Electric

So happy to be typing this and have electricity! I was in the middle of chatting online with a friend in Texas when a wave of rolling thunder came through and the electricity went out. Thank goodness for candles + flashlights! After last' year's lightning episode that blew the telephone jack across the room, Baxter does not like the thunder very much. He tries not to act scared but doesn't quite pull it off.

The Tulsa birthday celebration was great! I'm so lucky to have friends like Stephanie & Amanda. We hit up Drysdales, Chick-fil-A, the Imax, Cheesecake Factory and Super Target. Of course there were giggle moments!

Eclipse was a good movie--probably the best of the three so far. Sure, it's cheesy with the fang-less vampires, over-the-top eye colors and teenage drama. But Jacob and his muscles make up for it! However, it's not a kid movie. And someone should really tell that to the thirtysomething lady who sat in our row. She had a little girl with her who could not have been more than six. During the intense scene toward the end of the movie (how's that for not giving it away?), this kid was terrified -- she was doing the zombie stare at the screen and even had her hand over her mouth. As Stephanie said, that kid is going to have nightmares.

I had candles and matches in my purse when we went into Cheesecake Factory. No, not to burn the place down, but to stick in Stephanie's cheesecake. That plan went a little awry when Amanda informed me that I would be in big doo-doo if the CF staff sang to Stephanie. Oh, dear. Lucky for me, we decided to get the cheesecake "to go" and the plot changed. We did get to surprise Stephanie with candles in her cheesecake in the hotel room -- without setting the room on fire or turning on the fire alarm and sprinklers. Success!

Of course, no trip with the Butlers can be completed without some drama and/or pee-in-your-pants giggles. When we went back to the hotel after dinner, we got the drama, squared. First off is an old guy hooked up to an oxygen tank sitting outside the hotel entrance. Lighting up a cigarette. Classy.

Then (and this might have been oxygen tank dude's grandson, perhaps) there are some rowdy pre-teen boys horsing around in the lobby, while their parents sat watching them and not really caring. They fooled around with the elevator doors, and one kid somehow got his hand stuck inside the elevator door mechanism. (Don't ask me how, I am not about to find out.) He got it out and is whining about how it hurts to his parents. Amanda kindly let me know that the father said loudly, "You moron! Do you have to do this every time we go to a hotel!??!"
Yeah, that about sums it up.

Can't wait for the next Butler installment!