12 Years Later...Vegas!

Happy 12 Year Anniversary to my best friend for life, Joanna Claire Noble Lucas.  Turns out these two ruffians first met 12 years ago on a bus in NYC. 

I was lucky enough to join Jo and her new hubby Tom on the final leg of their journey through the Wild West.  We met up for 4 days in Las Vegas!

Tom and Jo picked me up from the Las Vegas airport after being lost for about an hour, although they had a GPS speaking English to them.  I learned really quickly that British people are easily entertained.  Tom immediately took it upon himself to wipe the car windows at the gas station, while Jo watched avidly from inside the car.  Apparently, the small kindness of a squeegee and bucket of gross luke-warm water has escaped the Europeans. 

After Tom cleaned the car, but before returning said car, we drove over to check out the Hoover Dam.  It is enormous, very beautiful, and extremely hot and windy.  Some nerdy engineers in my party wanted to learn the sciency and mathy bits of the dam, which proved mildly interesting to even a muggle like me. 

Our downtime in Vegas was pretty awesome over the next few days.  We got introduced to our king suites at the Encore Wynn hotel.  I don't know if I can adequately put into words how much I loved this suite.  And the fact that it was super cheap because we were staying mid-week.  When I described it to my mother, she responded that I would need to pick up a man to keep me company in that suite.  Don't worry, I reminded her that I'm no hussy. And that it's awkward for her to encourage promiscuity. 

We enjoyed the pools, toured the strip, visited all the hotels, devoured some delectable cuisine and...

...we saw Macklemore chilling in the casino at our hotel.  Macklemore!  As in this guy:

I immediately went into shock.  I hid behind Jo and kept peaking around her to stare at him.  I am a super duper monster of a fan.  But I didn't know what to do!  So while other people were asking him for pictures, I just hyperventilated and cowered behind a slot machine.  Once I got up to my room, I held my head in my hands and felt like a first class idiot. The entire situation was not helped by the fact that Tom and Jo couldn't properly remember his name and continued to call him Mackleroy.  

For the rest of our trip, whenever we walked through the casino we would refer to it as "The Scene of the Crime".  Perhaps it was this timidity in me that encouraged Carmen to make an appearance the following night...

85 Reasons I Love Gramma

June 8th was Gramma's 85th birthday. 

For those of us who know and love her, we feel infinitely grateful to have her in our lives. 

To honor this incredible lady, I put together 85 reasons why I love her.  

She’s had the same hairstyle for 65 years

She really loves tuna salad

I know that she would get me out of jail

She drinks whiskey

She makes a great hotel roommate; she always stays quiet until I want to wake up

She was the First Lady of Littleton

She always waits until drunk Katie leaves to laugh at her

She always reassures me that someone is out there for me

Sometimes at night she runs the red light on Mississippi and Colorado

One time her husband accidentally shot a moose and she helped him cover it up

She can get any stain out

She always waits downstairs for me to drive up when I’m coming over

She has a 6^th sense on betting on horses

She is a great host

She allows us to ask her dumb and obvious questions about golf

She knows every employee at “her Kings”

She has at least one picture of every member of the family up in her house

She’s visited me at every school I’ve attended (elementary, middle, high, college, study abroad in England)

She comes to everything we invite her to

She tolerates our dogs

She would never trust her important mail to her apartment mailbox

She is a great shopping companion

She yells “SUSAN!” when my mom gets out of line

She is a safe and competent driver

She cried laughing at the idea of Katie having twins

Her church has a donkey on Palm Sunday

Everyone at the post office knows her

She loved showing off her snow village to my dog

Takes on leadership positions (VP of her condo board, deacon at church and organizer of high school reunions)

She has great style and loves colorful clothes

She has heels that she only wears on special occasions

She doesn’t need a cell phone.  Or voicemail.

She still recognizes my voice over the phone

When the whole family is fighting at the dinner table, she pretends she doesn’t notice

She switches between her glasses and sunglasses without ever misplacing either pair

She always has a spare Kleenex or chapstick

She loves candy too

She tells me that sometimes when a pillow is hard, it’s as hard as “two rocks”

She always tells me that I look good in shoes

If she doesn’t like what I’m wearing, she will say “I just don’t like that too well”

She rocks a robe like none other

She is always down for an action movie

She is never late

She loves her kids

She brags about her grandkids and great-grandkids to anyone who’ll listen

She never draws attention to herself

She always provides her own drinks

She makes awesome potatoes and coffee cake

As a child, she always let me choose between the hard and soft pillows when I stayed over

She uses hats as decorative art

She answers my NCIS questions for me

She was a loyal wife

She likes some foods, but they don’t like her back (cantaloupe, onions)

She calls me baby doll  

She loves my dad a lot

She gossips

She has worked so many different jobs

She taught me how to pack using tissue paper layers

She follows sports more closely than anyone I know

She lets me look through all her old pictures

She has started giving away all her possessions

She understands the necessity of wearing clear nail polish all the time

She’s travelled the world

She is so supportive of everyone’s interests

She still keeps in touch with her high school friends

She is financially responsible

She loves Colorado as much as I do

She shows me off when I come to her church

She is a staple of Old Littleton

If she doesn’t like the food she’s been served, she doesn’t say anything

She has helped me get through airport security faster

She is never jealous

She loves gambling

I’ve never heard her say a mean word about her husband

She always remembers everyone’s birthday

She lets Bear and Marley run up and down her hallways

She remembers my friends and asks me about them

She sends me a Hallmark card for every single holiday

One time she threw the car keys into the mailbox

She always has a reason to call and gets right to it

Through her eyes, I’ve come to see Denver through the decades

She is a celebrity in Lenola, Italy

She is always willing to share a pop with me

She attends everyone’s performances, concerts, presentations, slide shows, lectures and events with a smile on her face and nothing but kind words.  She is the definition of a loving and supportive grandmother.

Bopper's Birthday

 

A very happy 2nd birthday to Bear, and to his best friend Copper.  And after all the fun of Cinco de Bearo last year, we decided to expand the party for year 2 to celebrate the insanity that is Bopper (Bear + Copper).

I wonder sometimes about traditions.  

How are traditions made? 

 How many times do you have to do something before it becomes your tradition? 

 Do you intend to create traditions, or do traditions find you? 

If Bear's birthday brings together families, friends, and pinatas every year, then that sounds like a tradition worth keeping.

Gramma, Grappa, Goodbars, and A Chihuahua Dressed Like Michael Jackson

Happy Mother's Day and a big high five to all the women out there who put their heart and soul into their children.  (And a second high five to all the women out there without kids, but who still put their heart and soul into bettering the world in other awesome ways.)

Per our prerogative to make an event out of every possible holiday, the Kinghorn family united last Sunday to celebrate the mothers in our lives.  It was a gorgeous afternoon, full of dramatic sunlight, ice cream sundaes, and spontaneous laughter. 

Without my mother, grandmother, and aunt our family would not be the thriving, unpredictable, incredible animal that it is.  To show our respect and gratitude, the rest of us provided offerings of chihuahua-dressed-as-Michael-Jackson cards, king sized favorite candy bars, exhausted grand-dogs, and lots and lots of grappa.  

And you know when my dad brings out the straight-from-Italy grappa that it's a special event. 

I want to officially and publicly thank you Mom and Gramma.  You don't only bring out the best in our family, you bring out the best in me. 

Copiously

Well, no, I would not say that things have gotten much better with my favorite high school antagonist, Pedro, over the past two years.  You might remember said student from my very famous blog post "I Hate Pedro".  

When asked to write his own sentence using the vocabulary word "copious", he turned this in:

My first thought: he correctly formed an adverb by adding -ly all on his own!   I guess some of the things that I "yell" at him might actually be penetrating that defiant skull of his.  

This is one proud wicked witch.

Prom.

It's been 9 years, and I can still smell the fresh scent of my wrist corsage and feel the weight of my fantastically oversized pink earrings.  

Prom is on my mind. This Saturday is Aurora West's prom and I am the event coordinator.  I'm kind of a big deal. 

I got the following email yesterday, which really got me thinking about my own choice of prom attire back in 2004. 

  

 I never had to debate the merits of dressing ched (fancy Mexican style) or regular.  But I did get to debate my own fashion risks.  Should I go with the hot pink dress?  Do I want a dress with a shawl/wrap thing?  Is it important to have hearts on the straps of my dress?  Should my earrings touch my shoulders? Thank goodness the answer to all of the above was yes.  Thank goodness. 

Hey there Theo Mooney! Nice shades!

All I have to say is that I had a really great time at my prom, and in my head I was a sexy goddess.  
And maybe only in my head. 

And yes, I will be resurrecting this dress for Prom 2: Chaperone Edition.  

Take Me Out To The [Opening Weekend] Ballgame!

This weekend is the opening weekend for the Colorado Rockies, and last night was Denver Public Schools night.  As a dedicated lover of baseball and public education, I elected to go with my girl friends. 

I knew immediately that I had to make some big decisions.  It was Saturday night.  I wanted to enjoy an adult beverage during the game.  I did not want to purchase a $9 Coors Field margarita - which consists of 90% sugary mix and 10% alcohol. So I knew - I needed to BYOB. 

But how to sneak in my alcohol?  Coors Field takes these things very seriously.  So I asked myself the same thing anyone would in this situation: What would Susan Broyles do?  My mother taught me from a young age that it is possible to sneak your own wine into concerts if you pour it into Tupperware and pretend it's soup. That's when it hit me.  What do they never check when you enter Coors Field?  Your food.

So, I snuck in 5 shooters of Smirnoff vokda in the shape of a Chiptole burrito.  In a Chipotle bag.  Dressed in foil.  The ticket-taker even commented that it was such a smart idea to bring in my own food (which is allowed, BTW).

And yes, I did notice later on that my high school gym teacher was sitting directly behind us (it was DPS night after all) and had watched my whole scam. Part of me worried about getting detention again from him. In the end, I'm sure he just appreciated the amount of effort and skill I still put into my work. 

I might not be an artist or a professional writer, but you can't say that creativity isn't alive and well in my veins.