Monday Monday!

OK, so back to Memphis for a brief period of time... Monday we got to spend time playing with Ana and having fun, we cooked lunch (my new favorite stuffed zucchini), and then we hopped in the car to head home.

Ana walked around the back yard with Grandma for a while 

Then she put on her new princess sunglasses and played with sidewalk chalk!

 

And then learned a little about badminton!

 

Then she hopped in the old car and drove around

 

We went inside to eat a mid-morning snack and Ana helped me make miso soup!

Then we made a funky alien headband with pipe cleaners

After that, she lint rolled Uncle Jeremy-- he was much cleaner after that!

Wine Crawl!

Before the food poisoning set in, we had a really lovely time at the wine crawl!

Waiting outside The Matador-- first stop!

Pabst Blue Ribbon Doggie treats and others at Taj Mahound

Why yes, yes those ARE pot leaf shaped doggie treats. As if $2 for a dog treat weren't crazy enough!

Jeremy being goofy outside Steinbecks

The pointiest plant EVER outside the laundromat-- I backed in to it when we were talking to the Girl Scouts. OUCH!

This is Halloween, everybody SCREAM!

Another year, another Halloween! Only some of the kids dressed up, but the staff went all out-- it's days like this that remind me just how much I LOVE my staff!

Brandy as Princess Giselle from Enchanted!

Me as a PANDA!

The Game Room/Carnival Room

Carnival Stop-- Pin the Eye on the Ghost, Feed the Monster, and Drats (darts with sticky rats)

Drats up close

Diana (aka Picabo Street) and Jillian-- I totally dubbed Picabo, Diana was just going to be a skier lol

Farmer Kesler-- moustache and all

Jeremy as Ang, The Last Airbender

Sharon (Cheetah), Brandy, and Jillian

Hunter, Me, Jeremy, Diana, Louis

TP Mummy Contest!

Diana and Jimmy working Feed the Monster

Marcus making his witches hat cookie

Kendra the Kitty (she is the cutest kid at after school after the Salcedos!)

Lilia's Witch

Sharon

Shreya

Chava

Fran paints Isaiah

Jackie paints Malachi

Stephen works Drats

Nia, Kendra, Bridget, and Chava

Octavia-- meow!

Abebech, Alyssa, Sidney, and Emily do their best "hard" face

Lennox the Vamp!

Autumn pulling her sad puppy look

Kurt (my boss/youth minister) looking Grr-y

Me and the Monsters-- I loooove these girls! Their mom and dad are OK, too ;)

Miss Fran grosses out Mr Louis!

Coming Tomorrow! I promise!

I know it's been a while, but we did go to the Little 5 Points Halloween Parade today, I promise I'll have pictures up tomorrow! It was a lot of fun, we got to hang out with the kids and Michael and their Aunt Della and her boyfriend Brent AND the weather was perfect!!

Pictures up tomorrow-- I got some pretty good ones with my ol' Fuji, probably it's last hurrah since it's probably going to get sold and replaced with a Cannon point and shoot. They take much better pictures than they used to and the zoom response is starting to lag these days on the Fuji, so we'll see if I can get $100 for it and put it towards a more portable camera than the EOS and the Fuji equally.

Ciao for now!

Indiana Fun

Our neighbor Paige is from Indiana and, apparently, on long cold Indiana nights, they played Cribbage. It is an excellent game and I rock at it! Paige and I sat out on the porch this evening and had a Girls Night In with a bottle of wine, a deck of cards, and a cribbage board.

Jeremy and I have had a very long week with CSD out for "fall break" and us in for full day camp. The pay will be good, but WHEW we could use a weekend to ourselves!

Last weekend was recruitment and bid day for Gamma Sigma and Kappa Omicron, and I'm so proud of BOTH my chapters-- GS got quota plus one with 24 new girls and KO got 47 NEW MEMBERS!!!!! LARGEST PLEDGE CLASS EVER. I'm so thrilled, I can't wait to get back for homecoming and meet all the new girls!

Not much else to say, so I'm going to go to bed and get some sleep! Ciao for now!

What vacation?

Sunday: I went and picked up the 2nd rental car from the airport and then we left for the Traylor house in Paris, TN to spend a day or so out on the farm. We got there about dinner time and settled in, Earl threw a bunch of brain benders at us and we sat up playing puzzles for the rest of the night. I am not that great at those things, but it was fun to watch Jeremy and Josh blow right through them! Sarah and I stumbled through a few and then brushed them aside when Earl wasn't looking!

Monday: Slept "in" and by that I mean we got up at 8a. Amazing what sleeping in entails when you're used to 6:30a! We sat around and watched some Discovery in HD, then Sarah went back to bed for a while (her stomach was giving her problems) and Josh and I went with Uncle Matt and Grandma Traylor over to the Mennonite store to do some shopping. I picked up a couple of little embroidered doilies for mom's belated present, some snacks for the car (yogurt covered raisins and figs!) and Matt got me some fig preserves to try out. We went to another Mennonite store, Yoder Bros., where the meat processing takes place and I bought more stuff! Matt had never tried Muscadines, so I returned the favor with some Muscadine preserves and picked up some Habanero pickles for Jeremy. Josh picked up some Habanero cheddar for us to enjoy, and enjoy we did! It was soooo nice and creamy, great flavors, and we still have most of it left to munch on for the rest of the week!

We got back and Jeremy started making yeast rolls, Josh and I watched more Discovery HD (seriously, Discovery channel is awesome, it's even better in HD!) and I went out and took some pictures of the dogs, turkeys, and birds. The neighbor Dan (Dan, Dan, the CIA man) came over for dinner and was a real treat. He doesn't talk about his CIA past much, but you can tell he's worked in the area.

After dinner, Earl took us back out to the pasture and saddled up the horses! He took me out on Buddy first, the easier horse, then I swapped out to Earl's horse Dago and Sarah got up on Buddy and we walked them around the yard; for those of you unfamiliar, the yard is reeeeeeally big! I walked us up to the porch so everyone could see Sarah on the horse (it was only her second time up on a horse) and they both spooked big time from some of the birds in the trees! I got Dago under control pretty quick, and Earl hopped off the porch and got Buddy out from under Sarah-- she was scared, but she held it together pretty well!

I rode around with Earl a while longer, then we put the horses back to pasture and went back to the porch to watch the storm come in. Then we got wise and went in to take showers in case the power went out! We watched some more Discovery channel, and fell in to bed.

Today: Woke up after a rough night's sleep (this cough just won't go away! Thankfully, Jeremy's seems to be getting better) and went with the boys in to the Suzuki shop after breakfast. We went ahead and stopped by Enterprise because the scraping noise in the car just got super loud! Poor little Paris, TN Enterprise only had about 8 cars on the lot and they were all going out, but they called the Decatur branch to try and swap it out for us. One of the guys at the Decatur branch (shockingly) said to send us up to get it checked out. So, we got in the car with the suspected brake problem and went up the street. The guy got us in and checked it out perfunctorily and sent us on our way. "Well, I don't hear anything and the brake pads look good so must be ok!" After wasting an hour there I said fine, we'll drive it back to Memphis, but if it makes one more noise I'm swapping it out.

We got back and had lunch, packed up and said our goodbyes and hit the road. The car was still making noise, so I called the airport and asked to come in and swap out. I gave them a little time to get some new cars in and went on up. They got me set really quickly, and even gave me the Hyundai Santa Fe (my dream car) and then... Atlanta wouldn't answer the phone to approve the swap. For over an hour. Today alone, I wasted 3+ hours on the rental car! This is the second one that broke, and if I don't have my Hyndai in the morning there will be even more hell to pay. I missed dinner with the family, Jeremy missed dinner coming to get me, not to mention the hassle.

Now I feel kinda sick again, but I'm trying to stay in a decent mood and stay up to finish the Deadliest Catch tribute to Phil Harris. So sad that he's gone!

Pictures later, and more vacation updates. Hopefully I'll come home with the right car tomorrow!

Fastest Week of Our Lives! (in pictures)

These are just the pictures from our camera, we'll have the professional stuff and ones from friends later-- enjoy!

We started the week with Celtic Christmas-- here's JJ Sheridan (piano)

and Joe Craven (everything)

Pipers and drummers headed out at the end

Michael (The Border Collies), JJ, and Alison Brown

Me and Ms. Whitley both of the Rosin Sisters and Westchester Elementary School Library!

Good job waitress-- dark picture of everyone at lunch (work)

Much better picture of everyone, but without JL!

JL and Richard try not to laugh as they subject Jeremy to the lady who rubs people's backs...

Mary Mac's Tea Room (where we had lunch)

The cake from work-- it was YUMMY, good job Kurt!

"Do Not Refrigerate With Cake" -- why would you?

Lauren earns her lunch by helping pass out cake

From the 16th floor of the Georgian Terrace-- we never did go to the roof!

Joe checks out the fancy artwork on the wall in Joey and Lauren's room

and the $6 bottle of Evian

Joey looks lawyerly on his suite chair

Violet goes for Jeremy's lemon-- she went to town on it

Me and Anne-Minter-- 20 years of friendship!

Group shot, even if it's a little blurry.

Jeremy, Violet, Lauren, Joey, Brent, Joe, Nathan, Anne-Minter, Me, Meg, Julian, and Michael

The view from Marc and Jan's room

Me and Brent with our "Jew Beer" (He'brew-- good stuff!)

Sad Walrus-- it's cold and rainy!

Lauren takes over the picture making

The finished product-- so cute!

Peter, Matthew, and Derek-- orchestrators of the Rehearsal Dinner

Em, Me, and Fia

Josh and Sarah

Mom and Me (we don't look related, do we?)

I really have no idea what Brent, Joe, and Joey are doing here...

Even Vivi pigged out

Brent, Josh, and Jeremy

Lauren sings Brent the Dreidel song in Latin. Happy Chanukah, Brent!

Fia pins my "Bride" button on my scarf

and I humor my friends momentarily. The fake veil went away.

AJ works on my hair

Jan gets her hair done

What the what did this woman do to Dill's hair?! She NASCAR'd it, that's what!

Fia tries to straighten my layers

Brunner saves the day with lipstick (mine was on my dresser...)

Lauren's hair has been un-NASCAR'd!!

Hollis and Michael Reardon who got married the same day we did!!

Joey chewing his food at Varsity, Jr.

Lauren enjoying

Jeremy being, well, Jeremy

And me with my CHILI DOG OF AWESOMENESS

"I am Jewish and I approve this message"

"I'm going to miss you SO MUCH!"

It was a really fantastic week and I can't wait to see the rest of the pictures since it went by so quickly! I'll put up more when we get them.