Like a Rolling Stone

Remember how I love Yo Gabba Gabba because of the magical powers it holds over Bug? He loves that show. The past two days I have found sanity while Monkey is off playing with friends because of Yo Gabba Gabba. Bug asks sweetly for me to turn it on, he grabs a drink and the Magna Doodle and sits down on the couch to enjoy. He talks to the characters. He says hello and goodbye. He points and says "booh!" whenever a fish comes on the screen and "nana!" whenever a banana is shown. He makes silly faces and is totally amazed at all the cool tricks. He dances....this is my favorite part. Sometimes he gets down off the couch so he can learn the steps of the dancey dance - his favorite from the episodes we've been watching is the Peanut Butter Stomp. Other times, he stays on the couch, walking back and forth, shaking his head with one hand on his hip. It looks like a Mick Jagger imitation and it makes me laugh to no end. So. Stinking. Cute.

Can you feel me dancing?

This was on Lili's sister's blog and it made me very happy so I had to share.


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Love it.

Stephen Colbert is amazing times ten.

clarification - UPDATED FOR CRINNERS

This dance is put on every year, only CES used to organize it so it wasn't at a stake center and a lot more people were invited because they had the money to hold such an event. So it's a Ball - only smaller this year than in year's past.

The guy proposed at the dance because that is where they met 2 years ago. Situational romance I suppose.

And now I've added a picture of my dress. I was wearing cute black flats (comfortable for dancing). And, yes, Alyssa's outfit was fantastic. You can't see her heels here but they are white with black polka dots and black bows on the toes - she has a most amazing shoe collection...too bad my feet are three sizes bigger than hers. boo.

Fancy Panera Bread Dance Party USA

So on Saturday night we went to a Naval Academy Ball. For those of you not familiar with the area I am living in (the place I grew up in), I live about 40 minutes south of Annapolis, Maryland. The US Naval Academy is located near downtown Annapolis (near all the old shops and the docks). It's a beautiful campus. So I am pretty accustomed to seeing midshipmen walking around the mall and downtown on the weekends. But once a year, they throw a fancy dress ball. Last year had a bigger turn out - but this year was just as fun!

Alyssa, Christy and I started our afternoon off at 2ish. We planned on casually spending the afternoon doing our hair, makeup, nails, etc. Christy is amazing with hair and she gave me beautiful spirals curls with a flat iron. Magic. I did my nails and Alyssa did my makeup. Maybe they were trying to tell me something (like I suck at doing my make up and hair? haha) but I figured they probably just were having fun and I was the lucky guinea pig. They both did a great job though. After getting ready for four hours (seriously, we left the house at about 6:30), we were starving. Literally, I thought I would die. So we went to Panera Bread in Prince Frederick.

That was fun. Everyone stared and several people asked which high school was holding prom that night. We graciously answered all inquiries then quietly mocked those people...seriously, I KNOW we did NOT look 16. Come on now. Still, it was fun and none of us spilled on our dresses!! Of course, Christy and I did resort to using paper napkin bibs, but you do what you have to do.

So after we gorged ourselves on soup, salads, sandwiches, parfait and three bottles of water (that would be between the three of us, not separately), we headed off to pick up our new friend Silvia. She is from Spain and is very nice and very funny. Then we headed to the dance.

I forgot to mention that as we were leaving P-Bread, we saw some guys dressed....differently. One was wearing an old basketball uniform with a sweatband and poofy hair and the other had no shirt on and was wearing black tight jeans with a chain wallet in his pocket. Alyssa made me roll the window down so she could howl at them. They were probably teenagers so I'm glad we were in motion and could use Bullet to make a somewhat speedy getaway.

It was at a stake center and we were some of the first to arrive. So we hit the dance floor and got the party started. That's just how we do. We also took a lot of silly, somewhat unattractive photos. We got progressively hyper and crazy throughout the night...but we had a blast and people didn't seem to mind that much. We had a spot on the dance floor where we could feel the AC from the vent in the ceiling and we planted ourselves there and danced away. We were lucky it wasn't too crowded because we were able to claim that spot fairly easily every time we wanted it.

There was also a proposal. Yeah. I'm just going to say that it was sweet and leave it at that. Although, photographic evidence of how we really felt about it was captured (see slide show).

Another great part was when a boy came and asked Christy to swing dance. It went like this...

boy: do you want to dance?
C: i don't really know how.
b: i can teach you.
C: i get dizzy.
b: i won't spin you that much.
C: i don't have my shoes on.
b: i won't step on your feet.
C: well....okay.

Note Christy's enthusiasm. Note the boy's relentless pursuit of a dance partner. Please also keep in mind that Alyssa and I were standing there laughing the entire time because Christy used the excuse, "I get dizzy." Then we took pictures of them dancing while we laughed. The boy of course was oblivious to this because we are just that sneaky and awesome.

And now pictures.