Monster Trucks!

Last weekend, we headed up to Columbia for some rootin' tootin' redneck fun!  The Monster Trucks were in town and we really wanted to take the Poods up there to see the giant trucks stomp and crush some cars.  When we got there, we were floored by how tiny the track was!  It seemed like there was zero room for the drivers to be able to hit the gas before the jumps.  It didn't really matter because the kids were oblivious, but there was a huge difference seeing these beasts perform at the Dome in Atlanta.  In fact, most drivers cut their engines mid-jump to prevent themselves from launching into the seats of the stadium.

But the kids had so much fun.  It was terrifyingly loud in there so the kids rocked some fluorescent earplugs.  At intermission, there was a robot skit which had the nuggets completely enthralled.  One robot was good and the other was evil.  In the end, the good robot defeated the evil one.  For me, it was only slightly more entertaining than a sock puppet show.  But the robots could shoot fire, so for my pair of pygmy pyromaniacs, it was the highlight of the show and the part they are still talking about two weeks later.

Of course, Gravedigger won the event only because he's crowd favorite.  (I'm assuming that Gravedigger is like the Tiger Woods of golf.)  Honestly though, Nitro Circus was robbed.  He did a full flip and recovered before hitting the gas and jumping some more.  The slackjaws in the audience went buck wild but still cheered more for Gravedigger who did a few pathetic jumps and a spinout.  Brent and I giggled the whole time watching the "serious" fans.  It was great!

And, on the way out, the 'Hot' sign was on at Krispy Kreme.  I'm pretty sure it's unspoken law that you must pull over for a fix of that crack when the red neon sign is glowing in the window.  Nuggets, meet heaven. 

New Years Pictures (Finally)

The World is Our Oyster!

I have so much catching up to do, it's crazy. January has been so hectic! To back up for a minute though, I wanted to blog about a really fun little overnight trip that Brent and I stole the week between Christmas and New Years.

For those of you who follow my blog regularly, you probably know that Brent's artistic side never ceases to tickle me to the bone. I am in love with Brent's artistic "style" and being around him in his creative state makes my heart laugh.

I was an art major in college and painting and drawing runs thick through my soul. For me, it's euphoric but not really something I regularly find the time to indulge in. One weekend, while we were still just dating, Brent took me to an art store on the back of his crotch rocket to load up on canvases and paints because he knew how much I loved it. (I will never forget that ride home when we learned that motorcycles are the dumbest way to transport canvi.) Anyway, we spent that entire afternoon painting and watching football and my sweet Brent, the anti-Van-Gogh, sat with me and tried his hand at painting too. Although it took him hours upon hours to complete, what he revealed became my all time favorite painting. EVER.

Seriously, this shit sent me into a fit of tears. And, had I not preempted the portrait with a story, I guarantee that you probably would have thought one of the twins painted it. At the time, it was a family photo of our days living in sin together. I swear, this painting still makes me laugh 8 years later. If I had the balls to do it, I would get it tattooed on my body somewhere. I love it that much. The flying saucer gives it that certain je ne sais quois.

This was my painting from the same day...

We were cranking out some Louvre worthy originals that day. Anyway, we both enjoy reminiscing about that day and those paintings quite often. So, few months ago when I found a groupon for an art studio up in Charleston called 'Bottles n Brushes', we jumped on it. Both of us were giddy about another art adventure and when we saw a painting class called, "The World is My Oyster" we were sold. It's been our date night slogan for years. Inevitably, one of us will ask the other while deciding our plans, "What do you want to do tonight? The world is our oyster!" (And sometimes, on an experimental date night when we try out a new restaurant, the "oyster" gives us hepatitis.)

We headed up to Charleston for our painting adventure but were hell bent on stopping at a Japanese restaurant called Bushido to try out a Man vs. Food spicy tuna handroll challenge. (10 levels of handrolls with increasing heat intensity each level.) I ordered a #4 while Brent went for the #8 (too scared of the anal napalm aftermath to go straight for the #10).

We ate them very quickly and mine tasted like fiery, ass tomato vurp. Foul. Brent's did too only his was loaded with chopped habenero. It wasn't even the heat that sucked. The flavor was like rotting carcass with ketchup. They don't tell you that on the Food Network. It was a serious problem.

Then off we went to our art class, bottle of wine in tow and it exceeded all our expectations. We had so much fun drinking, painting, and laughing at all the fellow anti-Van-Goghs in the room. They even piped Dave Matthews through the studio while we were painting. I was on the verge of tears - it was so perfect. Brent had fun too. We were totally, fully, and completely, in the zone AND we were painting oysters.


In the end, we had two more precious paintings to add to our growing collection in our happy place gallery. It was so fun and such a gift that we were even able to experience something similar to our memorable afternoon of painting such a long time ago. It was awesome.


Afterwards, we did what any other wholesome, half-lit, southern couple is supposed to do when hunger strikes around midnight. Waffle House! All Star platter, baby! Scattered, smothered, covered, and chunked! Holla Holla!

It was an awesomely Merry week-after Christmas!

The Day After Christmas

I'm sure this video is probably ridiculously boring for the non-coastal peeps, but this was HUGE for us. My kids think it snows here during the winters. They think it's part of the deal. I heard some where that it had been 126 years since Hilton Head had seen snow twice in the same year. I'm sad that it didn't accumulate, but it was awesome to be able to see it fall anyway. So pretty!

Christmas Day

Yay! Santa came!

We "wrapped" Wyatt in his room this year. Unfortunately, I can't take credit for the idea but it was really fun and definitely the beginning of a new tradition! The added bonus was that he couldn't creep out of his room to try and catch Santa in the act or sneak a peek at what he brought them. We only wrapped the bottom half of the door so he could still sleep with his door open to see the hall light. It was Buzz Lightyear Christmas paper but he wanted to see the printed Buzz side from his bed. Callie was way too nervous about being wrapped in her room so we didn't do it for her. It was great watching him tear through that paper in the morning like a superhero! We actually had to redo it a few times after the initial breakthrough because he was having so much fun busting through it.

Rounding the corner and seeing the goods!

Daddy and his spider nugget. Too bad the kids decided that dressing up as Spiderman and Spiderwoman would be the appropriate festive outfit to wear over to the folks on Christmas Day. Cool.

The kids gave gifts to everyone this year and picked each one out all by themselves with zero parental involvement. You should have seen the horrendous assortment of shit they chose! They gave my aunt and uncle a plunger, great-grandma got a bundle of sparkly headbands, Tweety Bird and Batman placemats for my mom, and my brother got a snowglobe. This is my pops sporting the fashionable dinosaur hat they picked out for him.

Present unwrapping action shot!

We arrived with two Spiderpeople and left with two skeletons. I hope you all had amazing Christmas with your families and had a happy New Year too!

Leading up to Christmas

December was insanely busy and such a gift! I'm so far behind on blogging though. We had so much fun and although I am anxious to start 2011, I'm sad that the holidays are over. Here are a few of my favorite random pics leading up to Christmas.

My nutball giving his sister some sugar while they were decorating the big tree together.

Camera phone pic of decorating the gingerbread house.

The boy flavored nugget pounding cheese dip like no other. We have to give him his own bowl though because the spitty, hardened-cheese-swirled-around-with-regurgitated-salsa, double dipping is totally foul. His eyes literally roll around in his head when he takes a bite because he loves it so much. He's his momma's baby boy fo sho!

Beavis and Butthead playing beer pong. I guess playing beer pong gives them a valid excuse to sponge up an entire case of bizneer in less than an hour. I wonder if they'll still be chugging down holiday spirit like this in their 40s.

Because the kids have gotten so overwhelmed in the past by all the presents on Christmas, we decided to start even earlier this year. We let them exchange each other's presents on Christmas Eve Eve. The spiderman was definitely one of Wyatt's faves and Callie loved all the princess stuff that her twink had picked out for her. Bless her heart because she felt so bad that Wyatt had gotten her 5 things and she had only gotten him one. They have no concept of price and we had to keep reassuring her that it was okay because her five things were small things and that probably equalled one big spiderman. Sweet girl.

Larry, Moe and Curly.

Opening up presents from the grandparents on Christmas Eve morning.

Making cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. Snickerdoodles. Too bad Wyatt ate Santa's remainders on Christmas morning as soon as he noticed the crumbs.