Wednesday, September 2, 2009

News, Disasters, and a Holiday Movie Preview

NEWS: The Duggers are expecting number 19! Ok, I admit that I am currently recovering from an addiction to both the Duggers and John and Kate + 8, but these families are so interesting. I heard about the Duggers on Pat and JT this morning (local morning radio show). Child and grandchild will be born around the same time. Unbelievable. Imaginary scenario: 5th grader and Kindergartner are walking to school together when the 5th grader's friend approaches. Hi, is this your little sister? Nope, this is my Aunt. (I know this exact scenario couldn't happen because the Duggers are all home schooled, but at some point I bet something similar does happen)

DISASTERS: I made my stupid pretzels yesterday and screwed them all up. This batch was from a recipe I found, and not from the premixed box kit I had previously made. I buttered them before I put them in the oven (like my old method, the new method calls for buttering after baking) and the butter melted all over the tray and dripped into the oven. The entire house was filled with smoke, horrible, thick, smelly smoke, by the end of the 10 minute baking process. I had to open the front and back doors and place fans by them trying to blow the smoke out. It took a very long time to air the house out and this morning, it still smells smokey. But, after the pretzels came out of the oven, they didn't look right, since I had prebuttered them. So, to correct the error, I melted another stick of butter and buttered them again. The result was delicious. The kids were reluctant to try the pretzels, since I had been shouting about screwing up the pretzels, but once the first bite hit their tongues, they were happy. Super Yummy Double Butter Pretzels. That may be the name of my pretzel shop.
Unfortunately, the Super Yummy Double Butter Pretzels have so much butter on them that when storing them overnight, the salt sort of dissolves into a strange little salt blob and the overall appearance of the pretzels are slightly less than appetizing, so the Super Yummy Double Butter Pretzels are meant only for immediate consumption. I don't think this is a problem.

Now, for the HOLIDAY MOVIE PREVIEW. This past weekend, the Christmas Carol Train Tour came through Omaha. We had heard that it was very neat and definitely had to go. So, we drove the 45 minutes to the Durham Museum only to hear many people complaining on their way out of the museum that they just waited in line for over 3 and 1/2 hours! Yikes! But we are die-hards, and would not be discouraged. This is the view of the train from the sidewalk as we walked up.

And this is a picture of the kids as we first got into the line. I thought I'd capture one while everyone was still happy. I was anticipating there being another picture to be taken 3 1/2 hours later with much less happiness in it. About 30 minutes into our line wait, my sister and her family showed up. This gave us a greater number of people to moan about the long wait. Ok, in all honesty, I did most of the moaning. But, come on! A 3 1/2 hour wait and no one was circling the line selling refreshments? Somebody missed a golden opportunity there. But, there were many things to keep us entertained. There was playing underneath the trains,

enjoying the carolers,


and playing around the train cars.


Finally, we made it outside the museum and into the home stretch. The kids were losing their excitement for this adventure, and much like me, hunger and thirst were beginning to get the better of us. But, we persevered.
And after our long, long wait, we made it inside of the train. Everyone was excited again. Once inside we got to see some of the costumes and portraits of the characters while being mashed against all of the other people we'd just spent the past 3 hours with. And they were all officially on my nerves.

I was able to capture a few good shots of the kids during our tour. And after a very long wait, we were able to see a lot of the behind the scenes making of Disney's A Christmas Carol. But, the kids were not impressed. "We just waited 3 hours for that?" they asked me. "I do not think it was worth it!" And, honestly I had to agree. It was neat, but I don't think I would have waited 3 hours for it had I known ahead of time what there would be to see. We were hoping for a little more interactive displays. We did get to morph our faces into some of the characters from the movie, but I haven't received our copies yet. I'll post them when I do. So, in the end we were all starving, thirsty, and very tired of standing, but we were able to put on a happy face for one last picture.
However, in a final push for a happy day, we were treated to a 8 minute sneak peek of the movie IN 3D!! That was the best part. The movie looks really good. The kids are counting down the days until the movie comes out. (We will be watching it sitting down, eating food and drinking giant colas because that's how we spend a HAPPY 3 hours!)

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