Hi there,

I hope all is well with you, wherever you are. I was just thinking about how spread out the readers are, which makes me feel happy and sad at the same time. Happy because you're still reading even though you're miles and miles away, but sad because I miss hanging out with some of you in person.

Anyway, Friday gave us the chance to hang out with the Hutchinses for more than just a quick hi and more than just a sports game (just remember, kids, that we DO still have a sporting event scheduled for September 16th). We met up and drove out to Brea for dinner at Lucille's. Since the wait was a while, we chatted out on the patio and continued for a couple of hours, with a great meal to make the night even better. Our waitress recognized Ric because he used to be a high school leader at a church waaaay back in the day. That was amusing.

Saturday I finally got to do some laundry at my parents' place, and then Ric and Jenny and I went to eat at the Flame Broiler (our latest favorite step-up from fast food - cheap and healthy!), then to see Superbad. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

Sunday we went to church with the Andersons, then had lunch with them at Mad Wolf, and then we all hung out at our house for a while and played Wii together. It was our last afternoon with Colin, who's off to Iraq next Sunday. Even though he's excited to go, we'll miss him. And we'll definitely be praying for him a lot in the next seven months, as well as trying to keep Liz and baby Emily entertained. Once the Andersons left, I immediately downloaded SuperMario Brothers 2 to the Wii and played my little heart out. I can't believe I still suck at this game. You'd think I'd get better at these games with age, but so far I'm stuck at the end of 6-4. Thank goodness I remembered the places to warp! Ric and I finished off the night watching Black Snake Moan and hanging out on the front porch.

We're outside a lot more with this new place. Watering, raking, taking out trash, and just hanging out. Ric enjoys a pipe and I might have a drink or spot-water the lawn, and sometimes we let the cat out on his leash. It's nice to be on a quiet street (at night, anyway), with lots of trees and just a couple of street lights. Bad things about the new outdoors experience: the neighbors' cats pooped on the lawn and I was dragging in the hose and it raked in the poo, but it was in the dark so I couldn't see, and got it on my hand. Wet poo. Boooooo! Also bad is the increase in bug wars (mostly outdoors, thankfully), including beetles, the biggest roaches I've ever seen, and ants. At least Pip is the destroyer of bugs. I've found a lot of dead bugs throughout the house, which is definitely preferred to finding living bugs.

I need to write a Pip post soon to update all of his crazy antics. He's very entertaining.

I'm not sure if I've shouted the praises of Pandora yet on here, but I certainly am now. It has made my workday about a bajillion times more awesome. Basically you can add songs and artists and it will add those to your playlist. What really puts Pandora above the competition is its ability to find similar artists related to the ones you choose, both popular and undiscovered stuff. I've found a lot of cool music thanks to it and also re-discovered several old faves.