Magdalena Trip

Well I'm finally getting around to updating this. I left for Mexico last Thursday morning, almost a week ago. After waking up at 3:30 in the morning, I was out the door and on the way to Birmingham by 3:50. Since I don't have a printer, I couldn't print out my boarding pass so I had to wait until I got to the airport. Southwest does seating on a first come first serve basis and so by the time I got my boarding pass I ended up with the middle seat of the very back row of the plane- right next to Chatty Cathy. She was awfully perky for having that early of a flight. But thankfully so were the people across the aisle from her so she was able to talk to them while I just went to sleep. I had a connection in Midway which was kind of weird. So many times Chicago has been where I fly out of rather than where I connect. I met up with Katrina at MDW and we were on our way! Our flight was from MDW to Tuscon and unbeknownst (great word, huh?) to us, it was also scheduled to stop in Denver. So after everyone else deplaned, I woke up from nap number two, snapped a picture, and we were back on our way to TUS.

Joel and Kristi picked us up at the airport. We ate a delicious lunch at Olive Garden and ran a few errands before going to CVE. When we stopped to get our visas, we saw Duane and Ann Wulf who were moving to Magdalena that day! It was fun to see them there but I felt bad for them. They had been travelling for four days and were so ready to just be there. We got to CVE right at supper time. Thursday night I went to bed at 9:00 and didn't wake up until 8:30 the next morning. It was great. Friday we went to see the ranch. It was a lot bigger than what I had pictured. Right now it's kind of boring because there's really nothing there yet but eventually it's gonna be a really cool place.

We took the Wulf boys with us so Ann could have a few hours to unpack in peace. They are quite the boys! Axel is 9, Zach is 8, Garrett is 7 and Marshall is 4. 100% boys. I guess the four days of travelling wore out Marshall because he conked pretty quick. They were fun though. We ate lunch there and stayed a couple hours while they boys chased lizards.

Thursday night we went to Momo's for tacos. All I have to say about that is MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM good stuff.

Saturday morning 18 of us piled into one of the vans and headed to a place where there was a hot spring and a waterfall to play in. You can read more about that here if you want but here's a couple pictures anyways.

This was before anyone got sick and had to pull over:( It was about a 2 and 1/2 hour drive on those really windy roads. Not exactly a relaxing drive.

There wasn't much of a waterfall but there was an icy cold pool of water and a sandy area that the kids had fun with.

Sunday supper somehow included me and Katrina in the kitchen. That was Nicole's doings. Everything turned out pretty tasty I thought but I underestimated on the chicken and we barely had enough. Not very AC of me.

Unfortunately Monday morning was time to say our goodbye's. You could say I wasn't super thrilled to leave. I tell people that it wasn't this hugely awesome mountain top experience or anything, but I really liked just being there and living Joel and Kristi's life for a few days. I loved just being able to be with them to. Like I almost forgot how much I just adore Kristi (okay- and Joel, too) and how much I miss her. Thanks guys for being such great hostesseseseseses. You are one crazy couple, that's for sure! Watching you make beans was almost too much for me. I don't know if I'd be able to handle watching you make salsa next time;) Love you both so much!

Bill took us back up to TUS where we flew together to Las Vegas before parting our separate ways. Katrina back to Chicago and me back to Birmingham. This here is probably the closest I'll ever get to the Vegas strip!

My flight landed a little before midnight, I got home about 1:45, in bed at 2:15 and layed awake until almost 3:00. I was dreading work that morning but thankfully it turned out to be not as bad as I thought. I was actually more tired today than I was yesterday. But it was well worth it! Oh- and while we were running errands on Thursday, we stopped by a sporting goods store so Joel could get some new cleats for playing soccer. Which reminded me that I was looking to get some new tennies. So while I was there, why not? It was quite the dilemma deciding between two different pairs but this is what I ended up with. They work like a charm!

And that was my trip in a nutshell. So good to be with J&K, so good to be with Katrina, so good to just get away for a few days.

Hooray for Thursday!!!

On Thursday, in like, a day and a half from now, I'm going to get on one of these (hopefully a much bigger one),

with this awesome girl (hope she doesn't care I put this picture on here), travelling to this place

to visit this girl!!!!! Oh, and her husband too. But if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be going to see him.

I'm so excited! I just can't hide it! Sorry if you have that song stuck in your head now:)

I'm planning on lots of laughs, lots of memories and lots of tacos.

Snapshots of Home

This might bore some/most/all of you who read it, but it me it's home. It's a few of the things that bring a smile to my face. It's what I grew up with, it's what I know. Oh- and I didn't take these until about 7:00 in the evening so the light wasn't real ideal but since I don't claim any talent in the photography area anyways it should be okay as is. So without further ado....

We have the last of mom's flowers. Most of them are dying off by now but there's still a few going strong. These are some of my favorites.

That's Czar, the dog. Dad bought him from a family who had him fully housetrained. This huge rotweiller dog would sleep with the kids each night. He had a few issues when he moved to a farm in the country but he's pretty well trained to be an outside dog now. But he's not real tough. He's kind of a sissie for being a rotweiller. He was already named when we got him. We don't know why they named him Czar.

This is central Illinois we're talking about here so of course, everywhere you look is corn, corn, corn and more corn. But I like it. I'm pretty dissapointed because I don't think I'm going to be able to go out into the field at all this harvest. Last year I went up one weekend just for that purpose but I just don't think it's going to happen this time around. Too much other stuff going on:(

You'll see lots of this color at my house.

Half the fun of harvest is hopping in the semi, riding to the elevator and getting a bag of free popcorn:)

Don't know if you noticed but the logo on the truck said Hodel Turkey Farm. That's right folks, I grew up on a turkey farm.

With lots and lots of turkeys.

Now we have pigs too but they're not on the farm and I didn't drive over to the barns to take a picture. But everyone says pigs smell terrible and yeah, they do smell. But turkey's have a pretty intense smell too. Sometimes it's not too bad but sometimes I pull in the drive, step out of my car and it about burns my nose it's so strong. One time my dad went to a turkey convention and brought back a t-shirt for me. It said "Turkey's make wonderful friends" and had a picture of a turkey on it. I thought I was pretty cool. I was wearing it the very first time I got in trouble at school. I was in kindergarten and since I was so cool because of that shirt, I could run in the classroom, right? Wrong. Mrs. Norman, in front of everybody, said "Sarah, we don't run in school." I was devastated. No longer was I hot stuff with my turkey shirt. It was a tough lesson:)

My favorite snapshot of home is not because of what the picture looks like, rather what's going on in the picture. I had some good bonding time with my sweet little niece. We played on the swings and walked all around the farm. I left then to go into town and she was already so attatched that she cried! But it didn't last long because today at church she wasn't lunging for me or anything. She was still cute though.

Well, that's my home. There's a song that I like to belt out every time it comes on the radio.

I feel no shame I'm proud of where I came from I was born and raised in the boondocks. One thing I know no matter where I go I keep my heart and soul in the boondocks.

AAAAAUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!

My kids are kinda psychotic today and I am SO ready to go away for the weekend!!!!!

"No, kids, we don't dogpile on each other in the middle of storytime."
-me

"Sure, kids, I'd love it if you stayed awake the whole naptime and never went to sleep. I don't need to get anything done anyways."
-me

"Please, yell as loud as you can all day long. I love it when you give me a headache!"
-me

I guess I didn't really say those things but I sure could've. 2 1/2 more hours!!!

Breaking and Entering

I don't know about you, but I've always been under the impression that if you take your keys and drive somewhere you also have your house key with you. Right? Is your house key not on the same keychain as your car key? Just a though. So the other night (actually this was a couple weeks ago) we went into town to the library and out for ice cream. It was my birthday- we don't normally go out for ice cream, unfortunately. Cassie drove so I just left my keys at home. We got back and she aske me if I had my keys. Uh, no.... don't you? Um..... no. Well shoot. We're locked out. But never fear- Cassie to the rescue! My bedroom windows were open and she pried the screen off of one of them. She got stuck half way through and I begged her to let me take a picture. She said only because it was my birthday. Anyways, I thought it was funny. She managed to finagle her way in without breaking anything (herself or my stuff) and we were able to continue our night. If there's one thing I can say about life with Cassie- it's not boring. That's for sure:)

Oh, and here's a picture of us girls when we went out to eat for my birthday. A little later than I planned to get it on here but we've been without internet since the first of the month and we just got it back up and running today. Yay! No more running to the library!

I love these girls!

Still Waiting.......

I'm still waiting for our internet to get hooked up again at our house. We thought we were going to have it the other night but something happened and now we have to wait until Monday. Oh well. I'm getting used to coming to the library again like I always did before last year, but I don't like that it won't let me upload pictures most of the time.
I don't really have anything going on this weekend which is fine with me. The next four weekends are likely to be pretty big so I'm using this one to get all the things done that I won't have a chance to get to in the next month.
I went to Devin's football game this morning and that's about all I had planned for the day besides tackling my growing to do list.
So... that's all folks. Until next time, I guess.

Fun, Fun Labor Day Weekend

Well blogger let me upload these five pictures but it wouldn't let me do the other three. I'm so ready to have internet at our house again. Grrrr........

The pictures I was trying to upload were from Friday night. Me, Cassie, Sara, Pam, Hope and Bekah went out for supper for my birthday and then went mini golfing. It was so much fun just to be with the girls like that. And, I won mini golfing!!!!!!

Saturday I babysat Devin but didn't get any pictures:(

Sunday Cassie and I went to Mark and Bekah's for supper and watche the Hannah Montana movie:) I made a cake for dessert and then........ we got hungry. And ate a big piece right out of the middle!

Monday we all had a cookout at Mark and Bekah's but before we ate Mark took us flying!

That's the plane we rode in. I think Sara and Kerwin were in it when I took the picture.
I went with Cassie and Jessica.

There's the church/preschool/house/fellowship hall!

I flew the plane! For real! We were driving down the runway and Mark said "Okay, you ready to fly?" I said yeah, but didn't think he was serious. But he was. And I did the take off! It was really fun but I think I screamed just about the whole time until we were off the ground.

Annnnnnddd..... the end. Coming in for a landing.

In completely other news, now- I just met some Jamaicans in the library! I was so excited!!!!! Cassie met them and came back to the corner I was holed up in and told me to come out there and meet them. It was so fun to sit and talk to them. It made me reeeeeaaaallllllly excited for January:) There was a whole family but I talked mostly to the dad. He's been up here for at least 13 years. They live in Elkmont which is about 10 miles from here. I kinda want to try and look them up and talk more to them. Or at least ask them if there's any good Jamaican restaurants around. I've looked and haven't found any yet. But anyways, that made my night. And now the internet is about to shut off so I'm not going to review the post. Sorry if it's messed up.

Happy Birthday to Me

I'm at the library using the wi-fi so I thought I would be able to put pictures on this blog but I've tried uploading them three times and it's being really slow so I give up. Today is my birthday. Yay! I wonder how old I'll be before I finally quit getting excited for birthdays. What I wanted to post pictures of was yesterday. I went home from work to find a note stuck on the door leading me on a scavenger hunt. Cassie, Jessica and Amber were in on it together. It took me from my front door to a picture in the living room to the fellowship hall piano to Cassie's bike to the cemetary to the freezer to the mailbox and finally to the men's bathroom in the fellowship hall. My present was Mt. Dew, my favorite kind of gum and the kind of dental floss that I use. Funny. But it was practical so it was right up my alley. It was really fun though. I started grinning as soon as I found the first note and didn't quit until long after the hunt was over. Cassie stole my camera and took pictures along the way to document the hunt which is what I was going to post but......... to no avail. But it was fun. I think I already mentioned that.
I'm so ready for this week to be over. It's been the most insane week I've had in a long time and it's wearing me out. One more day...... one more day........
This will be the first Labor Day weekend since I've moved that I haven't gone to IL. There's a lot going on down here so I'm perfectly fine with staying but I just got invited to a cookout/slash volleyball with my old friends that I never see anymore which kinda bummed me out to not be able to go but such is life.
ANYways, the library is fixin' to close so I'm gonna be done now. We're going to go get ice cream to celebrate this anniversary of my birth. I didn't even get to blow out any candles:( Oh well. I don't have the hugest lung capacity so I probably wouldn't even get them all blown out anyway. Have a great weekend!