Day 12: I Don't Think We're In Kansas Anymore, Toto

Oh the humanity. Save me. Someone. ANYONE.

Please...

As I write this entry I'm sitting in a minivan hurtling at a blinding pace towards western washington, trapped in this confined space with what I like to refer to as "a screaming, bawling, sniveling guttersnipe of the bottommost caliber" (much to the chagrin of my mother). Yes that's right. Once again, Kimberly is throwing a temper tantrum over something so mind-bogglingly trivial that my very intelligence gapes at the naivety of it all. Dear heavens woman, ACCEPT THAT YOU CANNOT HAVE AN ICE CREAM SANDWICH WITHOUT FIRST EATING LUNCH. IT'S LIKE WANTING MILK WITHOUT MILKING THE COW. IT ONLY WORKS WHEN YOU HAVE MONEY.

...surprisingly apt metaphor.

But in all seriousness, there were times when I couldn't discern any recognizable tongue from amongst her weepings and wailings. The few words I *did* snatch out were along the lines of "mommy", "ice cream", "NO", "I TOLD YOU" and "intercontinental ballistic missile". I think I may have even heard a "thermonuclear warfare" or two. I kid you not.

*sigh*

Today we woke up a good sight earlier than normal, with the intention of getting out the door around 8:00 am. I am happy to announce we were only 22 minutes late. Yessssssssss...

I believe that to be somewhat of a record. We are notorious for our late departure times. There's even hope of getting home before dinner. (Good joke, I know.)

We said our goodbyes and hit the road. My plan was to spend pretty much the entire journey sleeping and listening to music. Interestingly enough, for the first part of the journey I did both, waking up at precise one-hour intervals. Weirdest thing ever. I wish our van was more sleep friendly. I shall be in need of chiropractic assistance upon our arrival home. Not that I haven't needed it since before this trip.

May I take this moment to say, thank heavens for spell-check. I'm so tired right now, I've made spelling errors which would cause even a kindergarten math teacher to grimace.

**Hyperbole Disclaimer: If ever at any point you, or any other reader, take any of my outlandish claims and/or gross exaggerations to heart, and take action on them, I am not responsible for any broken bones, crushed dreams, or lifetime commitments that may stem from aforementioned action. This blog is work of relative fiction, and any similarities to actual people, living or dead, are entirely coincidental. Except for when they're not.**

Arrived home safely. It's good to be back.

Until next time.

-Ben

Day 11: On Wasted Metaphors And Personal Lackadaise (That's a word, I swear it.)

(Two posts today, don't miss day 10!)

(Unless you want to. I wouldn't really blame you.)

BEHOLD!

I slept in 'til 10. It was glorious. I still look like a wreck but at least I don't FEEL like the north end of a south-bound camel. Kudos to dad for that one.

(If you didn't get it, don't think too hard about it.)

Today was another one of them "do nothing" days. I like them. Very fun. 

To be honest, we did do *something* we went swimming.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GOOD JOKE, RIGHT??!?

No, we really did go swimming. More accurately, every one else went swimming and I enjoyed the shade and free wi-fi. America. Why do physically active things when I can just PRETEND I did physically active things! I mean really. If I say I climbed a mountain, everyone believes me, whether or not I actually did. 

Don't know where I was going with that. Probably some fantastic metaphor for society's slow, cruel, destruction of the human experience. Oh well. Short term memory loss. It's a

And then after swimming we went back home, where I sat. And sat. And sat. And basically did diddly-squat (haha that's a funny word) for three hours.

Woo.

If all goes well, tonight will be our last night here, and we'll be on our way home tomorrow (CAN IT BE???), but chances are, with Jonathan still being sick and all, we might end up staying longer. Just my luck.

Love my family though I do, I love my bed more.

Sad but true.

I'm coming for you, bed!

Live long and prosper.

-Ben

Day 10: Where We're Going, We Don't Need Roads! (Okay Maybe We Do)

Looks like I'm officially committed to this whole "post every two days" thing. Not by choice, but it keeps happening. 

Today was a travel day. We're headed away from Utah and back to Boise, this time to enjoy a house that *isn't* full of screaming children. 

Okay, not all of them are screaming, but I'm pretty sure there are more screaming than are allowed by any state laws.

Same house in Boise, just that all the kids are gone. As a bonus, we don't have to stay in the porta-potty-smoker-bomb house. (See Days 1 and 2).

Before we got to Boise we visited my cousin Katie at her house in Eagle Mountain, Utah. She has twins. THEY'RE ADORABLE.

Sorry. I think small children are adorable when they're not crying or screaming or shrieking or getting hurt or throwing up or anything else. I feel sorry for my kids. I'll probably adopt.

ANYWAY. Moving on. We visited for a while, which was nice because we haven't seen them in ages.

Driving. Oh how I've missed being packed into a minivan like a sarcastic sardine with an attitude. We drove a lot. Again. I really should be used to it by now. THIS TIME, however, JONATHAN decided it would be a really smashing idea to get sick. Yeah. Ewww... Not fun. I had to swap seats with him, which put me in the back. OH THE HUMILIATION. I couldn't bear it. It was TERRIBLE. Terrible enough that I need capital letters to express just how awful it was.

UGH.

No it really wasn't that bad, and it sure beat being within firing range of Jonathan. If you catch my drift. Ew.

Once at my aunt's, we rented X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and despite the horrid interpretation of Deadpool, I enjoyed it immensely. 

Slept on the couch. Which is better than my bed at the previous house. Couch beats floor any day.

Tata for now.

I've always hated that saying.

-Ben

Day 9: Physics. Just... Physics. Also A Bit Of Swimming

(Just a heads up: Two entries today.)

Woke up early. 'Specially for having gone to bed at midnight. Oh 7:30, thou art a cruel and ungodly hour. No idea what the sun was doing up that early. A star with any sense of decency would stay in bed until at LEAST 10:00.

Silly sun.

Couldn't get back to sleep so I read comics.

Perfect

After an invigorating breakfast of pancakes (whole wheat, I believe) I slumped into the shower, got dressed, and then just kind of sat around. I would have stayed there all day, if I hadn't been dragged off to the pool.

I really don't like pools. Like, the whole swimming thing is fun, and waterslides are cool and all, but I just for some reason don't enjoy them. It *could* have something to do with my pasty white skin and skeletal appearance (although I'm working on both of those!) that seem to repel anyone that looks even remotely decent to talk to, or it could do with my general lack of buoyancy. It could also be how lazy I am.

Long story short I didn't have a stellar time. It was eh. Water temperature was fine. Pavement was too hot. Unlike my appearance.

Sorry bad joke.

Afterwards we kind of went home. Ate dinner.

 Not sure how one "kind of goes home" but we did. Dinner was chicken with a peanut sauce, very good. Took another shower afterwards, seeing as I didn't rinse off at the pool. Why this stuff interests you guys escapes me.

Right now some family whom I've never before seen is visiting. 

I thought I knew all of my family. 

I thought wrong.

(Help me they're everywhere.)

Like, they're even in the cupboards.

(I kid you not. My aunt and uncle have a hidden playroom, and the entrance is a cupboard.)

It's scary.

(The family thing. The cupboard's just darn nifty.)

I think they're trying to pull me downstairs to go play games and socialize and do ridiculous things like have face-to-face communication. If you need me, I'll be hiding in the cupboard.

No Indian in the cupboard jokes here.

Until later, ladies and gentlespoons.

        I totally forgot! We toured BYU's campus. Pretty swell if I do say so myself. Definitely one of my top three colleges.

-Ben

Day 8: People. And More People.

Man, I'm behind. Seriously. This whole "doing stuff" kind of deal. I'm not used to it. Not. One. Bit. The bags under my eyes are more and more pronounced every day as a result of my sleep. Or lack thereof.

Today we. Uh. We...

We...

Oh c'mon brain. We did something. We *had* to.

Oh.

Okay.

That's right. Family reunion. Small one. On my mom's side.

We also hung out with some old Sequim friends who moved to Utah. One of them being the fabulous Adam. Tall skinny ginger kid. Absolute genius. Great with computers, women, and just about anything you can name. Miss him dearly. Him and I hung out for a while.

A long-ish while, come to think of it. Afterwards we went to my mom's cousin's house, and got to meet some of her kids and grandkids and other relations. It was fun. I have some cool second cousins.

For those of you unfamiliar with blogs and such, I try and avoid using any last names. This is mainly to protect the innocent, but also because I'm hopeless with names. Also, there are people who read my blog that *I* don't even know, so it's safer that way.

(I'm talking about you, unidentified viewers from South Korea.)

It doesn't bug me if you guys read my blog though. More views. Yay.

(Ugh. I'm an odd fellow.)

That's basically all we did. 

Basically. I use that word in excess.

I really need to write these the day of.

        Quote of the day: "HEY! Plato's closet. I hear they have great looking jeans. At least according to aunt Vicki. And Joey's legs."

I'll be back.

-Ben

Day 7: Driving

We're leaving today. Heading for Provo, Utah. Gonna be a long day of driving. Breakfast was French Toast. Delicious.

Got packed rather quickly, mainly because I didn't bring as much stuff as is physically possible, (unlike a certain sister I could name).

The trip, at least for me, was mostly spent playing Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Fun game. Started playing it last year, and lost all my progress so I've been putting off playing it until now. Wish I hadn't.

We only stopped once the entire way here. I'm surprised myself. Before we got to my aunt and uncle's house, where we'll be staying, we visited/ate dinner with my dad's cousin Ron and his wife Helen. Pizza and hot dogs. Dinner of champions. The food was actually most excellent indeed, as was their house. A top notch establishment if I do say so myself. Would have loved to stay longer, but we had to get going. 

We got here (the house we're staying at) just in time for ice cream, having already had root beer floats at the previous house. This ice cream was made by the same people who made the phenomenal ice cream we had back in Idaho. Super delicious.

We really didn't do much exciting, so I'll just end it for today (yesterday) and work on tomorrow's (today's) entry.

-Ben

Day 6: Sunday Mullets

It's a sunday. Usually that means sleep, right?

Not if you've got church at 9:00 in the morning. 

...

Which I did, in case you didn't guess. Makes staying up 'til midnight risky, but I did it anyway. More games and such. Riotous times were had by all. Some of the family left yesterday. Sadly. We'll be leaving for Utah tomorrow. I think possibly the worst part of that is that I won't get a decent night's sleep. 

Ugh.

I really should get more sleep. I'm supposed to somewhere around nine hours of sleep a night. Do I? Not even. It's around four and a half.

That means an average of six hours of sleep, including summers.

Starting since roughly the beginning of freshman year I've missed around 2082 hours of sleep. That's 86 days and 18 hours. Not okay. But then again, I've added that much more to my life. And done nothing with it.

Okay so I counted no less than THREE mullets in church. That's really strange. And that's not a mormon thing. I've NEVER seen anyone with a mullet before, especially not in church. Guess Boise people are weird.

It really creeped me out actually. They weren't nice mullets, on men from that time period. They were gross, poorly made mullets. On kids my age. Yikes. I wish I'd had scissors so I could just trim them off. Walk up and just SNIP! Now you're normal! Now you can talk to women! Now you can be party on both ends, not just party in the back!

I don't know any more.

Spent more time sitting around. No video games. Just the internet.

The internet is the reason for my lack of ever doing anything.

Dinner's lasagna with homemade ice cream. Yum!

I don't know if I've said this but I really, really, really, really, really like lasagna. Like really. It's so good.

Anyway. The ice cream was delicious as well. 

That's all for today. Sorry for posting a day late.

[snazzy closing phrase]

-Ben