YOB: #21. Go to Geppe's Entertainment Museum (Part 2)

By Beth

Entertainment is a big priority in my life and Lara's. What's the point of living if you don't have fun? I was told recently by my almost 14 year old daughter that I have "too much fun." I believe I was telling the family about a 30h birthday scavenger hunt Lara and I participated in and how we creatively interpreted most of the list. When I asked her if it was a problem that I "had too much fun" she said, "No, I just can't imagine any of my friends' parents doing ANY of the stuff you do!" She added that she didn't want me to stop having too much fun, I think she's secretly glad to see that being an adult is not boring.

Geppe's Entertainment Museum sounded intriguing. A way for us to relive our childhood by seeing posters/merchandise from years gone by. They also happened to be hosting a Harry Potter discussion one evening and, well, if you know Lara or myself at all, you know how much we esteem Harry Potter. We spent seven hours at a Borders asking each other Harry Potter trivia, that we had written ourselves after re-reading books 1-6, while awaiting the midnight release of the final book. We called it a wizards' duel, and we're about due for another (hint, hint, Lara... Deathly Hallows comes out in theaters this November). The discussion plus the museum was the perfect fit.

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YOB: International Adventure 2010 (Part 1)

By Lara

ParthenonSeveral people expressed interest in my recent vacation. I have decided to encourage that interest by writing about the experience. It will probably take me several articles to fully describe my adventures, but people keep telling me that suspense is good for the heart. Ok. Part one. Buckle your seat belts, stow your tray tables, and put your seats in their upright positions.

I will not bore you with the details of GETTING to Greece. Suffice to say that Mandi and I rode on planes and waited in airports for many many hours. I slept a little bit. Then we got to Athens.

The Athenian airport was a blur of luggage carousels and currency exchange booths and customs agents stamping my passport. Once we cleared customs, there was a sketchy looking man in jorts with a "Cosmos" sign. I approached him and asked if he was here for us. He showed me my name in his iPhone to prove that he was legit. The background on his iPhone was a very young woman in a very small swimsuit. Nice to see taxi drivers across the globe keeping it classy.

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YOB: #7. Go To An Ice Hockey Game (Part 2)

By Beth

Sports are great. Men's sports, that is. I suppose women's sports could be great too, I could just never really get into them. Men's sports, all the way. There's just something about a nicely built man in uniform pounding the snot out of another nicely built man in uniform. I prefer contact sports, the more contact the better. Ice hockey ranks right up there on my list with lacrosse and rugby. Baseball doesn't make the cut.

I suppose I should blame my brother for this obsession with violent sports. He played football and lacrosse in middle school and high school and I went to many, many games. When I saw lacrosse for the first time I fell in love. This may be partly due to the fact that Don Seel, a long time crush of mine (K-8th grade) played as well; defense - they had the long sticks. Their job, Don and my brother's who also played defense, was to pulverize anyone who came close to their net and prevent them from scoring. It is so violent that my brother actually injured one of his teammates so badly during practice that the poor guy missed the whole season. My kind of sport!

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YOB: Next Up... Greece and Egypt

By Lara

I am aware that it's not on the Year of the Birthday list; however, I am currently on a cruise enjoying an optional excursion in Egypt. That is correct. Egypt. I am prepared with my Egyptian tourist visa and everything.

It's actually a funny story involving one trip getting cancelled and another trip becoming available. My friend Mandi wanted to go to Athens to visit her friend Bruce. As I had no desire to impose on Bruce for an extended period of time, I agreed to go with her so long as we went on some sort of a tour.

Mandi suggested that I start looking for tours. I found my dream tour. One week in Greece. One week cruising the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. Once I saw that there was an optional excursion to Egypt during which we would see the pyramids and take a river boat up the Nile, I was SOLD.

It was slightly more difficult to sell Mandi on my two week dream tour encompassing three continents. Fortunately, I have been blessed with the gift of encouragement. I encouraged Mandi to agree that this tour rocked. Soon we had booked our flights and sent in our tour reservations. Yay!

And now I'm here. In Egypt. Rest assured that I will have plenty of stories to tell when I get back. I will also have pictures. I'm excited.

YOB: #2 The International Spy Museum (Part 2)

By Beth

What red-blooded American girl doesn't love her some spies? I mean, come on, if your heart doesn't go pitter patter for at least one of the many James Bonds, there's something wrong with you. Some of my earliest movies included the 007 ones, those and Star Wars. I fell in love with James Bond (but not nearly as hard as I fell for a certain British bad guy, if you have to ask who you obviously haven't been following my stories). My favorite Bond as a young girl was Roger Moore, Sean Connery was too hairy and Timothy Dalton was just…odd. I know there were more but they did not earn a place in my memory as these few did. Pierce Brosnan was good too but I had my reservations when Daniel Craig was announced to play James several years back. Really? A blonde Bond? But after seeing the first movie he did, I was hooked. I guess you can technically argue that Bond isn't really a spy in the strictest sense of the word, but that's really besides the point. My love for spies and covert activity was born and will never die.

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