I love this kid...

Today Emma decided she wanted to take photos of her favorite things. She used my camera to take nearly 100 photos around mom and dad's house. Here are a few of the better ones. Most of them were the couch, the chair, or feet... "Smile, chair!"

Also, hearing Emma try to say "photographer" is one of the funniest things ever. ("Hallelujah" is another one that's pretty funny.)

Em's room:

Me with Valentine Kitty. She sleeps with him every night.

Self portrait!

A photo she took of mom and me with Calliou. Not bad...

I took this one... I thought it turned out pretty well.

More bad news for the Mazda...

My poor car. It's been through a lot over the past couple months. First it was taken from my garage by a #%^$& and driven to the ghetto where it ran out of gas. It sat in an impound lot for a few days, was dusted for fingerprints, then hung out at the dealership for a week where it got new locks.

Tonight, it suffered another injury. While I was inside a friend's house, the driver's side window was broken. I was sure that my iPod would be gone, but nope... nothing was missing. There was glass everywhere... on the street, in both front seats, in the cup holder, and on the floor.

We think someone hit the side mirror, and it flipped in and hit the window and broke it, but we're not sure. The policeman wasn't much help. (That seems to be a theme in my life lately.) Tim asked him to clear out the glass, and he basically made it all fall into my seat.

We got most of it out of the driver's seat, and Tim and Amanda ghetto-fied my car by putting a fitted crib sheet where the window once was. I made it to the end of their street with that, then decided I would rather be able to see and be cold. So I made the 25-ish minute drive back to mom and dad's with nothing covering it. Needless to say, it was a bit chilly!

Reliving my childhood

I used to go to Gatlinburg pretty much every year for fall break with my family. Often, other families from our church would go at the same time. There are many good memories of those trips. This weekend, I went to Gatlinburg with eight people from my small group. It was a lot of fun reliving some of those things...

We packed a lot into a few days. We went to Fannie Farkle's three times, went on the sky lift, into the mirror maze, to the outlet mall, the aquarium, mini-golf, and the Pancake Pantry. Plus, we still found time for some quality porch-sitting and hot tubbing. We tried for the alpine slides, but they were closed because of rain.

What's with this? We used to eat at the Brass Lantern. But apparently it's just "Brass" now. Where did the lantern go? (I think it might be under that fall foliage.)

In middle school, I spent hours and who knows how much money at Fannie Farkle's. It turns out my friend Jess did, too, so we were super excited to introduce this amazing place to our friends. We played ski ball, and redeemed our tickets for a frisbee and a magic wand, among other things. I can still smell the sauerkraut... And where else can I hit Mark with an inflatable hammer?

Top of the sky lift!

Yummmm... the Donut Friar. Always a favorite.

My friend Ashley from middle school lives near Gatlinburg, so we got to spend some time together on Saturday. It was great to catch up with her... we've only seen each other a few times since she moved away in 9th grade.

Best purchase yet?!?

This week Target has their Wii games buy two get one free. I 'needed' to replace my Guitar Hero, and I also wanted Wii Music. So that left me with a choice. Because I could justify it as being free, I chose High School Musical 3 Dance.

I bought these three games last Sunday, and HSM Dance is the only one I've opened so far. It has provided hours of fun for Meg, Jess, Jordan, Mark and me. 

Some things overheard while playing:

"You know I'm white, right?"

"How do you skip?"

"Why does it think I didn't jump?"

... and of course, "TTTTRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

Seriously, this game is awesome. It has tons of songs from HSM 1, 2 and 3. There are quizzes like, "What's in your lunchbox?" and "What is your school mascot?" Here's to more hours of fun with good friends and the HSM cast! 

Embarrassment.

I've never been one to hide my embarrassing moments from people, so I'll just go ahead and tell you what I did today. It probably won't sound as funny as it really was, but I'll give it a try anyway.

I was going through the drive-thru at McDonalds for my hamburger, fruit & walnut salad, and Orange Hi-C... It was busy and there were several cars behind me. Not sure what I was thinking, but I drove right past the speaker where you order. My first thought was to just bail and pretend none of this ever happened. But there was a curb there so that wasn't an option. "Crap," I thought to myself. I looked behind me and started to back up a little. There was a man in a pickup truck behind me that was laughing harder than me. I backed up as much as I could, which wasn't much. I was still pretty far from the speaker, but I just yelled my order into it. 

Even when I pulled up to the window, the man in the truck was still cracking up. He's probably blogging somewhere about the stupid girl who forgot to order. Glad I could provide you with some material, pickup truck man.

Weekend of Fun (or stupidity)

I think it would be fair to say that this month has made its way onto my "Top 5 Craziest Months Ever" list. (No, I don't really have a list like that, I'm just saying...) It has been busy, frustrating, challenging, hilarious, exhausting, thought-provoking, fun and terrible... all at the same time. 

In the midst of the mayhem, I had a really fun weekend. I traveled most of last week for work, then ended by flying to Chicago to meet Kelly and Jess for the New Kids on the Block concert. If you knew me in the late 80s/early 90s, you know how big of a fan I was. Ok, and still am. It's funny how songs that you haven't heard in years can instantly come back to you. NKOTB, you were worth the 15 year wait! Here's a shot of my boys:

Jess, Kelly and I had fun times in Chicago!

Some say I'm spontaneous, but I think sometimes spontaneousness equals stupidity. Jess and I had talked awhile ago about going to see Steven Curtis Chapman and Michael W. Smith in Merrillville, but knowing it was the day after we were driving home from Chicago, we had decided to forgo that one. But... on our way home from Chi-town, we saw the billboard... and were unable to resist. So, just a little over 24 hours after driving from Merrillville to Indy, we drove back to Merrillville for this once in a lifetime (ok, maybe not) opportunity. Saturday evening and Sunday on the way there, we were rocking out to some old-school MWS - the Go West Young Man and Change Your World albums, to be exact. On the way there, a crazy wind storm was blowing corn across the interstate. Welcome to Indiana. We were waiting for a cow to hit the windshield.

Needless to say, it was an awesome concert! We heard great songs, new and old... including "Friends." Ahhh, the memories.

Then we had to drive home.

Getting home at 1:30 am isn't the smartest thing to do on a Sunday night. But alas, we did have a good time in the car pretending to be Jennifer Knapp (and drinking our gas station coffee).

Here's a shot of two of the hottest 40-somethings out there: haha.

Sometimes, all you can do is laugh.

It's been a crazy few days!