Life gets in the way of Life

Hi Friends!

We're closing it down for now. Life, mostly disguised as work, needs to be our main focus for now and we hate to leave you hanging out there--just in case you are waiting with anxiety for the next round of hijinx from the Proud House.

We are posting with as much frequency as time allows over on FaceBook so come visit over there!

K & C

A Conversation with Kirstin and Clive

K: We don't have anything to eat in the house.
C: Why not?
K: I did a crap job of grocery shopping this week.
C: There is delicious salad in the fridge.
K: We don't have anything GOOD to eat in the house.
C: You are very whiny today.
K: Yes, and you have to listen to me because that's your job!
C: I hate my job.

Why iTunes Needs Longer Previews

I love iTunes! But after downloading this I've come to realize they definitely need MUCH LONGER PREVIEWS! Seriously folks, I want my money back!

Marathon Motivation!

A fun little treat arrived in the mail the other day! A marathon motivation kit from Thea and Anne back in WI. They are THE BEST! I'm training for the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco in October and have been struggling a bit with my daily runs. It's hard to get out there by yourself!

This box of goodies was a real treat! Thanks ladies!

Fast and Furious: Back to the Beginning

We conclude our film fest with a seafood feast to celebrate our one year anniversary and the final installment in our film fest: Fast and Furious. This one brings back the original cast but much to my surprise and delight we also get a bit of my favorite character, Han, from Tokyo Drift.

To start the evening, a few blurry shots of our seafood feast preparation. Clive working on the shrimp and mussels and me, steaming crab legs.



And then the delicious result!



The movie was pretty good! It started with a flash back to show us what everyone has been up to since we last got together and then we got a good dose of revenge, fast driving, and a cliff hanger ending. Can you say Fast and Furious 5?

In all, a great film fest!

Part 3: And possibly THE BEST?

Reasons why this is the best installment?
1. 105 minutes of Sung Kang playing Han Lue
2. Great scenes of Tokyo, especially at night
3. More awesome street racers
4. A cameo by Vin Diesel bringing back Dominic Toretto
5. A fun soundtrack including Tokyo Drift by the Teriyaki Boyz

Reasons why watching this may be painful?
1. 105 minutes of Lucas Black and his dumb-ass accent
2. No real story and not as much cool fast driving
3. Drifting is cool for about 5 minutes and then it's just sleepy
4. Did I mention that Lucas Black's accent is annoying?

Part 2: Not quite as good

You know how the sequel is just never quite as good as the first? Well, the addition of Ludacris and Eva Mendes defintely helps but the script gets a little goofy.

Still, it makes me pine for my own street racer and a heated discussion followed the wrap of the movie. Is 41 too old for my white glitter flake Evo or Skyline? I would forgo the Nos!

The Fast and The Furious Film Festival Part 1

The film festival is a time-honored tradition in the Proud House. The topic varies from Bond to Bourne to Submarines (a great one with lots to choose from)!

We are currently launching a four-day Fast and Furious film fest to celebrate the DVD release of the fourth installation in the series. Zoomey go fast! And to honor sister Jai's Mitsubishi Evo, of course bought in complete innocence and then the quick recipient of a speeding ticket. Go Jai!

Last night was the one that began it all: The Fast and the Furious



Clive settled in with his asian steak salad and Kirstin with her bag of chips and guacamole for a night filled with fast cars, witty dialog, action and adventure. Yes, all is well on Sand Dollar Drive.

Overheard at the Next Table

Girlfriend 1: Blah, blah, blah, loser boyfriend, broken down car, etc...

Girlfriend 2: Blah, blah, blah, loser boyfriend, broken down car, etc...

Kirstin and Clive: Happily eating breakfast and admiring the ocean view

Girlfriend 1: Deep breath and dramatic pause so we know BIG NEWS is coming...

Girlfriend 1: So I've decided to sue my attorney!

Girlfriend 2: Really?

Kirstin and Clive: Hysterical laughter which drowns out overhearing why anyone would choose to sue their own legal counsel.

Never a dull moment here in the South!

Going to the Beach

It's official! We've become Floridians! How can you tell? We've purchased the all important BEACH BUGGY!

Apparently this rig is key to lugging all your crap back and forth to the beach every day. I see this because my desk faces the window and I get to watch everyone heading to the beach while I am working. One of the unanticipated negatives of living among the retired.



Here is the buggy in all it's glory! Big wheels for navigating deep sand. A mesh pocket for all the wet stuff. A big hook in the front to hang your beach chairs, which we haven't invested in yet, but will soon!



And here's the perfect setup in order to stretch out and watch Clive and my Dad go for a swim! Straw mat, towel, water, trashy Nora Roberts under the umbrella. Life is good!



Hi Guys! No where near hot enough for me to come join you!

The Last Hurrah

We've been on a "last hurrah" for a few months now. Too much food, chocolate, sugar, and in Clive's case, booze.

Each weekend, as we lay/lie (?) on the sofa, finishing off that last scoop of Ben and Jerry's or that last drop of wine, we turn to each other and proclaim with as much vigor as we can muster, "This is the last hurrah! Next week, diet and exercise!"

As we were eating our way through Madison last week, dragging Mom and Paul down in to the calorie gutter with us, we frequently chanted the Proud Family battle cry. It's OK to have dessert at P.F. Chang's with Grandma and then go home and head straight over to Chocolate Shoppe for an ice cream cone, it's our LAST HURRAH! (sidebar confession: This was Kirstin alone who did this and enjoyed EVERY MINUTE OF IT!)

Here's to the last hurrah! May it hopefully be the last, at least for a while.

P.S. Lombardino's rocks!

Doggie Therapy

Hello from Wisconsin!

We're enjoying a working vacation here in Madison and fitting in a quick visit with Mom, Pauly and Jake. Jake had a little doggie torn ACL earlier this spring and after two knee surgeries has recovered nicely. But he still has to do a bit of physical therapy which was a site to see.

All of this taking place under the bribery of beef jerky treats of course!

First, balance on the newly repaired knee to rebuild strength...


Now, the powerdisc for some core work and again to hit that bum leg...


All done! Any more jerky treats left?

The General Leemo

Aaahhh Daytona! You never cease to amaze.

The other day we were making another of our frequent trips to Home Depot and to our amazement The General Leemo went cruising by. Missing a hubcap and a little worse for the wear, but alive and well and available for rental.

Of course I'd want a full uv light screen and detox with bleach before I'm going for a ride but then... Get out the Aqua Net and them daisy dukes, girls! It's girls' night in Daytona!

In Case You Were Wondering

These...


are not as good as these.

Conversation at the Sink

Recently Clive finished fixing the leaky faucet and I was cleaning up the drips and wiping off the counter top. There was this tiny scrap of plastic that looked like trash so I swept it off the counter and into the trash. Clive stopped me and said that was the “hot/cold” indicator for the front of the faucet. This item was really beat up from being removed repeatedly and honestly looked like garbage.

K: Do we need this?

C: How will I know which is hot and which is cold?

Insert pregnant pause while K tries to determine if C is actually asking a serious question or is just messing with her.

K: Well, the cold is always on the right.

C: WHAT?! Is that true? (Pause while this information is filed into “Clive’s World” for future reference. Not being related to computers or music, this information was not previously considered important or necessary.)

C: Good tip!

Ormond Beach Snapshot

I’m driving to the library the other day behind an older model white pickup truck. On the back of the trucks gate is a crudely hand-lettered cardboard sign that is duct-taped on. The sign reads, “The older I get, the better I used to be.”

What’s the thought process you go through when you take the effort to hand-letter this sign, attach it to your car, then proceed to drive around your own neighborhood? What message are you trying to convey? “I’m not aging well and by god, I’m letting the world know!”

My Mom Kicked My Butt

I went for a run with my mom this week. (I'm visiting here in Madison for a few days) The route we chose is a 3 miler that finishes with a brutal hill that you can't actually see the top of when you start out.

I was already sucking wind as we started at the bottom of that never-ending hill that is over a quarter mile long. After about 30 seconds I knew there was no way and told her to just go ahead and leave me to die a slow death.

She was, of course, having no issue with the hill and easily killed it. Then, to my added humiliation, circled back at about half way to check on me, give me some cheery encouragement, and then proceeded to kill it again. Sigh... my mom rocks!

The Warping Floor

In the middle of all the rain, I got up the other morning and stumbled into the kitchen for my morning coffee. The trip was more dangerous than usual and not because I was extra caffeine-deprived. To my dismay, a large section of the wood parquet in the kitchen warped and lifted during the night.

In Florida your plumbing is buried in your poured foundation so if you have an issue that is very bad! The only way to figure out the problem is to dig up the floor and try to find out what is going on.



After all this, we happily (sort of) discovered that we did not have any leak coming from below. This was demonstrated by the puddle that suddenly appeared under the mammoth fridge that we relocated to the other side of the kitchen when we moved it to lift the flooring out from under it. Sigh...

Trip to Lowes anyone?

It's Rainy Season

Hi Friends and Family!

Thank you for hanging in there with us! We're finally coming up for air and very happy and excited about where things are headed with our various business ventures. Yes, we know we work too much but we're having fun with it so at the moment that's how we roll.

We have to show a picture of the lake that formed in the backyard recently. Usually this is totally dry but we had so much rain the retention pond filled! This was not even the high mark.



Of course this torrential rain and flooding also occurred at the exact same time that Jeanne came to visit. Sigh... Welcome to sunny Florida! Please come back Mom! We promise the weather is nice!

And we promise to get back to blogging. Lots to report at the Proud House.

In Times of Stress...

This is what gets you through!

OK! Just a quick break from blogging hiatus to let you know about this important miracle product! Dear friends, these Strawberry Milkshake Oreos are AMAZING! Yes, I had exactly 2.5 hours of sleep last night and 4 the night before. But let me tell you, these cookies are saving me. I'm on the edge and I don't want to hear any crap about healthy food and exercise. Right now I'm fueling up on cookies and coffee, baby!

Limited edition, people! Go to Target immediately and buy them! They are on the end-cap right when you walk in the door just begging you to buy them!

Don't miss out!

Busy Bees

Life with the Prouds will be on hiatus for a few weeks as we tackle a big work project. We're very sorry for the time-out but we must keep a roof over our heads and Proud Projects has won a bid for a project that is on a tight deadline.

We'll be back to blogging again in Mid-May. Please come back to visit us then for lots of updates!

You Know It's Really Bad When...

nobody wants your free monkey.

On the Way to Blockbuster

I'm driving to Blockbuster last night to pick up some movies and I see a sign taped to a light pole at one of the busier intersections on my route.

It's hand-lettered with black sharpie on yellow neon poster board. The kind you buy at Walgreens.

FREE MONKEY

well-behaved

386-XXX-XXXX

I wonder if anyone called?

The Poop House

This is spray painted on the curb outside our house:


Nice composition. Nice lettering. Clearly painted with time and care and some time ago based on the fading. Definitely before our tenure here.

The previous owners were a lovely, older couple. I can't imagine what they could have done to enrage the other, elderly population of our neighborhood enough to cause them to tag the house with "Poop". All guesses are welcome.

You are now warned...if you come visit, you are visiting the Poop House of Sand Dollar Drive.

It's NOT a Dumpster!

So did you ever wonder where all that "dirt" that is really sand goes when you dig a moat around your house. Or, correction, when Gary, my step-brother digs a moat around your house?

It goes in a dumpster. Which is not actually called a dumpster. It's called a ROLL-OFF. I know this now after calling and calling to try and rent one and repeatedly asking for the wrong thing.


This is the beast that lived in our driveway for 60 days while Gary patiently filled it with dirt, tree stumps, old concrete, and who knows what else. Clive had fun ripping out an ancient and rusty air conditioner from our Florida room and heaved that over the side. This thing provided hours of fun for us and 60 days of dirty looks from the neighborhood driving by. Of course this was after they all realized that we weren't doing major construction on the house and were just filling it with dirt.

Yep! In the land of meticulous lawns and retirement, we're the Clampetts. Yee Haw, Paw!

Hello Sydney!

Last stop on the tour was Sydney! And it was so fun to be back. Kip and I had one free day to tour around and we took full advantage! We hit Oxford Street, drove over to Watson's Bay and watched the sailing, had fish and chips by the water, did a bit of walking to watch a cruise ship head to open seas through The Gap. In all, it was lovely.

Then, on our last night in Sydney, THE BIG SURPRISE! James, my brother-in-law, and I were consipring for weeks to surprise Jai, my sister-in-law. They flew down from Queensland and came to have dinner with us. And the surprise worked. It was so much fun!




They even brought me a pressie! Kingscliff is the little town that was right near where we used to live and I loved it!



What a wonderful trip! Thanks Jai and James for coming to see us! Kip and I had a great time among all the hours spent in hotel ballrooms around the world!

Kirstin

Hong Kong Rocks!

Let me just say that I LOVE Hong Kong! And that I ran out of time and money in Hong Kong!

Kip and I spent the day on the Central side. We took the escalators up to the mid-levels and then wandered through an amazing little street market. It was really fun to see the domestic side of Hong Kong and explore neighborhoods.





After some shopping advice from my best friend and guru, Jodie, I headed to the Ladies Market with Kip and another Blue Coat friend, Stephanie. I don't have any pictures from the market because it was too crowded to even get my camera out and frankly, I was too busy concentrating on bargain shopping!

I won't go into every detail but let's just say the evening ended in a cramped, second story room, behind a locked gate, full of handbags with me, hot, sweaty, and demanding all of Kip and Stephanie's remaining cash. I think I had a scary look on my face because they immediately handed it over and then dragged me out of there and into a cab back to the hotel. I didn't even get to look at the jewelry!

Everyone in China takes pictures making the peace sign so of course Kip and I had to do it too! Next stop, Sydney and a BIG SURPRISE!

First Coffee in China!

Yes! It's true! I landed in the Hong Kong airport all ready for my total immersion into Asian culture and desperate for some caffeine and the only coffee I could find was a Starbucks. Unreal.

From there I caught the ferry to Macau, where I was going to spend 6 days in a strange parallel universe known as China's version of Las Vegas. It was really weird because it was IDENTICAL to the US Las Vegas. I stayed at the Venetian, which really was just like the one in Las Vegas. If it wasn't for the language and food it would have felt like being in the US.




After 5 days we realized that we hadn't actually gone outside. The Venetian can trick you with that fake blue sky. So on our last day we finished up and made our escape to do a bit of Macau sightseeing with Margie, another contractor who is also working with us. Note the fruit coming all the way from NAPLES, FL!






On to Hong Kong next!

Brussels Fun

Hello again!

Sorry for the lapse in blogs. The working world tour ended up being a bit of a hectic schedule and it interrupted the blog flow. But the Proud House is back in full swing now and there's been lots of activity to report from all corners of the globe.

We'll finish the travel updates first and then give you a Florida update. Hint: The moat is GONE!

Kip and I were working hard and mostly saw the inside of the lovely Sheraton Brussels. But we did get a little bit of time to sneak in some sightseeing. Especially the Brussels highlight Mannequin Pis, which is Dutch for "Little Pee Man". This historical landmark is not to be missed if you are ever in the neighborhood.



Brussels is really beautiful and I'd like to go back in the summer when things are in bloom. There was definitely more to see!




Next stop, China!

Kirstin