So... it's summer, and everyone's busy, so maybe you haven't even noticed that I haven't been posting much, or that I've almost entirely dropped off the blogosphere map since mid-May, but both of those have totally happened.  For good reasons, honest.  Let me explain.

No, that takes too long.  Let me sum up.  (Thank you, Inigo.)

First, I went on a three-week-long family vacation.  It was wonderful.  We went to a wedding, we went camping in the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota (my kids' first time camping, and they loved it!), and we saw all of Cowboy's siblings and their spouses and kids, plus his mom and a bunch of other relatives.  Good, good times.  Here are a few photos.


 


 

 




When we got home, we were home for one full week, then took off for a long weekend to attend my dad's retirement & farewell party.  Very emotional weekend saying goodbyes to the people who have been my "church family" since I was 12.

And ever since we got home from that, I've been preparing crafts for our church's Vacation Bible School (VBS).  This is my first time being in charge of VBS crafts, and when I looked through the options offered by the place we ordered our VBS program materials from, all their crafts were really junky.  I remember doing amazing VBS crafts when I was a kid, making things that were so cool, I still have some today.  So I decided to come up with my own crafts to go with the theme and lessons this year.  Which was a lot of extra work, but I think it's going to be worth it.  I ended up with a couple crafts that are kind of standard, though I tried to find ways to make even those unique and cool.

And today, I finished prepping the last of the crafts.  Here are most of them:


The ones that took the longest to get ready for the kids to work on have been the prayer journals.  Each one has a different combination of outside and inside papers, which I had to glue onto the cover boards.


My sister-in-law designed the interior for me -- the first part of the book will have prayers printed out that kids can learn, interspersed with illustrated Bible verses about prayer for them to color.  The second part of the book has lots of prompts with spaces for kids to fill in people and things to pray about.  I can't wait for the kids to make this craft!  They'll be sewing the pages into the book and personalizing them.


I also really love this craft.  Our VBS has a shipwreck theme, so the older kids are going to be using stamps to create treasure maps!  For this one, I aged paper that I'd cut to the right size so that when it's rolled up, it will fit inside these adorable plastic bottles. 


(That day, the preschoolers will be making "I Spy" bottles filled with "lost" things from some of Jesus' parables, like sheep, a coin, and a boy, plus a heart and a cross.  But I don't have one of those made up to take photos of cuz I don't have any extra bottles.)

This is another craft for the older kids -- a tin-punch lantern with a battery-operated pillar candle inside.  They'll be punching the words "Jesus is the light" and a cross into the tin, then using paper fasteners to hold the ends together to form the tube shape.  I ended up making my own pattern for this one.


The preschoolers won't be doing the tin-punch, they'll be decorating these windchimes instead.  I bought the chimes and the dove-shaped wooden cut-outs, but I had to drill the holes in the doves and string all the chimes for them.  I'd originally planned for the kids to string the chimes, but when my 6-year-old couldn't manage that, I knew preschoolers wouldn't be able to.  So I found some awesome stick-on gems for them to use to decorate these instead.


Here's another craft where my original plan didn't work out.  And in this case, the improvisation turned out way cooler!  I originally got "suncatcher paint pens" for painting these cross-shaped suncatchers, but the pens were really gloppy and hard to use, and the paint took days to dry!  Plus, it wasn't washable.  So then I had the bright idea of using glitter glue instead, and that was SO MUCH BETTER.  I love that these crosses have stands too, so they're not just another thing to hang in your window.  You can put them on a kid's dresser, the family display table, a mantelpiece, whatever.  And the glitter glue makes them so pretty and translucent!  And glittery.  Plus, it's totally washable.  I'm using it for suncatchers from now on.


This is my least-favorite craft because... they're just bracelets.  Pretty ordinary.  But they DO involve glow-in-the-dark beads!  The older kids are making the one on the left -- the glow-in-the-dark beads spell S. O. S.  And the preschoolers will make the ones on the right that have the words "Jesus helps me" interspersed with glow-in-the-dark beads.  So those are fairly fun.  Worth wearing for a few days, anyway.


After VBS is over, I'll finally have more time and energy to return to writing and reading blogs and hanging out with all my favorite bloggy people again.  Until then... hope you're having a happy summer!

Yeeeeees, I know I just did a Sunshine Award.  But Mary Horton of Sunshine and Scribblings tagged me with this, and how can I not accept a Sunshine Award from a blog that literally has "sunshine" in their title?  And besides, such fun questions.  Thank you, Mary :-)

Yes, I know I used this same banner thingie last time.  It's a tradition now.

1. Do you like to read an entire series at once or spread out the books over time?  Spread them out!  Over decades, if possible!  That way I have something new to look forward to for a looooooooooong time.  Once I've read the whole series, though, if I want to re-read them I will totally read them more close together.

2. Would you rather be stuck in the past or the future?  Can I pick the decade?  Then the past.  I've always wanted to live in the 1960s.  Weird but true.

Would I wear these clothes? You bet your go-go boots I would!

3. Have you ever had dream re-runs? (In other words, the same dream twice. XD)  Yes, though generally more like a reworking of the same theme than the exact same dream.  When I'm stressed out, I will dream that I'm at college and it's finals time, and I suddenly realize I was signed up to take a class but never went to it, and now I have to take the final exam.  Also when I'm stressed, I'll dream I'm working at Walmart again, and I've either forgotten my ID badge and can't clock in, or I forgot to clock in.  I've come to recognize that if I have a dream like either of those, my real life is too stressful and I need to find a way to calm it down.

4. What is your favorite vacation you've ever taken?  I... I... how can I choose?  Okay, to pick one, I'll say the year that the Mississippi River flooded very, very badly (1994ish?), so to get from NC to IA, my family went up the east coast, through Canada, and down through the Dakotas.  We took our time and did fun stuff like spending two days visiting historical sites in Boston and going canoeing in Maine.  It was amazing, as I'd never been to New England before.

It looked about like this, as I recall.

5. Do you like to chew gum? If so, what is your favorite flavor?  I do.  I love Wrigley's "Winterfresh" the most.

6. If you found the entrance to Narnia, would you tell anybody? Who would you take with you if you did?  Yes, I would tell my best friend so we could explore it together and see if it would be okay to take my son and her nephew (both 9) inside.

I could really go for some snow about now, actually.  It was 93 here on Friday.  Yuck.

7. Waffles, pancakes, or neither?  Pancakes!!!  When I was a kid, we ate them every Saturday for supper.  Now I make them for my kids a couple times a month.  And I can never eat pancakes without hearing Dana Andrews' voice in my head saying the line, "No pancakes?" from the movie North Star (1943).

Anne Baxter comforting Dana Andrews over the lack of pancakes.

8. Do you use the Shift key or the Caps Lock key every time you capitalize something? (Odd question, but it's something I always wonder, haha.)  Shift key.  I function beautifully without the caps lock key.  Our Chromebook doesn't even have one, and I never noticed until Cowboy pointed it out.

9. What is one smell that never fails to make you happy?  Cinnamon.  I love the smell of cinnamon in the morning -- it smells like Christmas.

Between the pancakes and cinnamon, I'm getting really hungry.

10. Have you ever been rollerskating?  Many times.

11. You've gone into hiding and have to conceal your identity. What new alias would you adopt?  Reid James.  Don't be shocked if I publish under that name some day.

I'm lazy today and not going to tag anyone specifically.  If you like Mary's questions and want to answer them yourself, I hereby tag you!

We're back from our grand vacation! And it was grand indeed; we flew to NC on January 31st, and just returned to CT last night. I think our vacation was made even sweeter by the fact that for the four days before we left, we were sick with a vicious stomach bug. Thank the Lord we were all well enough to travel by the 31st and didn't have to rebook our flights!

We hung out in NC with my family for a few days, and I got to see Freestargirl and Knitsational and their girls. We also toured the Biltmore Estate up in Asheville because Cowboy had never been there and Dad keeps wanting to take him there.

On Thursday, Dad, Grandma, Cowboy, Dano, and I piled into Grandma's Mercury Grand Marquis and headed for Florida and our big cruise! Alas, Mom couldn't get the time off from teaching ESL to accompany us, and we all missed her. In the car, Dano appropriated my sunglasses, and continued snurching them for the rest of the trip.

On Saturday, the 7th, we met up with some other couples from Dad's church, since this was actually a group trip the Couples' Club took and we just tagged along. We boarded the Carnival Cruise ship the Fascination and had lunch in the Coconut Grove bar and grill, then got settled in our staterooms, which Cowboy says were designed specifically to encourage people to enjoy the other amenities provided by the rest of the ship. We spent the day exploring the ship and getting our sea legs. The ship had stabilizers that kept the decks fairly stable, but there was still a gentle rocking motion that I still feel now sometimes, even though it's been four days since I was aboard.

The Fascination has a Classic Hollywood theme, which of course appelaed to me to no end. My favorite part of the ship was called Hollywood Boulevard, which ran half the length of the ship along one side. It had cozy little window seats looking out over the water, random chairs, and tables decorated with Al Hirschfeld caricatures of famous stars. Several other rooms and shops opened off Hollywood Boulevard, one of which was a coffee shop called Bogart's, which had very yummy mochacinos.

Sunday was a day at sea, which Daniel spent climbing up various stairways and getting used to eating ten meals a day. Which I mean literally, by the way. This is his average meal schedule during the cruise:

6 am: Morning snuggle snack (which is what we call nursing)
7 am: Breakfast with Daddy while Mama got ready
7:30 am: Breakfast with Mama.
9 am: Breakfast with Grandpa and Great-Grandma
10:30 am: Mid-morning snack (usually grapes)
Noon: Lunch
1:30 pm: Pre-nap snuggle snack
4:30 pm: Mid-afternoon snack
6-8 pm: Supper (this was formal meal with multiple courses, so he ate in cycles of eating and playing. He'd start with a couple of dinner rolls, play a little, eat an appetizer, play a little, eat about 1/3 of an entree, play a little, and eat about 1/3 each of three people's desserts.)
9 pm: Bedtime snuggle snack

So yeah, Dano had no trouble gaining back all the weight he'd lost during the nasty flu we had. Unfortunately, neither did Cowboy or I. I'd lost 5 pounds during the flu, and I gained them all back again. Sigh. The food was excellent, if you can't tell! And plentiful.

We spent Monday on Half Moon Cay, which they all pronounced 'key,' and which is owned by Carnival Cruise Lines. So we were the only people there, all 2,500 of us, plus the staff. Dad and I went on a trail ride, which ended with us riding horses through the ocean! You know that scene in The Man from Snowy River where they drive the horses through the river and Curly falls off? It felt like that, only without the falling off part. It was amazing -- I don't think I stopped grinning the whole time we were riding in the water! The ocean was up to my thighs, nearly over the horses' backs, and I had such a feeling of freedom and exhilaration... I think it was the most fun I've had since I was five. Dad and I agreed it was worth the price of the whole cruise just for that experience.

Dano and Cowboy spent most of Monday playing in the sand or napping. All in all, it was a great day!

Tuesday, we docked at Nassau. Since several 007 movies were filmed on Nassau, including Thunderball and the magnificent Casino Royale, Dad and I were really excited to visit there. We took a horse-drawn surrey tour of half the island, and then toured the remains of Fort Charlotte before eating lunch at a local restaurant called Coco-Nuts that had the very best dessert we ate during the whole cruise: guava duff. I definitely need to try making it sometime. Cowboy and I spent the rest of the day walking on the beach with Dano and making a brief visit to Paradise Island, where famous people like Sean Connery and Shakira own houses.

Wednesday was another day at sea, which we all spent resting up and recuperating from our previous adventures. Cowboy and I had top-to-toe massages, our big splurge for the trip. Ninety minutes later, we felt like we'd had a full night's sleep. Dano opted for the more traditional way of relaxing, as you can see.

We docked in Jacksonville on Thursday morning and were in the car and ready to head 'em up and move 'em out by 9:30. We drove all the way home that day, surprising Mom to no end when we arrived a day earlier than she'd expected us. That gave us Friday to relax, do laundry, and re-pack.

There you have it! Our Grand Vacation, a wonderful mix of fun, food, and festivities. We all agreed we'd love to take another cruise sometime. Even Grandma, who, at 90, was probably the oldest person aboard!

Cowboy and I decided that the one thing we miss the most from the cruise is Didik, our steward. He cleaned up after Dano's messes, made our beds, folded the clothes Dano merrily strewed about our cabin... we could really use him around here. And he made super-cute towel animals for us every night too!

Dano and I are home from our big adventure. We spent the 7th through the 11th with Cowboy's parents, Banana, her Papoose, and Noumenon. Dano got to know his grandparents a little, and he and his cousin got along very nicely. He and I also went to visit ED and spent the night at her sweet little house. Man, do I miss living near her! We had so much fun going to a coffee shop, eating lunch at a drive-in, browsing her library, and watching a couple of movies. Good times.

On Wednesday, the 11th, DKoren picked us up in a rental car, and we drove off to our friend DocB's home for this year's Combat! fanfic Recon, dubbed Reconlan for reasons you will soon learn. We drove about 3 hours that night before stopping.

On Thursday, we drove about seven hours, arriving at DocB's around 4:30pm. The only squaddie to arrive before us was BQ, who had helped DocB decorate the front hall with USO banners and WWII posters. They also lined DocB's driveway with tiny USO flags so we'd have an easier time figuring out which house was hers. Other squaddies arrived throughout the afternoon and evening, including one all the way from Australia! We watched a C! ep in the evening, and when I sacked out at 12:45, the partying was still going strong.

On Friday, the rest of the squaddies arrived, including the Canada contingent. We spent most of the day just hanging out and watching a post-C! Vic Morrow movie called Target Harry that was surprisingly good. Dano adjusted to his new surroundings and started getting to know his new friends.

On Saturday morning, we cleaned up our HQ and got ready for our Guests of Honor, Conlan and Betty Carter. Yes, we got to meet the man who played Doc! He and his wife arrived around noon, and after spending an hour or so answering our myriad questions, he had lunch with us. Then he autographed our fanzines and anything else we proferred (such as my official Reconlan t-shirt, which was designed by Dimples)(yes, I was wearing it at the time). We kind of expected he would leave then, but he sat down in the living room again and visited with us until 6pm!!! He and his wife were both gracious and lovely, and I am honored to have met them both.

That evening, we played Combat! Trivial Pursuit and bid on all kinds of C! memorabilia Jen was auctioning off. I won a bunch of awesome photos, including one from my most favoritest ep ever, "Walking Wounded," and a spent shell casing from Franklin Canyon!

On Sunday, we watched a post-C! Rick Jason movie called Eagles Attack at Dawn (which took place entirely at night) and visited a militaria collectibles shop, where all I bought was a Bobbsey Twins book, go figure. We also went to Walmart and pooled our resources to buy gifts for some British troops that DocB befriended while in Iraq.

Quite a few squaddies headed out Sunday evening, but a few (including DKoren, Dano, and I) stuck around until Monday. Then we three drove to the airport and went our separate ways.

I think this was the best Recon yet! Atlanta was great, because I got to meet a lot of my fellow squaddies for the first time. LA was loads of fun, what with meeting Pierre Jalbert and tramping around Franklin canyon. But this one trumped them all, and not just because we spent six hours with Conlan Carter. For four days, I basically lived in a Combat! commune, surrounded by friends and having fun nearly every second of the day. It rocked! And we even managed not to trash DocB's house... much ;-)

Well, I'm back home again. Which is great, as I was really missing Cowboy for the last few days of our week apart, although tonight he's at work and I'm missing him again and suffering from the post-vacation blues. Anyway, here's a day-by-day rundown of the California half of my vacation:

I landed at LAX on Friday, where DKoren picked me up, and we headed off to the Pink Palace, aka a Days Inn in Santa Monica. There we met up with our fellow Reconites, four of them newbies and the other six veterans like us (aka they were at last year's Recon.) They threw a Combat!-themed baby shower for me that night -- you wouldn't believe how much camo baby stuff they managed to find! And we played this fun new board game that DKoren created. It's based on "the baby episode," aka "One More for the Road," and basically follows the path of the ep, with places where you have to answer trivia questions about the ep and others where something from the ep happens and you can get penalized or rewarded (eg "Doc revives baby, go ahead one space" or "Stroback gets killed by a mine, go back to start.") It was highly fun, and I actually won by the skin of my teeth :-D

On Saturday, we went to Franklin Canyon, where parts of many eps were filmed, and guess who met up with us there for a little while? Pierre Jalbert, aka Caje! He lives not too far away and is friends with a couple of us Reconites, and they asked if he'd come meet the rest of us, and he did! Totally unexpected and awesome. He's waaaay cool, still all trim and wiry even tho he's in his 80s. Told us several fun stories about behind-the-scenes stuff from Combat! and let us take our pictures with him, etc. When I get a chance, aka when I get them developed and scanned in to my computer, I'll try to post some pics from the whole week.

Anyway, after Pierre left, we went on a tour of Franklin locations led by none other than Dodger and Green Recruit! We used to call Dodger "Mr. E-head" which stood for "Mr. Encyclopedia-Head" -- he has an amazing knowledge of WWII history. Then for lunch, we had real MREs! And they weren't bad! And I'm not just saying that because I'm pregnant and hungry a lot, hee.

On Sunday, we drove to a couple of cemeteries and visited the ashes of Rick Jason (aka Lt. Hanley) and the grave of Vic Morrow (aka Sgt. Saunders). We tried to go to the beach, but it was just too crowded, so we went back to the Pink Palace and played C! Trivial Pursuit instead.

And on Monday, we all left. DKoren and I headed up into the hills above Hollywood to see if we could find Rudolf Valentino's home, Falcon Lair. We found it all right, at the top of a steep, narrow, twisty road. I shudder to think of Rudy with his terrible eyesight driving up and down that thing in his big cars. Anyway, I took some dvd footage of the gateposts, which are still the originals with the name on them, although the great wrought-iron gates of Rudy's time have been replaced by black board ones you can't see through. So then Deb took my photo by the gateposts, but I must have gotten to close to them, because this crabby bald man came running out from around the corner and yelled, "This is private property! You're setting off alarms!" We'd seen what we wanted to see anyway, so we left, although I'm pretty sure that a sign posted on the fence beside the gates that says "No Trespassing" means that you can't go beyond that fence, not that you can't stand in the road outside the gates. Especially since the road was not marked "Private Drive" (and there were lots of other houses on the same road). Whatever.

Anyway, we drove out to Paramount Ranch next, where they've filmed lots and lots of westerns, and also where they filmed the town for Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. The church is gone, though the bridge near it is still there, and the tree where Grace had her outdoor cafe is there too. But we didn't get to look at all the buildings and walk down the streets like we wanted to because some small production was actually filming there! But we got to eat our lunch on a picnic bench under a tree a ways away from the action and watch them a little, so that was exciting. From there, we headed up to DKoren's new house, which she just bought and isn't yet unpacked in. We ate supper at her sister's house, which is right next door.

On Tuesday, we went digital-camera hunting, moved some of DKoren's stuff into the house from her yard, and hung out with her family next door.

On Wednesday, we drove up into the Sierra to visit DKoren's parents. We made a bunch of cool stops along the way. First, we tried to find this vineyard that was used as a set in a C! ep, but alas, it's been refaced and renovated and turned into a business complex. From there, we drove out into the Mojave Desert, which DKoren kept calling "boring" and "ugly," but which I thought was really pretty in a rugged way, and a nice relief from the ultra-populated cities we'd been in up to then. You're supposed to have really awesome views of the mountains as you drive up into them, but because of the huge fire over in Santa Barbara, we could barely see the mountains because they were obscured by a thick haze of smoke. But that's okay. I got to see some cool lava flows and cinder cones along the way.

Our next stop was Red Rock Canyon, where they filmed lots of old westerns, both movies and TV shows. We walked around a little, but it was too hot to go exploring much. I think I got some nifty pics tho.

From there, we headed to a western film museum in the town of Lone Pine. Lots and lots and lots of things are filmed around Lone Pine, from western (The Lone Ranger and tons more) to film noir (Bad Day at Black Rock) to action (Gladiator). The museum is full of things like hats worn by John Wayne and Steve McQueen and Dean Martin, costumes, movie posters, etc.

Next we stopped at the Alabama Hills, where they film a lot of westerns and sci-fi stuff. They're totally amazing hills -- some of them are all rough and jagged and westerny, and some are really alien, all rounded and burbly. Hard to describe -- I'll post some pics soon. One of the most famous things they filmed there was the 1930 Cary Grant movie Gunga Din.

After stopping at DKoren's parents' house, her mom drove us out to the Laws Museum, which was originally a town built for the Steve McQueen western Nevada Smith and is now a museum full of all kinds of cool antiques and a big train.

From the museum, we headed up to Hot Creek, where the main set for the John Wayne movie North to Alaska was once built. DKoren's mom is really into geology and geothermal activity, and Hot Creek has been changing and growing progressively hotter and more active, so she likes to go there and see how things are changing. The path we walked on there was only about a mile above active volcanic lava, and the pavement cracks and splits over time because the earth moves. We also stopped by this pretty (and deliciously cold!) lake called Convict's Lake on our way back to her home.

On Thursday, DKoren and I drove back down to San Bernardino. We stopped at this tiny little restaurant in the town of Aberdeen -- whenever John Wayne was shooting a movie around there, he would insist on eating at that restaurant because he really loved their food, especially their beans. Alas, the owners of the restaurant were on vacation this same week too, so it was closed :-( Which means I will have to go back again, right? We also stopped at Manzanar, which was a Japanese Relocation Camp during WWII. Not much is left of it except some foundation slabs and stones, but they have a nice air-conditioned museum, and it looks like they're restoring one of the housing unit things too.

We got back to San Bernardino on Thursday afternoon, only to have the power go out about half an hour after we arrived. YUCK. No air-conditioning, no fans -- I was not a happy person. We ended up going out for supper, and when we came back, the power had returned, so I was able to finish doing some laundry and packing, and we watched a couple movies, one a Bobby Darin western and the other a Dana Andrews/Hoagy Carmichael drama.

Friday, I flew out of the Santa Ana John Wayne airport, had a layover in Phoenix, ended up in Chicago, and took a bus to WI, where Cowboy picked me up. I've spent the last couple days unpacking and trying to switch back to 3rd shift. I have to go back to work tomorrow night and I really don't want to, but that's life, I guess.

You know you're having a good vacation when it's half over before you get around to blogging about it.

Cowboy and I left home on Tuesday morning (the 31st). We stopped in Illinois to visit our favorite college professor, who is now a church pastor, and ended up staying the night in the same town because we were just too sleepy to go any farther.

Wednesday, we drove to Petersburg, KY to visit the Creation Museum, which was completely awesome. I took a whole roll of film there. We drove on a ways farther that day, ending up nearish they KY/TN border.

Thursday, we drove home to my parents' house in NC, arriving in the afternoon. Dad grilled his fabulous steaks for us for supper, which is always one of Cowboy's vacation highlights.

Friday, we all went and saw The Bourne Ultimatum, and Cowboy and I bought our very first dvd camera so we can record Gumdrop's every waking moment once he arrives :-D

On Saturday, my home church had their second annual Bluegrass Jamboree. We went for about three hours, until I got too hot and had to get back to the lovely air-conditioned house. It was lots of fun, though, and they raised lots of money for the local pregnancy crisis center.

Sunday was church in the morning, of course, and in the afternoon we were guests of honor at a baby shower thrown by the congregation. I haven't been a member of this church for five years, and Cowboy never has been, but they were amazingly generous toward us -- they really love my parents, that's for sure.

On Monday, um... what did we do Monday? Oh yeah, I spent the afternoon hanging out with Freestargirl and Jewels and their daughters.

Mom and Cowboy and I went up to the mountains on Tuesday and visited Carl Sandburg's home. Very nifty, as both Mom and I like his poetry, and I got to try out the new camcorder.

Yesterday, Cowboy left me :-( He's driving back to NC with all our baby gifts in the Tank's trunk. I was most sad.

Today is time to do laundry, write thank-you notes, and pack. Tomorrow I will fly out to LA for Recon! Woooo!

Oh, I have had one pregnancy complication arise because of this trip: I tend to retain water in my ankles and feet ever since the day we started driving down here. They get puffier throughout the day, but then they go back to normal every night. I'm drinking as much water and other fluids as I can to keep it manageable. I think a lot of it has to do with the heat too, as it was 105 here yesterday.

Due to popular demand, here is my AAR on the Atlanta Fanfic Recon '06! It seems I have lurkers after all ;-) How cool! (Oh yeah, AAR means After Action Review...)

Friday, September 22
I arrived in Atlanta feeling very losted and scared. What if no one else showed up? What if we didn't get along after all? What if DKoren's plane crashed and I was bereft of a bestest friend and left to my own devices all weekend? I picked up my little green suitcase at Baggage Claim South (I think), then started looking for the Delta carousels, because I knew that's what DKoren was flying. And there weren't any. No carousels for Delta (oooh -- cool title!). I began to panic.

Then I raised my tear-filled eyes and saw that waaaaay over yonder was Baggage Claim North, all Delta all the time. I hustled over there, heart pounding and nose running (I hate the aftereffects of colds!), and there, beside a shiny silver fence, stood DKoren! And some people that I had never seen before in my life... but who were all wearing something C!-ish. DKoren turned around and saw me and grinned and... I gotta tell you, she may only weigh 37 pounds, but she about knocked me over with her hug.

Eventually other people joined up with us, and we comandeered a bus to take us out to the parking garage. Then began the great Clown Maneuver. These people were seriously convinced you were going to get 9 people, 18 suitcases, and a guitar into that van. DKoren and I had far too much fun watching the van sink lower and lower and lower as they crammed into that thing -- I'm glad we stayed behind for the second wave, because those tires were seriously bulging. The seven of them headed off for the hotel, and DKoren and I caught the bus back to the airport. We had a nice lunch and met up with a the stragglers. Then it was off to the hotel for us, where I got to meet the rest of the bunch, including our intrepid Third Musketeer, Jambi :-D She was sharing a room with DKoren and I all weekend. After supper, the twelve of us congregated in the ever-popular Medic's Foxhole and I got introduced to megas! They DO exist! (Megas are these ginormous M&Ms that I could never seem to find).

Saturday, September 23
I didn't think I was going to sleep very well that night, what with trying to switch over from night shift and being all excited about finally being at Recon, but I actually managed 6 hours of snoozing, I think. Good thing, because Saturday was chock full of wonderful fun that required every ounce of my energy.

First off, we went to an American Legion hall outside Atlanta and got a chance to interact with actual WWII weapons... and you know me and my love of weaponry! I got to handle a German Mauser rifle, an M1 Garand and M1 Carbine, several Lugers and .45, and a Thompson submachine gun!!!! My Combat! hero, Sgt. Saunders, carries a Thompson, so that was a very special event for me. We got to try on WWII helmets and jackets too, and get our pictures taken. The Carbine was lighter than I'd expected, the Mauser and Garand were heavier than I thought they might be, but that Thompson? Honestly, it felt just the way I'd always imagined. The weight, the balance... it was like I'd been handling one for the last ten years. Made my little heart glow.

After lunch, Belle arrived, even though we'd about given up on her -- poor thing, driving in all that rain! So we played Combat! Trivial Pursuit, which DKoren and I made up!!! Everyone had a blast, and I got about a million compliments for the playing board, which I made all C!-ish.

CCK is everyone's hero for providing tasty pizza for our supper Saturday night! And I think we even managed not to leave tooooo many greasy fingerprints on each others' fanzines as we signed them! Oh yeah, we created a fanzine that came out at the same time as Recon. It has 347 pages and 16 fanfic stories, including one co-written by DKoren and I. If you're interested, here's a link to a little more info.

Sunday, September 24
A whole bunch of us got interviewed about our love of Combat! for a possible Veteran's Day Marathon of eps on the American Goodlife tv network (I think it might have a new name now, tho... can't remember for sure). That was pretty scary, but we knew the questions in advance and were all there to provide (silent-ish) moral support during the taping :-D

Sunday was a sad day, though, because several people left. I hate goodbyes. But we managed to have lots of fun on Sunday night during our extreeeeeeeemely long supper.

Monday, September 25
Then it was Monday all of a sudden, and I was sitting in the (empty) bathtub writing in my journal about how sad I was that it was all ending so soon. We definitely need to extend the next Recon -- arrive on Thursday and leave on Monday? Yes, we're planning on doing this next year, possibly in Vegas, baby!

Although I managed to get myself slightly losted at the airport, my squaddies found me after a brief handy-talky conversation, and we began the sad business of parting. I was so loath to leave, I almost missed my plane! Good thing DKoren had my back :-)

I'm a very shy person. I don't like meeting strangers very well -- but these Combat! fanfic friends I'd made online were all just as wonderful in real life as they were on the internet, and I cemented a lot of friendships that weekend. In fact, I just had a little reunion with one of them this past weekend, a mini-recon near home here that was tons of fun! And I truly can't wait for Recon '07, wherever it may be!

Vacation was amazing. I thought Recon would be fantastic, but it exceeded my every hope. We all got along swimmingly (even when in the hotel pool!), and the whole weekend was like a really long sleepover that revolved around Combat!. I have so many wonderful memories of Recon, but most of my readers here have heard them already, so I won't bore you with further elaboration.

And after Recon, I got to spend a whole week with with my parents and Grandma O. We went on a few short excursions, but spent most of our time relaxing and lolling about in the sun. It rocked!

Now we're trying to readjust to living at night and, for me at least, it is not going well at all. I seem to be sleeping in little 4-hour chunks here and there. I have to work tonight, though, so maybe that will help straighten me out. Grrr.

I'm free! Freeeeeeeeeee! As of right now, I am officially on my giganimous vacation! Yes, yes, yes, oh happy day!

Forty-eight hours from now, I will be near the airport. Fifty hours from now, I'll be seated on a plane bound for Atlanta. Fifty-four hours from now, I'll be in the Atlanta airport, meeting all sorts of my Combat! fanfic friends for the first time and reuniting with DKoren! A thousand huzzahs!

And in one hundred twenty-six hours, Daddy will pick me up at the airport in NC!

Ahhhh. I'm breathing free air. No work for two weeks. How glorious! Day after day of unadulterated bliss! My toes wiggle ecstatically at the mere thought!

It's truly official now. I'm going to the Combat! Fanfic Recon in Atlanta in September! I just got my plane tickets this morning!

What am I thinking? I'm spending a weekend in Atlanta with a bunch of crazy writers/readers all obsessed with a 1960's tv show about WWII? Only one of whom I've ever met before in person? I must be crazy, huh?

More like giddy with glee. We fanfic writers have their own email list, seperate from the 'official' C! discussion list They've been planning this Recon (our word for convention, basically) for months and months and months. And I didn't think I'd be able to go, which made me very glum indeed, whenever I thought of it.

But due to Cowboy's love of spoiling me, a little deviousness on my part in regard to the usage of vacation time and switching days off at work, and my ever-burgeoning friendship with DKoren, I'm going going going going going!!!!!!!!!!

It's not gonna be like the 'real' recons, aka "Comboat '96" and "Recon 2000". None of the stars of the show will be there (although there is a mysterious Surprise Guest whispered about behind closed tent flaps). But there will be about 20 fanfic writers (I think all women--we have a Token Male on our fanfic email list, but I don't think he'll be attending) all running around a hotel doing crazy stuff and writing and reading and watching C! eps, etc.

Plus, after Recon, I'm flying from Atlanta to HOME! And Cowboy's flying down to meet me there, and we'll spend a week with my parents (and Grandma will probably be there by then) and friends. Yippeeeeeeeee!

Vacation is over :-( Well, mostly. Cowboy is at work tonight, and I go back tomorrow night.

But it was awesome while it lasted! We went back to our college town for a couple days and got to visit with most of our favorite professors and lots of friends. Also, Johnnycake and Dimples go to college there, and so does The Chameleon, so we got to see them. And some of Cowboy's other familial types too. And weirdly enough, this guy named Peter P. that I have known since I was like 2 years old was the desk attendant at our hotel! That made it extra fun :-D

And then on Monday when we were home again, we went to the country's largest indoor waterpark! It's at the Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells, and it's amazing! I'd actually never been to a waterpark before, and Cowboy had never been to that one, so we had loads of fun. They have this one ride called the Master Blaster that is like a water slide roller coaster! And you know me and my addiction to roller coasters :-D Yeah, I think we went down that one four times. They have six major slides there, and then a really long cool Lazy River, a fortress thingie with water squirters everywhere that you can aim at other people, a wave pool, three or four hot tubs, and some pools for little kids too. Oh, and they had this thing where you could learn to surf, but you had to sign up for lessons a day in advance, so we just got to watch other people learning.

Anyway, I wish vacation wasn't over. How come you have to wait until you're old to be on permanent vacation?

After I get home from work in the morning, I will change clothes and help Cowboy pack the car, and then we will drive to the airport and fly HOME!!!!! Because I have 9 days of vacation! This will be the first time I have spent Thanksgiving with my parents since I was 17, and the first time I've spent it with my Grandma O. since I was probably 3. I can't wait! We're gonna have a blast too--we're going to Myrtle Beach over the weekend, I get to see Freestargirl and Jewels again...I

I haven't been home since July of 2004. That is way too long.