No, not me! But my little pseudo sis Nora and her best friend Natasha are going to the prom tonight and they so kindly asked me to do their hair and makeup! I looked at their dresses and thought that Nora needed her hair down, with a little pulled back and some smoky eyes. Natasha’s dress had a 40’s glam to it, so we decided on finger waves and pin curls with naked eyes and a bright red lip. Thankfully, we had a professional cosmetologist for Tasha’s hair, because I haven’t done pin curls and finger waves in YEARS! We had a lot of fun getting ready and the final results were beautiful!
I don’t know what made him do it. Maybe I hadn’t been a good enough wife… maybe I didn’t know how to make yummy french fries! Whatever the reason, Chris decided to get his mack on with Ronald the McDonald Clown.
you… me… nothing to say. Yeah, I feel like I should be here all the time with witty banter about what is happening in our lives, but I got nothing! Audrey lost one of her bottom teeth today, and she was so excited because last time she lost a tooth she literally lost it before the tooth fairy could get a hold of it. She got home today and opened the little box the school nurse gave her… and NO tooth! She was fairly upset lol.
I have just two weeks of undergrad left. All my papers are done, I just have three finals and a STUPID GRE to take. What’s up with the GRE you say? Oh nothing! I just was told I didn’t have to take it, only to find out that actually I DO! I’m not happy about it, frankly… I’m sick to my stomach over it, but oh well. Life moves on!
What else? Hmmmmm… Ohhh, I’m doing prom hair tomorrow night for sweet little Nora and her friend Natasha! I’m taking pictures because I’m very excited about the outcome!
I miss Becca! I am bummed that it will be WEEKS before I see her! I also miss Jess! Again, WEEKS before I get to see her (though, to be fair, it’s been 2 years so I can’t be too upset about that one). Who else do I miss? I miss EVERYONE! Anyone who comes to this blog should just make the trek to see me this weekend so I don’t have to be bored!
Kate OUT (ha ha… if Ryan Seacrest can do it… no wait, I’m going to have to come up with my own! I can’t steal Seacrest’s signing off)
Well… so last week was a suck fest of amazing proportions! There were the horrific college shootings, some family scariness and both Chris and I had ginormous papers due… he had a 10 page paper due Tuesday, I had a 15 page paper due Tuesday, and 10 page paper due Wednesday, and a 3 page paper due Friday… like I said, suck.fest. However, there was one thing that made me keep moving forward and that was knowing Becca and I had tickets to see Mamma Mia!!! I have wanted to see this musical for EVER and when Josh and Chris saw that it was coming to DesMoines they snatched Becca and I some tickets! THEN, just to prove how amazingly awesome they were, they got up early Saturday and took the kids to the Science Center so that Becca and I could scrapbook in peace and it was…. dare I say it… wonderful!
Becca and I ventured into downtown DesMoines, which is NO Chicago, but still scary for us rural ladies. We parked at a parking ramp and then proceeded to wander around trying to find this restaurant that Becca really liked. We finally found the cute little pub and had a lovely dinner… which Becca got for FREE because the waiter thought she was HOT!
After dinner we walked up to the Civic Center where the musical was. We went in and attempted to get seated… realizing that our seats were literally the LAST seats in the center LOL. While at first we complained about this, once the musical started we really appreciated the fact that there was NO ONE behind us so we could dance and laugh and have a GOOD time!
I will say that the storyline of the musical left me a little bored, the music MORE than made up for it. It’s really funny how you can forget how much you LOVE Abba when you haven’t listened to it for awhile! So… Becca and I had tons of fun and we now have a crazy new plan for our future visits. If you are lucky and loyal visitors, you may get to see the fru.its. of our labors!
Actually, I was SO EXCITED that Sanjaya was voted off that I started clapping my hands very enthusiastically and such, and my hands hurt for the rest of the night. And in fact, still now.
I’m actually kinda shocked though that he was voted off. Usually when a contestant is voted off they’ve been in the bottom 3 for at least a week and maybe more. This was his first time.
I’m just glad that now we don’t have to look at his ridiculous hair anymore. Oh, and his horrible singing voice.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the ridiculous title of this post. It is based off of a ridiculous edit of the song “Something to Talk About” by Bonnie Raitt. Ms. Malakar so cleverly changed the lyrics
Let’s give them something to talk about
How about love?
to this
Let’s give them something to talk about Other than hair
Hello?!?! If you wouldn’t wear your hair in such… stupid styles, people wouldn’t talk about it. Besides, it is nicer to comment on your hair, than to tell you the real truth, that you suck as a singer.
So some of you may wonder what is going on with this site. You may think you were coming to Kate’s site, or to Chris’s site. You did.
It became too much of a hassle with two different Wordpress installations and two different Gallery2 installations to keep it all updated, so we are combining it all into this one site, www.chrisandkatewheeler.com. So that is what the deal is.
EDIT: Thanks to Candace for mentioning updating her bookmark. Everyone, make sure you edit your bookmark!
Michael and I have been working on this car for a LONG time… ok, maybe not, just since Saturday, and today is Wednesday, so just a little bit over the past 5 days. Saturday and Sunday we spent some time over at Rusty’s house since he has a garage with a nice workbench. It really helped to put the block in a vise to hold it while using power tools!
I didn’t take any pictures of the process, but I’ll have to for next year. Basically what we did was a flat car. I drilled 5 holes horizontally to put in some lead weights. I cut 3 lead bars in half with a Dremel, and used 5 of them. Then we filled the holes with putty so all of the weight was concealed. Michael spray painted the car yellow, and then with a black marker drew some tigerhawks and wrote the word “Iowa” on the sides. He loves those Hawkeyes.
I got a postal scale at Walmart for $20. It really helped a lot because we were able to figure out what we needed for weight. We came in at 5.0 oz, which was the limit. It really made the weigh-in process stress-free. We were the first ones there, put the car on the official scale, and it was perfectly at the limit. The next kid weighed in at 5.6 oz, so they had to take weight off. For him it was easy because they had a screw-on lead plate, and they could snap some of the weight off. Others though didn’t have that option so they had to frantically try to hollow out the bottom with a drill to bring it down. I wouldn’t want to have to do that.
Michael holding the car before the weigh-in
After the weigh-in
All of the cars
The Batmobile and Mystery Machine, turned in by Michael’s friends Jacob and Sam
Michael’s heat #1, in the close lane, finished 2nd.
I do not have a picture or video for Michael’s heat #2. I’m not sure what happened. He finished 2nd in the heat.
Heat #3, run #1, in the far lane, would have been first but a car derailed so they had to rerun it
Heat #3, run #2, far lane again, finished 1st in this heat
Heat #4, middle lane, finished 2nd
Heat #5, run #1. Michael was in the close lane. They had to run this heat 3 times because of problems. This first one, Michael’s car was first to finish, but it was so far ahead of the other car, it hit the pillow, bounced back, and stopped the car in the middle lane.
Heat #5, run #2. Michael was in the close lane. They had to run this heat 3 times because of problems. This second one, Michael’s car was first to finish, but the 2nd place car hit the pillow, bounced back, and stopped the car in the middle lane.
Heat #5, run #3. Michael was in the close lane. They had to run this heat 3 times because of problems. This was the third one. Michael was first again, and again a car bounced back and hit the other, but they went with this one.
Heat #6, middle lane, finished 2nd.
Michael won the “award” for Best Iowa Spirit or something, I can’t remember for sure.
Michael ended up finishing 4th, out of 17 kids. These were the official times. What they did was take the total for the six races, and add them up. Michael’s total for six heats was 13.9257 seconds. 1st thru 3rd got trophies. If you can read the picture, the kid in 3rd place had a time of 13.8999 seconds, for a difference of 0.0258 seconds overall, or an average of 0.0043 seconds per heat. Since this is our first experience with Pinewood Derby, I’m not sure how close that is exactly, but to me that seems razor thin!Overall I think we had a pretty good experience. Next year I’m going to have Michael do a little more of the work. Since this was our first time I wasn’t sure what he could and could not handle, but I think he’ll be able to do more in the future. I guess I feel like I did more of the work than I was planning on, but not enough that I feel like I cheated him out of the experience or anything.
Also, I know we’re not going to wait so long to start for next year. In fact, I think we’ll be starting in a few weeks. That will give us almost a whole year to get it done without rushing. Since we were running so close with time this year I feel like we missed out on some things that really would have helped Michael’s car do better, like doing a better job of polishing the axles, or sanding the car even smoother to cut down on friction. Our axles were bent and I didn’t even try to straighten them, and I thought about trying to align the wheels but just didn’t have the time. I know if we would have had time to do that we would have done even better.
Also, I better say thanks to Rusty for letting us use your garage. We really appreciate it. Also, thanks to my dad, for letting us borrow the Dremel. We’re done with this years Derby, but I still need the Dremel to fix a few of our chairs. But don’t worry, I’ll get it back to you!
Finally, a special thank you to Kate, for allowing us to take over the kitchen table for the past few days, and not getting too mad when I spent money on stuff for a wooden car.
How have women been able to deal with this for years and years? My son is in cub scouts and it is time for the annual pinewood derby, which is an event that is supposed to foster loving father/son relationships, but really I believe it is what the boy scouts of America use to help boy scout stores remain open with providing item after ridiculous item touting the promise of helping one build the best pinewood derby car they can build. I love my husband so very much, and I completely respect the fact that he is so willing to do all this work to help our son make a good car… but good heavens! How much pinewood derby car crap does one family need?! I have been assured that this is an investment that can be used for three more years (and if we should have more boys lol). Just mourn for me… I am a pinewood derby mom/wife!
