Doogle's First Day at Camp

Though I take my pups with me on vacation when possible, sometimes it just won't work out. I have a few people that have volunteered to come feed him and walk him, others have even asked if they can keep him for a few days at their house. But Sometimes I sporadically decide to leave town and I wanted to be sure that I always have a backup plan for what to do with the pups then. Therefore, today Doogle had his interview at "Camp Bow Wow." A very nice little doggy day care conveniently located just minutes away from my home.

Yes. . . he passed! Doogle is now an official camper!

My new table

Last week, mom and dad came up for a very busy weekend. We (meaning them because I am really quite useless) did all sorts of things from putting in new lights, ceiling fans, pegboards, and curtain rods, to fixing toilets, doorbells, and bad puppy gate installations (that would be the work of Shawna). Dad also decided that I needed a table. I had no furniture yet (though I do now!) and we had nowhere to put anything! So we got a little table that for the remainder of the weekend was referred to as the "tool Table." After the tool table was no longer needed, It was now going to be some sort of craft table, or basically a place I could use for any type of work stuff that I really don't need Doogle getting involved in.
This week is my last week of school, Yahoo! So I have a STACK of papers to grade and get thru before then. So I pulled the tool table out and dragged it next to my bed so that I had a place to sit and began working on my stuff. Obviously, this defeated the purpose of the "No Doogle" table because he now conveniently can jump onto my bed, and onto the "grading" table.

I guess I now need to put "chair" at the top of my list of things to buy. Or maybe it needs to be right below "Camera" because I still have not gone out and purchased a new one since the mishap with my old one and am now down to taking pictures on a phone camera which is basically crap. :)

Groupon Getaway

So back around Christmas time I think, dad told us about the groupon website he discovered. Basically you choose which city you live in, then it emails you a great deal a day for that city. Pay a little bit of money to get something even better. The best part is, people can buy groupon gifts for other people. Therefore, sporadically (actually quite often), I open my email to discover that my wonderful dad has bought me some sort of exciting (and usually edible) gift from the groupon site. I have used some of my gifts here and there, but they had definitely begun to pile up. So I took the opportunity to use Bonnie and the kids' visit as an excuse to live off groupon for the weekend.

On Friday morning we took the kids to sky zone. The crazy huge warehouse place filled with floor and wall trampolines. Each of the kids got a two hour jump session for free (thanks dad and groupon!) and Bonnie and I each bought a half hour jump time to play with the kids.


On the way home from that we stopped by a bakery where I had $15 dollars to spend on my choosing. A pound of cookies happened to be $15 dollars, so we had a delicious snack to munch on the whole rest of the day (thanks Dad and Groupon!).

We finished the day by doing some shopping, and eating, and swimming (this was the whole purse incident evening *see below*).


We spent Saturday morning and afternoon by the pool. Then we packed up and hit a yummy pizza place for dinner (thanks Dad and Groupon). And stopped by a little frozen yogurt shop for some dessert (thanks Dad and Groupon!).




We hit an arcade on the strip Saturday evening for some real Las Vegas fun. :) Kid fun that is.


They had a cotton candy making machine. . .

Bonnie wouldn't let any of us touch it! (just teasing)


All in all it was a fabulous weekend. I think we all had fun, ate lots, and found a new love of groupon. Thanks to my great family for coming to spend a few days with me, and thanks dad for helping us out with our little weekend. I have the best family ever!

Shawna's Traumatic Evening

Bonnie and her kids came for a visit this weekend. (Another post and pictures to follow of course!) We had been having a lovely visit until Friday night. We had spent the afternoon going to my work to pick some stuff up, and at a variety of stores in a pretty large shopping center close to my house. We ended the day at Mimi's Cafe for some dinner. We were driving Bonnie's car all weekend, but I was the one driving because I know my way around the city better. I walked out of Mimi's a bit after 8 pm and dug around in my purse for the keys as I walked towards the car. Upon arriving at the car, I noticed Bonnie's tire seemed a little on the low side, so I checked it out a little bit, walked around the other side of the car (for comparison purposes) then ended up getting in the car and driving a short 5 minutes home. As I pulled into the driveway I realized my purse was missing. I searched thru the car a bit but began getting panicky realizing that I must have just put it down in the road by the car? Bonnie and I left the kids at my house and immediately drove back to the shopping center. It's a busy center, but Mimi's is kind of tucked to the far back corner where there is not much action going on. Bonnie seemed sure that we would pull up (not even 15 minutes after originally leaving the restaurant) and see the purse just kind of chillin there near where we had parked and I had possibly set it down. But no such luck, it wasn't there. I checked in the restaurant, yet nobody had turned it in. We began using Bonnie's phone several times to call my phone. Maybe a nice person found it and is planning on taking to the listed address on the driver's license? Nobody answered though. As I sadly got in my car, Bonnie had the idea that maybe as I had pulled up to the gate of my community, that maybe the purse had fallen out of the car as I opened the door and typed the gate code in (I had been driving most the day with my purse tucked nicely between myself and the car door. We called Aubrey and had her walk down to the gate, yet she found nothing. :( We got back home, I took the pups for a walk, then Bonnie told me that it was probably time to start canceling credit cards. Afterall, I did lose my purse in a parking lot connected to Walmart with my I.D. readily available to whoever had it.
Unfortunately, not only did my purse hold my wallet, but my phone, my only key to my car, my school keys (that was going to be fun to explain), and my camera.
So we spent the next while canceling cards and calling locksmiths in the area to take care of the car situation. Meanwhile, we continued to call my phone in hopes that someone had just found the purse, and would eventually answer it. We let the kids go swimming, and as we sat around the pool, Bonnie decided to text the phone, saying it was lost and please contact her if it was found.
As the night continued, the whole thing just seemed too weird to me. I had no idea why I would have just put my purse down in the middle of the parking lot and how in that short short time the wrong person would have come across it. But if someone nice had found it, wouldn't it be obvious to them that the person calling the phone over and over again was probably the owner of the lost possessions?
A friend of Bonnie's suggested sending out a "reward" text for someone who returns my stuff. So around 11 oclock that night we sent a text saying "reward if found." No more than 5 minutes later we got a response from someone in my neighborhood saying that they had found it at the gate! I don't know why he waited so long to contact us, and he wouldn't take the promised reward.
I looked through my stuff and everything seemed to still be there. Then on closer look, I discovered that I had several gift cards in my wallet that were now missing. Weird thing to take, but getting everything else back seems a small price to pay.
Unfortunately, it looks like the purse might have gotten a bit run over as well. Maybe I did it after dropping it in the first place? I had a busted (and sticky) lip gloss, a pen in pieces, and the saddest news of all. . . my beloved favorite camera. . . may it rest in peace. :(

My Prize!

After church on Sunday, we pulled out a card game to play. In the middle of it, Molly and Bryan both got sleepy then started fighting over who got to lay in the comfy chair after the game was over. We decided to make it a wager. Winner of the game= Winner of the chair!

Yahoo I won!!!

This was a view from my new prize. Neither of them would smile at the camera. And obviously they didn't want to nap either. I guess a nap isn't a nap unless it's in the prize chair. Sorry guys!

Fireworks!

On Sunday, in Indiana, it was of course 4th of July. On Saturday evening, Molly, Bryan, and I went to the fireworks store and wandered around to find us the perfect fireworks for the next evening. In our minds we knew what we wanted. Fireworks that look like real fireworks, the ones that fly into the sky and explode. . . but finding those were not as easy as we thought. So we ended up with a whole assortment of fun little things to try.

Bryan was the one in charge of lighting the fireworks. I think its exciting to do our own, yet I kind of have fears of fireworks exploding people's arms off while they are trying to light them so I am kind of a wimp when it comes to that. Even after watching the 12 year old little neighbor kids setting off their own stuff with no adult supervision didn't make me feel any more confident. The lady at the fireworks store even tried to convince us that it was ok to hold some while lighting them even though the box clearly read, "light and get away!" Oh well, better be safe then sorry is what I think, so I kept a safe distance while the lighting took place.




We really couldn't get any good pictures of the actual fireworks. One day when I have a fancy schmancy camera and learn to be a real photographer I will have awesome firework pictures, but til then, I will just have to be content with the sparkler pictures, and even those didn't turn out very great!
Happy Birthday America!

Greetings from Indiana!

I decided to spend my 4th of July weekend in Indiana this year. Because I fly on the standby schedule, it was up in the air all day Friday if I would make it to Indiana, and if so, how I was going to get there. Through LA and then on to Indiana? Detroit to Indiana? LA, Detroit, and then Indiana? Open flights filled up in just a matter of hours and the last thing I wanted was to get to some faraway city and then find myself stranded there. Eventually Molly decided to play it safe and I took the midnight redeye to Cincinnati which is a two hour drive from Indiana (and actually in Kentucky, not Ohio like one would assume- that definitely thru me off a bit). Molly and Bryan decided that they would meet me there at 6:30 in the morning.
Obviously upon my arrival, nobody was quite up to their perky selves. Mol and Bryan had to wake up before five to begin their trek to the airport and I had gotten a possible 3 hours of sleep on my trip. In the past, redeye flights have hit me pretty hard and I spend most of my short visit asleep on the couch. We didn't want that happening this weekend, so rather than driving back to their house where a couple of cozy beds are waiting, we decided to get out of the house and explore a little bit of Indiana. I used the several hour drive to catch up on a bit of sleep, then found myself with a yummy milkshake in hand at the beginning of a lovely little hike.
Molly and Bryan found this place several weeks ago and decided to bring me back here. I am not typically a hike person. I am not really sure why, maybe I have never really given it much of a shot, but if I lived by this place, I might become more of a hiker. The place was very cool, had several different paths that were unlike any hike I had ever been on. I tried to capture some of the different cool parts of the hike, but pictures could definitely not do some of the areas much justice.












There were several sets of staircases, bridges, and waterfalls. Most of the time we were either walking through some tall foresty areas or through some deep canyons filled with water so it stayed pretty nice and cool. And yes, the ladder was part of the hike that we climbed up as well.
After staying for a couple of hours, we headed back towards home, stopped for a yummy meal and some errands, and ended up having a fairly productive day for being pretty much exhausted!