Okay, before I get into my weekend fun post, I first want to address something. And that is, no one comments anymore! So sad. It’s not a big deal, but I know there are people out there reading this…I just know it. But by comments standards, I’ve got nada. What gives? I like comments/feedback and would love to hear from my readers – whether you’re someone I don’t know, a Midwest friend, CO friend, family member or someone I know who wants to remain anonymous because they think my blog is the best blog ever but are afraid to admit their stalking tendencies. It’s okay, I promise I won’t judge.

Anyway, enough whining from me – our weekend activities started with an anatomy lesson at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science in the Body Worlds: Story of the Heart exhibit. In a word – fascinating. Third weekend in a row hanging out with the Fatticcis, this time again with some of their family (thanks for the discount tickets!). I think we’ve officially been adopted. We met up around 3pm (after work) and explored the exhibit for a couple of hours, trying to take it all in. It was incredible to see the inner workings of the body, but still hard to wrap my mind around all the complexities – how can anyone doubt we were created by Someone bigger? Our bodies are a crazy place full of intricate engineering that still aren’t fully understood. So amazing. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take any photos and even though Ryan and I are known for sneaking in some stealth photography (like at the *ahem* Sistine Chapel), we resisted. It would be really hard to fully capture the exhibit anyway.

Before leaving the museum, we got to see a model of the rocket that Greg’s company works on – did I ever mention he is a rocket scientist? No joke. Total genius and completely humble about it but I’m fine with bragging. One would think his intellect would make him far superior to two creatives, but nope. And his lovely wife? An Oxford graduate and amazing school teacher. (couldn’t leave you out, Meghan!)

The one photo we took at the museum – and of course it involves me on a statue.

After that, Ryan and I headed home to relax before Greg’s birthday party. I won’t say how old he is because the elderly hate it when you talk about their age. I wanted to take a nap in between activities because I only got 4.5 hours of sleep the night before (the problem with a night owl who has an early bird work schedule), but by the time we got home we only had an hour before we had to leave and I decided I preferred Facebook better than 30 mins of shut eye. It’s a problem, I know.

Once we got to the party, we ate snacks and mingled with some new friends – and we met someone else with Dutch blood! I was trying to figure out how we ever got to the point of discussing heritage so I thought back on the start of our conversation which went something like this:

Me: Hey, you trying to box me out of this conversation?
Guy: Haha, no…you’re just in front of the food and were in my way. Don’t mess with a man who’s hungry!
Me: Ha, totally get that. “Lay off my I’m starving!” (lame Chris Farley SNL impression, but a crowd pleaser nonetheless)
Girl: Ooh, I wish I was hungry but I ate lunch at 4pm.
Me: Shoot, that stinks. Well you can always take some doggie bags home! Or maybe that’s just the Dutch in me…we love free things, ha.
Guy: I thought you looked Dutch.
Girl: Hey, I’m part Dutch, too! Have you ever played Dutch Blitz?
Me: Is that like Dutch bingo? We’re probably related somehow.

Yeah…being Dutch is a great conversation starter.

Anyway, after some yummy food and fun conversations we headed upstairs to play some awesome group games. There were about 20 of us all together, so we started with what my family calls, “The Name Game” (aka La Familia). It’s where you all come up with a famous person’s name as your own, put those names anonymously into a hat/box/bin/whatever to be drawn out by the host. The host then reads off each name twice and everyone has to remember all the names and then guess who might have chosen that name for themselves – it’s sort of a game of memory. For instance, I was Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer. So when it came time for someone’s turn to guess who I was, if they guessed mine correctly, I would have to join their “family” and then collectively, we would try to remember the other names in order to correctly guess the others until our family was the largest one there. It’s a great game.

Our cheating "familia" on the couch (our friends Christian and Tony). We didn't guess each other correctly, but started collaborating together anyway.

We then sang “Happy Birthday” to Greg and had some tennis cake before starting a hysterical game that apparently doesn’t have a name, so I will dub it, “The Pictionary Paper Phone Game.” It’s basically like the game “Telephone,” only instead of whispering something into your neighbor’s ear, you have to write a popular phrase/lyric on a sheet of paper and they have to interpret it into a drawing. Then their neighbor has to interpret their drawing into the correct phrase, and so on and so forth. You each start with the same number of sheets of paper as there are players so that you just pass your whole stack of paper around the circle. When it comes back, you get some crazy stuff. For instance, “Eye of the Tiger” turned into “A One-Eyed Cat” about halfway around and then finally ended with, “Dinasaurs roam the earth.” Very hilarious and I discovered some unfortunate crows feet eye wrinkles later on that night due to laughing so hard. Must get eye cream.

Greg saw a little boy leaving the store with a tennis cake and wanted one, too. His wish was granted.

We played two rounds of that last game before wrapping things up and calling it a night. The next morning, we stopped by Read, Write & Brew coffee shop, the feature of my second Examiner.com article on our way to morning youth group. Got a great latte and had a fun time with the kids, playing “Two Truths & A Lie,” singing, then hearing a great message. Afterward, Ryan was involved with a very interesting video production (that I roped him into) that the male youth leaders were creating to promote the youth group talent show. Let’s just say it would make you do a double-take, laugh, and definitely squirm. It probably won’t be published on here or anywhere online due to the nature of the video, but let’s just say it looks something like an SNL skit…more details after next week Sunday.

While he was shaking his money maker with four other guys (let me remind you, it was involuntary since I signed him up for the job), I went to see Date Night with our friends Brad and Sarah. Ryan had plans to meet up with us for dinner, but they got free last minute tickets to see the playoffs between the Avs and Sharks, so we said our goodbyes for the night and they dropped me off to watch the final makings of the video. Since Ryan and I had missed the first service before youth group, we had planned to go to the evening service, and witnessing some of the scenes of the video made the need for church even greater than before, ha.

And those were pretty much the highlights of our weekend. Anyone else have weekend activities to share, especially now that it’s springtime? Or does anyone want to take a guess as to what the video could be? Remember, I love comments but of course they aren’t necessary – I just appreciate that you read my blog!

Narcissistically yours,
Laura