four days after christmas.

firstly.
this book thing. that marisa posted.
[dang, she finds some awesome stuff!]

♥
amazing, right??

it was the 29th day of the last month of the year two thousand eleven.
it dawned beautiful, ordinary, and boring.
normal, in other words. ;)
it was 11am, and i had just taken new pictures of and listed the above canvas on my etsy shop, coffee.drips.art.
i unwrapped a random little snickers from christmas and popped it in my mouth.
then a sibling's voice: "beka?"
from the kitchen.
i look over.
ummmm.....why are southern illinois people in the kitchen?
it was a surprise, i'll give you that much.
and my family somehow kept it from me.
justin and jacklyn stood in the kitchen.
my word. :)
what followed was a blur of hugs, laughing, coffee brewing, and me, stunned. in my life, i don't get surprised very often. it all took around half an hour to finally set it.

fortunately, thursday was pretty darn beautiful, so we went for a walk. :)

we kind of brought the paparazzi with us . . . aka sisters. with cameras. much fun, to say the least. :)

two words: hilarious. jacklyn. :)

:)

photo credit via my camera: my little seester rachel. :)

we got kinda chilly, and he had yet to experience out town's awesome not-so-tiny library, so we went there to warm up for a bit before heading home. :)

we found a book on s'mores. all types of 'em.

we went and got cold at the park for a while.

the little dude, reese . . . given up on swinging.
this makes me laugh every time i look at it. :)
we played a short game of hide and go seek tag around our house and the empty one next door, then came in to warm up with a card game of war [lyd and justin's favorite game to play together ;)] and some fresh coffee.

later thursday, after a quick dinner, we set off.
dad and mom, grandma and grandpa t., justin, ben, and me.
anna carpooled with our friends anna and martha--they came after the lesson; we went earlier because dad, ben and justin had never done swing-dancing before; mom has done every dance under the sun since her college years.
the lesson went good, a rather large crowd in a circle, ladies rotating every couple minutes in the lesson from man to man.
let me tell you, it's a unique experience having your older brother there at swing.
because he was a beginner, i tried to give him a couple really simple tips. like lower our hands to my waist; just as the instructor had just said. or, hold my hands like so. instead of that other way.
el oh el.
well . . . you can imagine i had to remind us both to act like responsible adults in public, because we started acting like siblings --him stubborn and i-know-what-i'm-doing-don't-tell-me-what-to-do, and me getting all up in an attitude. hah. in other words, we were bringing out the sassy 5 year old in each other. heh. not good. ;)
i never laughed so much while dancing than when i danced with ben for the first time that night.
he was so done dancing with me by the time the live band ended that song. ;)

the great news is, both justin and ben were awesome first time dancers.
i don't know if them both being drummers has anything to do with their success as dancers, but you never know. :) there were quite a few other first time people there for the lesson, and i can tell you that my brother and my boyfriend did excellently for that being their first night.
i'm pretty proud i can type that. :)
we got home by around 12:30-1ish a.m., and i made a breakfast burrito type of thing because after you dance for 2-3 hours [though i did sit with grandma, grandpa, and the guys and we just watched all the awesome dancers with their variations of charleston and lindy for a while], you get hungry. really hungry.
funny: someone was super tired by then; i guess getting up at 4 to hit the road and get somewhere by 11am and being busy, getting fresh air, and dancing at night does that to a person. ;)