Andy and Darcy’s Blog

Here it is: A few lines about what we’ve been doing. With pictures!!!

Andy, Adam, Amber and I played mini golf. In spite of a hole in one, I still lost horribly. Although I have to admit I really gave up toward the end.

Andy and I biked to Oxbow Park and it was a long ride. It was rather warm out too, by MN standards. When we got there, we went to the zoo. It was awesome, and I can’t believe I’ve never been there before! We got a lot of pictures of the animals…there was a bear, some bison, and some really fat prairie dogs. The picture of the porcupine is precious, but not precious enough to display here.

Andy finished his DVD cabinet. Doesn’t it look great!!

We got our copies of HP7 at Barnes and Nobles at midnight. And we finished reading the next day. Here’s us getting caffeine to keeps us up until midnight!

And for the more mundane details of our existence that were captured in digital glory, see my photos.

WARNING: This link contains spoilers for the end of Harry Potter. You have been warned…

So for those of you who have finished the book, here is one very cool link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959323/

We will discuss more at tonight’s Harry Potter book club meeting.

The first movie we’ve got since we resumed netflix is Eragon, and we have just finished watching it. I haven’t read the book yet so I’m not doing a reader’s critique today.

Overall, I think that the movie went pretty quickly, and it had a lot of nice landscapes. I had to ask a lot of questions, and I think Andy had to rely on his book knowledge to answer my questions. Is this how people feel who watch the Harry Potter movies without seeing the book?

I am really quite pleased that I didn’t read the book, though. I’m not sure I would have dealt with the obvious omission of parts that well. The dragon rider thing was quite a neat idea that I haven’t come across in the fantasy world. Maybe I just don’t get out much (or I get out too much?).

Summary: It was a pretty movie that had a plot with some potential, and I’ll probably read the book, whenever I’m guaranteed that there is an ending to the saga.

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Dragons, swords, and Avril Lavigne. One of these things is not like the others.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1879263.html

It’s really easy to remember what I’ve been up to now that I’m taking pictures every day. Here’s a summary of the best stuff since my last post.

We’ve been picking black caps.

I have discovered that Coldstone has some good flavors again!! I’ve tried Green Apple Gummy Bear, coconut (#1), and french toast!! (The green apple gummy bear is the neon green ice cream you see in the picture).

We have replaced yet another fixture (2 of the 3 that were originally installed in the house) that caught on fire a little bit. This time the switch had to be replaced too.

We went to Avocado’s, the new restaurant in Rochester, but they ran out of food. They have a lot of special sea food so I can see how if they run out then they are not going to be getting any more. We went to Macaroni Grill instead and it was fabulous because I love the create your own pasta menu. Here’s a picture I took of Avocado’s that I took before they gave us the bad news.

Our volleyball team placed 5th in IBM League volleyball. Yay to us! Below in the picture: Back row: Jared, Adam, Andy, Adam. Front row: Darcy, Amber. Missing completely: Angela, Ernie.

So whenever I contemplated The Great Book Of Amber I was always searching for a word to describe it. And finally, this evening, I thought of a word. That word is “plotty”. Actually, I thought I had made it up, but I looked it up. It’s in the dictionary, and it means exactly what I thought it should.

dictionary.com’s definition of this adjective: characterized by the intricacies or complications of a plot or intrigue

I am only on the 7th book (out of 10 of The Great Book of Amber) for those following along. And I find it very plotty. Up until the 6th book Corwin would have to talk to each of his brothers and sisters whenever he showed up in Amber and piece together clues from rather long winded conversations. Now Merlin does the same thing. I think this new term can also be used to describe The Wheel of Time saga, which had lots of stuff happen in 600+ pages, but not a lot of progress made (at least in the later books).

I’m really looking forward to using this new word. It’s been missing from my vocabulary for a long time.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you… Yesterday our nation celebrated it’s 231st birthday. It all started with a Declaration and now these 231 years later for a lot of us it means grilling out, fireworks and a sense of patriotism for our great nation. We may have our rough spots on the road along the way, but America is still the best nation in the world. It has offered and still offers opportunities for millions seeking freedom of speech, freedom of religion and pursuit of their dreams.

In celebrating that spirit, we went to go view the fireworks at Silver Lake Park. I got some pretty darned good pictures, maybe my technique for fireworks is finally getting good. Well I’ll let you be the judge.

God Bless America.