Is she the one laughing?

!

I’ve just discovered that I’ve got today off! I had no idea! Surprise vacation day! Yay!

We had a v. busy but pleasant weekend. Saturday we went to H2Oasis, an indoor waterpark that opened up here, to see my friend Heather and her family as they went through Anchorage. H2Oasis is pretty cool, and we had a good time, although it’s not really a place I’d suggest going to catch up with people you haven’t talked to in several years. :) Among other fun bits Jai’s daughter helped me jam the #@$! out of my right ring finger. One doesn’t appreciate how much one does with that finger until one no longer can use it properly. I’ve been pouring milk left-handed the last few days. o.O But aside from that, we had a good time, and it was nice to see Heather, albeit briefly. Probably we will meet up again this weekend to go to the zoo, and then perhaps I will actually *see* her child, the back of whose head I saw once, but otherwise, I couldn’t prove he existed. :)

Saturday night we gamed, and 2 of our 4 characters got dead, but we had fun anyway. Next time, though, we’ll just set the house on fire and let the people all come to us, instead of going in to them. Hmph. :)

Sunday we went out to my aunt and uncle’s modest cabin by the lake and had a 4th of July barbeque. Ted was amazed at how nice it was to not have to cook. :) Aunt Eileen made her Astoundingly Yummy Salmon Dip, and my cousin Erik made the hamburgers and Mom and I, mostly, roasted hotdogs. And we played a lot with my cousin Maggie’s two oldest boys, Louie and Derek. They are insanely cute little kids. Beeeg blue eyes and Derek’s very blond and Louie’s older and less blond, but boy they’re cuties.

Derek took a shining to me and wanted me to play dolls with him, which seemed to mostly involve flying the dolls around and shooting each other out of the sky and then rescuing each other. I don’t like dolls very much. I started doing things–which seemed perfectly reasonable to me, honestly–like saying, “Here she goes, flying into your ear! There she goes, flying right through your head!” My mother, upon observing this, first laughed in sort of mystified horror and then said, “Catie never was very good at playing dolls.”

Eventually, because it was the 4th of July, it began to rain, and we all packed up and went back up to the house, where Louie and Derek, who were absolutely exhausted, started wanting their bedtime rituals, although it was only a quarter to five. So they got their bath and then came downstairs, Louie bearing a book titled Chewy Louie which he handed to me, so I read it to them. Aunt Eileen came downstairs, presumably after getting the bathroom cleaned up, and said to my Mom, “Louie wanted me to read a story, so I told him to get his book and to go ask Catie, she’d read it to him. Louie said, “Which one is Catie?” Eileen said, “You know which one Catie is!” Louie thought about it for a moment, then said, “Is she the one in the green shirt who’s laughing?”” Eileen said, “I didn’ t know what color shirt she was wearing, but I knew she was *certainly* the one laughing!”

*beam* I love being me. *beam*

Well! I have the day off! So I’m going to go take advantage of that! *zoom*!

miles to Lothlorien: 77