happy birthday brad!!!!

I'm coming to you live from my parents' house in Kentucky! I arrived in Columbus (Ohio) yesterday and Mom and Dad picked me up from the airport. Then we went to Max & Erma's and met Brad, Kari, and the precious and wonderful Braden. He is just the most amazing thing I've ever seen. He repeats everything you say, but he also just notices every single little thing in the world. If you have the tiniest little cut on your hand, he points to it and says, "Aunt Sis has an ouchie." It's the cutest thing! And he just thinks up funny things to say! Like, he just got all worked up and said, "I NEED some GWWWW-APES!" (grapes, but he doesn't always get the 'r' in there!) LOL Anyway, it was a wonderful time and I wish I could put Braden in my pocket and take him with me. :-)

So today was Brad's birthday and he's 29. Yay! We sang to him last night and Braden thought we were singing to him, of course! So cute. Anyway, happy birthday to my fabulous brother! I hope you enjoy the last year of your twenties!

Today I got up and Mom and I walked around the yard (me in my pajamas, of course) and talked about all her flowers. Then Dad and I went for a long walk in the neighborhood. The weather here is PERFECT. It's my dream weather. If I could live in a place where it was like this every day, I totally would. It's like 76 degrees or something, sunny, with a cool breeze. Perfect for shorts but not really hot.

After the walk we fooled around here and then Mom and I went through some of the clothes in their closets. Then I showered and we had lunch, and we got Dad in on the closet cleaning action. We have a nice big bag for Goodwill and hopefully we'll have more tomorrow. Then Nan and Pops came over for dinner. Mom cooked BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, homemade cornbread (she makes the BEST) and...GREEN BEANS! And not from a can either. The fresh green beans are my FAVORITE EVER and she cooks them in the pressure cooker. Yum!

But the highlight of my day was going to Barbershop practice with my dad tonight. My dad directs the Singing Kernels, the barbershop chorus here in Ashland. They sounded great! I saw more old men wearing shorts with white socks and black shoes than ever before!! HAHA! And one guy had on shorts and dress shoes (like wing tips!) with no socks! LOL But they really did sound wonderful. My dad is a fabulous director and I'm always amused when I watch him with any of his groups. They'll be singing, and I'll think, "Wow, the leads really need to watch the pronunciation of the word heaven." And they'll finish the song and Dad will go, "Leads, careful with the pronunciation of heaven!" LOL We think alike in a lot of ways about music. :-)

While I'm on the subject, I'll just brag on Dad a little more. He also sings lead in the Barons quartet. The Barons won the international championship in their division in 2003. I'm so proud of my dad and proud to be from a family with rich musical heritage. Now I could go into Dad's family and all their musical escapades and adventures, and tell you how his parents met at a singing convention, but I won't. It's late and I'm tired. Anyway, here are the Barons. Dad's on the left in the back, the one with the biggest smile. :-)
After barbershop, we came home and fooled around some more, and then Dad and I played a game of Gin rummy and Mom went to bed. Dad beat me, but I ALMOST made a comeback! But I still didn't win. At one point, he had like 400 points and I had ZERO, and then I scored THREE points, and we had a huge big laugh about that. After the game we talked about how we've always played games (cards, especially) and how it's hard for me to understand when people tell me they didn't grow up playing games! That's just about all we did - we played games and sang a LOT - and I'm so glad. We still spend the holidays playing millions of games (and singing a lot, too!) I love it. I love my family. :-)