Several weeks ago, Aaron and I stopped in for dinner at Pancho’s, a little mexican place by his office. It was a Monday. It just so happens that Monday nights at Pancho’s are trivia nights.

Now, we love us some trivia. We have played Trivial Pursuit countless times and it always ends the same way. Aaron gets all his pieces quickly, but can’t land in the middle. In the meantime, I get all my pieces and roll my way to victory. I can’t help it. I am an excellent roller.

We named ourselves The Rico Suaves (which was sadly mispronounced every time by the host), played the trivia game and did reasonably well. There were too many Disney Channel questions for us to have a chance at the prize, but we had a good time. We decided to invite the youth out to play.

A couple of weeks later, we went back with a few kids. Our team, The Lollipop Guild, was on a roll. We knew everything… anatomy, mythology, history. Then we got to the Final Question. On the Final Question, you can bid up to 20 points on your answer. The question was “On the Abbey Road cover, which Beatle is in the front?” The kids looked to us - victory was in our hands. We went back and forth. We knew that Paul was third and Ringo was last, but who was first? John? Was that too obvious? Was it George? WE DIDN’T KNOW.

We went with George. As you may already know, we were wrong. So, so wrong. We had been defeated. The kids, though they were busy meanmugging us, had a blast.

After a couple of weeks of “Trivia! When are we going back to trivia? Can we go tonight? Let’s go right now!”, we went back, this time with a team of fifteen. We were rocking it, answering question after question correctly. We had only missed one tiny little two-pointer. Unfortunately, that little two-pointer was our downfall. After successfully navigating the half-time round, the rapid fire round, and the Final Question, we lost by two points. Second place? Not good enough. We are an all-or-nothing kind of group.

We had heard they also played trivia on Wednesday nights, so last night we had our biweekly youth dinner at Pancho’s. With twenty-five peopel this time, we split into two teams for a head-to-head challenge. The teams were The Lollipop Guild and Bear. Not The Bears, not Team Bear, just Bear. It was a tight race throughout most of the game. Sadly, The Lollipop Guild was taken out by the rapid fire round, missing both a geography and a philosophy question. But Bear was on fire. Would it be enough?

It was time for the winners to be announced. Third place? The Lollipop Guild. Second? Bear. Some other team swooped in and took first place and the coveted $25 Pancho’s Gift Card.

But we will be back. Oh yes. We will not rest until a GPYG team wins first place.

Yesterday I was flipping channels when I came across a Top 20 Countdown on CMT. Now, I am not usually a CMT watcher, but this one caught my attention.

Why? Because it was hosted by one Miss Reba McEntire, and it was a countdown of her videos.

That blasted show made me cry. THREE TIMES IN A ROW.

Damn you Reba and your stupidly sappy videos! Even though I know that the dad dies at the end, or the mom comes to the hospital, or Fancy opens a home for runaways where her old rundown rickety shack used to stand, I still get all teary-eyed.

I am such a loser.

You know, you think you know someone. You date them for a few years, you marry them and move to a whole new place with them. You buy houses together, you get a dog, you thumb wrestle to decide if you’re going to watch So You Think You Can Dance or Inside Training Camp:Dallas Cowboys. You feel like you know them pretty well.

And then you find out that they met BOOTSY COLLINS. Bootsy Collins! With the hat and the boots and the glasses and the voice! And he was in the outfit, and they shook hands and talked and hung out! And all this happened just a few years ago, while you were MARRIED, and they never told you.

It’s like being married to a stranger. A stranger who knows Bootsy Collins.

Dear IKEA,

We drove four hours to see you. We brought a trailer and some cash. All we wanted was the furniture we picked out from your catalog. It had the only bedding we could agree on from any store anywhere. The boxy chairs that perfectly matched our new sofa. The bar height table with the cool stainless top for the kitchen.

The catalog had them. The store? Did not. We are not amused.

Eating dinner on the floor,
Brandi

Dear IKEA furniture,

We understand that part of your affordability comes from the fact that we have to assemble you ourselves. We bopped right through the table, the desk, a couple of chairs. But when we went for the bookshelf, all hell broke loose. Literally. We almost lost Aaron’s finger and Scott’s foot. It was like watching a building implode.

Rubbing scratches out of the kitchen floor,
Brandi

Dear Expedit bookcase,

We hate you. HATE HATE HATE. Hate.

With no love at all,
Aaron, Brandi and Scott

My brain just does not want to blog these days. The big white box is too intimidating.

We are heading to Atlanta tonight to IKEA up our new house. I am so excited. I got a 4-star hotel on Priceline for crazy cheap, we’re going to Cafe Intermezzo for late night wine and snacks and we’re buying fun new furniture! Can’t beat it.

I took my first Sunday off since I started the church job and drove to North Carolina to hang out with Kari, Alisa, Sarah, Andrea and assorted others last weekend. It was so amazingly nice to get to spend time doing nothing but eating (and eating and eating), spending quality time with good girlfriends and playing with Big Bunny and Tender Nibbles. Oh, and watching the somewhat dirtier extended version of That Thing You Do. More to come on that later. I’m too traumatized to talk about it now.

Aaron spent the weekend digging up tons and tons and tons of mulch from the new house, planting bushes and creating flowerbeds. I would show you pictures but I have lost my camera battery charger. Sorry.

Saturday we are taking 36 junior high and high school kids to Six Flags in Kentucky. Hopefully we will come back with all the body parts we had when we left.

A couple of weeks ago we went tubing with some friends who just got a boat. I had not tubed in a very long time. I held on pretty good for a while, so our friend started trying to throw me. And he succeeded, flipping me feet-over-head and causing me to bite my lip so hard it’s still swollen. It was awesome and we are so going back next weekend!

Tomorrow is my birthday! Yay! You should buy me a present.