I am happy to report that all of us returned home safely from our weekend of camping. A couple thoughts:

1. There was a lot of music and drunken laughter in the campground until about 1 am. It was just like camping in a Planet Hollywood!

2. Our old Coleman stove still works! My dad bought it in about 1968, and it's still chugging away! They don't build stuff like that any more!

3. Kids don't love to "go for a nice long hike!"

I love to go to movies! I'll go by myself, and I'll get popcorn, candy, the whole thing! (Unless I sneak candy in. Shhhh!) However, I've been going less and less often lately for one reason: The price!  Sorry, movie theatres, but it's just over my tipping point for the tickets, when I know the movies are going to be out on video soon anyway, and I can watch them on my tv!

So what did my awesome family get me for my birthday this week?  A movie theater gift card! For a hundred buck! No excuse now! The money's already been spent! I may even splurge and buy one of those $4.00 drinks! Okay, "Man Of Steel," here I come!

Well, we've had a couple weeks of mourning for our little dog who died, and our daughter tells us she's "ready."

We think this friendly little girl who was just rescued from a pound needs a nice home! Still time to back out...but how can we say no to this face?

For the first time ever, our family is going camping. This could be either a very good or very bad idea. We just bought a tent, shown here in the back yard. Jackson and I have been camping many times with Boy Scouts, but we've never had all four of us in a tent. We're starting easy, just an overnight at a campground with things like "water" and "toilets."

Issues:

1. I don't sleep well in a tent. I never get comfortable. Toss and turn all night, listening for the tree which will tip over and crush us all.

2. You ever have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night in a tent? You can either attempt to hold it all night or put on shoes and get out there!

3. I'm sure there's going to be somebody with a loud stereo 20 feet from us.

4. And they're probably drunk and heavily armed.

5. Bugs love me. They think I'm delicious.

6. Our kids can argue non-stop from separate bedrooms! I hope being in tent together will be a bonding experience! Yeah, right!

Pink & Sting To Marry! Expecting Twins, To Be Named Ping & Stink!

If you have a GPS in your car you have probably listened to all the voices and picked your favorite. In my family, there's no agreement on this matter, so it keeps getting switched around, often several times on the same trip.

My wife doesn't like the "standard" female voice, because she sounds "bossy." I got tired of the "Australian" man she picked out because 1. it's annoying ("Turn roight!") and 2. I think Lisa has a little thing for him. 

My son keeps switching it to the English male, because it reminds him of Monty Python, while my daughter likes funny ones, especially anything in a foreign language, which makes it nearly worthless. She believes if we listen to the "German" voice long enough, we will learn to speak German. It's not working so far.

I'm about to save your life. You're welcome, by the way. Virginia doctors report that a man (not pictured here!) nearly died after he drank about a quart of soy sauce. Yes, soy sauce. It was a dare from friends.

Apparently overdosing on salt can be fatal, so too much soy sauce can, in theory kill you. Did you know this?  I didn't! Shouldn't we put warning labels on bottles of soy sauce? Or maybe stamp this on fortune cookies: "You will live a long, happy life if you don't drink soy sauce. Lucky Numbers: 12, 21 32, 45"