totally trippin'

My friend Jessi and I went on a girls' trip to visit my parents in Williamsburg, VA. We had so much fun! Jessi and I don't see each other much anymore, so this was a special treat to get 4 days and one red-eye flight with her! I don't think it would have been possible to cram anything else into our trip - it was pretty action-packed.

We flew out on the red-eye Thursday night/wee hours of Friday. Friday we went to Viriginia Beach and called it an early evening because we were already exhausted and had a BIG day ahead of us on Saturday. We left super early Saturday morning and drove to Washington DC. We stopped at Iwo Jima and Arlington Cemetery on our way. We had the whirlwind tour of DC with highlights of: the Library of Congress, walk around the Capitol Building, drive by the Jefferson Memorial and the FDR Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, Korean War Memorial, WWII Memorial, the Washington Monument including a ride to the top, the Holocaust Museum, and the White House (at night). Whew! It was a LONG day, but we saw such great and interesting things. On Sunday we went to Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg. Monday was reserved for shopping. There is an incredible outlet mall by my parents' house and we took a stop at Short Pump Mall to go to H&M for Jessi.

Anyone who knows my mom knows that she likes to feed people. So, for our trip home she packed us some tuna fish and cracker lunch kits. While we were waiting for our plane in Cincinnati we were deciding if we wanted to eat or just wait and have some of our snacks on the plane. Jessi had the brilliant idea that she wanted to eat her tuna fish on the airplane! I just about died! Mind you, this probably doesn't seem all that funny right now and is probably one of those had-to-be-there moments. But, this was one of the highlights of the trip for me!

Honestly, we did so much that it is hard to sum it all up on my blog. And, we took a lot of pictures. I took about 250 pictures and I think Jessi probably took near 1,000 (she's a picture fiend). I've included a slide show of some of my pictures.

One last note - the fall leaves on the East Coast are so beautiful! And a big THANK YOU to my mom and dad for their hospitality and making our trip so much fun!

wash, rinse, repeat...

I came across this today. I am a hair product freak. I found it pretty entertaining and was pleased that I was able to score 13/14 on my first go-round. Try it when you have a minute to waste.

P.S. A blog about my trip will be coming this weekend - stay tuned!

in the air

Fall is definitely in the air. We've been busy with all sorts of fall-time activities. Saturday we went to Lyle Dabb's in Farr West to pick out some pumpkins. The kids were completely excited to go to the "punkin patch". For those of you that don't know about Lyle Dabb, many people refer to him as "the weed man". But, not in the pot smoking, refer kind of way. He lives in Farr West and grows a variety of produce that he sells. He also does a variety of wreathes out of weeds, twigs, etc. Most of them are made from items on his farm - I guess this is where "the weed man" nickname comes from. Right now Lyle has all sorts of squash, gords, and pumpkins for sale. His pumpkin prices are incredible! Plus, it is a fun trip to let the kids pick them out at a place like this vs. the produce aisle of the store. Lyle carves a huge pumpkin head and wears it when the kids come. We took pictures...

Tyce and Myka with "the punkin guy". Myka was surprisingly not afraid of him!

Picking out the best "punkins".

We have a winner!

On Sunday my MIL did a fun ghost hunt for the kids (and the big kids, too!). This was a lot of fun. We all had a special Halloween dinner, carved pumpkins (the foamy kind), and had the ghost hunt. The ghost hunt is finding balloons that she puts in the trees around their house. For each "ghost" that the kids find they get a fun prize. They absolutely loved this. Thanks, Laurie!

Fluff and Circsumstance

My latest projects have been Halloween costumes for my kids. I love to make their costumes! It just makes me think that they're that much cuter when they wear them. Plus, I know that whatever I make them will be original and I won't see some other tot sporting the same haunting digs.

This year Tyce is going to be Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas (see pics here) and Myka is going to be a witch. I really wanted Tyce to be a scarecrow. I'm all about the "classic" costumes for my little ones, but, he is getting a mind of his own and that is what he wanted to be. Well, after we went through the "I want to be a ROCKSTAR" stage for a few weeks (Thanks, Jenny). I'll settle for something that is at least a little more Halloween than a rockstar for my 3-year-old.

So, Saturday was spent doing papier mache to get the form of Tyce's mask ready. I picked up the tulle to finish Myka's costume, but didn't get started on that until last night. I was working on this by myself at first and then Travis decided he would volunteer to help. Which, he later regretted once he realized how transparent single strips of tulle are! But, we finally got it finished. We have a trunk-or-treat tonight so I'll take some pictures to post tomorrow. They're going to be so cute!

Poo on You!

I was emailed this link today. I found it to be very entertaining. http://minibytes.mondominishows.com/poo/affiliates/play.asp?Affil=iwon&W
My competitive side wishes this were more of a game. I would like to get points for stomping on the bag of flaming poo, and have potential to be a better poo stomper than someone else. I guess this is just part of what our society has come to -- certain groups of people believe everyone should be equal in their poo stomping abilities and we wouldn't want someone to get their feelings hurt because they couldn't stomp poo as well as someone else. Damn socialists/Marxists/liberals!

These shoes were made for walkin' - or - just plain lookin' good!

Today was a very sad shoe day. I wore my favorite pink heels to work. While I was walking into the building the little plastic/rubber thing on the bottom of the heel came off! Now, my poor right shoe has had a piece of its essential structure amputated. Take a look for yourself...if you can handle the carnage!

Warning: The image you are about to view may be considered offensive to some viewers. Especially those with a fondness for shoes...