may family about a week ago. It was great fun! Everyone looks really good and seems pretty happy. I finally got to meet my cousin's son, Tommy. He's a pretty cool kid. He's almost 2, and a cutie.


My cousins threw a birthday party for Nicole. That was cute. Half-way though singing to her, she started to "sing" with us.


My grandpa looks good. My cousin Kat is having a baby boy in about 2 months. She looks pregnant, but good.


It was a good time. I have a lot of pictures from it, but my internet connection is quite slow so the pictures are taking forever to upload.

Still Sparkling

Here is the happening crew that put on the shin-dig and the reason for the shin-dig. I case you can't tell, Grandma Fuller is the one in the middle, in sparkly blue.


Here are some of Steve (Shannon's cousin) and Margo's kids. Brooke (with the camera) just loved taking pictures! She had that smile on her face the entire time. She also had her finger pushing down the picture button the whole time. That is the back of Cortez' head that you see. Steve and Margo adopted him and his brother, Javon, bringing the total number of childern to 6. And...Margo (arm pictured below) is due in about a month! All their kids are great though, even if they can't remember that Nicole is a girl's name and that I am Nicole.

88 Years of Sparkle

This past weekend, Shannon and I went to Garden City for Grandma Fuller's 88th Birthday party. It was held in the dining room at Garden Valley, so you can guess who was present. If you said all her "dorm" buddies, you'd be right! It was quite cute. All of the elderly slowly flocking towards the center of the building for the party.


On the drive down, we stopped to take some pictures of a new lake! You'll notice that there is no lake just north east of Great Bend. But there it was, for over a complete mile and almost as far as you could see to the west, a lake. I guess it rained too much for Kansas to handle. It's crazy is what it is. We drove and saw it and were like "wow." There's not really much to say beside that.

But, Grandma's party was fun. We dressed up for a chicken-y ho-down afterwards.

Newdrea

Newgen and Andrea got married last Saturday. It was a nice time. We went up Thursday, saw their new house and played some fun fun laser tag. Friday was rehearsal day and Saturday was the big day. I've got some pics to show you. But one thing I don't have a picture of is how when we left Saturday around midnight, we drove for an hour, stopped for gas. And I realized I left my purse in Newgen's house. So, an hour back to Olathe, got my purse, and we left again, to go home. Dang me.

There was post-wedding/pre-reception Guitar Hero-ing. The girl to the right-most is Andrea's sister Amy. The wedding party had the same color dresses in various styles. Fun.


There was also pinata at said time. Aw, the happy bride and groom. :) Inside said pinata...


pirate tattoos. You know we all put one on too. Including Newgen. Julia wears it so well.


Newgen YMCA-ed with the best. I must say, I have not seen Newgen move as much as he did this night ever (outside of hockey). He always looked like he was having fun!

Not many people left to get married. I've got some sister and Michelle...and...that is really it. My cousin, Teresa, too... ... Lance... ...