my sister got hitched!

once upon a time, there was this beautiful girl

and a boy with an awesome mustache.

they fell in love,

and decided to get married.

so they rounded up their friends and family,

got all dolled up,

and had a party.

there were a few tears,

lots of smiles,

and smooching, of course!

some grandmas were there

and some pretty adorable babies.

everyone ate yummy food

and danced the night away.

now they're busy living happily ever after.

the end.

back in magnolia...

snowboarding is lots of fun. i'm just not very good at it. i sprained one ankle and fractured the other a couple of weeks ago. so now i am jobless, homeless, and somewhat legless. the good news is, my family has an overabundance of wheelchairs. and a twisted sense of humor.

my baby brother turned 18!

On Saturday, the last of the Daniel kids reached legal adulthood. Growing up in a big family, it seems like there's always been a baby in the house. So, it's kind of traumatic to think that all 5 of us are all growed up and responsible now. Jesse and I decided to give him a birthday he'd remember.

First, we invited a posse of our friends to assault the house and kidnap Jonathan. He already knew what we were planning to do that day, so the kidnap part was really a ploy to keep Mom from asking too many questions. Plus, it's always fun to throw a black bag over your brother's head, tie his hands up with duct tape, and throw him in the back of a car. Due to the craziness of the assault, and massive amounts of running and screaming involved, there aren't really any good pictures. You'll just have to see the video. Once we captured Jonathan, we all went to Denny's for brunch. I was in a separate car and got there a little late, so I missed out on them leading him in with the black bag still over his head and hands still taped up, but I heard it generated stares from everyone in the restaurant. After loading up on bacon, eggs, and pancakes, we all drove out to Waller to GO SKYDIVING!!! We've always wanted to jump out of an airplane, and have been planning to do it for years. But we had to wait til we were all over 18.

Jonathan was pretty excited.

So were Jesse and Janna.

Sarah Beth was nervous for Jonathan.

Anticipation!

I jumped first. Going against every survival instinct in your body feels weird. My instructor had to give me a little push.

Jesse was next.

We got the best pictures of Jonathan.

Doesn't he look happy?

His face pretty much turned into fabric. It looked like this for the majority of the video.

Coming in for a landing. I think that's me.

"I'm alive!"

Our friends are alive too!

The Daniel "triplets." We just fell out of the sky!

so this is what mom feels like...

so, my 20-yr old little brother is living with me this summer while he does film internships here in austin. i love having him here, but i just had a taste of what my mother has gone through for the past 33 years. he's working on a film shoot down in smithville, which is over an hour away, so he gets home pretty late at night. i knew he would be home extra late last night, so i didn't wait up for him. but then i woke up at 3:45 and couldn't remember hearing him come in. i couldn't get back to sleep until i knew if he was here or not, so i went to investigate. my first clue was that the toilet seat was still down. then, that his car wasn't out front where it usually is. so i checked his room. not there. enter panic: "aaahhh! my little brother is out there smeared on the highway somewhere and i've just been sleeping away without a care in the world!" (well, i wasn't really panicked, just a little worried). so i called him, found out he was ok, and went back to bed. and couldn't get back to sleep. which is why i'm blogging at 4:15 AM. *sigh* i love you Jesse.

Agent 1

i was reading some of my old facebook notes the other day, and found this "script" that Bailey wrote as a sequel to Agent 1, the first Compound Productions movie she starred in. she wrote this when she was 9. it made me chuckle, so i thought i'd share it with the world once more.

"In the flames at the begining it will say: (you thought she was dead) but she wasn't.
Bailey - There it is
boss - Now remember focus on trying to find what there hideing
Bailey - (got it) over and out
Jesse will be playing the piano with a jiant smile then Bailey will kill him (almost) then very desperitly he will say into the walkie talkie bring in the clones then he will die
Then Bailey will become surounded with clones and start killing them all sorts of ways. Only then the last one will tie her up only he will forget to tie a note so when he walks away I will ecape. Then I will hide under the computer desk and Ruths brother Jonathan will walk by only I will shoot him and then Ruth will come crying on him saying the person who did this will regrate what theve done. And then she will run away crying only I will captur her and tie her up and let her sufactate because the rope will be around her neck and then I will find the stolen mony and laugh and then the screen will go black."

needless to say, Jesse and Jonathan did not produce her film. but they did come up with this.

yeah, she likes to think she's hard core.

the best of both worlds?

Well, I had an unexpected experience last night. My 11-yr old niece is in town visiting her dad for the weekend. I really wanted to see her, but had to work all weekend, so I didn't think I'd get to. But then they sent me home at 3 instead of 7 yesterday, so I had the afternoon free. After work I went for a run, then texted my brother to see if I could come by his house and say hi, so I'd at least get to see Bailey for a little while before she went back to Houston. He texted back, "You wanna take her to see Hannah Montana at the movies? I don't want to do it."

Two hours later I was sitting in a movie theater surrounded by giddy little girls, kindly mothers, and 2 or 3 fathers, whom I pitied but greatly admired. I knew nothing about Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, except that she's a very sparkly, lip-glossed singer of cute hip-hop songs that pre-teen girls seem to adore. Needless to say, I had very low expectations of this movie. But hey, I got to spend 2 hrs with my niece, so it was worth it. Actually, it wasn't nearly as painful an experience as I expected. I was impressed that the movie stuck to the G rating and had some decent "family is important" values thrown in there.

I was a little confused about the ending. See, the tagline of the movie is "She has the best of both worlds...now, she has to choose just one." The whole plot was about this girl choosing whether to be a world-famous singer, or a small-town girl with a loving family and normal relationships. At the end, she decides to return to her roots and just be a Tennessee girl. It's a very feel-good moment, and everybody's happy when Miley realizes that home and family are more important than the glamour of L.A. But THEN, her adoring fans beg her to change her mind, put her blond wig back on, and go on being their hip-hop superstar idol. And she DOES! So the moral of the story is...you really can have the best of both worlds...and you don't have to pick just one? Huh? *sigh* Oh well.

I'm a good auntie, I am.

the Daniel "triplets"

I'm still trying to get used to this blog thing, so I thought I'd try some pictures. These are me with 2 of my favorite people. :)

The summer I had short hair, some people really did think we were triplets.