Girls Night Out-Brady Style-ish!

The other night I went out with some girlfriends for drinks and a movie. We were planning on seeing"Magic Mike"-which was so exciting, because I didn't even know there was a movie about the Houdini-like prowess of one Mr. Mike Brady! But, as it turns out, the movie wasn't about Mike Brady, but some other guy named Mike (sad face) and an entirely different type of magic. I must admit, I am just judging the movie by its poster; the movie was completely sold out and we ended up going to dinner instead.

It turns out none of my friends had read my Summer of Living Brady-fully blog yet-which explains why they seemed perplexed when I uttered "far out" "outta sight" and "that sounds groovy" (clearly, I need to expand my Brady lingo).

It also explains why when I made a rude comment (okay, really funny joke) that it was a good thing Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston never had children because their faces are so angular, their babies would have stop sign-shaped heads-no one said "that isn't very Carol Brady-ish of you." Instead, they commented on the pain of birthing a baby with stop sign-shaped head (or a baby with a sign-shaped head of any kind!).

As a nod to Carol Brady, I didn't order champagne (it has a terrible effect on the Brady Matriarch-it makes her dizzy and/or the bubbles make her sneeze). I ordered a beer, although I don't really know if Ma Brady drank beer either. According to the waitress, the type of beer I ordered was supposed to taste like cider-that seemed a little more Brady-friendly! In reality it just tasted like icky beer.

So my night out with my girlfriends, in the spirit of Carol Brady was kind of exhausting and not very successful. Next time, I may just borrow a line from Marcia and tell them, "Something suddenly came up," and leave Carol at home!

Meanwhile, my 2 middle moppets were arguing over a board game the other day and Youngest Son looked up from his book, shrugged and said, "they should just take turns," then continued reading. (It was like a line taken directly from Sherwood Schwartz himself!)
I said, "That idea is far out!" He looked up again, recognition washing over his face and started giggling! I love when my children get me!

I'm so excited, our Brady Bunch project for this weekend is one of the following:
-make a teeter-totter so we can have a teetor-totter record setting contest
-make a dunk tank (which will not be for the school carnival, but for our own personal enjoyment!)
Far out!

porkchops and applesauce, that's swell!

I finally told the moppets the plan for the Sammons Family Summer Fun! First, I had them guess what it was-because I knew no one would guess, and that always makes guessing games way more fun, plus it makes for a more dramatic reveal!  

So without further ado, we are living the summer like the Brady family. Not football quarterback and super model style, but late 60's, early 70's sitcom, The Brady Bunch-style! Yippeeeeeee!

I must confess that I am way more excited about this than anyone else in the "bunch"-although Baby Girl jumped on board quickly and started saying everything twice, once normally and the 2nd time with a lisp-a la' Cindy Brady!

The rest of the moppets expressed 5 emotional stages that would make Elizabeth Kubler-Ross proud:

            denial- "There is absolutely no way I am doing this,"
            confusion-"Okay, does this mean we are going to Hawaii?"
            pride- "Oh my gosh, Mom, that is totally cheesey,"
            bargaining- okay, well this is actually how I got everyone to reach acceptance!
            acceptance-see above!

So how did I really get my fabulous family to agree to this experiment? Well, first I explained to them it would be outta sight to build our own dunk tank, enjoy sack races and square dancing, try to break the longest teeter-tottering record, build a house of cards, make our own pilgrim movie, go to King's Island amusement park in Cincinatti and much, much more. I also promised them that if everyone went along, I would get my hair cut Carol Brady-style at the end of the summer! That pretty much sealed the deal! (Although they are starting to realize that they will actually have to be seen with me!)

After about an hour of rolling this plan around in his head, youngest son came to me and said, "Oh, no! Are we going to have to eat meatloaf? I don't think I can do that." And Oldest Daughter kept trying to put SPAM^® into the shopping cart at the grocery store! (I just can't go there!)

The biggest mental hitch in the giddy-up for everyone, is that we don't have an Alice. (Really, isn't that the biggest challenge for all Moms?) But, we just don't and I don't think that will change any time soon! So we must soldier on!

And although we are causing our dogs utter confusion at suddenly being expected to respond to the name "Tiger", the human members of our house are settling into the idea.

So as a way to kick-off our Brady-ful summer and get everyone in the Brady spirit, we are having Porkchops and Applesauce for dinner-and you know what? That's swell!