Salute to all white rabbits, and my apologies for not recognizing them yesterday.

Now Playing: Chris Thile, "Stealing Second", and Laura and Peter in the kitchen.

Uncle Kirk and Peter have been visiting this week. Anna and I were hunting up breakfast in the kitchen Wednesday morning and had our comparatively serene conversation interrupted by a phone call from Peter, informing us that he and Uncle Kirk had left a blissful twenty-four hours early. My mother was unruffled at first, but when she realized that she and Laura had to go to Enid to rehearse for Beth's wedding, leaving Philip, Anna, Stephen, and me behind to clean the entire house, her composure was a little bit... disturbed. I think the four of us completed our chores in under an hour, probably the fastest they've ever been done.

On Thursday, I had scheduled a get-together with Missy that included tea at my house. Anna and Sarah, both being family-less, ended up at our house for tea, and so did Logan, since he invariably gets dragged into most family get-togethers. The dining room was full of girls, all talking at once around the table, to the amusement (and the overwhelming) of other members of the household. After tea, those of us who endured went upstairs and had a rousing game of ultimate Uno, Renwick-style--except that we didn't have any chairs to jump on, so we all sat on the floor and jumped whenever the red eight was played instead. The result of the game was that Philip and Anna had a gleeful monopoly on the cards, to the disgust of Peter, Stephen, Laura, Sarah, and me.

Yesterday afternoon, I took Peter, Stephen, and Laura swimming, to burn off some of their younger-sibling-and-cousin energy. We played a very wet and splashy variation of ultimate nerf until we were crowded out by daycare kids, at which point we had spent two hours in the pool and decided to go home.

Showers and pizza, and then we were all bundled off to the church talent show at the community centre. The this is the SRPC's third talent show, and quite an event: we had skits galore. From the Wagner family, a skit about preparing for a wedding, with Beth pretending to be a Romantic bride worthy of Northanger Abbey. From the Parnells and Carrolls, a channel-changing skit, the different channels splicing together to create quite a humorous pastiche. From Mounts and West, Abbot-and-Costello, and from Mounts and Noell, Monty Python. From the Yosts, a funny mime to a Country song. 222 (Uncle Kirk's aesthetic contribution to this post are the 2s, in case you were wondering.)Afterward, Uncle Kirk sat on our sofa and teased Sandy until Peter caught her to pet her. She didn't appreciate either.

Today we went to IHOP fo2r breakfast (missed you, Emmaline). My mother, Stephen, and I went shopping at Wal-Mart (I almost bought a teal shirt, Catherine). 22 2 Before lunch I got on Facebook and had a good, but too short, chat with Rachel. So far we've spent all afternoon playing card 2gam2es at the dining room table: Uncle Kirk, Philip, Peter, Laura, Stephen, and me. We had Uno and several rounds of President, in which many awful jokes about beheadings, dictatorships, and uprisings were made.

Uncle Kirk even told a joke: "Descartes, Picasso, and some of those other guys go into a bar. Picasso says to Descartes, 'Would you like a drink?' and Descartes says, 'I think not,' and disappears."

*ahem*

Laura is watching me type, and Uncle Kirk is adding his wee touches here and there, while Philip sits across the table from me playing Mousehunt.

It's so hot outside.

The kitchen smells like chocolate.