so I'll keep it as interesting as I can possibly manage.

OH MAN
GRUUUUUUUUUH

you know how I went on a trip this weekend? a family reunion- my grandma, her sister, their husbands, their children and their grandchildren. It feels like a lot more people when you're trying to organize them all. xD

or, so I imagine, I wasn't doing the organizing. but my bran sometimes hurts when I try to tell Roxanne and Sharon apart. (my aunts once-removed, or something. I think I've got them by now, though.)

ok. first things first, where we stayed:
DUTCH FLAT.
TOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, WITH LIKE THREE BUILDINGS.
we stayed in a bed-and-breakfast, rented the whole place out- all to ourselves.
there were three stories, the upstairs all bedrooms and a poolroom with a widescreen TV on the top. down at the bottom there was a living room, dining room and kitchen.
[link]
check out that website, scroll through some of the pictures- there are only like five, don't freak out.
god, it was a gorgeous place. all old-fashioned, decked out with so many paintings you might have been able to fill a swimming pool, and three pianos.
three pianos.
a stack of old records next to them.
there was even a porcelain doll under one of the pianos...
that was kind of weird, but adorable. I think it was in a miniature rocking chair-horse-thing.
it's in one of the pictures, go look!

right. those paintings?
one of them-
you can see it if you look very closely at the picture titled 'lobby and fireplace', it's the only painting visible-
IT LOOKS
EXACTLY
LIKE HINAICHIGO.
from Rozen Maiden.
except with blue eyes, and in a realistic style.
she's got gold curls to her shoulders, a big pink thing on her head, and a pink coat over a white something, and these huge eyes. she's so cute.
I had my sister take a more up-close shot of her when she was taking pictures of the house with my camera,
I intend to prove my point to some of you.

I won't talk about the back yard.
but it was marvelous. (a pond and a stage and about ten frisbees on a bench.)

There was a pool, about a mile down from the hotel,
and it was a very nice one- fairly large, with trees all around.
BUT IT WAS FREEZING COLD D:
I got in all the way, to my great achievement, but I was too cold so I got out. It was like swimming in a lake. (I was quite miffed by the fact that my sister and several cousins were splashing at laughing like it were room temperature.)

my cousin Janna stayed out with me, though. she agreed it was too cold, and didn't even get all the way in.
then she went off to make a pie.
she's like a pie godess.
I don't know how she does it.
seriously,
her pies are about five times better than any pie you've ever had.
ok,
that might be a lie, I don't know what pies you've had.
but they honestly are amazing.
anyways,
Janna.
something amazing happened with her, actually, because on the first day, she was talking to me, and said something along these lines:
"Hey, remember that time when I was over at your house and you were doing something else... well, I mean, you probably don't remember it, you weren't there... but... you were... well, anyways, I was at your house and you weren't."
I said, "Oh. yeah?"
she said, "Well, I was in your room, and you had all those Naruto posters." (I have three. all feature Gaara, one on both sides. these are courtesy of and , both of whom decided at seperate times that I would appreciate them. I did, greatly.) "Well, I saw your posters, and thought, 'Oh, Naruto'. And so I went home and started watching the anime."
I said: "AWLHTALIRHTAW:GNY"
she had watched all the way passed the sasuke retrieval ark.
she was in the ending fillers.
HONESTLY
WOW
that's never happened before, there's never really been anyone else in my family who liked anime sorts of things. she hadn't gotten into anything else, apparently she tried bleach upon request from a friend and hadn't liked it, but she knew Naruto.
I WAS SO EXCITED 8D
so I tried to keep narutarded rants to a minimum, but still ranted.
anyways.
she liked Kakashi best, didn't like Sakura, thought Gaara was creepy, (because I did ask.) thought sasuke was a jerk, the usual.
still pretty awesome.
here's the best part:

has anyone ever asked you to teach them how to draw? my sister has, and I think her friend once, too. you tell them to draw a face shape, and it goes downhill from there.
well,
Janna asked for some drawing tips
and so I was like 'ok! '
(I decided we'd start with Kakashi in a prom dress, because she'd seen a sketch of Gaara in my notebook in which he was wearing a quickly drawn version of his Shippuuden outfit, with some sand, and she thought he was wearing a prom dress. so I said I'd draw Kakashi in a prom dress, just to scar her, and she said, 'oh. great. -fear-'
anyways.
SHE WAS EXCELLENT.
her kakashi, who was not in a prom dress, (mine was. not a very well drawn one, either.) was really nice. her lines were all straight and where they were supposed to be, he was adorable. I particularly liked his torso. she hated his feet, but I thought they were fine.
<3
so that was very cool.
I'll move on now, though.

we played a lot of board games. we do that, when we get together as a family, because we need icebreakers badly.
We had Whunoo and Apples to Apples... they're always super fun with the family. which sounds like a bad commercial, but I swear they are.
I won the 'sexy' card with 'festering wound'. you should have seen Tyler's face when he read the entry, he was laughing so hard he couldn't speak.

speaking of Tyler,
I dropped a heavy thing on his toe.

seriously, it was so badly hurt they thought he might have broken it.
I felt so bad.

this family reunion was really weird, because while all my family was there, my mother and father were not. disregarding why they weren't, I kept expecting them to be there. it was very odd.

there was something else I wanted to cover...
yes, there's STILL something else...
um...
BUBBLES
when Tyler was sitting with his foot all elevated with ice (D, someone went across the street to the general store (all wooden and broken down... what a cool town) and while they were there they got him a bubble blower.
well,
whatever was in that soap was amazing. because it was either that or where he was sitting, but the bubbles were COLORFUL.
not like the soap itself was colored,
but they reflected about twice as much as your average bubble
and became this wonderland of pink, blue, yellow and purple and red all swirled around into orbs. it was gorgeous.
yup.
you had to know that.

Also, I officially own Colin, Tyler's younger brother. this started last weekend, when his family visited nearby here. (they were out here all week, as opposed to on the opposite side of the country where they usually hang out.) but I gave him a name tag that announced it and everything. so he's mine now. he also has the same haircut as his mother, which isn't true, but it's kind of funny that they're similar.

you know,
over whenever I last saw everyone until now, I think the group of girls that are a few years older than me spontaneously got gorgeous. seriously, it's unfair. we share genes, why don't I look like that? Angie in particular, although she had more of a glamour thing going- her eyebrows were some alien shape that was pretty cool.
phht.
someday I'll sue whoever handed out DNA in this family.

I'm slowing down now, sorry.
ok.
well, all in all,
I'm pretty much starved of seeing my friends, I haven't seen a single one of them since saturday. LAST SATURDAY. Dianna will remember that. remember that, Dianna? that was the last time I've seen ANY OF YOU.
GUH.
I mean, my cousins are great and everything, (Coleen has really great taste in music, I've found.) but I need my peeps.
mmmm, peeps.
I should eat you people.
I tried to eat Jessica. (she's going into third grade, mmm, nice and tender.)
(we kept capturing her and telling her we were going to cook her up as dinner. she is meat flavored.)
(she's also amazingly adorable.)

right.
right.
done, I promise.
I'm incredibly sorry I wasted that much of your time, but I have no regrets. I needed a good long rant about that.
if you actually did read all of that, you rock.