Disney Preparations

This week has been consumed with me getting ready for Disney! Those preparations include: "storing up" television by watching a lot of it now, resting- because there'll be none of that at Disney!, shopping, cleaning, cooking meals for Steve while I'm gone and spending time with him. I've also been keeping myself busy with little Hadleigh. I watched her a few days earlier in the week.

My flight is Saturday morning at 7:30 from Memphis. So, tomorrow night, Steve and I are driving to Memphis and staying the night at his friend's apartment. So I have to be packed and ready to go for my adventure by tomorrow evening and I haven't even begun to pack yet :). Steve keeps telling me that I have turned into my mother (who usually stays up the night before a vacation in order to pack). I just keep reminding him that I don't have a whole lot going on during the day!

People keep asking me what I'm most excited about. Well, that's a really hard question to answer! I'm excited to see Disney through the eyes of my young nieces, spend precious time with my family (brother won't be there, but he doesn't really matter--- J/K Joe, you will be missed), and make new Disney memories. I think I tallied up all my trips and this is #15 for me. I know it sounds ridiculous to go back to the same place so many times, but I guess it's the memories I have made and will make that keep drawing me back. This week I did some research on Hidden Mickeys (Mickey mouse designs/paint/pictures that are hidden throughout the parks in attractions). I have found some Mickeys on previous trips and wanted to see if I could find new ones while I'm there, so I've made myself a little list and excited to see how many I can find!

Odds & Ends

I have had a bunch of little things happen this week that don't really go together, so bare with me on this post. I'm probably gonna jump from topic to topic (which is how my brain works, so this is a little inside to my thinking). Good luck!

Okay, so earlier this week, I had an idiot moment. I was making a microwave dessert during a commercial. So as soon as the microwave dinged, I quickly reached in to grab the dessert. Well, I hit the edge of the bowl and it flipped back on my hand. The hot fudge on the top landed on my thumb and burned it. I feel like an idiot when people ask what happened to my thumb and I explain that I burned it on a microwaveable dessert. Ridiculous! And then a few days later, I burned my arm on the side of a pan while making Steve a quesadilla. These are teeny-tiny burns that I keep complaining about and it takes me back to a year ago when Steve burned a good portion of his leg. He rarely complained through all the recovery and here I am complaining about a little spot on my thumb. Yet again, I will admit, I am a wimp!

In my latest post, I wrote about my babysitting job. I have officially watched little Hadleigh two times this week. I thought I would include a picture of us hanging out. If you look closely, it looks like Hadleigh was caught in a blink; however, she is actually sleeping! She sleeps with her eyes open and it freaks me out! The first time she napped, I kept thinking, "She's never gonna get to sleep, but at least she's laying still." Well, apparently she was asleep because all the other naps she's taking has me bewildered with her eyes open. Crazy Kid! She's quite entertaining when she's not sleeping. She rolls around on the floor, loves to take all the DVD's off the bottom shelf, gets into Steve's Xbox controllers, and attacks her animals with slobbery kisses. She gets really attached to me and becomes clingy at times. She doesn't like to be in a different room than I am, so I have to tote her around a lot (that's okay, I enjoy it!).

Also this week, I've added a new aspect to my "trying to get in shape" goals. I now count my calories which is really depressing! I have a goal to eat only 1600 calories a day, and when dinner consumes half of those calories, it doesn't leave much food to spread throughout the day. I've only been doing it for a few days, and I am already adjusting to eating less food. However, yesterday was quite the challenge. My good friend Megan from Indiana was going to be in Tennessee for a day (she came for a concert the night before in Nashville and said she'd come to Jackson the next day to hang out). So in my silly head, I thought she'd be in around 4ish, meaning we'd go to dinner and hangout some after. However, her and her boyfriend didn't show up until 8 o'clock! I had to go all that time without eating because I was saving up the rest of the days calories to go eat out :(. Oh well, I survived and that loaded pork baked potato had never tasted so good! Plus I got to spend a few hours with Megan and Joel. They left our house around 10:30 to drive back to Indiana. Boy did that make Steve and I feel like old fogies! Ha ha. We were headed to bed and they were just starting their adventure back home. Crazy Kids!

Another Job

So, I am officially a Substitute; however, I have not gotten my first call yet. I've only been on the list 2 days, so I don't expect any calls for a couple weeks. I'm going to go around to some of the schools so they can put my face to my name on the list and hopefully get some calls!

Over the weekend, I got a call from the daughter who used to live in the house we rent from. She has a 7 month old baby girl and needed a sitter for Monday. Her grandma was having surgery and she didn't want to take Hadleigh (the baby) along with her. She also asked if I'd be interesting in watching her a couple nights a week while she works. We haven't ironed out a schedule yet.

So yesterday was my first time watching the baby. We had quite the time. She got dropped off at my house around 7:45. she had been up since 6 so our morning started off with a nap. I laid next to her and read while she dozed off. I dozed off a little too :). I kept checking on her and had a hard time telling if she was awake or asleep because she slept with her eyes open! It was so bizarre! At first I thought something was wrong, but I kept my eye on her, and she snored away. After the nap we played some with her toys, fed her another bottle, then lunch, then a nap, then another bottle, played some more, and another nap! Ha ha, man I like her schedule -- play, eat, sleep, play, eat, sleep. In the middle of our day, my friend stopped by to meet Hadleigh and hang out for a little bit. Poor Hadleigh did not enjoy the visit. She got really fussy and kept crying while she looked at my friend. From then on, she got really clingy to me and wouldn't let me put her down. At least she didn't scream with me!

SHHHhhhhhh! It's a SECRET!!!

So, this is something I've had to be careful who to tell for like the past 3 months. I'm going to Disney World in less than 2 weeks!! The surprise is that my sister is taking her 3 daughters and they have NO IDEA that we're going!! My parents, 2 sisters, brother-in-law, 3 nieces, and I are going (sorry Steve, someone has to make the bucks for us! Okay really, he had the option to go and decided he didn't want to waste vacation days on Disney- ridiculous!)

My three nieces think that they are flying in a plane around Indy for their dad's birthday (well, the older two think that, the youngest is 15 months and has no idea what's about to hit her!). However, they will actually be flying to Florida (where I will be meeting them) and then we're headed to Disney! My oldest niece is 7 yrs old, and she has been told that she can't go back to Disney until she's 9. Sad to say, this will mark her 3rd trip! It is officially, the Disney Zealot gene is, in fact, hereditary! We leave Oct 23 and will return to reality on Nov 1. Since we will be in Disney over Halloween, we will be attending Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and are all dressing up. There of course will be a bazillion blog posts and pictures showing all the costumes and fan we will be having while at Disney. Here is a preview of my costume:

I am going as Tinkerbell. I made my costume by following a pattern (well I made the corset & the skirt, the undershirt & leggings are store bought). I also made the shoes myself. I bought simple white flats and painted them sparkly green. I then added white pom balls on the toes. I will post a picture of me in costume (I also have wings, but my mom has them) at Disney, so you will have to wait in anticipation for the whole ensemble!

Have I mentioned how crazy my family is? Especially how crazy they get about Disney?? My mom has come up with a bunch of t-shirt designs, and we have been making t-shirts to wear in Disney (Yes, we will all match on certain days!). My mom's been pretty busy with life and trying to get ready for Disney, so she sent me shirts to work on. Here was what the front look like:

I had to make 9 of these shirts and I'm only half done with them! I got all the fronts done, and have to complete the backs. I made a stencil for the back (it's just gonna have a phrase written on it) so the backs should go pretty quick.

If you can't tell, the people on the front of the shirt are all of us going to Disney. In order from left to right-- Sara, Dad, Mom, Emily, Gabbie, Allie, Amber, Chris, and Me. Ha ha. They were really fun to paint. My dad and Amber are by far my favorite characters to paint!

P&G Family Fun Day

This past Saturday, Steve and I went to Family Fun Day sponsored by P&G Pringles. It was located at the Jackson Family Fun Center. When we arrived, we were greeted by a Police Car that only allowed P&G employees to enter the parking lot.

Once we got out of the car and walked up to the door, we had to sign in and received our all day wrist bands, coins for the arcade, and a free chair (ha ha, I haven't opened it up yet, so maybe it has the Pringles logo? It's one of those outdoor chairs that folds up and is conveniently stored in a bag).
Steve put the chair back in the car and we headed into the center where we started our day with bowling. Steve saw a few people here and there that he worked with, but in the beginning it was just he and I sharing a lane. We had to keep reminding ourselves that our day was free because the place was really lax in a lot of areas. For instance, our bowling lane was ridiculous! There was constantly pins being knocked over upon being set up, and oftentimes my ball would get stuck with the pins and wouldn't return for awhile. While into our second game, one of Steve's buddies came up and invited us to come down and bowl with them. So we finished up our game and joined some fellow P&Gers-- Josh and Aaron, who brought his girlfriend Sam. We had a blast with them the rest of the day!

After bowling, we went to the arcade area where Josh was challenging Aaron and Steve to prove their "Mach0-ness" with a punch-meter. Josh won with Aaron and Steve behind, but close in each others' numbers). After the macho match, we headed to laser tag. I opted not to play (I wore the wrong shoes, and it's not my gig) so I watched everyone's stuff while they duked it out. After laser tag, we ate some grub and then headed to the GoKarts. By far, my favorite part of the day! I was trying to convince Steve to double with me, but I'm glad he held firm in doing singles. I ended up being close to Josh, Aaron, and Sam while racing. Josh and Aaron were being ridiculous in not letting Sam or I pass. Plus, Josh got right in front of me and slammed his brake, which forced me to turn sharply. Luckily, I didn't spin out, but learned to stay away from Josh! Steve was behind all of us do to car issues. His car didn't start in the beginning and had to be restarted so he got to see us duking it out from a couple curves behind. He didn't miss out on any of the action, though. He had a couple of co-workers challenging him (they were technicians in their 50s smack-talking him before hand!).

We walked around a little more, played some more arcade games, and then picked up free product. (That's right, we now have 3 cases of unopened Pringles and about 20 boxes of Pringles Stix!). We had a really great day, and I got to meet some of the people Steve works with. It's nice to put faces to names!

Busy Week!

Over the weekend, we had the honor to host friends of our's from Purdue for an evening! Mitch surprised his wife Alice by taking her to a TN football game and staying a night at our house on their way home. We had a delightful time with them and it went by all too fast! We took them to our favorite BBQ joint and to our local tourist trap -- Casey Jones Village. We walked around the old country store and played with various chotsky.

The weather as finally cooled off some. In fact, we've turned off our air, and I just keep the windows open (plus we have a ceiling fan in each room, but I don't use them much). So on Monday, I pulled out my fall clothes. It was like Christmas came early! I always forget what clothes I have, so when it's time to pull out a new season's clothes its like I just went shopping.

Yesterday, I got a callback for substituting. I had to go into the central office, finish paper work, go take a drug test, and go get a background check/finger printing. After driving all over in order to complete my new job needs, I decided to celebrate with a trip to Target. Where is Sarah Cardinal when you need her? I had to browse the clearance racks alone. But I came out with a cheap new bathing suit for next year, and a few new shirts. New shoes at Walmart complete my needs for new clothes to teach in (okay, more like wants than needs).

Now I am awaiting a phone call stating that all the paperwork and testing went through and I will be on the official Jackson-Madison County School Substitute List. . . .

While Boys Play, Girls Go Away. . .

Before we left for St. Louis, Steve had ordered himself a new Xbox Gaming system (he figured, why waste a brand new tv on piddly little games...). So it arrived a couple days after we got back. He taught me how to play the new game (Halo Reach) that came with the system, but I am not nearly as good as he is (he has a few years experience with the game on me). So, he asked if his friend (who just moved to Memphis) could stay the weekend and play games. My response, "Sure he can come, as long as I can go visit my parents :)". So, while Steve gamed with his friend all weekend, I spent time with my family in Indiana.

I drove all day Friday and arrived into town in early evening. I got to meet up with good friends for dinner before heading to my parents' house. My mom was the only one who knew I was coming. When I got home, my sister was the first to be surprised that I was home. Shortly after I surprised her, my brother and sister-in-law were surprised to see me answer the door. They came over to show my mom an ultrasound of their baby (they just announced they're expecting in April!). My dad was supposed to arrive home early in the evening from a business trip to France; however, due to unforeseen circumstances, he wasn't going to make it into Indy until midnight. The original plan was for him to rent a car and drive home; however, he was too tired so mom and I went to pick him up. He only knew mom was coming, so I got to surprise him at the airport :).

The next day, I went with my mom to Glendale Days (a little airport in town had a fundraising event-- my dad is a non-commercial pilot and he was in charge of helping planes take off and land via radio). My sister brought her little girls there to play in the bounce houses and to watch airplanes. They were all surprised when I showed up holding their lunch instead of mom :).

After Saturday, my trip became a blur. I got to visit with some friends (some I got to introduce to the glory of Glendale, while I met up with others for ice cream). The rest of my time was packed with soaking up niece time, family time, and helping out my mom with her latest project (to be blogged about at another time). I got to be "the bestest aunt ever" for letting Gabs and Als spend the night (Em had school :(, next time!). The time went by all too quick. I had to leave on Wednesday and nearly cried most of the time. Poor Steve, he expected a jovial wife to return, and instead got a tired emotional wife who wanted more time with her family. You can never have too much of a good thing!