Bloggy Break

Howdy, bloggy friends. Just a quick note to let you know that I am taking a bloggy break for a week. I am preparing to have ADULT CONVERSATION!

GIRL conversation!

Every day for a week!

My best buddy from Kentucky is coming to spend a week with me. Woohoo! We're going to be up until 2:00am every morning, jabbering about everything and nothing.

See you in about a week!

Mess of the Day #15 & #16: Messy Mouths

Okay, so this isn't that bad, but I thought the pic was cute. You've got to give her credit for matching the crayon to the outfit! These are the washable crayons. Somewhere I have a pic of a 2-year-old Drama Queen after she chewed on a black washable crayon. What a mess!

Screech eating her favorite thing: a "hopsicle."

Easy Recipe Thursday: Crock Pot Ribs

This is so easy, it's embarrassing. I really do put more love and care into meals than this! (Just not every day!)

Crock Pot Ribs

- Country style pork ribs (bone-in or boneless), enough for your family (they will cook down quite a bit, so buy a little more than you need)
- Your favorite BBQ sauce (We love Sweet Baby Ray's; it's very sweet! We were on a Bull's Eye kick for awhile, but we burned out on it. We also like Montgomery Inn.)

Trim fat from ribs, if desired. Place a thin layer of BBQ sauce into crockpot. Add a layer of ribs, then enough BBQ sauce to coat. Keep adding layers of ribs and sauce, ending with a liberal coat of sauce. Cook on low for 8-9 hours. Serve with extra sauce.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

While spending some Mommy time with me tonight, Pete asked me if he could sleep with Drama Queen's friend when she comes to visit. (He fancies her as his "girlfriend".) I replied, "No," and when he asked why not, I stated that boys and girls do not sleep together unless they are married.

He then asked when girls and boys can get married, and I replied, "They can't get married until they are old enough to understand what marriage is."

"I know what marriage is," he quickly offered. "It's when a man is with a woman and he can't get away from her!"

WFMW: Free Tech Support

**UPDATED** Sorry I forgot the name and the link! I added it below.

Computers can be maddening sometimes, can't they? The worst is when you have a problem and no one can tell you how to fix it. (Well, some will, but for a hefty fee.) What do you do?

I discovered a wonderful, FREE tech support service, www.protonic.com. This is not a forum where just anybody can read your question (and possibly give you bad advice). You create an account, post your question privately, and a real, live technician will be assigned to assist you with your problem. They are extremely knowledgeable and professional and will work with you via email until the problem is solved. They can help you with any kind of problem: security, internet, email, printing, creating web pages, Windows, and much, much more! I have used their services for years and they have helped me so much. Their service is completely free, but they do accept donations.

Here are my previous WFMW posts:

Calming Injured Children
Choosing a Phone Number
What NOT to Soak Contacts In
Broken Glass Cleanup
Cheap Rolling Cart for Conventions
Chocolate Recipes
Tooth-Tugging Tip for Terrified Tots
Handy Earache Relief
Uses for Leftover Bread
Leaky Diaper/Pull-up Fix
Snack Mix Recipe (at the end of the post)
Awesome Stain Recipe (at the end of the post)
"Fun"damentals of Family Life
Removing Wite-Out from Everything
When NOT to Save Money
Public Service Announcement

For more WFMW tips, stop by Shannon's blog.

The Week in Pictures

It's been a busy week, so I haven't blogged much. To catch you all up, here are some pics from this past week and the weekend:

Had ice cream at this AWESOME little place:


Went to Yellow River Game Ranch to see and pet the animals:




Those who know me in real life will understand the significance of this pic:

And this one:


Open wide!



AWANA Awards night. Drama Queen and Pete each finished their books! Drama Queen will move up to TNT next year.


Drama Queen's first Girl Scout campout. She had a ball! She's only been in this troop a few weeks, and she's loving it.

A few girls from Drama Queen's troop participated in a Memorial Day ceremony.

Have a great week!

Easy Recipe Thursday: Birthday Special!

Today we celebrated Hubby's birthday! We had a wonderful day together. The kids did all the planning. They made homemade cards and poems for him, decorated, and chose the meal (Daddy's favorite pizza from an AWESOME local Mom and Pop pizza place). I made the yummiest cake (I will share the recipe below). First, I wanted to share Drama Queen's poem, which was written 100% by herself with no input from me (I have added a couple of comments in brackets):

Today Is Daddy’s Birthday

Today is Daddy’s birthday
For us to celebrate.
We’ll have some cake and candles
And I can “bearly” wait! [Daddy often calls her "Little Bear"]

I love Daddy truly,
I love him quite a bunch.
I wish today was Saturday,
Together we’d eat lunch!

I like Daddy’s moustache,
It’s nice and big and brown.
Whenever he is happy
He never makes a frown!

He takes us on a doo ride [This was Pete's word for "scooter ride" when he was little]
And we have so much fun.
We drive around the country
Until the day is done!

Sometimes we have movie night
And it is very great.
Then Daddy tucks me in at night
When it is very late!

I REALLY love my daddy,
That’s all I can talk about.
I really, really love him
Inside and out!

Here is the cake I made, in all its chocolatey glory:


(Yes, this is my own picture of the actual cake I made! Ain't it fancy?)

And here is the recipe from Allrecipes.com. By the way, this recipe is wheat and gluten free! No one in our family has issues with this; it's just an awesome cake! I was looking for a recipe similar to a flourless chocolate cake we had years ago at the old Berghoff restaurant in Chicago. I've found it! This is rich, dense and fudgy. It has a nice, dark flavor. I have never cared for dark chocolate, but I love this cake. The original recipe included a caramel sauce, but I left it off because I felt it competed too much with the rich cake.

Warm Flourless Chocolate Cake

• 1 cup butter, cubed
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 6 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter the bottom of a 10 inch springform pan, and line with parchment paper. (I used a 9 inch springform and it turned out fine.)

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Stir in chocolate, and continue to stir until almost melted. Remove from heat, and stir until melted and smooth. In a large bowl, stir together 1 1/4 cups sugar and the cocoa powder. Whisk in the eggs until well blended, then whisk in the chocolate and butter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for about 45 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife or toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. (Do not overbake! Set your timer for 35 minutes and test every two minutes. You can thank me later. Mine went from a runny, wet toothpick to a completely dry toothpick in 5 minutes!) Cool cake in the pan over a wire rack. Run a knife around the sides of the pan to loosen the cake, then remove the sides of the pan, and invert onto a serving plate. Remove the parchment paper. If desired, sprinkle with powdered sugar and garnish with strawberries or raspberries.

Serve warm with whipped cream (Cool Whip kind of reduces it from "regal" to "redneck"), raspberry sauce or vanilla bean ice cream.

Catching Up

I know that since my absence from this blog, you all have been waiting with bated breath to see what we've been up to. Well, here you go:

Sunday, we met my oldest brother for breakfast in Atlanta. (He was in town for a business trip.) We had a wonderful time together. Except that it was too short. And I didn't get to see my sister-in-law, who is so much fun to talk to. And I didn't get to see my nieces or nephew. Anyway, it was WONDERFUL to spend time with him, as we live so far apart now and don't get to see each other much.

Monday - Did school, made a major Wal-Mart trip.

Tuesday - Did school and also cooked all day for a neighbor who just had a baby. Tried really hard not to eat the peanut butter pie we made for her (and succeeded).

Wednesday - had playgroup with the local homeschool group. The kids had the BEST time! Unfortunately, said good times involved lots of red clay for which Georgia is so famous. Had to have everyone take two baths (the first turned the water completely orange). Fixed computer. (YAAAAAY!!!!) Went to AWANA awards night. (More on this later.)

Computer Problems!

Sorry to be missing in action for a few days! I'm having computer problems. We had a thunderstorm the other night and I couldn't get the computer to shut down properly. Because I was so worried about the lightning I simply pulled the plug.

Big mistake!

Mr. Computer is very angry with me. Very, very angry! As in, I-refuse-to-boot-up angry!

I borrowed a friend's Windows XP cd and tried to repair it. While I was sitting there twiddling my thumbs and trying to figure out what to do next, suddenly Windows booted up! I am getting ready to shut down and see if it will work normally without the cd. If you don't hear from me for awhile, it means that the computer is still on the fritz and I am busy losing my mind.

Hope to talk to you soon!

Welcome to Podunkville

We live in a tiny community and we went to the local annual festival for the first time. This was about as dinky and hometown as you can get. The parade was, well, short. Had it not been an election year it would have consisted of 1 fire truck, and 1 ambulance, 1 church float, 1 group of baton twirlers and 1 vintage car. Not a marching band in sight. This is not right, people.

I felt SO sorry for the vendors, because this event was so poorly attended. I'm sure many lost money.

Except the $5 a pop bungee dude. He was makin' some serious moolah. He made ten bucks off us.

They had the obligatory pony rides, jumping activities and miniature trains. The kids had fun, at least! Hubby's favorite BBQ man was there, so we all had a plate of smoky heaven. Well, Hubby had a little more than that. He was so excited that he bought a half chicken at 10:00, then when we all ate together for lunch he had another, then when the kiddies didn't like theirs he finished them. He ate approximately half a flock of chickens.

While we ate, we enjoyed a singing group from a local church. I felt sorry for them also because nobody clapped for them except for us! I missed clapping for the first song or two because my hands were full of chicken and a squirming Screech, but even when we fervently clapped for all the other songs, almost no one joined us. There were a lot of seniors in the audience with their arms folded. I think they were a little offended by the drums.

We browsed the vendor booths and, with much restraint, managed not to buy any Capri Sun purses, marshmallow guns or pine knickknack shelves with cheap lace hot glued onto the edges. I did buy some fireworks for the kids, which being sold as a fundraiser by the local fire department.

Yes, that was, "by the local fire department."

It's a racket, I tell you.

Easy Recipe Thursday: Tex-Mex Rollups

I love, love, LOVE these tangy little guys! They have my three favorite ingredients: cream cheese, cream cheese and cream cheese! Even people who hate Mexican food (read: Hubby) like these. The green chilies are mild and not "Mexican-y" tasting (kind of like green olives).

Tex Mex Rollups

2 (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1 (4 oz.) can chopped green chilies, well drained
1 envelope (dry) ranch dressing mix
dash garlic powder
2 pkgs. large flour tortillas
Salsa, optional

Mix first four ingredients until well blended. Spread mixture evenly on tortillas and roll up jellyroll fashion. Freeze for one hour. Remove and slice into 1/4 - 1/2 inch spirals. Serve alone or with salsa for dipping.

Hints:
- The tighter you roll them, the better they hold together.
- Slicing them thinner (1/4 inch) looks prettier.

I have a sponsor for my first "Mess of the Month" giveaway! Gather your pictures of your kids' worst disasters, and watch my blog for your chance to win a Motsenbocker's Lift Off Stain Removal Kit!

No Mess Yet!

Just letting you all know that I put all the cereal away after breakfast this morning!

I have a sponsor for my first "Mess of the Month" giveaway! Gather your pictures of your kids' worst disasters, and watch my blog for your chance to win a Motsenbocker's Lift Off Stain Removal Kit! This is the same awesome product that cleaned up the floor and clothing in the famed Wite-Out catastrophe at my house.

WFMW: Calming Injured Children

I always keep a few dark red washcloths handy for minor injuries. Whenever my kids get a bad cut, I use one to stop the bleeding. Because of the dark color, the blood doesn't show up easily and the kids don't freak out as much. Works like a charm!

If you get a chance, check out my "Mess of the Day" posts. Soon I will launch a "Mess of the Month" meme and giveaway. I will post a Mr. Linky, and you all can publish pics of the messes that YOUR little darlings have made. I'll pick a winner and send them a gift!

Here are my previous WFMW posts:

Choosing a Phone Number
What NOT to Soak Contacts In
Broken Glass Cleanup
Cheap Rolling Cart for Conventions
Chocolate Recipes
Tooth-Tugging Tip for Terrified Tots
Handy Earache Relief
Uses for Leftover Bread
Leaky Diaper/Pull-up Fix
Snack Mix Recipe (at the end of the post)
Awesome Stain Recipe (at the end of the post)
"Fun"damentals of Family Life
Removing Wite-Out from Everything
When NOT to Save Money
Public Service Announcement

For more WFMW tips, stop by Shannon's blog.

Mess of the Day #14: Magic Stars Cereal

Y'all, I KNOW I'm supposed to put the cereal away after breakfast, but I was late to Jazzercise. This is what I get! (Notice that there are no marshmallows in the cereal.)

By the way, I'm having so much fun with these "Mess of the Day" pics that soon I plan to launch a "Mess of the Month" meme and giveaway. Watch for this soon! I will post a Mr. Linky, and you all can publish pics of the messes that YOUR little darlings have made. I am working on finding a company who will donate something for me to give away. Since all this linky/giveaway stuff is new to me, I'd sure appreciate any advice from you experienced bloggers!

Mess of the Day #13: Desitin

While I cooked dinner tonight, I had Pete watch Screech. He is usually really good with her and can entertain her for quite awhile while I am doing something.

I heard water running in the bathroom and went to investigate. Pete was attempting to clean her up after "not noticing" her getting into the Desitin.









He tries really hard to be helpful. Another time he watched her, he changed her diaper - complete with duct tape belt! (At least it wasn't a poopy!)

Mess of the Day #12: Ponytail Holders

© Homeschool Circus 2008
All rights reserved.

Unbelievably Blessed

5:00 am

(whispered) Daddy, is it time yet?

No. Go back to sleep.

6:00 am

Daddy, is it time yet?

No. Go back to sleep.

7:00 am

Daddy, is it time yet?

Okay!

Drama Queen's Cafe

All entrees are prepared with love
and served on a lovely Disney Princess lap desk.

Tall Stack Pancakes with Syrup
Served on a special "You're the Star!" plate

All Bran Strawberry Medley Cereal
served in the coveted butterfly bowl

Fresh Fruit

Beverage (Diet A&W Root Beer)

Dessert (the sweetest kiss you've ever had!)

Drama Queen had plastered these signs on the doors to my bedroom and bathroom. I happily obeyed!


What a precious doll she is!

Later this morning Drama Queen said, "Now, Mommy, you are not supposed to do ANY work today! We are going to do everything for you! Don't. Do. Anything!"

I answered, "Well, I was getting ready to take a bath. Are you going to do that for me?

Drama Queen replied, "No! That would be GROSS!!!!"

Here is a miraculous picture of me and my three angels. (I say, "miraculous" because everyone [read:Screech] is smiling! This has never happened before!)

After church Hubby and the kids took me to Carraba's Italian Grill, my absolute favorite restaurant. The food is absolutely divine! I ordered Chicken Bryan (grilled chicken breast topped with goat cheese, sundried tomatoes, and a basil lemon butter sauce).

Oh.

My.

Word.

This is the best stuff I have ever put in my mouth! It was soooo juicy and just packed with flavor through and through. I don't know how they do it. No matter how long I marinate chicken, it always tastes so bland and chicken-y on the inside. Here's a pic (my camera doesn't even remotely do it justice):


Our server was AWESOME. I wondered aloud whether or not I would like goat cheese, then suddenly he dashed to the kitchen and returned with a small plate of it, carefully sliced and topped with herbs, no less! (It was yummy! If you like cream cheese, you'll love this stuff!)

And the bread! Oh, the bread! They bring you hearty, piping hot bread with olive oil and fresh herbs for dipping. This is not the Subway-tasting fluffy stuff that many restaurants serve; it tastes homemade! I could make a meal on the bread alone. (Well, that and the Word of God! Matthew 4:4)

Since it was my special day, I had part of my meal boxed up so I'd have room to splurge for dessert. I don't know what it was called, but words cannot fully describe its chocolatey awesomeness! It had layers of rich, fudgy brownie, chocolate mousse (or something similar) and real whipped cream. It was topped with the richest, most velvety chocolate sauce I have ever tasted. This obviously wasn't from a can! It would make Hershey's taste like water. If you take my recipe for Chocolate Ganache, use 1/2 semisweet chocolate chips and 1/2 milk chocolate chips, and add extra cream, you'd probably be really close to what this was like.

Not wanting the kids to be left out (I shared my dessert with Hubby), I ordered kids' sundaes for them. The cooks were probably a little distracted, because they accidentally sent adult size sundaes! Look at these!



The sundaes were topped with the same decadent sauce. They were incredible! The ice cream was wonderful by itself. It, too, was the real deal and didn't taste like it had artificial anything. The vanilla flavor was not overpowering so it complimented the chocolate sauce perfectly. Next time I'm getting this! Hubby and I ended up finishing (as much as we could, anyway!) Pete's and Drama Queen's. Screech, however, ate every last bite!


Happy Mother's Day!

© Homeschool Circus 2008
All rights reserved.

Mess of the Day #11: Water

I caught her standing there pouring it out.

(The pic doesn't do the mess justice; it was everywhere.)

I couldn't be mad at her, though, because she was so sweet this afternoon. When she got excited about something and shrieked right in my ear, I said, "Please don't do that. It hurts Mommy's ear." She looked at me with such sympathy, rubbed my ear and said, "Awww, Mommy! Do you need a Band-Aid?"

Mess of the Day #10: Milk

As I cleaned it up, she said, "I sowwy, Mommy!" (Even though I didn't act mad!)

What a sweetie!

Easy Recipe Thursday

My friend Terri is launching "Easy Recipe Thursday" on her blog. I'm happy to add one of my favorites!

Ooey Gooey Monkey Bread

Ingredients:
½ C sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
3 (10-ounce) cans refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
1 C firmly packed brown sugar (but don't overpack)
½ C butter or margarine, melted

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 10-in. Bundt pan well. Combine sugar and cinnamon in a large Ziploc bag. Cut biscuits into quarters (I use kitchen scissors). Put a few in the bag at a time; shake to coat with cinnamon sugar mixture. Layer evenly in pan. Combine brown sugar and butter in a small bowl; pour over biscuits. Bake at 350° for 30 - 40 minutes or until golden brown. Cool bread 10 minutes in pan; loosen edges with knife and invert onto serving platter.

Enjoy!

Please Help Me!

This is Screech here. Please help me!!! As you can see from this picture, I am very, very sad. This morning my mommy (the 80's queen) made me wear this:

I know I look all happy and cheerful in the picture, but trust me, I was not laughing when she put it on. I screamed bloody murder and wailed, "I don't wanna wear thi-i-i-i-i-is!!!!" I begged to wear my Pooh outfit, or something cool - heck, at least something made in this decade. I shreiked, kicked and flailed my arms and legs for a good five minutes, but she won because she's stronger than I am. (I am so getting her back for this when I'm 16! I'll probably go through a combination goth/grunge phase.)

I don't know where she got this thing, but it has to be at least 20 years old. She's made me wear stuff like this before - on October 31, 2007, to be exact. You know, it's really sad when you can take a regular outfit, add a simple accessory and end up with a Halloween costume:

Please help me, I beg of you!!! Call the fashion police. Call Mrs. Fussypants. Call social services. Please . . . help . . .meeeeeee . . . .

Mess of the Day #8 & #9: Cereal and Books

I have GOT to be sure to put the cereal away after breakfast.

Screech's favorite activity:

WFMW: One More!

I just finished posting my Doesn't-Work-for-Me-Wednesday tip, then the phone rang and I was compelled to submit another.

We had to get a new phone number when we moved recently. The guy at the telephone company gave me my choice of several numbers. I chose one that had a cool-sounding pattern, similar to this one (this is NOT my real phone number):

(555) 535-3131

I thought:

Catchy!

Cool!

Easy to remember!

In reality:

Wrong numbers!

Lots of them!

All day long!

All night long!

It's not just one phone number that is getting confused with ours. People have thought that we are a restaurant, a transportation company, a doctor's office, and the home of someone named Eunice. Seems like it is just too easy to misdial a number like this.

This is not fun.

For more What Doesn't Work for Me, visit Shannon's blog, Rocks in my Dryer!

Vote for Me!

If you all get a chance, head over to Mrs. Fussypants and vote for my caption so I can win some earrings! She does this every week, and it is SO much fun. I don't know where she gets those crazy pictures!

Fussy had to edit my caption for length (I tend to be a windbag!)

Here's what I originally wrote:

"When Max demanded a new outfit to make up for the bikini wax gone wrong, this wasn't quite what he had in mind."

WFMW: What NOT to Soak Your Contacts In!

This week's Works For me Wednesday theme is "What DIDN'T Work For Me." Enjoy!

Once when I was visiting my friend Wendy, I had to stay overnight at her house unexpectedly because I had a horrible headache and was unable to make the hour and fifteen minute drive home. I didn't have anything with me for soaking my contact lenses, which were not the kind that could be slept in. (Nowadays, I use the kind you can wear for a solid month - I LOVE them!!!) No one at my friend's house wore contacts, and being a poor college student, I didn't go out to buy anything.

My friend gave me a couple of drinking glasses to hold my contacts and suggested that I simply soak them in water.

"Oh, no, no, no," I said. "That wouldn't be sterile."

Enter mysterious, foreboding music.

"Hmmmm . . . eye drops are sterile. Got anything like that?" I asked. They provided a bottle of Murine. I happily squirted a bit into each glass, plopped in my contacts, and went to bed.

The next morning - after a restless night thanks to a hyperactive hamster and his squeaky exercise wheel - I put my contacts back in. My eyes stung a little, but that had happened before when I had to put a contact back in without rinsing or cleaning, so I didn't think much of it.

Fifteen minutes later, in the middle of the morning rush hour on a busy interstate, my eyes were on fire. One was unable to open due to the pain. The other was half shut and tears were pouring out of it, making everything a blur. I couldn't go back to my friend's house, as everyone had already left for the day, and I didn't know anyone else in this city. Of course, this was also in the Dark Ages before cell phones.

It was the longest drive of my life. I kept thinking, When I can just get these things out of my eyes, I'll be fine! I made it back to my dorm, ran to my room, and swiftly plucked out my contacts. I closed my eyes, expecting blessed relief.

S-C-R-A-A-A-A-P-E!

Imagine that an evil plastic surgeon removed your eyelids and replaced them with 80 grit sandpaper, with the rough side facing your eyeballs. This almost approximates what my eyes felt like every time I blinked.

I ended having my friend Junior take me to Urgent Care, where they said that I had irritated my corneas or something. They numbed my eyes (with drops, thank goodness!) and rubbed some kind of ointment on my eyeballs.

That was an experience, watching a gloved finger with a glob of goo come straight for my eye. It was like something out of The Twilight Zone. They bandaged my eyes, gave me a prescription for something with Codeine in it, then brought Junior from the waiting room to lead me out.

"Bwaaaaaaaaah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You look like a bug!!!!!"

Junior has never been known for subtlety. Or tact.

By the time he got me back to my dorm room, Wendy was there with Suzanne, my roommate. The Codeine had kicked in, and I was feelin' mighty fine! I became their entertainment for the afternoon.

First, they took me to the park with them and had a ball leading me down the twirly slide. I'm sure it was a sight! Here I was, looking like an albino fly, laughing hysterically as I slid down over and over. (I'm sure the playground was cleared of children moments after my arrival.)

I tried playing Frisbee with them by randomly slapping my outstreched arms together "alligator style."

I didn't catch anything.

Next, they drove me to each of my professors' houses, parading me around while I giggled, "I'm on Codeine!"

The next day, my eyes were just fine, although I can't say much for my dignity. I have to say, I never left home without saline solution again!

Speaking of what doesn't work for me, as you can see from this post Blogger has a mind of its own and is always changing my font size! When I try to edit and fix this, it looks fine in the editing box but when I click "Publish Post" it goes back to the wrong size again! Anyone know how to fix this?

Here are my previous WFMW posts:

Broken Glass Cleanup
Cheap Rolling Cart for Conventions
Chocolate Recipes
Tooth-Tugging Tip for Terrified Tots
Handy Earache Relief
Uses for Leftover Bread
Leaky Diaper/Pull-up Fix
Snack Mix Recipe (at the end of the post)
Awesome Stain Recipe (at the end of the post)
"Fun"damentals of Family Life
Removing Wite-Out from Everything
When NOT to Save Money
Public Service Announcement

For more WFMW tips, stop by Shannon's blog.

An Amazing Weekend

We had an amazing weekend recently. My niece was running in the Derby Festival Marathon in Louisville, KY, so we went up to see her and the rest of my family. It was a very long drive for us - about 10 hours - but the kids did great, as always.

So many amazing things happened during this trip! A few days before we left, I was talking to my best friend from KY (whose daughter is Drama Queen's best friend) and told her about our plans. She couldn't believe it - they were going to be in Louisville that weekend for a dance competition!

Long story short, we got to visit with them for awhile and see her children perform. Drama Queen and her friend were ecstatic! Here they are after one of the performances:

The next morning, the day of the marathon, we met them downtown for breakfast. After we were done, I called my brother from the restaurant to see where we should go to cheer on my niece. I wanted to be able to see her at several checkpoints. I was a little worried about how we were going to manage this, considering that many streets were blocked off, and parking in downtown Louisville can be a nightmare anyway. Then there was the matter of doing this with 3 kids in tow, buckling them into car seats and the whole nine yards. When I told my brother where we were, he said that all I needed to do was walk outside to the curb! We were already in the perfect spot, because she would be going by twice (crossing the bridge into Indiana and back).


It was so thrilling to see her run by! She looked GREAT! I was simply amazed at her strength and stamina. I called my brother (who was at a different checkpoint) to tell him that I saw her, and he was blown away to learn that she had already made it to that point. He had to get off the phone so he could rush to the finish line to see her, so it was just incredible that I happened to be in the perfect place to be able to tell him where she was.

My niece placed FIRST in her division! We were so proud of her! She also qualified for the Boston Marathon. Wow. I am just amazed!

We got to hang out with them for the afternoon and went to the Louisville Slugger Museum. It was great to spend time with them!

We were also blessed to be able to spend time with more of my family. We stayed with one of my sisters in Louisville and it was wonderful to spend time with her and my brother-in-law. We met with the rest of the family (my brothers, their families, my mom and her husband) for a wonderful meal. It was such a treat, because I don't get to see them much now that we live in Georgia. What a blessing this weekend was!