Breaking Dawn: MAWE On Location

Nov 6, 2011 // by MAWE // OurNews // 1 Comment

Every Twi-Fi fan has been anxiously awaiting for months what is now only a mere 2 weeks away! The next installment from the Stephanie Meyer’s guilty-pleasure series is opening on November 18th, and like any dedicated Twi-mom, we will be there for that midnight release, just as we have been in the past. But thanks to the stars aligning just so (and a hell of a lot of luck), this will not just be a midnight outing, but a full week extravaganza!!

As most of you are well aware, we had to see our MAWE-mate, Christy, leave for her move to the west coast this summer. It has been a difficult (and still ongoing) transition, trying to maintain the website, as well as the bond the three of us had…it’s quite an adjustment going from seeing each other every day to a long-distance text/phone call or two a week!! We made a pact to all meet up in November to see Breaking Dawn together, but in the back of our minds, we knew it would be a pretty tall order to fill. But the power of Twilight compelled us, and with the help of our dear hubbies, we will all meet up in Seattle in a couple of weeks….MAWE reunion, ya’ll!!!

So aside from getting our threesome-fix (as friends, people…or maybe not…we REALLY miss each other), as well as seeing the premiere together, we will also be taking the Twilight On-Location Tour! We are only a few hours away from where it all happened (yes it DID)! So we will be checking out Forks, La Push (Baby), Port Angeles, and the rest! There’s a replica of Bella’s truck (guess who’s gonna recreate the OMG-Bella’s-Gonna-Die-By-Truck scene), as well as the same restaurant Edward took Bella to after the OMG-Bella’s-Gonna-Die-By-Gang-Rape scene…mushroom ravioli and a coke, anyone (and could I get a waitress with a normal hair-do to go with that, please)?!

We hope to blog all about our MAWE On Location week, so stay tuned for all the details (as well as the embarrassing pics & video that we will inevitably use against one another)! In the meantime, relish the excitement that the movie is ever-near. We only have one more of these after November, people, so savor it while you can…as some of us dual fans have learned (from the Harry Potter series) it goes by and is over way too soon:(

But, hey…it ain’t over yet, so ENJOY!!!!

1st Day of Preschool: A Not-So-Clean Getaway!

Sep 18, 2011 // by Jen // OurBlogs // Comments Off

Ah, the first day of preschool: We are all officially kid free for two hours at least a couple days a week. This was a tough transition for both my Matthew and Lyn’s Eva. Matthew as we left the house decided he didn’t want to go to school. He has been going to the school since he was six days old (when his brother started pre K) and has always loved it. This was a first for me, my other two never looked back. He dropped to his knees and said “I not goin in mommy!” so I continued walking to his classroom. He followed me about halfway and stopped and leaned against the wall crying. I looked at his teacher and said “he’s not coming in” and she said “yes he is” and she picked him up and carried him as he went totally rigid and sobbed (the really sad kind of sob, with the snotty face and all)! I teared up and did as I was told and left the building.

As I met Lyn in the parking lot I learned she had a similar gut wrenching experience with Eva. But we continued with our past tradition, with Lyn getting Christy on the phone (rather than in person, since her move to Washington state) so we could have our last first day of preschool parking lot pow wow. We chatted for a while, Matthew’s teacher called me in the meantime to let me know he was fine. Once we got off the phone with Christy, we chat some more. Little did we realize that Eva’s class goes to play outside earlier than the older kids. The rest of this story should be imagined in slow motion: Eva’s teacher emerges from the building, I hear Lyn say “SHIIII…” and before I know it she is diving head first into the open sliding doors of her van. I run to the other side and she whispers “I have to close the doors!” frantically she pushes the buttons that close the doors and they are agonizingly slow. She is then praying that they stay closed and don’t automatically reopen as they often do. For that would leave her completely exposed to the two year old onslaught! (I mean really exposed, she was ducked down with her butt facing the door)! Mercifully they stay closed. I dash back to my vehicle and jump in, but wow, it is hot in here. Just as I begin to roll my window down I realize that Lyn is in the back of a van and can’t roll anything down! Oh My Lord she is gonna roast in there! I know this is true because Lyn is not the type to let her own discomfort ruin even the most ill conceived plan. I begin frantically texting her but no response until I hear my phone…I would like to say ring but it was actually a ringtone we created, inspired from the 2011 Oscars (“Twi Shirt Parody,” check us out at Zedge.com). She calls me using speakerphone, because apparently she is too contorted between booster seats and armrests to actually text. She asks me “How is Eva doing?” with what I am fairly certain is her second or third to last breath. I watch and report back that she seems great and hasn’t given the van even a passing glance. I then tell her The Exit Plan: She opens the door opposite the playground and scramble into the driver’s seat. I pull my big SUV beside her to block the view of her van from the playground (see, these big gas hogs still have great purpose in this world)! We then exit the parking lot together, side-by-side, maintaining my position-blocking line of sight. When I give her the signal she breaks to the front and I keep behind her still blocking any identifying stickers or decals from view. Then we stop at the road entrance and she gets out and yells to me “Which way are we going, anyway?” No plan is ever perfect and when you are laughing that hard at your own goofiness it’s not easy to think straight…not that it’s easier any other time! But seeing the way the preschool teachers on the playground were staring at us as we left the school, definitely made this first day of school a memorable, laugh-out-loud moment we will never forget:)

Twi-Moms: They’re Everywhere…Including This Blog (GASP)!

Mar 9, 2011 // by Lyn // OurBlogs // 1 Comment

So fellow At Wits End moms, Christy, Jen & I, decided to put our older kids in soccer recently…it always sounds good during registration, not so much when you are on the sidelines freezing to death (for the love of God, Spring, where are you)! Jen’s daughter Mary ended up on a separate team, which right away decided on a team name, but Christy’s daughter Grace & my son Andy ended up on the same team, and it wasn’t until the end of the first week of practice that they finally huddled together to vote on a team name. It came down to two candidates: The Gray Wolves or The Gray Vampires. Now, I’m a big believer in giving the benefit of the doubt (I don’t practice it, but I believe in it…that’s a start, right), but this is a group of 6-year-old boys and girls, and Halloween was SO five months ago. I even asked Andy what he thought a vampire was, and he said: “It’s a scary guy that has sharp teeth & likes to trick-or-treat.” Thank you, Honey…I would have also accepted, “A perfectly sculpted, knight in glittery armor that can bite a chunk out of headboard while still satisfying a woman,” as a correct answer as well! So you gotta ask yourself: Where did they come up with these mascots?

The answer is, from a Twi-Mom, of course. We know this because we are ones ourselves, and we know enough about the Twilight series to know that these two very different creatures are not typically paired up like PB & J (or should I say, oil & water) like they have been most recently in Stephanie Meyer’s beloved saga. Even our hubbies knew enough about the books to immediately suspect that we were the ones that “encouraged” the kids to go this route (it was a very crafty, awesome idea that unfortunately we can take zero credit for legally)! But let’s face it, someone did “get to” the kids…there is another Twi-Mom among us! They are not easy to spot, but fortunately they are extremely easy to expose. Just make a loud statement, such as, “Is it too much to ask for a man that can love with all his soul like Edward, and have the warm, tanned, ripped body of wet Jacob?” and they will identify themselves immediately & within an instant, friendships are born! I kid you not….at least 15% of my friends are due solely to the common bond of Twilight…but some of those are not so much friend-friends, as they are Facebook-friends, which can be quite different!

And as fun as it is to meet fellow Twi-Moms, we are cautious to openly acknowledge who we are…we must be on Volturi-like guard or risk a possible opposite effect if there is the elusive “Twi-hater” among the group. Otherwise an instantaneous arch-nemesis is forged, and that is not easily undone (ya know, if we want to have a peaceful co-existence during our child’s soccer season)! If you are indeed a Twi-hater and want everything out in the open, just make an equally powerful statement, such as “Edward’s just a gay stalker and Jacob is a steroid-filled cry baby,” and the Twi-Moms will immediately “out” ourselves in protest. Great, I’m giving tips to the dark side…I may lose my membership (and the awesome life-size cardboard cut-out of Robert Pattinson I got with sign up)! And as for you “Twi-Nons” who, like sequestered jury members, are clueless to any of my above references, just make a statement like: “I’m Switzerland” and you won’t have to pick sides or make alliances (but you will be continuously bombarded by recruits from each party, so proceed at your own risk)! Maybe one day we will live in a world without labels, where believing in something doesn’t immediately categorize you into a group or persona that may or may not represent who you really are… and if that world happens to have hunky, granite-hard immortals with hearts of gold and shirt-less, Quileute-licous hotties with killer six-packs…well, all the better!

Oh, and as a side note, Christy & I are officially soccer moms of The Gray Vampires…that’s Team Edward for short, Baby:)