Christmas Chaos - I love it!

Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday!  Over the last few days I've participated in and witnessed everything from Christmas Eve beer pong to Christmas Day pin the hat on the turkey!  Wffhhheeeew, what a whirlwind and I wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world!  

Kind of long video but just a small sample of one of the finer chaotic moments!  Half of the fam wasn't even there!

Grandma Dee helping the kids play pin the hat on the turkey.  Isn't this a Thanksgiving game?  Whatever, tis the season!

Snow'd in!

I'm not sure WHAT Mother Nature's problem is but she needs to get over it!

Thank goodness my car is in the garage!  Right?...Wait, where's my garage??!!

The hills are alive with the sound of let's freeze our asses off!

AC, I just HAD to take this pic of your drive!  I'm positive it no longer looks like this due to the fact we got 5-6 more inches last night not to mention the blizzard conditions of today!

Snow is crap.

It used to be so pretty...until cold and snow and winter.

We knew it would eventually happen and it did. Winter has officially cracked the whip on us. I loved winter as a child. Going sledding, toboggining, ice skating, snow days! But now, I'd like to say I'm a middle of the road kind of gal when it comes to winter/snow/ice/slush/salt etc... BUT I'm not. I try my darndest to enjoy it because sometimes it is pretty and whatnot but it's gross and cold and that's it. I have compiled a list of 5 "LOVES" and 5 "HATES" about the wintery weather/season.

LOVES

1. Snow men - they really are cool at any age.

2. The ability to buy sweaters and let your gut out for 3 to 4 months!

3. Christmas cards with pictures on them - or just Christmas cards in general.

4. A legit excuse to stay in.

5. Bailey's & coffee.

HATES

1. Salt trucks. Everything about em' - hate em'

2. People who like to show off their 4 wheel drive - Hello, you're scaring the crap out of everyone else! Plus you still look like a dumb ass.

3. Broken wipers.

4. Gross slushy crap and road salt all over your nice dress clothes.

5. The inability to properly enjoy a slurpee (or any delightful frozen drink for that matter).

12/12/06 - 11/17/08 Sianara!

Its been SUPER fun collecting (reading, studying, memorizing, highlighting) books for the past 2 years but as of today I can officially say good bye!  Time to close this chapter and start a new one!  YAY!

Birthday Fun!

Happy Birthday baby A!  Had such a great time at your birthday party this weekend!  You & your big sis are too cute and you're both growing too fast!

**And you're never too old for "mock senior photos"!

Happy, pretty fall season...

Hello friends & fellow bloggers! I hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful fall season where ever you are. I think my fellow Michiganders will agree with me that Michigan is certainly one of the prettiest states in the fall! It's the winter that screws with us (at least that's my opinion)! Sorry to report, that last weekend I discovered via an Apple Genious that my computer will need to be re-fixed before I am able to download any more pics from my camera. Unfortunately I need my computer every day until my last class ends on Nov. 17th. You'll all just have to deal with my semi-lame phone pics for a few weeks!

I took this picture today. I look out my office windows into the courtyard everyday and I see this big beautiful yellow tree! It seriously gets brighter and brighter everyday. The picture doesn't do it justice at all. It's almost blinding. I also look at it and think, "soon all the leaves will be gone and there'll be ice & snow, and I'll want to throw myself from this very window. Call me sentimental....yeah, ok...........bite me.

Damn, I'm cute!

Ok, so I've been being a MAJOR slacker on my blog lately.  If you've been boycotting me I understand.  The truth is I've been really busy (yes, believe it or not single people are busy too!...lol) and now that I have a bunch of recent pics I have to update my camera software to go with my new updated Apple software!  Ahh, the joys of technology.  Put it this way, something on the computer that would take the average 15 year old these days about 15 seconds will take me about 3 months!  In the mean time I found a few "old school" pics to tide us all over until I get settled.  Trust me, you won't be disappointed...

Believe it or not this is my Uncle Matt.  He tortures me now but this proves at one time we got along!  My head is averaged sized, HE has the tiny head....and large teeth if I may say.

What can I say.....I loved Barbie.  She was my everything.

And who can resist some Super Golden Crisp!!?  I'm sure my mother will be proud of this one!!...ha.

Well I hope you enjoy and I'll be working on my updates.  Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Ahhhh....September

Happy September, Happy Labor Day, and Happy 1st Anniversary to my best wing couple!!  It was a great day...one for the books!

One year down and you didn't strangle each other!  Here's to many more!!

Please don't take my sunshine away.

Ok, so I'm back in the friggin saddle, the computer is fixed.  It's been fixed for a couple of weeks, I've just been busy workin & playin.  I have all the fixins to back up my work.  2 GB USB, a pack of 50 CD-R's for pics, now I just need to know HOW to get everything there!  I refuse to let this computer make me look like an idiot so I will figure it out.

Well, summer is quickly coming to a close and I'm pretty sad about this.  Not that I don't enjoy fall, winter, & spring but.....I don't enjoy fall, winter, & spring.  So I've decided to include a few of my most memorable moments from the last few weeks in order to help me deal with the upcoming seasons...

(Ok, these 3 were last month but I couldn't resist.  Pretending I'm a bandit?  Maybe...)

(AC & I couldn't resist going down & playing on the track after watching the race...yeah we get these bright ideas after we've a had a couple race track margaritas)

(Mom came for a weekend visit a couple weeks ago and we walked around downtown to check out all the art.  Look real hard...squint!  Here she is posing with Alexander Calder's famous La Grande Vitesse.)

(...and the great ol' Au Sable trip.  What can I say?  An oldy but ALWAYS a goodie as far as summer events go!  What a great time!)

On that note, everyone have a great Labor Day weekend and enjoy the sunshine while it's still around!  GO ON...quit readin this silly blog and get outside!

Mama's Fallen Apple

I had a great brainstorm going for my next blog on my wild & crazy Au Sable weekend but brainstorming is about as far as I got because late Monday night my beloved Mac took a nose dive into corruption world. Thank goodness I was only about 100 words into my paper at the time (MAJOR procrastination on my part!). Technician Charlie (my new BFF) at the Apple store is taking good care of her and tring to re-install most of her hard drive. He has been able to save most of my docs, thank God because I have ALL of my psych papers from the last 2 years on there w/NO backup! Wow, did I feel like a complete dumb ass when that came up! Needless to say backing up my info is at the TIPPY TOP of my to do list now! I might still lose the majority of my pics but Charlie will do his best...and that's all I can ask. Pray for Mama's fallen Apple blogworld! I will be back (hopefully) in 3 to 5 business days!

Addiction...NO laughing matter

So, call it an epiphany or simply a realization...but I'm addicted to "the joe". Coffee that is. I'm not particularly proud of it but I am. I think I realized this last week as I ran out of my fabulous Gevalia French Vanilla blend. I went 2 days without "the joe" and by Thursday morning I realized that I was sort of transforming, if I may, into another person...a scary "joeless" person! And this week I catch myself thinking, "OMG, how am I going to be able to get my "joe" before I push off on the river this weekend?" Shouldn't I be worried about more pressing things? "Whoa", I thought, "who am I?" I never in my life thought I'd get addicted. I didn't even like the stuff a year ago! Being a psych major I attempted to diagnose myself. "Maybe it's bipolar disorder, maybe it's schizophrenia!" Nope. I had "joe deprived" disorder. It's a complicated disorder with many different reported cases and symptoms. I realized I had to accept my diagnosis and move on. So that very day I set out to find a store bought brand of "joe", see I'm spoiled and I've never purchased "the joe" from a store...I get my dear Gevalia sent to me! I purchased the Seattle's Best Vanilla Bean to try and I have to say I love it! This "joe" along w/my Vanilla Nut "joe" creamer is the perfect combo percription! So for now, no intervention needed.

Is it Friday yet??!...

Happy Monday everyone! Is it me or is this summer flying by? It will be over before we know it! To reminisce a little, AC's 30th birthday festivities were last weekend. Seriously SO much fun! We started the day off by going to get mani-pedi's on top of a little shopping for something to accentuate our 30 year old hotness! The evening began with some dinner & drinks at Churchill's in downtown GR. By far the best meal I've had this year! The head chef, Tommy, visited our group of 17 often. He dolled up and delivered the cakes, and he was particularly catering to my need for a Gluten Free meal. If anyone ever gets to GR go there to eat if you can. The atmophere is fun and modern and the staff are wonderful! We ended the evening with some dancing at Club Moxie, pretending we were 25 again! I was going to post some sweet normal pics but I've decided to pick one or two of my favorite funny ones from the evening...

(I was pretty proud of my cakes even though we had a tiny mishap w/one of them!  The chef jazzed it up and fixed it good!)

(Not so much MC pretending he's in a Sears catalog, but the "open legged skirt" behind him...seriously.)

AC:  "we are SO hotter than that 24 year old blonde with fake boobs"

CML:  "uhmmm hummm...you KNOW it guurrrl, let's go shake our money makers!"

This past weekend consisted of the 1st Annual GR Bar Crawl. I have not done this many restaurant/bar related events in a while so don't go thinkin I'm out on the town every night or anything! It just happened to end up this way...HONEST! We started out at an awesome tapas restaurant, San Chez. They too had a Gluten Free menu that I could order from! I took absolutely NO pictures from the Bar Crawl but had an absolutely wonderful time and met a lot of new people! BIG shout out to AN & JN for the invite and also AC & MC for taking me along! I am looking forward to a BIG couple weeks ahead with a work event at the Berlin Raceway this weekend and the BIG Oscoda canoe trip the following weekend. Ahhhh.....I can smell the Au Sable and jello shots already! Can't wait! In the mean time, I will try not to go bonkers!

Happy Independence Day!

I hope everyone had a great extended weekend and hopefully you were all able to soak in some fireworks and celebrate your independence!  I have a very busy few weeks coming up so I took advantage of the weekend by hangin out over at AC & MC's house.  They HAVE to be getting sick of me, I am freakin always there!  If they would help marry me off we wouldn't have this problem!  This pic was taken from their deck.  The K-wood city fireworks are lit off about a block from their house!  We got fancied up and went out on the town for a bit on Saturday.  Have to scope out places for AC's big 3-0 coming up next Saturday (one week left my friend...ONE week)!

I also put my sweet darling baby up on autotrader today but not before she decided to give me one more headache.  Thanks a lot bitch!  She never did like those fancy car-washes...she always preferred the ol' sponge and bucket method.  If anyone out there in blog world has any ideas for a cheap fix, feel free to chime in!  I've already ruled out duct tape!  Thanks again bitch!

Says so on the box!...

Ok, I'm not all about back to back blogs but I just have to put my excitement out into the earth today!  I was sitting at work today, working (A.K.A...searching through my sweet read blogs) when I came across a post over at goingglutenfree.  In this lovely post she talks about General Mills Rice Chex being Gluten Free.  Remembering this post later on after work, I decided to scan the cereal isle at Target and I'll be damned if it isn't totally TRUE!  It it labeled very clearly on the box, which is a BIG deal if you know anything about labeling and the "hell" of reading and figuring out labels.  And how much easier is it now for people like me that can just go grab it and eat it!...After purchase of course.  I snagged up the biggest box I could find  and had some for dinner.  I am pumped.

Today also marks day 1 of a little journey of my own.  My lovely GI specialist diagnosed me on Friday with something called Refractory Sprue.  My body hasn't been responding to the Celiac diet for quite some time now so I decided to take action.  Well, long story short...it's been a long process with lots of tests and traveling and here we are!  I'll be taking a low dosage steroid (Entocort EC) for 6 months to a year and hope I don't have hair on my back or turn into a man by the end of this!  I don't think I'd make a very hot man...but I might get more action!  Sorry to get all "medical" on the readers but I just thought I'd school ya a bit!  What-What!  Expand your brains.

Hustle & Bustle...

Well the month of June has certainly been an insane one in the "busy" department!  There's just so much to do during the summer and I never want to miss out on anything so I try to do it all, which usually doesn't end up working out too well for my sanity.  Anyways, an update on fun events of June... 

The 1st weekend was fun, got my IKEA cherry popped.  Whoa....IKEA.  We had so much fun trying to figure the place out and once we did it was shop till you drop!  I will post pics of my new sweet bookshelf once it is put together.  After IKEA we went to this awesome steakhouse, J. Alexander's.  So, delish and I thuroughly enjoyed the martinis after the long shopping day (as pictured)!  

The first annual Back Yard Games were on the 21st and boy was it fun!  We were up late Friday tearing up Alicia & Matt's yard & building horseshoe pits but everything went off as planned. 

I went to dinner with my Royal Oak buddies Lynn & Nicole on Thursday of this week and then jetted off to Cedar Point on Friday morning with my Law Firm.  Ok, I haven't been to Cedar Point in a while and I feared I wouldn't be able to ride the coasters because I am getting older and I vomit much easier but I had a blast and rode a lot of them and a couple new ones I really liked.  My fave:  the Millennium Force, Least Fave & ride that scared the crap out of me, but proud that I tried it:  Top Thrill Dragster.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all dads everywhere!  I hope you all got to do whatever it is you do on this day.  I didn't get to see my dad today but I'm sure he milked it for all it was worth!  Here we are at my 30th birthday party back in February.  Damn, we're good lookin'!  

Don't drink and ride!

There is no better lesson that I've learned throughout the years! Sometimes old habits are hard to break! Last Saturday I had the privilage of walking to the park with my best friend, her sister, niece & nephew, her grandparents, and her dad & his wife. It was a grand ol' family time at the park. Spent some time on the slide and monkey bars. I also played my 1st BlongoBall game. This game is fun! It will also be one of our featured games at the First Annual Back Yard Games this year and I can't wait to play it again!

Here I am trying to get rid of a spider (without killing it) that made it's way up to the very top of the slide. It was an intense moment for the kids and I but he finally made it onto the smallest piece of stick in the world and I tossed him into the grass.

I also just want to give a shout out and congrats to my girl & her husband over at the Barron Blog on the birth of their twins! Another shout out and congrats to my girl over at momoftwinz on the news of her impending Aunt-hood! So great to hear about all the procreating! Well done!

The Blaze of 2008 is OUT

Ok, so before I start blogging about my favorite recipes, music, crafts, friends & family, cool stuff, things that annoy me, things that don't annoy me, blah, blah, blah, I must tell you about the blaze of 2008 that occurred last weekend.  My goal is to try and post a fab video or pic along w/this post but if I don't succeed don't hate me.  So I'm coming out of my favorite mexican casa downstate, Qdoba, and walk upon an electrical box that is buzzing quite profusely and also starting to spark quite profusely.  Well, in the words of a wise anchorman, "things escalated quickly".  I was in awe, just starring...until my "gent" decided to call 911 and drag me to the truck for safety purposes.  Still in awe at the escalation of things and anxiously timing the fire departments arrival, we decided to start frantically taking pictures and videos w/our phones.  I also realized I had my camera so I indulged in a video or two with that.  I was upset that the building was burning a little but also quite enthralled in the action.  What is it with that?  The fire department showed up, broke into the building and turned the power off.  See, it was an electrical fire so they couldn't just spray it w/the hose!  HA!  Don't laugh.  

I did it world! I am a blogger!

I have no idea what I'm doing but here it goes! I have been wanting to join the blog world for a while now but just never took the time to sit and do it. I also fear I will have nothing to blog about since I have no children and I have no husband! All of my wonderful friends who blog have husbands, businesses, projects, children, children on the way, twins, etc... But then I thought, "hey I'm not totally boring, I have stuff going on...sort of! Also, what an awesome way to keep in touch with everyone who is far away! I hope you are all happy and proud I am here. I'm sure most of my blogs will just be babble but who cares? I'm going to give it a shot...for all of you that make this look so easy and fun! I'm comin' after you if it isn't (you know who you are)! HA! So, if you can send any tips or tricks of the trade my way, feel free!