My Big Fat American Idol Review

I don't really have one distinct favorite yet and I can't remember their names yet. I thought the guys did better overall this particular week. Though I didn't think he did as well this week, I've liked the Australian guy ever since he did Bohemian Rapsody. I thought for sure he was doomed as soon as he said he was about to sing that song, but I actually thought it was the best version I've ever heard. This week, I also liked the brown haired guy that sang "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" and the guy with the rock voice that played guitar. I think they are both named David. Chekezie Eze, did alright, and I really love saying his name. I sometimes find myself saying it when I'm walking around the house (yes, sad, but true). The young guy is is good, but we'll see what happens when his voice finishes changing, lol. Right now, the girl I like best is the blond that played guitar and sang Carly Simon's "You're So Vain". Though the judges weren't as thrilled, I also liked the one that did "Me and Mr. Jones". And, because I'm a Heart fan, I liked the Irish girl's "Crazy on You". But was very sad, when the other blond girl butchered one of my favs, "Magic Man" by Heart. That's all I can remember....

Our own Internet Cafe

It's a sad state of affairs when three people are in a room together and they are all on their own laptops. lol
Me, B, and Jeremy this evening

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Friday, February 22
We were feeling pretty indecisive this evening. We were not going to go out to eat, then we were, then we didn't. We were going to see if the neighbors wanted to get some dessert, then not. We wanted to exchange our Blockbuster movies, then not really, then we did. Then we picked up some Marble Slab and brought it over to Micah and Lisa's and visited for a little while. So, the evening turned out nice.

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Saturday, February 23

I ended up going to the Photography Club outing. They teased me because they were all trecking through the park with bags of cameras and part and tripods and asked me if I wanted to carry anything. I said "No thanks, I'm good with my pocket camera." lol Everyone was nice, I was the youngest in the group by a good 15 years. One of the guys really tried to help me out by suggesting shots for me to take, but my camera was so not capable of doing what he was suggesting. Since my macro broke on my newer camera, I brought my older one as well, but it didn't work either. I was pretty dissapointed when I came home and looked at all the shots on my computer cause I didn't like any of them. Oh, well.


On my way home, I stopped at a garage sale on the side of the road that appeared to be run by a Harley Davidson biker group. It struck me as interesting (and kind of humerous) so I had to stop and purchase something. There was also some people selling puppies, which caught my eye. They let me take a few pictures, which turned out to be the one picture I like from the day, cause it is so darn cute.
In the evening we went to my aunt's house to celebrate my cousins birthday. She and her friends had gone to Libby Lu and gotten their hair and make-up done. They all looked so cute!


The girls watching High School Musical. I had never seen this movie, so I stood around for a few minutes to check it out. OMG, I left pretty quick!

A party ain't a party til someone "busts a move"!

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Sunday, February 25th

Went to church, and to lunch, and strolled around market street, and went to some of the shops. Then we went for a "Sunday drive" and ended up checking out some model homes and pretending we were looking for a new house (we're not!). Then we went over to B's grandma's for dinner. Later, Jeremy came to stay the night at our house because he was downtown all day and has to be back in the morning.
Watching a performance of "Oliver" at Market Street.

When I get on the internet, I never know where I'm going to end up. One link leads to another, and so on, and so on. ........ I recently came across the site of a local forum group. People in "my town" get on there and discuss general topics, local issues, local restaraunts, etc. Sometimes, some of them meet up for lunch, so when I saw that they were meeting today at a restaraunt near my house, I decided to join them. Now this is really out of my usual comfort zone, but sometimes I make myself do things for just that reason. Like the time I made myself try out for a play. Unfortunately, I hadn't prepared myself for the fact that I might actually get a part in the play, which I did, but after a few weeks of rehearsals nearly everyday, I got bored and quit. Yep, I'm a quitter. Anywaaaay, I met the ladies for lunch today and quite enjoyed myself. They were all very nice and I even met another gal my age who's a "housewife w/o kids".

Now, the next thing I am trying to talk myself into is this Saturday. My photography club is having a field trip to take pictures at a park (the same one where we recently went camping). I signed up to go, but now I'm embarassed to show up there with my little "point and click" camera. These people are serious, and they've got serious cameras, with fancy lenses, and everything else that goes along. The club is for all skill levels, but I've seen slideshows of their field trip photos and they aren't messin' around. Their photo taking requires bags of stuff and "set up". Mine requires taking my camera out of my pocket! hehehe So, I'm trying to make myself suck it up and go. But, I'm NOT carpooling with them in case I need to made a mad dash out of there. lol

In my random internet surfings I came across this site. I thought it might be of interest to my pals Jenn and Kelsey. http://greenmomfinds.com/ It looks like it links to some other interesting sites as well......and so on, and so on.....lol.....

And since I don't like to blog w/o putting up a photo, and I haven't taken any in the last few days, I will instead leave you with one of my "altered" old photos for your viewing pleasure. I don't have photoshop (nor do I know how to use it), but my laptop came with this tool that lets me change the coloring and contrasting somewhat so I've been having fun playing around with it on some of my photos.

Before

AfterI like the new version so much better! I love how the colors came out , especially at the top of the photo, so I couldn't bear to crop them out. And the subject's pretty cute too, huh?!

Saturday, February 16th
Cleaned house, visited Becky at the hospital, went grocery shopping for the party.
This evening, we had friends over for a fondu party. It was yummy and fun! And we're really glad Becky busted out of the hospital and joined us.
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Sunday, February 17th

I found another park to take pictures in, then went to an antique shop.

This evening B and I went to another park and had dinner with Micah and Lisa. Then Micah, Lisa, and I went to the movies to see "Fool's Gold". We went with low expectations, but it was actually better than we thought it would be.

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Love and Lays

Mom and daughter fishing

Doesn't this picture looks like we are standing in front of a fake background?

This week

Monday, February 11th
After my Photography Club meeting I was motivated to go to Market Street to take some night shots. My camera doesn't do too well with night shots, but here's a few that I liked.

Reflection in the puddle

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Tuesday, February 12th

Dropped B off at the airport at 7:30am. Then I went over to the park to take some more pictures. I am sad because my macro no longer works on my camera, so no more close ups.....boo! I came across some ducks that were willing to pose for me and one of the park maintenance guys showed me a duck hiding in the grass sitting on her eggs. I had dinner this evening at our new neighbors house.

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Thursday, February 14th - Valentine's Day

Here's a picture of the Valentine's frenzy at the grocery store.

Today I made chocolate covered strawberries, bannanas and blueberries for my Valentine.
Here's my "tuxedo" strawberries. I was quite proud of myself.
After seeing mine, my neighbor decided to make some as well. My Valentine gave me roses, chocolate, and the "Across the Universe" DVD. Then we had dinner at my mom's.

Here's my other Valentine with his gift from me.

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Friday, February 15th - Our 5th Anniversary!

B took the day off so we could spend the day together for our anniversary.

For those with kiddos
I stumbled across this today while browsing the internet and thought I'd pass it along incase those with kiddos didn't already know about it.
.http://www.thewoodlandskidseatfree.com/index.asp

Friday - February 8th
Friday evening we joined Glenn, Becky, Micah, Lisa, Chris, Kelsey, and the whole Quinn family who were camping at a park not far from our house. I'm not sure what our human count was, somewhere around 20 I think, but between all of us we had six dogs with us. We went out there until everyone went to bed and then we drove back home. That's almost like camping, right? hehe

Glenn relaxing by the fire

"We men. We play with fire."

Saturday - February 9th - Brandon's Birthday

We went to lunch with Jeremy and Mandy at Genghis Grill. Yeah, we really like that place.

Later in the afternoon we headed back out to the campsite. After dinner I had a cookie cake for B's b-day. Rich hung a sheet from the pavillion and set up a projector and we all sat around the camp fire and watched a movie. We stayed all night this time, but since our tent is a hassle to put up, we laid down the seats in B's car and slept on our blow up mattress in the car. Since the weather was really good, it was actually quite nice in there.

Having fun

Happy Campers!

Birthday cake

Sunday - February 10th

Today we had breakfast, cleaned up, packed up, and headed home around lunch time. Sleeping in the car made our pack up really easy. We loaded up our dishes, dog, and camp chairs, and we were ready to go.

Good morning!

Breakfast

A mighty fine tent

Harley the Camping Chihuahua - looking dapper as always

(or wawa as Clara would say)

Taking a little rest

Team work

Hey! What's going on over here?

Random Ramblings

Tuesday - Happy Mardi Gras!
Went grocery shopping with Lisa. We picked up some stuff for camping this weekend and did some general grocery shopping as well. After, I went to swap out our Blockbuster movies and for the first time in a while there was actually some movies I wanted to see. I got some shoot 'em up, beat 'em up guy flick for B, and got Feast of Love and The Jane Austen Book Club for me, because I have recently read both of those books and now I am required by "Erin's Law" to watch the movies. This didn't work out so well with Atonement, I didn't like the book or the movie. I didn't like The Jane Austen Book Club book, but the movie was ok. I haven't watched the other one yet. While B and I were out going to pick up my lap top, it started hailing. We went to wait it out under the covering at the bank, which apparently was a popular idea, as it was lined with other cars of people doing the same.

Wednesday
Went to dinner with Jim and Berni. We went to Genghis Grill again, and I got to use my birthday coupon for a free meal. Can't beat that!

Friday (today)
I would here by like to announce that I, Erin, have slept for the past 4 nights! (Applaud here)
I don't know what happened. Monday night, for no apparent reason, I got in bed at 10pm and went to sleep. And didn't wake up til 7am the next day! (more applause) I mean, even on a good day, I don't go to sleep at 10pm. And get this......Wednesday night it was 9pm!!! I actually got a bit concerned after that. I thought maybe I was coming down with the flu or mono or something, because the only time I ever go to bed before 10pm is when I'm sick. So, here's hoping this lasts, and I'm not sick. Well, I do have a cold, but that doesn't count, that's going around to everyone right now. This crazy weather makes sure of that.

My Birthday - Monday, February 4th

Monday I had lunch with the girls at The Whistle Stop Cafe for my birthday. Bread Pudding is my favorite dessert, and Whistle Stop has my most favorite bread pudding. So, I have gone there several times for my birthday.

Guess what my sweetie did?
Since we had a big group, Whistle Stop put a couple tables together for us. When we sat down, in the middle of the table was a little cake made out of flowers with balloons tied to it. B had it delivered so it would be there when I got there! It was so cool!

Here's some of us.
The tasty goodness.
Me likey cake!

Me likey presents!My mom slippin' L some make-up
After lunch, we walked around to some of the cute little shops.

Monday Evening

B took me to my favorite Sushi place, Uni. And afterwards, we decided we would make a new addition to our family.....................

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The New Addition

Here's my new little Brownie........it's sooooo pretty!

And it's my favorite color.

Harley checking out the new family member.

Don't worry Harley, you're still my baby.