charlesbreland.com

lillis and i went to the inman park festival the other day. it was soooo nice to be able to go do it, particularly since we have had so little time to just go do anything in the last several months. now, as volleyball drags to a close, we are actually having a little more time to do normal stuff together. this tends to make lillis happy, both b/c we get to spend quality time, and b/c she gets funnel cakes. she actually requested that i take a picture of her with her funnel cake. it seemed like a completely normal request : )

here’s an arm’s length, backhanded group portrait. if you were not there to see it, i could not possibly convey to you the dexterity involved in getting this shot : )

so, as i alluded to above, my volleyball season has now drawn to a close. it was a very tough season this year. we had a team with a ton of talent who at times performed like one of the better teams in the nation. unfortunately, we frequently performed like a group of 17 year olds who didn’t like each other (or their coaches). it was a frustrating twist from last year were at every practice we were met with enthusiasm, energy and obedience (well at least as obedient as any 13 year old could be) players who made every practice and tournament a joy. this year was more of a slog. some of the girls were wonderful and make you so glad you donate your time (i probably logged about 300 to 400 hours helping out this season) and others make you wonder why you’re not spending the weekend with your gifriend eating funnel cakes. i will say, however, that there are at least a couple of girls on the team that if you told me i could either roll the dice with me raising a kid and not screwing it up, or just say “this is what your daughter will be like when she’s 17” i would choose the girl on my team. i did get to see a lot of new youtube videos and laugh at a ton of goofiness, but all in all, i’m relieved to go back to my normal life and drop the schedule that sometimes led to lillis and i only seeing each other for 5 or 6 hours in a 10 day span.

hopefully that will lead to more fun (as pictured below) for lillis and i!

lillis is of course quite a sweetheart, and as such she came up with an ingenious plan of having a surprise bday for me a week and a half after my bday so we could go to the Seinfeld show. i purposely didn’t do ANY looking at what was going on in atlanta so that i could be as surprised as possible by my birthday surprise. i had almost no inkling anything was up until we walked into Front Page News and there were a few tables of my friends there. she’s both sneaky AND thoughtful! here is a picture of us just as we’re walking in.

and here’s a wonderful self-portrait of the elder allvines

we were glad that rod and susanne could come and susanne and sue even chaparoned lillis and i to Seinfeld to ensure i didn’t do anything “untoward” when the lights went out in the Fox. and, of course, you may remember rod from such famous blog postings as “a rainey day in paris” or “charles and the giant camel.”

here are two lovely ladies. their cute smiles mask their extreme hunger!

here are trey and christina. trey is the reason i had some inkling i might be going to seinfeld. i mentioned i had no idea of any events that were going on in atlanta that friday….well, except for a phone conversation with trey that went like this me: “we should get together soon” trey:”i’m going to seinfeld on friday.” me:”well, lillis has a super secret surprise for me on friday.” trey:”um, well cool…..maybe you guys will go to seinfeld.” : )

here are lillis and sara. sara’s pregnant, but you can’t tell b/c this is more of a head shot. or a head and shoulders shot. anyway, you can’t see her abdomen.

and here we see kashi, nathan, susanne and sue. nathan looks almost too happy here. he must be up to something! oh, and congrats to kashi. she now has her masters degree. speaking of which lillis is considering one as well, but i don’t want to be like nathan and have my girlfriend have an impressive honorific whilest i have none. i may get an advanced degree out of spite.

oh, and here is the link to lillis’ photo album if you want to see all the photos she took.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lclewis831/CharlesBDaySurprise5208

as always, lillis is wonderful and thoughtful, and i was very grateful for the effort she put into pulling the evening together. btw, seinfeld was great, but i don’t recommend the 10PM show. the second half of his show was much better than the first half, but by then lillis was a vegetable, and i was shotgunning her coke in an attempt to stay alert. : ) oh, and chuck martin opened up for him and he was pretty darned funny as well. i won’t even mention what his jokes taught lillis : )

springtime in Atlanta is always beautiful, but this year even moreso. we didn’t have any late frosts but we did have nice weather with enough rain (for the first time in a couple of years). also, it’s been very moderate temperature-wise, so we’ve really gotten to get out and enjoy it a ton without sweating our butts off. actually two weeks ago i golfed with some friends at 7AM and it was 39 degrees when we teed off. #1, it led me to believe al gore is full of crap. #2, it made me want to burn a ton of fossil fuels making laps around 285 to increase CO2 levels. however, due to the extremely high price of gasoline, i decided to just wear a jacket instead.

anyway, lillis REALLY likes one of the dogwoods in piedmont park, so i snuck over and took some pictures of it one AM. they’re posted here.

when i grow up, i’m gonna be just like you!