It's Not Just for Turkeys Anymore

My SIL, Brandy (on the right) posted this photo to her blog a while back and I just love it. In case you don't know, it's me, Aaron, his brother Noah, and Noah's wife Brandy. This photo was taken at Aaron & Noah's uncle's wedding back in... 2003? I think? Both couples had been dating for only a few months at this point. You can tell, we all look so naive, right? Haha! (This photo has nothing to do with my post, I just had it already loaded up in a blank blog post, so I thought I'd share.)

Anyway, Thanksgiving is in just a few days. The time of feasting and hopefully remembering and thanking God for all the things He's blessed us with. I for one am guilty of focusing on all the things I DON'T have (or maybe just one thing I don't have) rather than all the wonderful things I do have. Even Thanksgiving day is usually focused much more on the feast than the thanks. So this week I've decided to be consciously grateful. Yes, the whole week. Well, except for that comatose hour right after dinner, I'm giving myself a pass then.

Today, since it's Monday, I think I'll be grateful for my job. As tedious and stressful as it can be, I am lucky to even have a job in this economy. I certainly have enough friends looking for work to appreciate my circumstances. So as I get ready to head home for the day, I'll send up a little prayer thanking the Big Guy that Aaron and I have steady jobs that pay all our bills and keep a roof over our heads.

What are you thankful for?

Deep Fried Delicious

I've been slacking on this blog lately! I know you're probably dying for an update, right? Haha... yeah. Well you're getting one anyway.

Aaron and I made our annual trek to the county fair on Thursday with his brother Noah and Noah's wife, Brandy. We had a good time! Although, I think we're officially old because we were FAR more interested in the Gems and Minerals building than the children's art that our counterparts wanted to check out (hello - a huge, detailed model train display, random people's random collections, and cool rocks and fossils? What's not to love about that?? ...Oh that's right, I'm a dork). Plus we were ready to go home after about two hours. Sorry if we were duds, guys!

So anyway, Aaron has been telling me about the pure deliciocity of deep fried Twinkies and Oreos for the past four years. Apparently he had them at the fair once and has been craving them ever since. Every year he looks for them, and every year I tell him, "They didn't have them last year, they probably won't have them this year," while secretly hoping I would eat my words and get to try one of those sinful delights!

Well, the four of us were wandering aimlessly through (what I think was) the Commercial building, having just bought a bunch of mini donuts (Brandy got to eat her words on that one - before she saw the machine that makes them she was questioning why everyone loved them so much), when I happened to see a banner out of the corner of my eye that said "Deep Fried Twinkies - Deep Fried Oreos - Deep Fried Snickers." I grabbed Aaron by the sleeve and turned him toward the booth and his eyes lit up! It didn't matter that he had just eaten 6 mini donuts, he'd been waiting years for this moment! He ordered a deep fried Twinkie from the lovely Southern ladies running the booth (I just love those accents!) and was in heaven. I had a couple bites and it was not bad, it mostly just tasted like funnel cake. (But I think it probably lost some of its appeal after all those donuts!)

I hear the deep-fried Oreos are divine, so hopefully that booth will be back at the fair next year. That should be long enough to get all the artery-clogging goodness out of my system!

Counting Down to our Road Trip!

I'm so excited about our road trip I could pee my pants! But don't worry, I won't. I am a lady after all.

We'll be heading out in just 7.5 short weeks, and we'll be gone for two weeks.

Here's our route (the red line is our route there and the blue line is our route back home):
We already have the basics planned out, like how long we'll be driving each day and what cities we'll stay in each night. Plus we have four major stops planned - a Dodgers/Diamondbacks game in Phoenix, a Royals game in Kansas City, a few days visiting Aaron's cousin in Iowa, and a visit to Denver on the way home. Aaron's dream is to have visited every major league ballpark in the country before he kicks it. I think that's a cool idea, so we're getting started now. And he's always wanted to go to Denver. I'm excited about the adventure of a road trip, but Aaron took some convincing, so we decided to throw those things in for his benefit.

Most of our days will consist of 6 to 10 hours of driving. That is a LOT! So I've been spending some time on this website looking for fun and funky roadside attractions along the way. Ya know, to break up the monotony of just driving, driving, driving... Most are just photo ops of old Route 66 relics. Personally, I am not a Route 66 fanatic, so I don't really care to see a bunch of boring old worn out stuff. I only want to see the cool old worn out stuff! Thank goodness for the internet.

Here are a few gems I've found:

-A wild-west theme park in ruins

-A giant meteor crater

-Cadillac Ranch, of course

-A huge pair of legs

I'm really hoping I'll be able to post on here from the road, so if you're lucky, this blog will be a little more interesting for a while. Otherwise, you can come by our place and enjoy the scrapbook I make after we get back!

Woohoo! I can't WAIT!

Good. Friday.

Today is Friday (Good Friday to be precise), and THANK GOD for that. Has anyone else been experiencing the longest week of their lives? No? Well I have.

Anyway, not a whole heckuva lot going on today, so I thought I'd share this humorous little tidbit:



Haha. Sorry, I just think the shocked/angry look on the face of the chicken reading the Bible is awesome.

I hope everyone has a lovely Easter! Personally, we'll be heading to the elder VD's for brunch, followed by a Lackerdas shindig of some sort. I imagine it will prove to be the most fun Easter we've had since last Easter! ;)

Oh yes, and I am also supposed to mention KATHERINE in this post. So there it is. You're welcome. (Everyone who is not Katherine, don't ask, it's not interesting.) (Katherine, if you're reading this - I was kidding! It's totally interesting! Everything about you is!)