priscilla b. varner | chitter-chatter

fine art prints....

starting february 1st...many of my fine art prints will be available for purchase at priscillabvarner.com!!!!! i am so very excited to offer these prints in a variety of sizes for a variety of budgets. art collecting isn't just for the elite! i will also be including a few graphic design pieces every now and again just to mix things up. :)

on february 1st i will be offering a special discount to my clients. please check out priscillabvarner.com and this blog on the 1st for more details.

thank you all for being so supportive of priscilla b. varner photographie!!!

xoxo,

priscilla

a little nugget of happiness....

artsy fartsy st augustine...

here's a few straggler images. i promise i will move on to the bahrain fisherman tomorrow. :) for the time being, check these out...

this lion fella was a door knocker on a gate at the restaurant we stopped in for lunch. too cool! an old building with coquina bricks. the rain photo i love! i've always wanted to do this shot but living in the desert for the last 10 years really hasn't provided much opportunity. every time it would rain i wouldn't have my camera...and then it would be 5 years before it rained again. ;)  and then we have clouds...i plan to do an installation somewhere of cloud photos. i love photographing clouds!!!!!

thanks for stopping in...see ya tomorrow!

more of st. augustine...

this stop is flagler college. the main building is ponce de leon hall and was built as a hotel in 1888 by henry morrison flagler. it's a beautiful campus...and ranked one of the most beautiful campuses in the US.

the interior shots were taken in the lobby. GOR-GEOUS! so so very cool. :) then there's a pic of my shooting buddy. she was all up in that palm. ha ha ha....

here we have a mosaic tiled floor in the main lobby, a strategically placed heart, a frog located in the main fountain, a creepy cherub ;) and a window that seems very arab inspired. i've seen many windows in these parts that resemble windows like that.

 

thanks so much for the visit. i think i have a few more st. augustine goodies...so check back for more. :)

a st. augustine quickie...

a few weeks before we returned to bahrain, i met one of my most "awesomest" friends in st. augustine for a quick photo walk. we roamed around the cathedral of st. augustine  and flagler college photographing details of these places and interesting/uninteresting other little things. 

our first stop was the cathedral. i've photographed this cathedral many times over the course of my photography career. one of my most prized photographs from photoschool was actually taken of one of the ladies that worked in the gift shop here in 1992. i still treasure that image today. :)

the parish was founded in 1565 by the menendez party which sailed from cadiz, spain. (funny thing...we are scheduled to visit cadiz in a few weeks!) it was named st. augustine due to the fact that the menendez party arrived on the feast day of st. augustine of hippo. as i understand it, the church was completed in 1797 with a major renovation in 1965 and in 1976 it was re designated a minor basilica by the pope. this is by far one of my favorite american churches so far.

there was something really special going on at the church the day we visited. i'm not overtly religious and i'm not catholic...but it was a very special visit for me.

the following images will be displayed as a horizontal tryptic and titled "a divine intervention"

enjoy...more of st. augustine to come....

vintage...part deux

i promise...no crappers in this one!! :)  and we continue with the vintage theme... i have a quick question. please tell me which one you like better of "tea, rice and flour". black and white or color. i just can't decide!!!

vintage...

ok...so i'm finding that i love vintage stores. i love the look of some things while they wait for new lives. ;) also...i like to see the total crap that these places sell. ha ha ha...so this will be an ongoing series of images. i will be posting the different series on my website...so you can check back on occasion and see the collections as they grow. oh my gosh...i'm getting to be so artsy fartsy!! ;) ha ha ha....

and now enjoy some "vintage"...

and the total crap...pers. ;) (this one will not be included in the collection. ha ha ha...but at least i know where i can get a crapper if i need one....or 10!!)

the pier...

i think i'm going to do a series on beach stuff. for some reason everything i do right now needs to be a series of something. why, i have no idea, can i not just take one freakin' photo of something and just be cool with it? ha ha ha...

so here are a few of goodies from the daytona beach pier:

 

i'm a swimmer...

yes...i'm a swimmer. always have been...always will be. i sincerely believe i am part mermaid. the kids believe me...so that's all that counts, right??!

i've always been drawn to the jantzen lady in daytona. i have a shot of her from when i was in photo school. i'm not sure where it went to...so i took a few more. it's amazing how little she's  changed over the years. ;)

enjoy miss jantzen...

the wheel...

howdy folks. well...it seems as if i'm always apologizing for leaving y'all hanging for way too long. just to catch you up quickly. my last post was mid march. well...the revolution in bahrain got a little dicey and we ended up evacuating to the states about 5 days after that post. the kids and i have been in florida since mid march and thoroughly enjoying target...publix and of course our family and the beach. we miss our main dude terribly but i'm confident we will going back to bahrain soon.

after we finally settled down and chilled out for a second, i started to drag out the camera and shoot images  for a few series that i had creeping around in my head. the first set you'll see is "the wheel". i find ferris wheels fun and youthful...even though i don't particularly care to ride in them. the kids make me do it...i neglect to tell them how freakin' terrified i am when we get stuck at the top!!!

enjoy the photos and let me know what you think. :))

 

 

 

 

a whole lot of catchin' up to do...

i think we're finally in a groove around here. kids are in school...no more holidays until november. i've got my gym schedule all worked out so now it's time to catch up on a few items of interest. i have a ton of photos from our trip that i haven't had a chance to edit. the first being our trip to kauai in april. my mom was kind enough to come and hang with the kids so we could head out on our own. nearly two weeks of no kids...what the heck were we gonna talk about??? good news...we managed! ha ha ha. i missed the kids sooo much. i don't think i'll be able to take that long of a break again. i just felt a little off...but it was nice being able to chill with my man like the good ole days. ;)

here's a ton of photos for you to check out:

a: the beach at the navy base in kauai, barking sands. i know why they call it barking sands...my dogs were barking cause the sand was so freakin' hot!!! ;)

b: green stuff we saw on our hike

c/d: the sun setting behind the palms outside our villa

 

we went on a movie tour and stopped a few cool places. this was the coco palms hotel where blue hawaii was filmed, a movie with elvis. apparently the hotel was severely damage about 10 years ago just after it was purchased. it's been in litigation ever since. they film a lot of movies in the coconut palms in the back. it's beautiful...but the hotel is in shambles.

e: entertainment area that over looks the lagoon

f: one of the lagoons

g: the walkway into the palms. so many palms, so little time

h: palm reflection in the lagoon

i: no this isn't the indiana jones set, it was one of the entrance ways to one of the buildings

j: a lonely palm

k: i've always wanted to do one of these photos. :)

l: hanalei bay

m: a storm of the new st. regis hotel in kauai. it's a BEAUTIFUL hotel!

n: hanalei bay again from the st. regis

 

o: six days, seven nights with anne heche and harrison ford was partially filmed here

p: the pilot of gilligan's island was filmed here. the boat was on the beach in the distance over there

q/r/s: more of where the gilligan's island pilot was filmed

 

t: the start of a hike we took. this is the opening to one of the jurassic park movies

u: on the hike

v: yes mom...i got dirty. i took a pic because i knew you wouldn't believe me. :)

w: more green stuff

x: uber cool lifeguard tower

y: hanalei bay

z: cool church in hanalei. the town of hanalei is very much like a hawaiian boulder, co. we felt very comfy there. ha ha ha

1: the drive down to hanalei

2: taro fields just before hanalei

my favorite photo. this was on the drive to our villa from the main part of Kauai. another one of the Jurassic park films was filmed here.

i hope you enjoyed the photos. i tried to narrow the batch down...but i apparently didn't narrow enough. ha ha ha... more to come!

what do you do when you're stuck at a hotel doing laundry...

torture your children with a quick photo shoot...naturally! so we borrowed the navy lodge laundry room in va. beach so we could finish our laundry before we took off for bahrain the next day. the kids were beside themselves due to a bad case of boredom. this is how we tackled that issue:

 

reagan's pose is courtesy of one miss reagan campbell. that was my reagan's bff in preschool back in fernley. i once did a photo session with miss reagan campbell and i all but had to tie her hands behind her back so she wouldn't pose like this for EVERY photo. nice to see it rubbed off on my rea. ;)

don't let this sweet littlest one fool ya...she's usually up to no good...

`

down on the farm...

after we left charleston this summer, we headed north-ish to visit some friends in georgetown. this family has been bff's with my family since the dawn of time. steve, the dad, worked for my grandpa back in the day...when he was 15! our families have been hanging out and getting into trouble ever since!!!! we're never lost for entertainment when we all get together.

the girls were super excited to stop there because they have tons of animals. they have chickens, dogs, cats, pigs, ponies, horses and a bull. oh...and a deer. it's nuts!!! i couldn't keep track of everything out there...

it was a real low key stay...we just roamed around the farm petting and feeding animals. the kids got dirty...we ate a bunch of shrimp and jason got to see his first swarm of lightening bugs. i couldn't believe jason hadn't seen lightening bugs before! i guess i just figured everyone had seen them before...but it was cool to sit and watch jason watch the bugs. ha ha ha...the girls got a kick out of them too.

as we wondered around the farm, i took some pics. take a peek... the farm is located next to a little waterway off the black river. man...they aren't kidding...that river is BLACK! the last pic in the bunch is bill the bull showing off his talents. i bet my 5 year old can do that too!

here's another batch...the first one is cleafus the pony. he's so mellow! aunt kat and the girls with one of the dawgs and then steve took the kids for rides on his horse. rea was beside herself. she looooooves horses.

most of the grand kids. we're only missing one...but he's a teenager and doesn't do photos. ;) all 4 kids were born right around the same time. bates on the end is about a month younger than rea and then baxley is a couple of months older than kinsey. i think they all got along pretty well during the visit too. which is good because we'll be hanging out with them for the rest of our lives!!! ha ha ha.... bates looks so thrilled to be lined up there with the girls! the last two pics are of baxley on steve's horse. steve was walking the horse and then just let the reins go to see where the horse would go...well...it followed steve...right on over to the fence.

ok...my last bunch of photos from this trip. i think these may be the funniest ones. enjoy bill the bull flippin' some 'tude.

i hope you enjoyed our trip to the farm. tune in again to see more pics from our summer adventures. :)

back in time...

so now that i'm all caught up on work photos, i can start weeding through my personal photos that i haven't had time to even organize for the last 7 years! yes...7 years! ever since kinsey came around, i have just slacked on my personal photos and the general task of being organized. ha ha ha...

so we are going to jump into the delorean and hope the flux capacitor still works and we're going to head back...way back to june 2010. ;)

by june, jason had finished his school in rhode island and headed to florida to join in on our fun. we went to disney and then headed back to jacksonville to repack our 973 suitcases. after all the bags were stuffed to the gills, we jumped in the car and headed north...to south carolina. [although we call it south kack-a-lackey] we stopped off in beaufort to see an old friend. she's not old...we've just known her for awhile! ha ha ha...after dinner, we planned a stop over in charleston.

i have a lot of history in this old city. i was born there...lived there off and on during the first half of my life...went to college there...left and then went back to college there and got married there. but you know what...i never really noticed what a photogenic city it is. i LOVE old stuff...it generally has a neat texture that photographs really well. we didn't have time to roam the entire city so i just took a few shots while we checked stuff out. we left in 1997...so it had changed a bit...for the better!

i went to the college of charleston right in downtown. the school is the oldest municipal college in the u.s. it's currently undergoing renovations so this wasn't the prettiest time to photograph the buildings.

the first pic is the main building. the grassy oval in front of the building is the cistern. spring graduation is held here where ladies wear white dresses and men wear black suits.

the fourth pic is the gate lodge and it sits down a walk directly in front of the main building.

 

the second photo here is a side shot of the main building. the school was founded in 1770 and chartered in 1785. the last image...one of the reasons i love this old town...

the black and white here is the daughters of the confederacy building at the old slave market. the girls posing under my school's sign and lastly...kinsey just being cute. rea was being a bit of a turkey...so no single pics of her that day. :(

hope you enjoyed your trip...we enjoyed ours. more to come!!!

we made it!!!!

ok...i'm going to have to go a little bit out of order. i'm having a hard time finding converter plugs for my hard drive...which is where all my pics from our adventure are. so....i'll tell ya about our trip to bahrain and then we'll go back to where we left off in florida once i can get my hard drive plugged in. ;)

so...on the wonderful evening of june 15th...oh hell...who am i kidding, it was night!...we took 2 taxis and drug all our kids and junk to the airport. i managed to get nearly all the pieces of luggage on two trolleys. we headed to check in and security advised us that we were going to have to send all of our luggage through the security screening before we would be allowed to enter the airport. Gotta love the navy! So...we took out computers, took off shoes, loaded 16 pieces of luggage on the conveyor belt and shoved it ALL through, including the kids...well...they just got pushed through the metal detector. ;) then...i ran to the other end and tried to catch it all and put it back on the trolley, put all our shoes back on and head over to the ticket counter before aaaaallll the people behind us lost their minds. ;) finally...SUCCESS!!! we were checked in and ready to go...but now we have to wait 3 hours. we had to check in at 9 but our flight didn't leave until midnight. the kids managed to hang in there with minimal complaining. they were real troopers that night.

After boarding the flight...we headed east...way east. apparently our flight went toward greenland...but i wouldn't know i was too busy drooling on myself! ha ha ha. i did see a lovely sunrise though...and then i went back to drooling on myself and possibly others nearby. we made 3 stops before finally arriving in bahrain.

bahrain...is...HOT!!!!!! Holy crap the heat. we are forever grateful for our friend tom. he met our sponsor at the air terminal so they could help us get to our hotel. we landed at nearly 8am bahrain time in what i can only call oppressive heat. come to find out...it was almost 117* with 80% humidity that day. welcome to bahrain!!! tom quickly took us up to his office so we could get some water...much needed water...and try to deter the onset of heat stroke which was totally expected. by the time we reached our hotel room nearly 2 hours later, we were about 10lbs lighter each as well as 2 suitcases lighter. WHAT?? apparently the 2 HOT PINK suitcases were left at the terminal during the whole passport/customs/visa portion of the program. whoops! not to worry...no one wanted to claim two suitcases full of pink girlie clothes. so tom took jason back to the terminal so he could grab kinsey's suitcases. she was just thrilled she wasn't gonna have to run around naked. :)

the first and second days we pretty much walked around in a fog. we didn't know where we were...what we were doing...or why everything smelled like curry! our hotel room seemed as if it just couldn't get cool enough and what the hell time is it anyway???

so here's a couple of quick pics from the phone...i will continue my story tomorrow. it's just so darn entertaining i can't keep it to myself. ;)

(pics: me and the girls and jason and the girls right before we got on the plane...at 11:30 at night, A: sunrise in the atlantic ocean some where, B: some crazy clouds i saw...the light spots were sunshine shining through between the clouds. i thought it was beautiful...but then again i was a bit sleep deprived and delirious at that point. C: apparently that was mount vesuvius in italy...our second stop of the day(s), Another shot of the girls...about 15 hours into the trip. i made them ride in their pjs so they could sleep, E: view from our hotel room in bahrain)

the beach!!!!!!

well...we are on the road again. it was great to stop in huntsville and catch up with my long lost friends...but now it's time to get to the sunshine state!!! we headed south...destination pensacola.

we stopped at my aunt shere and uncle jerry's place for the weekend. i hadn't been to pensacola since the big hurricane, so i wasn't sure what the town would look like. i must say...there's been a lot of rebuilding! first off, my aunt and uncle have a new house. unfortunately the old house flooded up to the second floor. yikers! they certainly had interesting stories of the things they found in their yard after the storm. for example...someone's toilet was knocking on the front door. another person's boat was on my cousins car. they found a fridge full of food, a frozen pizza and an address placard. after the storm, they actually tried to return the address placard but the home was no longer there. :(

we had fun running around town and i was so thankful they stopped at the beach so i could take pics and poach some sand. ;) the sand is so gorgeous! the gulf...so green...for now. :( hopefully the oil doesn't pay them a visit... here are some pics of the beach, my kids and my aunt and uncle:

[the buoys in one of the bottom pics with the starry sun are so the oil doesn't seep into the oyster beds...the oyster bed pic is the next image.]

now pics of the girls and my aunt and uncle. my aunt and uncle hadn't been photographed by me yet...so when i said jump...they said...are you kidding? uh...no?! injury and all...they were great sports and i love the photos! next up...our family photos next weekend!! thanks so much for a wonderful weekend and a fun mothers day!

stop number 4...huntsville, alabama

so i've nicked named this trip the "varner reunion tour". next stop on the tour, huntsville, alabama! after we checked out downtown nashville, the girls and i headed toward alabama. today's drive was only going to be about 2 hours...so i decided to have a sit down lunch at cracker barrel. hmmmm...iced tea and fried okra!!!

we stopped in and ordered lunch and the girls wanted to order some tea. well...why not. i'll be fun mom today. the girls have never had tea with the exception of a sip or two of my tea or jason's. well...apparently rea liked it...a lot! she had 3 kid cups full!

after we finished our lunch, we headed through the little shop area and i saw pop rocks. the girls had never had the pleasure of eating pop rocks...so i thought i'd surprise them. i bought them and we headed outside for some fun. i told them that i was going to give them candy but i never told them what they did. i'm so mean!!!! so rea said she wanted to go first. AWE-SOME!!! i poured in a few and then on with the crazy faces. she didn't know quite what to think. it was so funny! kinsey was second and she was freaking out too. it was hilarious. so much fun for me. :) i made sure to video it to use against them at a later date. ha ha ha...

ok...time to get to business and get on the road.

20 minutes after we hit the road..."mom, i have to pee."

me: "what? we just went at the restaurant!"

"mom...i really have to go!"

me: "can you wait a few minutes?"

"i can't hold it mom, i really have to go..."

off the side of the road we go...reagan's now initiated into the "peeing on the side of the road" club. our first attempt was not quite successful but i'm certain we'll have another go at it in our future. ;)

so the two hour trip turned into a 3.5 hour trip because tea apparently makes my kids pee...a lot! i have a new rule in our family...if you're under the age of 18, no tea on road trips!

once we arrived in huntsville we checked in with our friends and then headed to the Huntsville Space and Rocket Museum. So cool! And...it was free for military. Even cooler!!! ha ha ha...the girls and i toured around and checked out the sites. it was very interesting and helped me explain the history of the space program to the girls in preparation for watching the shuttle launch. they really enjoyed it...i think. ;) here are some photos of the museum...

i love the pic of the moon man!! it made me think of the mtv video awards and "i want my mtv??" :)

after we finished with the space museum, we headed over to my friend's house for dinner. i have known this family since i was in the second grade. they are one of the two families i've kept in touch with for that long. it was so awesome to see them all again. it had been about 15 years! Kris and Holly's mom and dad haven't changed a bit!

Meet my friends...June and Jerry and their kids, kris and holly and their families.

thanks so much for the dinner and conversation. we had so much fun!!!! we won't let it be another 15 years...for sure!

Pics: the kids in space capsule, me and the girls, rea and one of kris's kids [it was like they'd known each other for years], june and jerry, kris and her hubby, holly and her family and then kris's kids.

we have internet again!!!!

wow...that was rough!! we went for a week without internet. i have it on my phone...but can't post to my blog with photos...so i feel like i've been on a desert island for the last week! actually...we've been continuing our adventure. so far so good! here's a quick recap:

last you heard, we were in kansas city. after hanging out with our friends in kc, we headed on toward nashville. the drive was fine. we drove through the birth-land of panera bread...missouri. who knew!!! although it was a little odd that it wasn't called panera there...st. louis bread company. so weird!! (i also just found out that panera means bread box. hmmm...makes sense! ha ha ha...)

i really wanted to stop in st. louis and show the girls the arch. i thought it would be a great home schooling moment...then i read the reviews..."rough town". hmm...me, 2 girls and a car with a crap load of luggage on top of and in the car. i guess we should probably do the "rough town" thing when we have less crap. so...i just tried to take a quick pic of the arch as i was driving by trying not to wreck. hey...at least we saw it!

after hitting 4 states in less than 9 hours: missouri, illinois, kentucky and tennessee, we finally arrived at the traffic stopping point called nashville. i'm sure you saw in the news that they received some rain. well...actually...i think they received ALL the rain. we drove through town and many of the exits were blocked off because the bottom of the off ramp was underwater. i've seen some floods before...but this was terrible! we saw gas stations completely under water, vehicle so far underwater that the water was up to the rear view mirror...and much worse. the girls and i had a teachable moment and discussed disasters and it's effects on people. (nothing too in depth, but it's good to talk about it so they learn empathy.)

the next morning, after eating at....yes...panera... we went on a quick adventure to see nashville. i soon found out that the sites we wanted to see were closed due to the flood, so we set off to find vanderbilt...as in the university. we have a really good friend that graduated from there and we always give him grief about. maybe we just feel inadequate because our chosen schools didn't require ascots. ;) ha ha ha...so we drove around the campus a little bit and i caught a quick shot of a really cool building so he knew we visited. it's a beautiful campus...you should definitely check it out if you visit.

our next destination was the "parthenon". my husband kindly informed me that the parthenon was in greece. really??? i thought they moved it to nashville! ;) Here's a little info about the nashville parthenon:

The Parthenon stands proudly as the centerpiece of Centennial Park, Nashville's premier urban park. The re-creation of the 42-foot statue Athena is the focus of the Parthenon just as it was in ancient Greece. The building and the Athena statue are both full-scale replicas of the Athenian originals.

Originally built for Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition, this replica of the original Parthenon in Athens serves as a monument to what is considered the pinnacle of classical architecture. The plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles found in the Naos are direct casts of the original sculptures which adorned the pediments of the Athenian Parthenon, dating back to 438 B.C. The originals of these powerful fragments are housed in the British Museum in London.

The Parthenon also serves as the city of Nashville's art museum. The focus of the Parthenon's permanent collection is a group of 63 paintings by 19th and 20th century American artists donated by James M. Cowan. Additional gallery spaces provide a venue for a variety of temporary shows and exhibits.

like i said, it was closed, but at least we got to drive by. i stopped to take a picture and kinsey yells "i'm not getting out! i don't want to see the building!" well...i guess homeschooling is over for that day...next stop, huntsville, alabama!

here are a few photos of our brief stop over. the first image is our "visit" to the arch, the building next to it is a wonderful building at vanderbilt university. the horizontal image is the parthenon and the last one is of my crazy girls having a much needed break at the pool...

faux pas in kansas city...

well apparently color matters in kansas city. driving into the city, i saw tons of signs for the university of Kansas. it appeared that the signs were purple. i made a facebook comment making fun of ku and their zest for the color purple. i believe i said the color suited 12 year old girls. little did i know that their colors are actually royal blue and red!  a few of my very nice friends pointed out my mistake. i guess their main rival is kansas state u. and their color is in fact purple. major faux pas. so....to all my ku fans out there...sorry. my bad! ha ha ha

now that we cleared that up, id like to introduce you to a couple of my friends. the girls and i stopped in kansas city for a couple of days to visit. the last time i drove through kansas city it was kind of dirty and very factoryish and there were huge billboards that read "loosest slots in town". WHAT??? why would anyone put that up and how has someone not complained about it?? fast forward 12 years and...the city is totally different. it's actually quite beautiful. there are parks, running paths, a wonderful outdoor mall, awesome lofts and restaurants and a free kids farmhouse zoo. it is a totally different place!

the girls and i met my friend cara and her daughter at the free farmhouse zoo place. the girls had a blast! they were petting everything in site...hiking around on the path...playing on the play equipment. it was so nice for them to get out of the car and just expel some energy. cara and i managed to catch up on years past while all the girls were entertained by the farm stuff. cara and her hubby hung out with us when we lived in silverdale, washington. we were there for about a year and a half during the submarine part of jason's navy career. we had so much fun! we would most certainly be in a lot of trouble if we lived in the same town again...i promise you that!

cara...it was great hanging out with ya!! our door is always open...well...maybe not actually open. i don't need any sand dunes building up in the living room! ;) hopefully we'll see you in europe next summer!! ;)

notes on the images below: apparently ralphie chills in kansas when he's not at a cu game. don't tell jason!!! the farm place had a practice milker. water actually shot out of the utters! ewwwwwww!!!

we also stopped and saw my friend shelly and her hubby and munchkin. we had an awesome dinner with them and ended up meeting them for a little play date at the park. the girls had a blast playing with little mia. she's so cute and not 1 oz of baby any more. i'm so sad! I was able to photograph mia several times and she's just so freakin' cute. it was nice chatting with them and it was even nicer of mia to run the girls ragged!!

to my fellow artsy fartsy friend, thanks for letting us stop in. we had a total blast! maybe next time we can meet up in hawaii??!! ha ha ha...

now off to cause some trouble in nashville!!!!

death to the mini-van...

i pulled into a parking lot and saw this bumper sticker and it was too good not to share!! i'm gonna go ahead and apologize to all my friends with mini-vans. i'm sure you really love them...but if i could figure out a way to squeeze two boosters into an audi tt...then i'd totally do it! providing i had a hubby that would buy me the audi tt to begin with! i love you dear!!! ;)

-

excitement in denver...

howdy folks. a quick update for you. being the good home school teacher i am, ha ha ha, i took the kids to denver to check out the capital building and the us mint. well...who knew you had to make a reservation for a tour at the mint a month in advance? ugh...not me. whoops! any who, i figured we'd drop in anyway and see if we could squeeze in. after our awesome lunch at the denver hard rock cafe, we cruised on over to  the entrance to talk our way into the last tour of the day.

security dude: "ma'am...you aren't allowed to bring bags into the mint and the last tour leaves in 15 minutes."

me: "CRAAAAAAAAAAAAP!"

so the kids and i did a mad dash two blocks down the road, threw the purse in the car...sorry karen!...and then did another mad dash back to the gate to stand in the "we suck and don't have reservations" line. after all the cool people went in and went through security, the guard starts letting the d-bags in. [that would be our line.] he gets all the way through the line and finally gets to us. "we're full" he says to me and the girls...just as its starting to hail or snow...i couldn't decide which one it was. the girls gave him the look. you know...the look like someone just ran over their puppy...aaaaand.......it was successful. WE GOT IN! And...approximately 5.25 minutes later we were being escorted out of the building. That was the shortest tour on the PLANET!

tour dude: "14% of the nations gold is some where in this building but we can't tell you where it is. if you touch anything you'll get tear-gassed from the walls. thank you for visiting the mint and have a great day."

that was basically the tour...really!

after all that excitement, i thought i'd show the girls the capital building. i figured we'd park, take a couple of photos and head to the mall for the "real" education. ;) so we found a good spot...cruised over and took a couple of photos. kinsey asked why there were a bunch of policeman around. me: "hmmm, i don't know. maybe they're having a lunch break...at 2:30?" then we turned around to head to the car and saw a gazillion teenagers heading our way. seriously...about 3 blocks worth...to match the garden full of teenagers already camped out on the lawn at the capital building.

me: "what the h...." [yes, i stopped myself].

apparently, we chose the exact time several high schools let out and the kids were protesting the immigration law change in arizona. nice!! sooo...we let the kids pass...i tried to explain politics and government to a 5 and 6 year old. also explained that no...the dude that has the 2 foot spikes coming off his head is NOT cool and i'm not quite sure why his dude friend is dressed like a chick...and by the way...that "f" word on the poster is so not cool...so don't even think about saying it!

so there was our home school for the day...lord what did i get myself into???? enjoy a couple of pics from my phone. yes...the photographer forgot her camera. don't act surprised... ;)

the first photo is a club that jason and i used to go to all the time. i couldn't believe it was still there!! It's beautiful inside...