21 Gun Salud!

So Kevin's cousin JD turned 21 this past week :)

Kevin said he's not really sure how that happened:

The party was Saturday the 24th at Uncle Roy and Aunt Sue's in Richboro, so we got on the road at sunrise. (Or it could've been a little after 4:00pm. But hey, if you don't know what direction we were driving, you'd be hard pressed to tell either way!)

Dinner was pizza from Gianni's, and most of the whole gang was there:

Here's the man of the hour and his girlfriend Amber:

And me and Tay:

Then it was time for cake:

Most of the younger kids went down to the basement to play with Uncle Roy's trains. I had heard stories, so I wanted to check it out as well.

A man, a plan, a control panel: Crawford!

Uncle Roy was controlling the trains on one side of the basement, and Crawford taught Taylor how to do it on the other side :)

Meanwhile JD had started opening his presents back upstairs, and we missed it when he opened ours :(

But, we had gotten him a card that basically said "Don't lose this: It's your gift."

Then we got him a fake-out six pack of root beer, birch beer, and a few other non-alcoholic drinks.

And finally, since we know he's a history buff who loves to read (and Kevin's a tech buff who also loves to read) we got him a copy of IBM and the Holocaust, which documents how IBM knowingly sold the Nazis the punch-card machines that would enable Nazi Germany to identify, track, round up, and eventually exterminate millions of Jews across Europe with shocking precision that was basically unknown in the pre-computer world of the mid-twentieth century.

Here's JD "enjoying" his six pack.

Riley had plans with her friend Kassie and couldn't make it, but Kevin, Taylor, and I had a lot of fun. Aunt Sue lent me and Taylor a couple books to check out, and Taylor enjoyed hanging out with Amber and Ava :)

We partied from dawn 'til dusk and ended up being just about the last ones to leave (David, Natalie, and Kayla beat us out). This was the moon on our way home:

Nothing much to report on from Sunday through Tuesday, but of course Wednesdays and Fridays are our nights for Taylor to come over for dinner (and tutoring help if she needs it).

So Kevin cut up five pounds of chicken Monday morning and left it to marinate for two days so he could make us fajitas for dinner Wednesday evening.

He sent me this a little bit after noon:

I picked Taylor up on my way home from work, and Kevin had everything just about ready to go shortly after we got home. (Except the side of rice: He hates making rice.)

And finally, it's the end of another month, which means four weeks' worth of cat pics, all at once!

This time commentary will be provided by Lucky:

So, it seems that Odin has a crush on Jessalyn Gilsig's character "Siggy" on Vikings:

He can't stop thinking about her and says he could just watch her all day:

Odin even asked Kevin to take some boudoir pics of him so he can try to send them back in time to Siggy:

Of course, Miss Penny seems to be under the impression that she's Kevin's mommy:

And in other news, we finally cleaned up all the boxes in our living room, since it doesn't look like the move will be anytime soon:

But, Kevin talked with Brody earlier today, and he told us he's still hammering away at Kirstyn's infantile inability to understand basic mathematics.

And we suppose there's always a chance the government finds a way to paper over their deficit issue for a year or two, which might hopefully be long enough for the USDA to get some funding so we can move forward with our house plans.