domo arrigato mr. roboto

so brittany says she tried to get him to get ready for the central 'robot' dance for weeks...clearly she has very little pull. because they blew in here about 5 o'clock to get into their robot costumes for the 7 o'clock dance. oh wait, jake didn't have a costume. instead, he had a plan. a tin man plan. apparently it doesn't matter to him that the tin man isn't a robot.
here's how the quicky costume session went:
1. run to home depot for supplies; dryer duct for arms & legs, silver spray paint
2. ask mom a million times where the rest of the brown craft paper is
3. find the brown craft paper
4. spraypaint the brown craft paper on the driveway
5. bleed spraypaint all over the driveway
6. get yelled at for bleeding spraypaint all over driveway
7. move spraypainting operations to backyard
8. spraypaint brittany's hair
9. spraypaint jake's hair
10. run out of hair paint
11. try to spraypaint shoes
12. get yelled at for trying to spraypaint shoes
13. get duct-taped into costume
14. realize can't go to the bathroom in costume
15. realize can't get bend to get into car in costume
16. get put into car in costume, laying down in backseat
17. go to dance

happy birthday to you

happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear jakey.... happy birthday to you. 18. wow.......how can i possibly have an 18 year old son. jake spent the whole day at rehearsal, so i baked some cupcakes to take to the cast/crew. he came home and crashed for an hour or so, we went to Skip's for dinner (shocking!) and then he headed out to a party. i guess we were lucky to get any time at all with him:) must be nature's way of prepping me for when he leaves. yeah, right.

tour d'Iowa

so we took jake's 'official' tour of Iowa. have to say it's a pretty impressive campus, physically and educationally, when you see it through the eyes of a guide:) had a nice walk on a nice day, saw a dorm room in Currier (giant shocker that they don't take you through Burge).....went to lunch at Burge....LOTS of choices at all the different stations but the food doesn't taste much different than dorm food did back in my day......met with the honors program which sounds promising....then met with a professor from the department which was the only strange point of the day. he kept his office very dark, and wasn't very enthusiastic (as everyone else that day had been). i think maybe he was trying to give jake a realistic picture of the program, given the other schools jake applied to. anyway, we left on a little bit of a downer but jake quickly turned it around and i feel like he's happy with his decision. there's so much opportunity for him - he'll just have to seek it out a little more actively than he would have at other places. everything happens for a reason and i'll admit that a small part of me is happy he's not halfway across the country. i hope he has a blast at school, explores all kinds of new things, and buckles down to get the background he'll need to make his choices for grad school limitless.
couple of really random things....during the tour this GIGANTIC dog wandered 'through' the tour. twice. i mean seriously this thing was the size of a pony. then, as jake and i were killing some time before an appointment, we were walking past the airliner and heard knocking on the window.....looked up and who's sitting in the front but kevin grimm. at the 'liner....2 o'clock....on a tuesday afternoon. random. just goes to show....you never know what's going to happen at Iowa:)