Phoenix action part 2.

This weekend, I attempted to pull off the greatest surprise ever on my sister. It did not work. For many reasons. One, when I was in town a few weeks ago I accidentally mentioned I’d be back in three weeks time, I might have done this at least twice while I was in town. Two, a bunch of people at Kris’ wedding spilled the beans that I’d be returning for Courtney’s wedding. After someone hears this many screw ups….they are bound to believe that I am bullshitting when I say I can’t make it back and that I’d see them in December. So anyhow, cats outta the bag, didn’t get to pull off the big surprise on Courtney, but at the end of the day I was in town and that’s what matters I guess.

I got in Wednesday afternoon, Courtney picked me up and I requested Taco Bell. Some things you crave if you can’t have them for two months, even if it is so greasy the meat turns orange and you can almost watch your arteries fill as you eat it. I followed that with a steak and chicken dinner at Outback, care of Scott.

Thursday night was filled with Dustin picking me up and heading off to Tempe to meet up with Tim at Fat Tuesdays. Tim gets to charge it to the game on his company’s bill, so we got free shots and drinks. Bonus. Then it was back to Tim and Adam’s house to listen to the new Relax Atomic album that they just finished mastering. Since a keg was ordered for the ‘event’, I proceeded to take part in helping lighten the weight on the keg and drank free beer all night. Total cost…$0.

Courtney and Scott’s wedding was Friday, so I went shopping in the early part of the day and then had one job to do before I left….one job. I had to pick up two necklaces for my nephews at Things Remembered. I failed to remember these things, so when I arrived back at home, 5 minutes before the limo was to depart, I had to hop in my car and fly to the mall to pick em up. Luckily Marnee came with so I was able to have her run in and get them while at the same time being able to scare the crap out of her driving past every speed limit posted. But we made it back, had 4 glasses of Moet in the limo, and arrived at the wedding. Everyone was late…lots of traffic at that time I guess. But the wedding was nice and the evening involved schmoozing and rubbing elbows with friends and family. It was at the Ruster’s Roost on South Mountain, and served our dinners to us in tin trays, and the chicken was delicious. I myself passed out from exhaustion in the limo on the way home at 11pm because I am a total party animal.


Ann Marie, Courtney, Lori, and Gina...friends for as long as I can remember.
Courtney and Scott...why does Scott's face look so red? How can that be? hmmm.....
Me, Lisa, Jason, Madaline, Tiffany, Eric, Monica, and Kris...
This is the man that taught me everything I know.
Saturday went shooting with my brother in the desert. Bought some clay pigeons and a launcher and threw up targets for each other to shoot with his shotgun. I might be around 50% accuracy for this last round, but seeing it was my first time I don’t feel too bad.



Sat night, Eric ordered the UFC fight and about 10 of us showed up to watch the fight. A few of us left shortly after to head to Tempe and ended up again at Fat Tuesdays, then went off to the Big Bang piano bar. Kristi was our driver, so Nikki, her and I left around 1am to hit the Azool bar up off the Carefree highway. I last remember the night being really windy, and calling Alex at three in the morning to say ‘Hi’.

So Sunday I spent some time with my folks at church and then lunch at Einsteins….then it was off to Sky Harbor Airport to pick up Alex. This is one of those ‘well 16 hours together is better than nothing’ kind of trips. We had dinner at Ah-So, a Japanese steak house like Benihana’s….and I stuffed myself silly with chicken, steak, and fried rice.

We are so sexy it causes us to make faces like this...or that could be the sake...

So this weekend I had a little more time to relax and be on my own and just chill. Which was nice since I haven’t been doing a lot of that lately. So now I’m on the home stretch of my 5 month stay in Germany. In almost exactly two months I’ll be back in LAX, homeless, but still stateside. Then all the crazy traveling comes to an end, well, unless I get it started in the US and finally travel to all the places I’ve always wanted to go. We will see….


parker