Wwwwwwwwipeout!

The Eldon High School drama department's fall play was a musical comedy called Wipeout. It's about a family who is about to lose (foreclosure, how appropriate!) The Shack, a hovel of retail on Avalon Beach, and the local raggamuffins try to win a surfing competition to raise money to save it. Of course, there's a love story in there, too. Both leads performed well, but for me, it's always the secondary, My-job-is-to-make-you-laugh characters that get my attention. EHS has a German foreign exchange student with a lovely voice (I would argue she should have been the lead.) and due to her acting, her character was more zany and charming than annoying like the other girls' characters. My other favorite was the tall boy who sported a dark mohawk and can be seen in the middle in this video:



But top honors for backstage help goes to my sister, the best stage manager ever!


Flat Jason gives it two thumbs up, but reminds everyone to bring earplugs...just in case!

Sunday night = bowling night

Sweet, starry bowling shoes...two plates of seasoned fries to mooch...talk of getting the soundtrack to Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog...ahh, it's bowling night!




This time Flat Jason and I made a new friend. Her name was Shaylene. (I don't know how to spell it, but that's what it sounded like.) She offered to share her 6-lb. bowling ball and all but forced me to use it. We did pretty good, she and I. I got close to 100 the first game and broke it the second game.

Mizzou Collegiate 4-H invites Flat Jason to dinner

Mizzou Collegiate 4-H recently hosted the North Central Region Collegiate 4-H Conference at the University of Missouri. College students from several states came to Columbia to participate in workshops, hear speaker Patty Hendrickson, volunteer at the Central Missouri Food Bank and just have fun...and they invited Flat Jason to attend the Saturday evening banquet and dance.

At dinner we heard from a few speakers, including MU Chancellor Brady Deaton. He recognized Flat Jason and his service and managed to tie-in that the university was completing a new veterans facility. The evening's entertainment was a hypnotist. Mildly amusing, but definitely a creeper. After dinner, Brady and his wife, Anne, posed with Flat Jason and me. And even though the photo would suggest otherwise, I promise I am not a giant, even if I tower over the Deatons.

Later, it was time for the dance, which was interesting. Flat Jason and Kelli Jo got the party started, even though the DJ got off to a rocky start and never really recovered. Then some drunk women from the bar crashed the dance. I totally tattled on them and either Ina or Melissa kicked them out. Ha, ha! I realized that I only know the dance to the music video version of Thriller. And I realized that I have a lot of friends in town that like to dance...sounds like a dance party at KC Country is in order!

One Day at Forum

On Sunday, Flat Jason and I went to One Day at Forum, which technically was at the Columbia Performing Arts Center. It was the first time all three services of Forum had worshipped together in more than 30 years. I was amazed at all the people. It's so different than my home church, Hopewell Union, a country church where a good day sees 30 people in the pews for one service. At Forum, there were so many people, they even handed out pre-packaged communion!

Even though the service was in a different place, with way more people, it still felt like Forum to me. And that was the point. Scott reassured us that as Forum expands to another campus on the north side of town (by me!), it will still be the same, just in another location.

And worship was awesome! Here are the last few minutes of the service:

Rock the Vote! Flat Jason hit the polls on election day.

Flat Jason celebrates Real Jason's Birthday

Sunday, Nov. 2, was Jason's 26th birthday. Flat Jason celebrated by staying busy. After church, we went with AshLee and JR to Shryocks' Corn Maze. None of us had ever been to a corn maze before so we didn't really know what to expect, but it's just like how it sounds: people wandering around a big cornfield.

This year's theme was Race for the White House - oh the elections! Will we never be rid of them? Shryock's made the maze more interesting by adding checkpoints with trivia questions that we had to find and answer. We started the maze by just choosing a path, left or right, but after unsuccessfully locating checkpoints, JR developed a systematic approach to the maze. We thoroughly covered the maze, located all of the checkpoints and turned in our sheet in good time. Masterful job! It's a good thing, too, because someone (I'm not naming names) on the team was getting a little hot and tired of the game.

After the maze, Flat Jason and I went out to eat birthday dinner at Huhot Mongolian Grill. We had a coupon for free birthday dessert, but our lovely waitress Sydney told her manager Jim that we were there and he said that Huhot would pick up the tab. What an incredible gift! Then a Marine came over with some money. "Here," he said. "When he gets home, take him out and buy him a beer." Another lady also came over to say thank you for Jason's service. On the verge of tears, I thanked everyone as best I could. I hope they realized how much their kindness and generosity meant to me. I felt incredibly blessed.

We met the Sunday evening crew for some birthday bowling goodness around 9 o'clock. I beat Brian both times with scores of 101 and 90. He'll say he was injured if you ask him, but the point is I beat him twice. It was the shoes...and Jason's birthday magic.

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Real Jason didn't have as much fun on his birthday. He actually had to go into the office for a little bit, but it was ok because he had decorations to remind him how special he is! Real Jason also wants to tell everyone thank you for the birthday cards and packages.

The day before his birthday

Flat Jason has officially attended his first baby shower. I know it seems kind of like a girls-only thing, but his presence was requested. And he got to hang out with the guys all the way up to the point that they decided to go shoot guns. It was then that I decided it would be best if FJ stayed with the girls, just this once.

He was very disappointed he had to stay. To prove his masculity, FJ guarded Michelle's presents and opted out of any game-playing.

Later, we met AshLee and JR at Cold Stone for some birthday ice cream. The guys that work there are pretty much amazing. They even sang to Flat Jason in honor of his birthday.



We finished eating our ice cream in Peace Park while we watched the squirrels play and the people walk by. It was a gorgeous afternoon.







Later that evening, we headed to KC Country for some line dancing. Our usual crowd was absent, but we were fortunate enough to be invited to join a birthday party. They were celebrating two birthdays, Betty's tonight and Joyce's tomorow. They were very excited to learn that Flat Jason's was tomorrow as well.

Mary Lou and Joyce were both Army wives, so we had a nice chat about the military. Before they left, Mary Lou gave Flat Jason a hug, and Joyce posed with her birthday twin.

Happy Halloween!

Flat Jason and I hosted a small Halloween party at the duplex as Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Suess's Cat in the Hat. We also had a couple of characters from Gossip Girl, Quail Man and a hobo who needed money for student loans.

We made sure to get some good candy for kids who might stop by. I got Reese's for the chocolate fans and Nerds for the anti-chocolate. More than a dozen kids from the neighborhood stopped by to trick-or-treat. I think my favorite was a little guy dressed as a dragon. We opened the door and he came right in. We would have let him stay, too, but I think his mom wanted to get home.

Later, we broke out the games. We started with a traditional one: bobbing for apples. Then, with a wet face from the apple bucket, everyone got a chance to retrieve a marshmallow from a bowl of flour. The idea is that you have to root around in the flour for the marshmallow and the flour sticks to your face. In hindsight, powdered sugar would probably have been a better choice. It would have been just as messy AND it would have tasted better. Good to know for next time!

We ended the evening looking at funny videos on the internet. I never knew there were so many out there, everything from silly cats to Japanese portapotty pranks. Where have I been all this time? I had everyone beat, though. They'd never heard of Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog. (Watch it!)

Halfway Done!

Wa-Hoo!!! We are officially halfway done with this deployment! From 57 weeks down to 28 weeks. I'm so excited! Sometimes the end seems so far away, but I can see that we're making progress. Thanks to everyone who's been a part of this, from friends and family inviting us to do things and lending a listening ear to restaurant staff who indulge our insanity to complete strangers who read the blog and thank us for Jason's service. We couldn't have made it this far without all the love, support, and prayers.

Man, I feel pretty pumped up. All right! Let's do this second half!

Zidane and the Whistance boys

Instead of biking like normal on Tuesday, Jeremy, Jarrett and I opted to see a movie about Zinedine Zidane, a French footballer, that was playing at the Ragtag.

Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait - It's a movie of the football match between Real Madrid and Villareal in real time. Seventeen cameras were focused on Zidane. It was incredibly interesting to be focused on him instead of where the ball was going; it was a totally different perspective of the game. I imagined him to be running, moving all the time, but instead he actually seemed to stand still and observe the game quite a bit. I really liked watching him explode into action on the big plays. From so many angles, it was a complete picture of him recognizing an opportunity, seizing it and being congratulated by his teammates afterward.

But, I was disappointed. I thought there were too many shots of just his feet standing around, and I hated the abrupt transitions to the grainy television "replays." I also wish we had heard Zidane talking more about what he had seen, felt and remembered about the game instead of the few subtitles that flickered across the screen. And, I would rather have heard the noise of the match and the crowd instead of the boring score that played behind the movie a good chunk of the time. I'm not going to lie, it put Flat Jason to sleep almost instantly.

All things considered, I enjoyed the movie...and my time with the Whistance boys. After the movie, we looked at some paintings in the restaurant that a local artist had painted from photos that her brother took while serving in Iraq.

Homecoming Weekend

M-I-Z-Z-O-U! Homecoming at the University of Missouri, the birthplace of homecoming, really is the best. Festivities had been going on all week.




Todd came down for some fun on Friday. We took Flat Jason to Greek Town to check out house decorations. Each year the fraternities and sororities team up and decorate their house yards. They mostly put on small plays relating to a theme that somehow incorporates winning the upcoming football game. This year's theme was Strength in Stripes, and it looked like the Stripes had taken over the silver screen. We watched versions of the Incredibles, Madagascar and Shrek. The Shrek one was my favorite. I think they did the best job pomping their background and characters.

Then we went to the rally at Deja Vu. I don't know how I missed those as a student because it was awesome! There was such a great sense of camaraderie and Tiger Spirit, especially when they broke out the fight song!

Even though we got in pretty late, we still got up the next morning in time for the parade. (Note the coffee in the photo.) We watched from outside Whitten Hall, near Memorial Union. The Grand Marshal was Juliet Huddy, an MU alum who co-hosts The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet on ABC. I was very impressed with the parade. All of the fraternities and sororities had nice floats. There were tons of bands, including Laura (married-but-single) Mudge's band from Hartville. And since it is an election year, the politicians were out in full force.

After the parade, and a nap, we headed over to the Phi Psi House for some tailgating. We spent most of our time meeting Todd's friends, but we found a fellow Wal-Mart veteran from our era. Ahh...good times. Anyway, we ran into someone who had decided they could make the game and graciously gave us their tickets for free! It was a little weird sitting on the alumni side, but the game was amazing! We beat the Colorado Buffaloes 58-0! And we met one of the nicest Tiger fans ever; he let me borrow a sweatshirt. M-I-Z-Z-O-U!