Snape kills Dumbledore!

No, this post does not contain spoilers for HP7. Even if I really were that big of a jerk, I'd only have a handful of things to say, since as of right now I'm only on page 58 (we buy one copy when each new book comes out, and this year Brett got to read it first).

If you haven't read book six yet though, I apologize for the spoiler in the title. Actually, no, I don't. If you actually care about the Harry Potter series, you should've read the fucking books by now.

Even if you can't afford them, your library probably has them, and they've had book six long enough for you to work your way through their queue. If you're busy, have a learning disability, or are blind, they're available on cd (highly recommended, btw - they're awesome on cd), and if you're deaf AND blind they're available IN BRAILLE. They're also available in a guhgillion languages. Even if you've been in a coma for the last two years and couldn't possibly have read HP6 during that time, if you're reading ths blog post you're clearly capable of Pottering it up NOW, so why the hell are you reading THIS instead of book six?!? NO EXCUSES, PEOPLE.

Anywho, so the past month has been a little busy for us, but things are starting to wind down a little bit, which is nice. I will recap some of the things that have gone on since my last post:

Le BBQ
We had a small BBQ celebration in honor of Brett's 28th birthday this year. Brett's grandma brought her chihuahua and it was cute; Kim brought her giant pregnant belly and it was cute too; Jon brought a Snickers cake which was nice because it was amazingly delicious, but less nice because Brett can't eat peanuts; we ate lots of food, lounged around, and then later played Clue and I think Balderdash or something. Or Balderdash first, and then Clue. I don't remember - it was like, a month ago. I barely remember who came.

I *do* remember that there were brats, though. Big, juicy, delectable brats. I don't know how many I ate, but Brad ate the last one. And for that, I commend him. I can never bring myself to eat the last one of anything at parties. I'm sorry Shannon didn't get one though (since Brad ate the last one like 2 min before she showed up). They were hellsa good.

All in all it was a pretty good time.

Sunriver
The next weekend after Brett's Birthday BBQ, we drove BACK down to the Bend area for a family vacation (my side of the family) in Sunriver. In the eight days we were there Brett and I...

Golfed
Canoed
Played bocce ball
Played board games
Drove around
Walked around
Explored the High Desert Museum
Explored the Sunriver Nature Center
Helped with a big birthday celebration dinner for mom, Brian, and uncle Steve (my brother All slaughtered and cooked a lamb - it was like buttah)
Baked a three-layer super complicated cake complete with almond brittle, mascarpone frosting, and ganache filling (all made from scratch by the two of us in a vaca rental kitchen)
Had a girls' spa day (just me, not Brett)
Practiced acupuncture on half a dozen family members (just Brett, not me)

I'm sure we did other things too, but I think that's enough to list here. There ended up being 23 of us total (15/23 were my immediate family), split between three houses on the same street - it was really, really, REALLY great. Until Brett got some bad news on our last night in town.

Spokane
While we were out canoing the morning of our second-to-last day in Sunriver, Brett's maternal grandpa passed away. It happened very fast (which is nice, since he didn't have to suffer), but we weren't expecting to receive any calls of that nature so we left our cellphones in our room and didn't check them all day. Later that evening I checked my voice mail and had a message from Brett's mom, so he called her back and found out what happened. Obviously, he was pretty shaken up, but we still managed to have a great last night.

A couple of days after we returned home, we headed out again - this time for Brett's grandpa's funeral. I drove over to Spokane with Brett's dad (his mom had driven over earlier to help with all the arrangements), and Brett flew over after work.

It was really nice to see everyone and learn more about Gene (Brett's grandpa), and the service was great too - very personal.

I forget what the after-party part of a funeral is called, but that part was great too - Ali and I changed from our nice skirts into shorts in the middle of the street (modestly) because Brett's grandma's house was too crowded to change in, and we HAD to change, because it was (literally) 106 degrees outside. Even after I changed into shorts I was STILL sweaty.

Then we all ate Brett's grandpa's favorite sandwiches, as a tribute to him. Each sandwich took two hands to eat, contained 1 lb of lunch meat (turkey or roast beef, depending on which one you got), several thick slices of cheese, and was housed within two huge slabs of freshly baked sourdough bread. At least I think it was sourdough.

Anyway, the most important thing to note is that while most of us were content to just take half of one (they were pre-cut), Brett took two halves. That's right - in 106 degree weather, Brett still managed to consume a POUND of lunch meat. In addition to all the other home-style country-type food that was there. The man's stomach is a black hole, I swear.

Kwik-E-Mart
I almost forgot! On our way home from Sunriver (so before Spokane), we stopped at the 7-Eleven/Kwik-E-Mart in Seattle. It was really crowded, but super cute. All the collectible merchandise was sold out already, so we didn't buy anything, but we did take some pictures. When I do my next flickr upload (within the next few days), I'll include those.

The Order of the Phoenix
We were in Spokane when HP5 hit the theatres, but Megan was nice enough to buy us tickets while we were gone, so we saw it with her and Aaron the day after we got back. It did not disappoint. In fact, it rocked my socks. If I had to play favorites, five would be my favorite book, so I was worried about liking the movie. but it definitely delivered, and I can't wait to buy it and watch it over, and over, and over again. :D

Paige Hannah
Brad & Kim's baby (kid number three), Paige Hannah Loomis was delivered via c-section on 7/11, as scheduled. Paige is healthy and fine (and absolutely beautiful, I might add), but Kim's had some complications from the anesthesia (which she STILL hasn't fully recovered from, so think happy thoughts for her), and she had to stay in the hospital until just this past weekend.

So on Kim's birthday (a few days after Paige's), we went to visit them in the hospital. I got to hold Paige, Kim got a shot in the arm, and all in all it was a pretty nice visit. Except for the shot in the arm part, which didn't feel very good for Kim. The maternity ward at Providence looks *amazing* though, and I totally want to have our kids there.

The Merry Wives of Windsor
Last Thursday (this post is almost complete!) we went to see Jon in The Merry Wives of Windsor in Lynndale Park. We saw As You Like it at Lynndale last summer, and we're seeing Dan in The Merchant of Venice at the same location this Wednesday, with Shannon. I *looove* Shakespeare in the park. And I love Lynndale Park. And as Jon and Dan both know, I loves me some free theatre.

Seriously - who wants to pay $50 to sit still in a dark theatre in the city when you can see Shakespeare for FREE while eating a picnic (or in our case, Taco Bell) under a canopy of trees in the suburbs at dusk?!?

It was a great show and a perfect evening, and I'm hoping for more of the same this week as well. I highly advise that everyone in the area go at least once: they're playing Lynndale on Wednesday and Thursday, and then they won't be back again until next summer. A schedule with other locations listed can be found here.

And now...
I'm just about caught up. At some point recently I managed to finally sign up for Facebook (primarily because I'm so sick of all the r-tards on MySpace), so I've totally become addicted to that, and I'm having a good time using it to play games and waste time in all sorts of ways.

I got invited into Pownce. In all honesty I don't really know what I'm going to do with it, but other people want it, so naturally I wanted it too. We'll see if I actually use it - I think it's obvious (see top of right-hand column of this page) that I stopped using Twitter, and Pownce seems similar, but still slightly cooler, so I have hope that maybe it'll be more fun than Twitter is.

Jon calls Twitter "creepy" and Brett calls it "an abomination," and how much fun is it to miniblog when your own friends don't even like it?!? Not fun at all. But if they like Pownce better than Twitter, I'm sure I'll like it too.

What else...hmmm...obviously we bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, since it was the first thing I talked about. Brett read it literally all day Saturday - I went out and bought it at 7am ($20 at Fred Meyer, baybee) thinking I'd have at *least* 30 min or so to start reading it before Brett woke up, but when I got home he met me at the front door, snatched the book from my hands (it was his turn first, after all), and snuggled into the couch to start reading. He read pretty much non-stop until around 11pm or so, which is when he finished. I am NOT that fast of a reader (I can only stand to sit that still for short periods of time), but hopefully I'll finish by Wednesday, because that's when we're planning on handing it over to Dan to borrow, since he can't afford to buy his own copy right now (bah...actors).

And here we are! The end of the post. I could get into some TMI about the horrible, debilitating cramps I have right now, but I won't. I'll just end this post, carry my book and heating pad into the bedroom, and read some HP by flashlight while Brett sleeps next to me. Good night!!! :)