If only this whole car thing was as easy as I made it seem below. This week has been a week of excitement, fear, anger, tears (of joy and saddness)..... but this whole ordeal has just about come to an end.

I'm leaving in about an hour to head to Cleveland, OH for my dear friend Sarah's wedding. But when I get back I will fill you in on all the headache that has been my week. Until then.... have a great weekend!

Oh, and for those of you who were wondering..... yes, I will be making the drip in my new(to me) Acura MDX. Super excited!!!!

Oh happy day!

I think I've got a car! I'm taking it to the dealer tomorrow to have them do a once over on it, then if they say it's clear of problems I will be signing on the dotted line. ohhh I'm giddy :)

Need suggestions...

I'm in a wedding this weekend, and my Florida tan is fading fast! Have any of you used (or currently use) a sunless tanner that you like? Obviously I want something that isn't going to make me orange or leave me with streaks. I've done the spray tan at the tanning salons before, and I love how they look, but we are leaving right after work on Thursday to begin our drive to Cleveland, OH so I'd have to get sprayed on Wednesday (so that I wouldn't stink the whole way up there!) and I'm afraid by the time the wedding rolls around on Saturday you wouldn't be able to tell I had even gotten sprayed!

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Oh, and I don't need color so badly that I'm willing to fork over $100, so bargain products are great!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

What a weekend! It flew by so quickly, but was loaded with so much fun, laughter, laughter, laughter and great memories!

Friday, after the air in my car started to go out, and I smashed my phone in the trunk (another story for another day), Ben and I got on the road about 6:30pm. Rather than driving the whole way that night, and trying to find our way up winding mountain roads in the dark, we decided to stop half way and spend the night at his grandparent's house. We got a semi early start on Saturday morning and headed towards the mountains.

We got to the cabin and the rest of the family was rarin' to go! My brothers had decided that we needed to go find a cold mountain stream to play in, so off we went. My dad wasn't sure where to go to find a stream in the mountains, or if they would just let us get out of the car and start playing so we went into Pigeon Forge to this stream someone had told him about. All of us kids were joking around that we probably weren't actually allowed to be there but my dad assured us that it was fine. Once we walked up to the river, there was a sign that said "WARNING: No Swimming, or Fishing in this river. It has been tested with high levels of fecal bacteria" - GROSS!!!!!! The little girls, A & K were FREAKING OUT! "Ewww gross! It smells like poo poo" (it didn't BTW). So we all climbed back in the cars and headed up the road to find a cleaner place to play. After playing in the cold, rocky creek for about an hour or two we headed back to the cabin. (I'll have pictures as soon as my mom sends them to me.) But about 200 yards up the road we started to smell something..... the sewer plant!! Trust me, I have never scrubbed my skin so hard as I did when we got back to the cabin. Ew. I'm still kinda grossed out by it.

Big brother and sis-in-law made dinner for everyone that night and then we retired to many hours of ROCKBAND.

Sunday morning we were up bright and early - at 6:00am to get ready to head out to Cade's Cove.

We rented bikes and biked the 11 miles around. It was beautiful, difficult, fun, humid, and so exhausting! Here is a picture of Ben and I along the way

and since they didn't offer baby seats, this is how big brother rode the whole way.


And here are all the boys (minus dad) resting after riding down "Biker's Hill"



After the bike ride we had a picnic, then sent mom back to the cabin with the baby so we could go tubing down a river - a clean river. That was just the relaxation we needed after using muscles I didn't know existed! Ben and I cooked dinner that night, then we all just laid around and hung out.


Monday morning we got to "sleep in" until 7:00am (My dad see's vacation a little differently than most ppl do.) then we headed up into the mountains to hike to Grotto Falls. It was absolutely beautiful!





And a picture of the whole family



The rest of the weekend was spent eating A LOT, spending some time in prayer as a family, and making new memories. It went by too quickly and I can't wait for our next vacation!

Family Vacay!

Well Kiddo's, I'm off to the mountains for my family vacation! I'm so excited! All 5 of my siblings, parents, sis-in-law and nephew will be invading east TN for little time in the Smokey's. We haven't all been together since Christmas so I couldn't be more thrilled to see everyone! Ben is joining the family trip for the 1st time, so it will be fun to see what my brothers put him through. :)

I'm sure I will have great stories and photos to share when I get back!

Have a great weekend everyone

Do they ever grow up?

Tink tink....... swing......ddrrrrr durp durp durp.....*crowd cheering*..........son of a____.......


agh yes. the sounds of being at Ben's. What are those sounds you ask? they are a mixture of Ben setting up his PS3 for the new NCAA football game that is coming out tomorrow.....

Oh you didn't know it's coming out tomorrow? Well, it's all I've heard about for 2 weeks. "um, just so you know, starting Tuesday I'm just gonna be playing NCAA '09 all night every night for a few weeks. " Thanks for the heads up, Ben!

(and the other sound)...and Ben's roommate - Roommate - playing the Tiger Woods game on his Wii upstairs.

Oh the joys of hanging out with 2 guys in their mid-20's. When I was younger I thought that video games were something that guys out grew in their teens. I could never have been more wrong!

I just got done spray painting the lovely shiny gold lamps that Ben inherited from his parents, and I'm inhaling the fumes as I brought them back inside a little too early. So if this post seems a little LOOPY, you know why!

Sew Sew Good

So it's taken me awhile to get these on here, but I just finished my tote bag tonight and I also made a pair of PJ pants. Here are the pictures


Tote bag:

and tonights project.... Pajama capri's. I bought the "Large" pattern, but turns out I needed the Medium. So the legs of the pants are a little larger than should be, but oh well! Please excuse the lack of photography talent :)

(Close up view of the fabric)

Ooey Gooey Caramel Pie

Here is my very difficult and tricky recipe for caramel pie:

Ingredients:
2 cans of condensed milk ( I use Fat Free. It tastes the same, just makes it a little lumpier)
1 graham cracker crust (I used reduced fat. It tastes the same, just very crumbly)

Directions:
Remove paper from around cans, and place them in a pot of boiling water. Place the cans on their sides - the bottom tends to get a little burnt if placed on their ends.

Boil for 3 hours - you will have to add water periodically to make sure cans remain covered with water at all times.

Poor into pie crust and refrigerate. Cover with coolwhip before serving.



There ya go! There is my tricky recipe! :) I hope you enjoy!

It's Memphis... what do you expect?

I know I've promised a post about my beach trip, and I promise it is coming. But today's events far outweigh the beach - at least in my mind they do.

6:20am: I wake up and think " UUGGHHH Why can't it be Saturday?! I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO WORK!"

8:00am: Sitting at work, frustrated because I'm not sure where to go or what to do

9:00am: In co-workers office telling her about my frustration and having a mini-cry fest. (Yes, I was a major girl and shed a few tears at work. It was totally private and in the office of one of my really good friends. She gets it - it's ok)

9:20am: Leave the office to go do some cold calling and hopefully secure some new clients

9:40am: Pull into parking lot at a church and walk around trying to find the office

9:45am: Walk back to my car and find this.......


Oh yes, that's right.... in a 5 minute period someone busted out the window in my car and stole my laptop bag. Thankfully nothing was in the bag except a bunch of brochures and other papers, but UGH! Since I had already had the mini-cry fest earlier, seeing my window shattered was all it took for the waterfall of tears to come gushing down my face. Ben's cell was dead, so I called my friend Tiggle and got him to look up police numbers for me. I spent 2 hours at the church with the police and minister looking at surveillance videos and finger printing my car. The janitor at the church was so nice and vacuumed out my car and wiped everything down. I feel like I should bake him a cake or something, but he probably thinks I'm a freak since I was bubblering like a little girl so it might be safer to just send a Thank You note.


Oh, and when I called my manager to tell him what had happened and how I'd probably be spending the rest of my afternoon getting a new window, and chasing down police reports - he said "not a problem. take your time." But my friend at work called me and said he told her "do you think she is just making that up to get out of cold calling" THE NERVE! He obviously knows we are really good friends, so why would he say that to her unless he wanted her to tell me? People are just so rude.

But I'm so over this day. I'm at home now, catching up on reading all my blogs (my reader had 167 unread posts.) and making a caramel pie. I deserve it after today right?

I'm back...

I'm back! The beach was A M A Z I N G! Hopefully I will have time this week to post some pictures and tell you all about it! I'm finally full time sales now so I've been kicked out of my office and into a cube in the "sales pit." I'm also not in the office but an hour or two each day so I'm very behind on reading blogs and posting! And my internet at home has been down, but they are promising it will be back tomorrow...... So bare with me for a few days then I will (hopefully) be back in full swing!