Sunflower Festival July 4, 2009

Biloxi, Mississippi June 2009

My first time having room service and riding a jet ski on the ocean!




We didn't take the zoom...so this was the best Mom could do getting us walking to the jet skis...by the time we got to them, the water was almost over my head. Want to feel tired and find muscles you never knew you had then WALK that far through water. Our legs were like jell-o.

That speck is us riding.


These are too much work, so we're just posing!!

8 Weeks...Better Than Buttered Toast

Seriously. 8 weeks...8 weeks of vacation....other than making up your own hours and/or never having to go to work, it really is the next best thing. I'm not one of those Mary Poppins types who thinks teaching is just the greatest thing ever. That might make me look badly, but I'm sorry. If I could JUST TEACH...yes it would be 90% more super duper than it is now...but it's never JUST TEACHING or JUST dealing with students. There's a plethora of b.s. that comes with the job, therefore making me wish we had 8 weeks of work and the other weeks on vacation. :) Plus (and I've said this on here before) I'm not one of those people that has an inherent desire/need to GO someplace and work.

I like to work here, I like to play here, I like to visit with friends and go to fun places...I don't NEED to go to work. I don't NEED to put up with all of the b.s. that comes along with some co-workers, parents, and those students who'd rather be anywhere else but school.

Today was our last day for what will be the shortest weeks of the year and my body/mind hasn't gotten relaxed into that summertime mode yet...but man am I ready for it. I'm still seriously considering the possibility of making like a hermit and not leaving the comfort of this place for the entire 8 weeks. People play nicely here.

Recently:

Art club having fun...this is the last bunch of 5th graders that I will feel closely to for a while. They were a fun group. I wish I could show how much fun they had making the projects...but can't put people's children on the internets without permission.

He was watching the weather channel! Looks cloudy with a chance of Jackson Pollock.


Hunter is so hilarious!

Casey and Nikki both had birthdays...didn't post anything about it, lame. Did take recent pics of Casey's out of control hair...he gets a lovely hair cut during his stay at the kennel while the moms are away in Biloxi next weekend. These are a few of the fun things you can do with his mop right now!








The purchase that made us feel so official! :)

Yep, SHE said it...not me!

Because Julie(BEAN) is quiet (mostly) when we're around others...she is the most likely to shock someone with some of the stuff she can bust out with in a conversation. I love that almost everyone we know, could at any given time be surprised or in awe by her. Ever seen her dance across the house or make random animal noises for the fun of it? We both do that sort of thing here at the mansion. Ps...thank you Sarah for giving our house the name "mansion" I can't help myself from using it profusely. See that $.50 word I threw in there...yeah I am full of surprises myself. ;)

Back to the point...ever heard Julie say the word "poo" much less "dookie?" I mean who says "dookie" over the age of 7 anyway? In fact, I am pretty sure they put a ban on saying it after 1986. I don't know that for sure, so I'll google it...right after I get right on cleaning those baseboards.

So it goes down like this---I'm in here working on photoshop type thingies while she's outside cutting grass. She enjoys this bizarre act in a way that I will never be able to---I LOATHE cutting the grass much like Molly Ringwald loathed riding the bus...(that one's for you Krista).

It's hot, the riding lawnmower is LOUD and I hate repetitive, loud sounds that hurt my ears and cause me to wear ear plugs that hurt my ears because they don't fit in there properly. I hate that it jiggles my stomach around---much worse than Sarah's old car ever did. OH and I REALLY REALLY hate how random grasshoppers pop out of the grass and come flying at me at warp speed, usually hitting me in the forehead---there's just too many non-welcomed surprises lurking around every bush.

So anywhoooo....off topic again---wow. She comes inside and says hurry you've got to come see this bug that I'm pretty sure got impelled onto the barbed wire because of the lawnmower throwing him into it.

I refuse to use quotations and proper commas...
I'm like, what kind of bug is it?

You know, one of those dookie rolling bugs...you know which kind I'm talking about right?

Ugh, yeah...which kind was that again?! (I totally wanted her to think I had NO clue what she was talking about just so she would elaborate on the DOOKIE part.)

You know...the kind that goes around rolling poo into balls.

Yeah, dung beetles.

FREAKIN. HILARIOUS. Only at the mansion.


So since we still hadn't broken in the macro on any bugs yet because of them being too quick to catch...we decided what better opportunity than to take advantage of this poor bug as he thrashed around trying to pry himself off of a piece of barbed wire that was stuck into his body.

Magnification on the macro is pretty cool---but focusing is tricky because it will only focus on one small section at a time, throwing everything else out of focus.

And can I just say how weird it is that a bug that spends his life rolling poo has the most pretty colors on his back...he ALMOST has ROYGBIV...you can clearly see he has the ROYG part! :) I think he's pretty.

I wish you could have seen Bean after picture taking torture of bug was over and I plucked the bug off the wire to free him in case he possibly could live...then tried to touch her nose with the same hand---while saying---

I'm touching you with POO BUG hands!!! Yeah, I didn't have siblings.

Ever seen the inside of a dandelion magnified?

Then the opposite with the outside in focus.

Oh HAIL! Oh HAIL! Oh HAIL!

This post could have many titles:
"The day we outran a tornado in each city we passed through."
"The day we took refuge in a Hobby Lobby."
"Why we love Reese even more than we already did."

So, where to start? I'll try to condense this as much as possible! We took Mom and Aunt Peg over to Berry College in Rome, Georgia to check out the campus for the wedding we're shooting there in November.

There's a Cartersville RaceTrack gas station that has the best frozen drinks ever...Julie had the Mountain Dew, I had the Sunkist orange---sooooo tasty!

Toured the campus, most scenic, beautiful campus I've ever visited. Seriously looks like something you'd see in a fairytale type movie.


Saw at least 30 wild deer grazing/playing in the grassy fields on our way out--apparently they KNOW they are safe there in the wildlife refuge.


While finishing up some tasty fresh-baked cookies in the car, in downtown Rome--Reese calls to check on us. Everything is fine there--just a little rain, so she apparently knows something we don't. Yikes. As she's telling me that there's a tornado in Summerville and not so great things are headed towards Rome--GET OUT OF THERE--gumball size hail starts pounding my car. Everyone starts freaking about whether or not to run out of the car into the nearest shop or to stay in the car. There was no way I was leaving the safety of the car to get pelted in the head with hail...we opted to take our chances staying.

Do our best to hurry out of Rome after hailing stops, get stopped by train. Woohoo. On our way back through Cartersville on the way home Reese calls again---storm is behind us, then another phone call, storm is in front of us...then tornado sirens are going off in Cartersville---the very place we are headed AGAIN! Leave one tornado, headed towards another.

Before we can seek refuge in the Hobby Lobby---hail comes again--even bigger this time, we were fortunate enough to find a shelter to pull underneath---no glass broken, thank goodness.

Make it inside Hobby Lobby and stay an hour or so until we had to leave because of them closing--it was pretty bad while we were in there---lights stayed on, but outside was crazy. Left there and things were looking up.

Reese calls with another update---where are the storms and tornadoes now? Atlanta--the next city we had to go through to get home. Fun. Kerry calls us after making it through Atlanta alive, where's the next tornadoes? Henry County, Spalding County, and HOME. So we literally dodged tornadoes or the makings of--in every single town/county we had to drive through to get home. Craziness. There were times when we were the most scared we've ever been. It was so great to make it home, the electricity was out--but the house was still here! :)

I can't tell you how much it meant to us that Reese read that we were going to be in Rome and then called to check up on us and called back a bunch to give us updates on what was happening. Doesn't get any nicer than that! Thank you Reese Cup, we love you lots of bunches! And thanks for your call too Lennye--you are too crazy!

ps...I got some hella cool stuff at Hobby Lobby for photo shoots!! :) :)