Weekly Report

It's been an up and down week Erik Land. A week ago today, Erik's big sister pushed him down resulting in a big gash on his poor little head requiring four staples. The next day saw Erik baffing yet again, this time escaping with only a split lip. The following day was much the same, Erik bonked and earned himself a scraped and bruised nose. He got his staples out today, so that was good, except it hurt almost as much as getting them in, he tells me. On the up side, he has finally...*drumroll*...
GONE PEEPEE IN THE POTTY!! First time ever last night! Twice today, and counting! By Jove, I think he's got it! (I hope I hope I hope...)
This report given by,
The Almighty Liz

Beach Vacation!!

Well, I got back l-a-t-e on Sunday night/Monday morning, exhausted, a little sick of my (new!) car, but totally happy. This girls' road trip totally lived up to all my expectations. I had so much fun, that this will unequivocally be an annual thing from now on, and absolutely essential to my happiness. ;)
We started off a little late (I overslept--I know, big surprise, right?), but well. We made it all the way to the foothills of the Appalachians without mishap, where I had a panic attack. Why? I have no idea except that maybe I hate the mountains more than even I thought, lol! And I do, truly, loathe the mountains. It only lasted a couple of minutes and then it was smooth sailing all the way to Mary's house! We got in at a decent time, had a little dinner, and went to bed. The next morning we were all up bright but not so early, but on the road in fairly good time to check into our hotel and be on the beach that evening. Two minutes down the road, my (new!) car died on us. We all looked at each other with 'what the crap?!' expressions on our faces, and nursed it into the parking lot of a dental office, which I found ironic, being as I'm a former dental assistant. We jumped out of the car, and opened the hood, and as I am in no way familiar with the Envoy's inner workings, could come to no conclusion. As we came back around the car, however, the problem became blarringly apparent. We were sitting in a humongous puddle of gasoline!!! More 'what the CRAP?!' expressions, and then we settled into calling in reinforcements. Thank goodness I brought a cell phone!! Mary's husband booked it out to us with his two kids in tow, and with a few maneuverings, I was settled at Mary's looking for a mechanic and a tow truck, while Mary, Timpani, Mary's husband and father and mother in law all tried to make what they could of what the FLIP was wrong with my (new!) car, which I hadn't even owned for two weeks at that point. Mary's father in law has some knowledge of cars, and determined that the fuel line had become detached, but could not locate the detachment, or why it became so, or how to fix it. He spied a mechanic across the street, strolled over and asked if they could just come look at it and tell us if it was going to be a major (ie expensive and time consuming) thing or not. They complied, and actually fixed it in five minutes for the grand total of $10!!! Hurray! It turns out that a connection had simply come loose, and they simply snapped it back on. We were back in business!! No more mishaps presented themselves, and in four or so short hours we arrived at our destination; Savannah, Georgia!! We checked ourselves in to our GORGEOUS room, which was on the third floor where we could over look the courtyard with the pool and jacuzzi house from our very own balcony!! It was a ginormous room with two queen beds, a mini fridge and microwave! We were totally in love with it! After we dropped our stuff off, we went to eat as we were completely starving by then. It was too late to hit the beach, but we did do a little shopping at the mall conveniently located a mere three blocks from our hotel. Then we did a little exploring, and crashed. The rest of this is better told through pics, of which I took a couple hundred, so I'll let them do most of the explaining. There were just a couple of stories that are not photographed; Timpani getting save by super-hot life guards, Diego the waiter, Miley Cyrus, Kelly Preston with her husband John Travolta actually on Tybee Island while we were there shooting Miley's new movie, and we actually passed them taping on the highway!!, the totally ostentatious yellow Lamborghini that cut us off....but one thing I want to tell about that I didn't get pics of was the last disaster to befall us on our vacation. Timpani and I had successfully dropped Mary off at home, and were headed there ourselves. We were somewhere in Kentucky, (and here's a shout out to Dana--you live in a fantastically beautiful state woman!), I think a few miles west of Paducah, when an ambulance came screaming up behind us. Timpani was driving, and dutifully started to ease over onto the shoulder when BAM!! One of our (brand-new!!) tires blew!!!! We found the culprit; a sharp metal hubcap cover which tore a huge chuck out of the tire. We cursed the thing roundly, and started trying to figure out where the heck my jack was, and how on earth we were supposed to get at the spare tire under the car. I had just called John for advice/support when a supremely kind soul stopped to offer assistance. He not only knew how to get my spare, and where my jack was located (under the back seat of all weirdness, and getting at the spare is no picnic, it's totally tricksy), he changed the tire for us!! Bless his sweet heart, and his wife and kids for allowing him to stop!! We had no further adventures all the rest of the way home, and I'll tell you something: I will be able to handle anything dished at me for any other road trip I go on. For sure. (not to tempt fate or anything, lol!!)

Here we are at the start of our trip, blissfully unaware that in less than five minutes, we are going to be totally derailed.

Here's where we encountered our first major dilemma. I am NOT happy.

Here we are after the crisis has been dealt with, in our 'We will NOT be STOPPED!!' pose.

Mary asleep in the back seat.
Our Hotel!! Long live Marriott!
Timpani drove the vast lion's share of the trip. I had to get at least one picture of her, lol!
I just got us checked in. I look really excited mainly because I AM!

Our pool!

Our Jacuzzi house!

Me and Mary at dinner after we checked in. We were totally focused, lol!!

We did a little shopping and trying on of things, and we couldn't get this dress, but doesn't Mary look HAWT?!

We found this button on our explorations around the hotel. We have no idea what it's for, it had no explanation, and it wasn't around anything. I found it totally hilarious! None of us had the guts to push it and find out what happens when you do. Where the heck is Brad Carter when you need him?!

The trees with all their Spanish moss gorgeousness!!

The streets were sooooo pretty!!

Here's a park we saw on the way to Tybee Island. Beautiful!!

This is Crepe Myrtle. I have no idea if I spelled that right, but it was everywhere in the south, and very pretty.

We crossed over lots of rivers and tributaries on our drive to Tybee. They were so different than the Mississippi River, all wandering and curvy...

This was the first thing I saw my first time on the beach. Great pic, eh?
Finally here! The ocean!!
My first step into the Atlantic! It was so warm! I loved it!
We shared the water with lots and lots of ships.
Beautiful!

More beautiful!

A little crab came up to say hello while we rested on our towels.
I poked him to get a better picture, and he totally went into this, 'If you touch me again I will slay you!!' pose. I was laughing so hard I almost couldn't take the picture! He was only about an inch and a half long!

Burying Mary in the sand. Thats the sand castle we made using only our little hands on the right there.
Mermaid Mary.
We got all dolled up and went out for a night on the town!

We did some shopping on our last day, and saw this maniquinn with the ginormous bazoongas. I, of course, HAD to get a pic with it, lol!

They have sea turtles on Tybee Island, and these sculptures were all over.

This is Timpani and I leaving Mary and heading home. A little redder, a little tireder, but happier by an inconceivable amount.

So who's coming next year??! ;)

The Almighty Liz

OhmiGOSH!!!

So, many of you are wondering if I've been sick again because of my lack of postage, but I haven't been (which in and of itself is fantastic news), I've been busy. With what?, you ask? What could possibly take precedence over my precious blog?
ROADTRIP!!!
I have been getting ready for a girls' roadtrip with a couple of my best girlfriends, who frequent and participate in this very blogosphere, Timpani and Mary!! Where are we going? TO THE OCEAN!! I have never seen the ocean, and I'm so excited that I can't sit still for more than a second or two!! I will tell you our destination when I get back, so my many stalkers (I know you're out there!!) can't find me there. I gotta get back to the many preparations necessary to make it out of here tomorrow at a decent time, but when next I post, I will make it plenty long, and stuffed with pictures!
The Almighty Liz
ps I totally can't believe I'm actually doing this!! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Turtles, Pumpkins, and More!

Okay, so I've been MIA again. I was sick, but I've been well for a couple of weeks now, mostly. Why have I neglected my blog babies? Because the task of updating you has been so daunting!!! There has been much going on, and some of it bad, but that's all taken care of, so I'm not reliving all of that. Here are some fun things going on;
Everyday, several times a day, Erik asks me this question:
"Mommy, can I be a pumpkin when I grow up?" I'm not sure what he means. Does he mean literally be a pumpkin? Does he want to grow pumpkins? Or is he just making sure I will love him no matter what he decides to be? Who knows, but I get a kick out of it every time he asks. He's such a funny boy.

We have turtles in our yard. This is a never ending source of enjoyment and amusement for everyone. Finally, since we couldn't decide if we were seeing one turtle over and over, or lots of them, we decided to start marking them.



And we haven't seen one since.

And now for the BIG news....*drumroll*...

WE'RE GETTING A NEW CAR!!!!!!! Well, new to us. We test drove it on Saturday, and we LOVE it!!! I don't have pics yet, but as soon as I do, you will be seeing way more of my car than you could want, but I can't help myself. It's gorgeous! Also, it's my blog. Anyway, it's a 2005 GMC Envoy, which is a five passenger SUV, so you can google it if you want the general idea. It's silver, with a black leather interior, and it's pretty loaded. I adore it. It's big enough for our family, lots of space to stretch out in, but not too much. It's got room to haul stuff for projects (finish the basement anyone? huzzah!), but it handles like a car. And just in time for my ROADTRIP TO THE BEACH coming up next month!!! Oh, my little cup runneth SO OVER!
The Almighty Liz

Our Memorial Day Weekend

Well, we went to my Grandparents' over the weekend to clear off downed trees from a major storm they had a couple of weeks ago, and repair their roof. What really surprised me was that the trees were not just blown over; they were uprooted. It was totally weird. I have one pic from the visit of my grandpa reading to my kids. It was really sweet.
We had some fun when we finally dragged ourselves to home, sweet home. Our street flooded!!! We got into our driveway one minute or less before the huge downpour happened that flooded our street. As we were trying to get the kids in the house and the car in the garage, a bolt of lightening struck the street just a house or two up from us. It almost deafened me, it was so loud!! We had to fish a few cars out of the water because the drivers were complete morons and ignored all of the people (like us) standing on our porches trying to wave them back! I got a lot of pics, and they tell the story better than I can. The whole flooding lasted about an hour, maybe a little more, but the rain lasted way longer. Enjoy!
The Almighty Liz

Here are the pics of my Granpa and Erik and Jonni. A definite Kodak Moment.

Here is the run-off drain. That whirlpool there. Yeah, that's it.
The first moron of the day. Oh, and that trash can there? That's ours, and it totally floated away while John was pushing a car to safety. It got all the way down the street, but luckily one of our neighbors snagged it before it could get away forever.
As you can see, there's not even any sign of the sidewalks anymore.
The flooding got within about eight feet of our front porch.
A better wide-shot of what was our street, that turned for a brief time into our river.

This is the car that wouldn't fit into the garage. Let me remind you that this car is in our driveway at this time. And our driveway has a very steep grade. Everytime someone tried to conquer the river (and the trucks did okay), our car would bob up and down like a cork. It was GREAT! (little sarcasm there)

Our neighbors embraced the inevitable, and broke out their boat!!

They paddled up and down several times, to the cheers of all the neighbors!
They were hilarious. This is John (in red) standing on our mailbox. The guy in black is one of the many neighbors that helped fish out cars.

John again. See how high the water was? And he's not even in the middle!

Today's Adventure

Edited because John insists even though we are in a big tearing hurry. But I had to rest first from my adventurous morning, and thought to myself, as long as I'm sitting, I may as well tell all my blogger family aaaaaaall about it. It started a couple of weeks ago;
We moved. Y'all know that already. We moved to a different state, and our licence plates on one car expired this month, and the next car expires next month, so it's time to switch over and get registered in our new state. In Illinois, this is no big deal. Go to the Secretary of State's office, give them some money, maybe fill out a form, and you're done. Not so in my new state. You need your car title, proof of insurance, proof of residency, a property waiver from your county, an emissions test and a safety inspection, and an up-to-date licence. So a couple of weeks ago, I tried to get a safety inspection for the car that is expired. It failed. A new windshield and $200 later, I went again today. We passed, hallelujah. So after a quick lunch, I gathered all the stuff I needed, for the car and a new licence since I'm up for renewal next month anyway, and I need a licence with my married name on it, so in addition to all the car stuff, I need my original ss card, my marriage licence, and my original birth certificate. I really felt like a walking filing cabinet going into this place. I left Erik at home with John over John's lunch hour, hoping to get it all done before he had to go back, and not have to watch a three year old while I was there. I took John's car, and not the car I'd been driving around all day. I got to the Licence Bureau, and settled down with my number to wait. Only ten minutes, though, not bad. I stepped up to the counter. Let me just insert here that everyone working in the office looked uber grouchy. I told the lady that I had a couple of things to do. First, I needed a new licence. She immediately asked if I had my birth certificate. I answered in the affirmative (let it be known here that I called the office before I even started a few weeks ago, because I was NOT going to go and not have some crucial document they needed), and she was disappointed, but returned with 'Well, do you have your ss card?', to which, again, I answered in the affirmative. Again, she was disappointed, but told me she couldn't help me, I'd have to go stand in line in another part of the office. That cheered her up a little. 'But,' I said, 'I just moved and need to register my car and get new licence plates.' Again with the round of inquiries into my possession of proper documents, to which I answered in the affirmative to all, and was greeted with depression, until we got to the car safety inspection, to which I remembered, to my dismay, that although I had gotten the inspection, I had left the document in the other car! The lady was positively gleeful in telling me that she couldn't do a thing without it, and called 'next!' to the line standing behind me. I refrained from glaring at her with much difficulty, and went to stand in the line for my licence. I went through much of the same battery of questions and complete gloom when I had everything in order, and this lady had to issue me a licence. On the plus side, I now have legal representation with my proper name. No more hassles because of that, yay!
So I ran home to get the car safety inspection form, and Erik since John now needed to get back to work. Off to the Bureau with my three year old after all, but at least I only had the one thing to do now. Got my number and waited. Only eight minutes this time, and Erik was only slightly bored with their pamphlet display. Step up to the counter, and again the Spanish Inquisition, but I had everything this time! Total depression on the part of lady #3 helping me, and we got started, only to come to an abrupt halt when she saw that the title to the car was only in John's name, not mine. She told me ecstatically that he would have to sign me onto the title, or come in himself. 'I guess you can't get this done today', she sang, but I glared and said that my husband worked in town, so I was going right then to get him to sign the needed papers, and I'd be back in twenty minutes. Out to the car I went, loaded up my very patient three year old, and whizzed off to John's office. I called him on the way, so he met me in the parking lot, signed at the X, and I was on my way back to the Bureau in under five minutes. Almost exactly twenty minutes later, I got myself yet another number and sat to wait. 11 minutes this time. (all in all, not bad for a government run office) I was greeted by lady #4 by the usual, and I swear she will not be able to recover from her sadness in having to help me at any time today. 15 minutes and a VERY sqirrelly Erik later, I had my plates in my hot little hand, and I beat it out of there with no regrets to go home to put Erik in bed for a belated, but much needed nap. The good news is that this state is much cheaper than the last, and I won't have to do this again for two more years, huzzah!!! Except when the other car expires next month. But maybe I can just get a new car before that happens....
The Almighty Liz

WHAT?!

I logged into my husband's hotmail account (he never checks his email-I do it for him) and saw this;
Mail order Latin Brides! Just click here for the woman of your dreams!
Seriously? People still DO that?!
The Almighty Liz