Silence can be bought...

...in 5 minute increments. Turns out, $3.18 will buy you two small milkshakes at McDonald's, which in turn bought me 5 minutes of sweet, sweet silence this weekend.

I needed it.

I would have paid much more.

It was a good long weekend, but nothing to write home (or blog) about. On Saturday my mom came down from Vermont and she and I took the boys on a road trip to NY for a family function. It was actually ok, despite the fact that I drove 4 hours down there to spend 3 hours with the fam, then drove 4 hours back home to NH. Oy. It was nice to see everyone, though, and I was able to save the day with my omnipresent little Nikon when everyone assembled for our obligatory group shot and my cousin's camera wouldn't take the pic. I might as well keep my camera on a holster at my hip because I whipped it out and nailed the group shot on the first attempt, WITH a 30 lb. toddler on my hip, no less. WOOT! I rule.



This particular branch of the family is really religious and smart - it's like a PhD convention with extra Jesus. My mom's cousin has two PhDs and teaches religion at a college, and his wife is a Nuclear Physicist (we'll call her Nukey) who grew up in Japan because her parents were missionaries. She has 4 kids and homeschools them all until middle school. Yeah. Talking to her is awesome, though - she's very sweet but kind of socially awkward, and she has this full-body laugh that I freakin' LOVE. My sister and I had her going - she was laughing so hard and for so long that Debbie and I were just kind laughing and looking at each other with a "Can you believe this?" expression. Yeah, we're funny chicks, but... wow.

Of course, I had to constantly edit myself because my sense of humor runs toward the bawdy (maybe you've noticed?), so several times I had to bite my tongue. I'd look at my sister and wish we were telepathic because I HATE having something funny to say and not being able to say it. At one point Nukey was talking about taking three kids to Japan when they were ages 5, 3, and 1, and I came thisclose to blurting out, "There's not enough Xanax in the world for me to make that flight, even if I gave it to the kids!" But I managed to stop myself just in time. It was close.

Speaking of my sister, she gave me the green light to post some of her/our more embarrassing childhood photos, and I'm looking forward to doing so. I bought a new scanner this weekend and did a bunch of pretty funny pics, so those will be making an appearance here and there on the OOBH. Aw, heck, let's do one right now, shall we?



HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!!!!!!!!

I don't know what is funnier - Debbie's ruffled shirt and ribbon string tie, or my crooked bangs and apparent cold sore. Or the death grip she has on my shoulder. Or the blank expressions we're both sporting. Eh, screw it - it's all hilarious, IMO. Stay tuned for more awesomeness from the Vault in the coming days/weeks.

Ok, I've rambled on enough for one morning. Better get to work. Oh, who am I kidding? I just need to go because Lady GaGa is going to be on Ellen any minute now, and you know how I love the GaGa.