March Media #13

Day 13

A favorite memory a song inspires

I'm going to go with a song from last Feburary... "What the Hell" by Avril Lavigne... this song was playing a lot when Erin and I started dating.. and it reminded me of her a lot. Avril is one of her favorite musical artist (probably #2 behind Five for Fighting) and it seemed like this song would be the first thing I'd hear on the radio on the way home from her house. So it always just reminds me of her whenever I hear it and those first couple months of us dating :)

Media Blog Present
1.) Most Recent Movie you saw (In Theatres)
2.) Most Recent Book you read
3.) Most Recent Song you heard (MP3/CD/Cassette)
4.) Most Recent TV Series you've been addicted to
5.) Most Recent Movie you saw (at home)
6.) Most Recent Song you heard on the Radio
7.) Most Recent Concert/Live Event
8.) Most Recent favorite YouTube clip
9.) Most frequented website
Past
1.) One of the best movies you saw in a movie theatre
2.) One of your favorite books
3.) One of your favorite songs
4.) A favorite memory a song inspires 5.) A favorite TV series that is off the air
6.) CD you own that you have listened to the most
7.) A favorite Web video
8.) A website you used to visit a lot
Future1.) Movie you want to see coming out this year
2.) A Concert you would like to go to
3.) A book you want to read
The Good - The Bad - The Weird 1.) A movie you really enjoyed watching
2.) A movie you really don't like
3.) The strangest movie / A movie you don't understand
4.) A book that you really liked
5.) A book that you hated reading
6.) A strange book / a book you didn't understand
7.) A band you really enjoy listening to
8.) A song you really don't like
9.) A strange / weird song
10.) A band you will never understand why people like
11.) A movie you will never understand why people like

Media #7

Day 7

7.) Most Recent Concert/Live Event
Well it has been going on two years since I went to a live concert... Erin and I talked about going to one last summer but it never worked out/never found someone playing that we wanted to go see here locally.

I can put the Purdue vs Neberska game that Erin and I went to at the end of Feburary as the most recent event. It was a great time and I really enjoyed it and getting to spend the time with Erin :) I had a blast, it was the first game I had been to since I had graduated in 2008.

For Music I guess I'd have to trace back to Janus/Sick Puppies/Chevelle from Feb. 2009 wow!

For live event I could strecth to public speaking event, saw one by a local guy on the Underground Railroad in Decatur County, The show choir from Greensburg and a panel of AAGPBL players all in the last 6 months...but not the excitement of


Media Blog Present
1.) Most Recent Movie you saw (In Theatres)
2.) Most Recent Book you read
3.) Most Recent Song you heard (MP3/CD/Cassette)
4.) Most Recent TV Series you've been addicted to
5.) Most Recent Movie you saw (at home)
6.) Most Recent Song you heard on the Radio
7.) Most Recent Concert/Live Event 8.) Most Recent favorite YouTube clip
9.) Most frequented website
Past
1.) One of the best movies you saw in a movie theatre
2.) One of your favorite books
3.) One of your favorite songs
4.) A favorite memory a song inspires
5.) A favorite TV series that is off the air
6.) CD you own that you have listened to the most
7.) A favorite Web video
8.) A website you used to visit a lot
Future
1.) Movie you want to see coming out this year
2.) A Concert you would like to go to
3.) A book you want to read
The Good - The Bad - The Weird
1.) A movie you really enjoyed watching
2.) A movie you really don't like
3.) The strangest movie / A movie you don't understand
4.) A book that you really liked
5.) A book that you hated reading
6.) A strange book / a book you didn't understand
7.) A band you really enjoy listening to
8.) A song you really don't like
9.) A strange / weird song
10.) A band you will never understand why people like
11.) A movie you will never understand why people like

Thankful 15

~This Blog is part of a series for November, adapted from the series Erin is currently running over on her blog. For this month in honor of Thanksgiving I will release a blog every other day about something/one/idea I am Thankful for. I've broken the criteria down into a guideline of sorts that I will follow, the month will contain 5 People - 5 Things - 5 Ideas . The order that I post things in has no particular significance or ranking behind it.~


Erin
People 5

Well if you follow my blog you know I got behind on finishing this series, but this is one that is certainly past due. In this past year Erin has become a major part of my life, as I've discovered how much I could care for someone else, and everything about them.

When I say that I mean I care about her, her pets, her things, her family. Its strange I never knew it would be like that with someone else.

I guess I have known Erin for a long time... apparently we went to Day-Care together... but it wasn't until last winter that we started talking, with facebook messages at first and then on Feb. 18th she talked me into going to see a movie with her. It was an awkward first date that I failed with flying colors as I let her go home that night right after the movie without making any moves at all... However I would get a chance to redeem myself the next week when we went to El Reparo and sat their for 3 hours until the resturant closed and then proceeded to spend almost 6 more hours just hanging out in my car.

Since then we have had a lot of good times and I look for many more to come.

100 Things about Erin #4

*This is the last part in a multi-part blog set for the month of October*

76. Erin is good at the card game hand & foot

77. She started dating her current boyfriend in Feburary

78. She has lived in the following states: Indiana, North Carolina, Flordia, Texas

79. She doesn't like cold weather

80. She likes to sleep in as much as possible

81. She does like it to be cold when she sleeps though

82. She is against killing people/death penalty

83. She has a nice smile

84. Erin is midly addicted to the game Bingo Blitz on facebook currently

85. She loves the show Cold Case

86. Really anything crime/cop related is a big hit with her

87. 4th of July and Thanksgiving are her favorite holidays

88. She likes to carve pumpkins for Halloween

89. Erin likes the sound of pianos

90. She does like skull themed items, more of the cute stuff though not the full on goth or Nightmare before Christmas types.

91. She has an iphone but puts very few apps/games on it... she says they are too clutery

92. She does have the app foursquare and we are the mayors of Arby's

93. She doesn't like McDonalds other than for their ice cream

94. She doesn't like waiting

95. She like Nachos

96. She wishes she had her own house instead of living at her grandparents

97. She is currently fighting a Mountain Dew addiction

98. She wants to visit the Waverly Hills Sanitorium now that I told her about it

99. She wants to have 3 kids

100. Erin is a very caring person

100 things about Erin #3

*This is a part in a multi-part blog set for the month of October*



41. Sometimes school can really stress her out

42. She goes to school at IUPUC currently

43. Next semester she will have to take some of her classes at IUPUI

44. She has taken classes at Franklin

45. And UCF

46. As well as a small community college in Flordia

47. Her life has made her educational journey an intersting and long one, but she values her education a lot

48. She even trained at a police academy for awhile in Texas

49. Her Major is Health Care administration

50. She currently works at an assisted living home so you can look at it as she is getting some hands on experience

51. Being a forester would have been her dream job

52. However, Foresters don't make a lot of money so she decided to go into another field she loves - working with the elderly

53. She is very cute

54. She wears either glasses or contacts

55. Her favorite Salad dressing is Ranch

56. She used to like Ceaser, but I made a mistake of telling her some brands contain an ingredient she can't stand

57. That ingredient is fish... she won't eat it

58. Fish are by far her least favorite animal
59. American Eagle is one of her favorite clothing stores

60. She doesn't like shirts with collars

61. She almost always has socks on

62. She hates the feel of carpet

63. She is a pretty good Wii bowler

64. N64 is her favorite video game console

65. She like the Mario Party franchise of games

66. However, The Sims is her favorite video game.

67. She is very competitive when it comes to playing games, she hates to lose

68. It doesn't matter what type of game it is; cards, board games, video games, trivia games, athletic games she will always be trying her hardest to win

69. She was an outstanding track star in high school

70. Discus was her standout event that even got her recruited for college

71. She trained with a member of the Purdue Track and Field team

72. Softball was another sport she loved playing while growing up

73. Football is about the only sport she cannot stand

74. She likes Carmex chapstick

75. In the woods is her favorite place to be

Pumpkin Patch

On Sunday Erin took me to a Pumpkin Patch down by Westport. We took her dogs, Jude and Juno, for a walk/ride along with us to pick out some pumpkins to carve.










The dogs brought "aww how cute"'s from people as always.










(Juno running back to me)

After digging through the field and picking out a selection of Pumpkins we headed back to Erin's house to begin a carving...





Thanks to Erin's pumpkin carving kit, even an beginner like me could make some cool designs.





After several hours of carving our hearts out, throwing pumpkin goo at the dogs, keeping Trudy from running off with the lids, and going to eat dinner at the mexican place near the old walmart... it was time for the ceremonial lighting of the pumpkins!

100 Things about Erin #2

*This is a part in a multi-part blog set for the month of October*

21. Her favorite actor is Tom Hanks

22. Her favorite movie is Pride and Prejudice*

23. Her favorite band is "Five for Fighting"

24. She is also a big fan of Avril Lavigne

25. Her favorite color is Pink

26. Even though pink is her favorite color, she still thinks its a little silly that the football players wear pink for breast cancer month.

27. She dislikes the sport of football

28. She likes Def Jam Poetry

29. She has been to many more concerts than I have

30. Elton John headlined the last concert she saw

31. She is very good at canoeing

32. She likes watching TV series on netflix while she does homework

33. A good indicator on if she will like a series or not is to see how much profanity it has in it... the more the better

34. However, it doesn't have to have profanity... as she watched the entire "Musters" series not long ago

35. Avatar the Last Airbender is the first anime series she watched

36.  Her favorite ice cream flavor is "Cotton candy"

37.  She prefers ketchup over mustard

38. A1 sauce is her favorite condiment

39. She is gorgeous

40. Her birthday is in July




*correction needs to be made, she claims this is her second favorite movie behind "The Green Mile"

A walk in the woods with Erin

These pictures are from a week or so back at the end of September (the 25th I believe), it was a fun day walking through her woods and the creek. I'm just posting some of the pictures we took that day, I don't think they really need much in the way of captions so I'll just leave them to tell the story.

September Thoughts

September Thoughts


So I was going to kick off this month with one of those month long challenge things were you fill in something for each topic on a list, but really didn’t find one I liked so I’m pushing that back for some other month. Erin is supposed to make me a challenge sheet so if she does I’ll do it for October.

Right now I’m sitting in a coffee shop at IUPUC while Erin is in class, ( I rode along with her today, knowing I could just play games online while she was in class) and since I haven’t blogged in so long I figured I really needed to post an update of some sort.

Work has been very busy, the Museum just made the front page again yesterday for our upcoming Archaeology Day that is taking place this Saturday. Next Sunday we have our All-American Girls Professional Baseball panel, and the weekend after that we kick off our Life before Electricity exhibit. So things have been very busy, but that is good. Sometimes it seems like an impossible struggle to keep a small nonprofit museum going now with everyone’s money tightening up and what seems to be general apathy for local history… outside of facebook groups, which are free but don’t have any physical items/presence to them. I really like the job though, just sad I can tell it will never expand to more than the part-time position it is…. And sometimes I wonder how long they will want to pay someone to do my job if money gets any tighter.

Erin has again floated out the idea of me returning to school to get what I guess would be a more worthwhile* degree than History. I guess I’m stuck on the thought of how much money it cost to go back to school, I’d have to spend everything I saved by working to get government aid and then I’d have to pay off those loans… just seems like a step back and that I would be admitting defeat with my History degree…. Though I will concede that I’d try to steer my kid away from a History degree when they go to college… and that I’d probably make more money with an accounting degree and still enjoy it. I guess its something to put more thought it… and I probably should set up an appointment with an advisor at IUPUC or something, take in my transcript and be like here…. How far away am I? That way I could give the idea a legitimate chance… my current job is flexible enough it wouldn’t be a pain to go back to school currently. Or maybe I should just check out University of Phoenix Online?

I guess I have been thinking about all of that because everything is going so well with Erin right now. I feel comfortable around all of her family and feel they like me. We hung out with them twice last week, them being her grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, and their two kids. Also her Mom and Step-Dad want us to drive down to South Carolina and visit them (Don’t know when we will be able to fit that into our schedule though). If Erin and I want to move any further in our relationship (and we have been talking about the future a lot recently) then I’m going to have to make some more money or figure out something different. She still has 2 years of school yet so neither of us has much money nor will for awhile… but someday I’m going to have to up my salary and who knows what my job prospects will be in a couple years if they nonprofit world keeps getting hit like it is currently.

I sold a few of my old books on Half.com... I pretty much only sell books this time of year when people are heading back to school. They will sit all winter/summer/fall but move during this time. One of them apparently had the envelope get ripped open in the mail though and just the empty mailer arrived in Arizona... ugh so I had to refund that money, and lost the book to the post office.

I recenlty got the full discography minus their newest album, of one of my current favorite bands... Black Rebel Motorcycle Club... I wish they would come to Indianapolis I would totally make Erin go with me to see them.

In other news….

Purdue won their first football game… looks like it will be a long season though.

Dad is planning on starting to harvest the crops around the 15th of this month, so I’ll be helping him some soon. This doesn’t look to be that good of a year though.

Casey has been in Europe for one week visiting Pasqui… she’ll be back next Wednesday

I will try my best to do some sort of mini blog series this month… though as it is already the 7th, I will need to get on the ball!

That’s about all I have to blog about right now so hopefully things are going well for everyone.

*I guess the worthwhileness of a history degree can be disputed… one of the regulars at the museum, who is a retired university professor has talked to me about how I should look into a Master’s degree or further into History.

Canoe Trip II

Pictures from Canoeing with Erin, Brock and Joe on 8-14-11

Wonderful Week

So a week ago Sunday, Erin and I headed to the Indianapolis Airport to pick up her Mom and Step-Dad who were visiting her last week for her birthday. I'll admit that I had been getting nervous about meeting her Mom as the week approached, as her Mom is her favorite person in the world I wanted to make sure I made a good impression. However, though I was nervous I think Erin was even more stressed out, which did make it kind of relieving when we piled into her grandparents car with the dogs Jude and Juno and took off towards Indianapolis with fireworks shooting off in the horizon as we rolled down the interstate.

After picking up her parents and driving back down to Greensburg we had to stop at Walmart for them to get some supplies, which was fun running around Walmart as they grabbed different things they thought they'd need (they used maybe 25% of what they bought during their stay). Once we got to Erin's grandparents and sat around to talk it was 4 am before I went to bed, and even later before Erin and her Mom called it a night.

The next morning was the 4th of July and I was the first one up in the house as I had to head out the door to go to the Museum as we were open during the parade and had a recent MLB draftee Alex Meyer in to sign autographs after the parade (he was the grand marshall). We had a good turnout for the event and then I headed back to Erin's place around noon, just as Andrew was heading to his family dinner. I sat around with Erin and her Mom for awhile as they discussed the closing arguements of the Casey Anthony Trial and then rushed around trying to get ready for Andrew's family dinner.

It was around 2 when we finally got around to heading to see Andrew's family and it was a nice dinner and they are all really nice people. After a few hours of sitting around their talking and eating we went back to Erin's to get some swimming trunks so that we could swim in the pool at the party, which once we returned we did for several hours. I had a lot of fun, and Erin and I debuted our new sport of water dancing in which we dominated the other competiton in the pool that night. After we left the party we grabbed some Pizza King pizza to have for dinner with Erin and her parents and I headed home.

Tuesday I had work all morning and then headed to Erin's house. Andrew was busy doing stuff with his family, all day so it was just Erin and her Mom. They were disappointed by the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial and talked about that for awhile. Erin and I played some Mario Kart on the N64 before going out to eat with her Mom at El Reparo. It was a pretty laid back and nice day.

Wensday was exciting as we had planned to go canoeing... though the trip was a little delayed (we didn't get down to Brookville until after 2pm) because of how long it took everyone to get ready ha ha. We stopped at the Hearthstone resturant in Metamora to have lunch, and then at CVS in Brookville to get some drinks before we pulled into the canoeing place. We were only in the water for about a quarter of the mile before I was blamed for flipping Erin and my canoe and then had my steering privleges taken away, but it was still a great time. We bottomed out a few places and got stuck once, but after that flip we stayed dry! At one point we stopped to just play in the water and throw rocks. Really the canoe trip was great all around.

After we got back from Canoeing we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner and then drove to Shelbyville to go see the movie Bad Teacher. The drinks for the movie were the first thing her parents let me buy all along and I'm really thankful they helped pay for our way to do all the fun stuff we did while they were here. The movie was good, and was a nice ending to the day. I had driven seperate to Shelbyville and went home after the movie. Since I had stayed a couple nights with Erin it sort of made it easier to leave when she had to ride home with her parents. It always sucks leaving her after we have been together for a long time, so maybe it was an ulterior motive in me driving seperate. Either way it was a stupendous day.

Thursday I had to work again and it was Erin's Birthday. Work was uneventful for the most part, I had a board meeting that night so I had to hurry and get ready everything for that. Erin's parents showed up to look at the Museum around 4, but I wasn't able to give them a tour as the board meeting was getting ready to start. I wish I had been able to show them around myself, and felt bad that I was sort of ignoring them so hopefully the understood I couldn't because of the meeting.

After the meeting I went straight to Erin's and gave her the birthday present I had bought and card I had made. The Birthday present was a Roku Box so we can watch netflix movies together via streaming on her TV instead of on the computer with its weak speakers. We watch a lot of movies/tv shows together on netflix so I thought it would be something nice that she'd use. I get to say I "made" her card because I glue maccaroni on it.... It is sort of a joke that I told her months ago that all of the best cards had maccaroni glued on them and that I would do that for her... so I had to buy a box of mac and cheese so that I could make her card..... I think she liked it.

For her choice of dinner we went to a Japanese Steakhouse for dinner, it was an intersting experience. As I said in my "Thoughts" blog the prices surprised me a bit, but the food was great. I wished the chef knew a little more English so that we could have interacted with him a bit more. Erin got shrimp tales dumped on her plate which was funny because she despises fish off all kinds. I actually ended up eating the shrimp for everyone in our group since I was the only one who would eat it. The dinner was a fun experience that I'd like to try again and a different Japanese Steakhouse sometime.


On our way to dinner

After dinner Erin had wanted to go putt-putt golfing but when we showed up to GreaTimes, the putt-putt place, they were closed. So we wandered over to the bowling alley that was next door and played a couple games of bowling. We can safely say that no one in the group is going to become a professional bowler anytime soon... I won the first game and Andrew won the second game, but I think everyone had a good time. After we left bowling we got some drinks, which involved some illegal u-turns and a tacobell that was out of Mountain Dew (Erin's nectar of life) before we headed home.

Friday afternoon Erin's parents picked me up on their way to have dinner with Andrew's mom and then take them to the Airport. We ate lunch at O'Charley's and the food was ok... and then we were off to the races to get them to the airport in time. We droppd them off with only a little over an hour to get through security but they weren't worried. (We later heard that Erin's mom had to get the full body scan and the pat down!). It was sad seeing them go even though I had only just met them 5 days prior. Erin even took saying good-by to them really well, I was bracing myself for an hour long ride home with her being very sad and me trying to cheer her up. (Erin when you read this I meant that in a positive way)

Her parents want us to come visit them in Flordia sometime, which I hope we can do maybe sometime this winter to stop in and see them. I had a Wonderful week getting to meet her family and enjoying all the time we spent together.

Thoughts - japanese steak house

Day 7

For Erin's Birthday we went to a Japanese Steakhouse for dinner. This was my first time ever going to a place like that, and It was an intersting experience. I was a little surprised when I first saw the prices, it was what I think the 3rd most expensive meal I've ever had, but the food was good. One thing I don't like is that since everyone sits around the gril your group has to sit next to strangers, but that doesn't bother me too much and it is really neat to watch them cook your food in front of you. I wish our chef had spoken a little clearer English that way his jokes would have been funnier... (you lose a little bit of the humor when you have to try and comprehend it for a few seconds).

I got to eat 4 servings of shrimp since Andrew, Erin's Mom and Erin all refused the shrimp the chef dumped it on to my plate. I'm not a huge shrimp fan, but as Erin can confirm I hate seeing food go to waste and if its on my plate I'll eat it, so all the shrimp was ate lol. It was pretty good though. The shrimp tales got dumped on Erin's plate and she hates seafood of all kinds! plus she got hit bya shrimp tail that was tossed by the chef at the other grill, but she took it alright.

Overall it was a good time and I'd love to try another Japanese Steakhouse sometime.

Thoughts - Connections

So for a blog series this month I thought I would just mention or talk about one thing that crossed my mind each day.

Day 4

Today was the 4th of July and since Erin's Mom and Step-dad are in town visiting her we went to a family get together with her stepdad Andrew's family. Throughout all of the talking and general conversation it is intersting to think about how intertwined everyone is in the world. Its probably more so in Decatur County where his family could sit there and talk about all of my neighbors and who farms what field and so on, but still look at how far there familys had branched out. Erin's mom and Andrew had went to school together here in Indiana but wind up meeting each other again in Flordia and getting married. Crazy how things work out and even with billions of people in the world, we seem to move in such tight little groupings.

For Erin

Ok Cheesy song for my other select readers, but this one is me sharing a song with Erin.

Rolling Along

So its been almost a week again since I posted, so I thought I should take some time to just jot some things down, It'll just be a quick couple topic update I guess.

Work has been semi-stressful leading up to next weekend. We are having an Antique Apprisal Fair at the museum and I guess this is my first big project. It has been a little tricky since I wasn't there to begin with and only got handed the reigns of this back in March. While I'll admit that there has been a few things I've maybe procrastinated too long on, this still would have been stressful either way. Right now I'm just hoping enough people sign up to come to the show. One thing that does suck is the fact that this week I've paid for some of our advertising for the show out of my bank account, it'll get reimbursed as we have a grant to help pay for the advertisements. It just not that fun for me, as someone who worries about being broke, having a big chunk of money sitting out there waiting a couple weeks to be payed back for, this month being a bad month for that as I have to pay for my car insurance here in 2 weeks.

Life has been busy but good, Erin's grandparents left for there summer of travels earlier this month so her place has become our main place to hang out since we have the whole place to ourselves and the fact that there isn't anyone at her house to take care of her dogs when she is gone. We have finally plowed through the first season of Prison Break, a show she has now officially got me hooked on, and have started the second season. We are also working our way through the Harry Potter series of movies so that I will be up to date when the final movie releases this summer, as I had never payed much attention to the books or movies. (I think I read 50 pages in the first book and had seen the first movie)

Erin has also been cooking me dinner when I go over there. She denies she is a good cook, but just this week she made a good casserole and some really good Hawaiian Meatballs. I'd never heard of Hawaiian Meatballs until I met her and her family, but I like them. Add in the fact that she makes good lasagna and she is a good cook in my eyes!

Overall though its just been really nice to get to spend so much time with her these last couple weeks, even if most of it has just been laying around, watching movies, playing cards and/or talking about plans for the future and all that jazz.

I do need to mention that one day when we were hanging out at my house, June 9th which was my Dad's birthday, we took a walk back to my Grandpa's woods because I know Erin likes the woods. It was funny walking through the really tall grass with Sparky and Pepper. Pepper snorting along because she was really happy and tired, it is a really funny sound she makes. The funny thing though was when we were coming up the back lane to my Grandpa's barn lot and the horse and mule were coming down. As soon as the dogs see the horse/mule they react in two totally different ways.... Pepper (who has had a run in with a horse last year) darts between me and Erin and sits down looking for protection.... Sparky turns and runs away as fast as he can.. it was hilarious! Once he stops we are able to get him to come back closer to us and I grab Rosie's (the mule) harness, because she is the mean one, and hold her so Erin, Pepper and Sparky can pass... however as the horse is moving past and I'm letting go of Rosie, Sparky once again bolts the other direction and the horses take chase. I thought they were going to smash him for sure so I had to run back and make sure he was safe. Luckily he made it to a pile of junk he could hide in before the horses trampled him, and I was able to chase the horses off to get him to safety. Poor little pup I'm sure he was terrified but it was really funny to see.

At home Dad has officially baled all of the hay fields first cuttings, which is good for him. I was kind of disappointed that I didn't get to help him as much as I thought I would as it seemed he was always baling and unloading on the days I had to be at work these last couple weeks. That meant I didn't make as much money as I'd hoped to, oh well it'll all work out.

Mom has started to clean the house now that she is home for the summer and they have locked the teachers out of the school all summer due to construction. Normally she runs into school at least twice a week and spends those days doing stuff there. It's good that she has turned her attention onto throwing stuff away, we aren't hoarders, but we do have a lot of clutter and junk that just needs to be pitched so the house looks nicer.

We also got some barn kittens, and maybe getting more from someone who works with Erin. I don't have any pictures of them to post right now.

Last weekend we hung out at Brock's and watched Alien and Aliens with Brock, Russel, Chantel, Joe, Bruce, Casey, Erin and myself. It was a good time even if Erin didn't like the sci-fi movies. Steve if you read this if Macy is at your place sometime we should have a movie night or something with Macy, Erin, you and me.

As a random add on about last weekend I was on the roof of the historical society, helping the insurance agent check our roof for hail damage from the big storm that hit a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately I didn't get to climb to the top of the roof as I had to hold the ladder for to move up to the next level of one section of the roof. But I do enjoy climbing up to taller places.



I guess the last thing on my mind is the fact that Erin's mom and step-dad are coming to visit her in just a little over two weeks now. I'm usually not nervous to meet peoples parents but I'll admit I am a little nervous to finally meet her Mom, who is the most important person in her life. As Erin has said we have totally different senses of humor so I hope I don't just come across as too weird. Oh well Erin says their is nothing to worry about but we will see in a couple weeks.

Really I don't have too much more news to post about right now that I haven't already talked but in previous blogs this month. I will say I'm working on finding a new blog series to do for next month as I do think its a good exercise to make myself write stuff more often even if they are random little comments.

Turning 26

So it's been well over a week since my Birthday, and I figured it was about time I get around to posting something about it.

Overall as I've said before Birthday's are not that big of a deal in our family, so as usual it wasn't super eventful. However, it was nice and I enjoyed it, other than the reminder I'm getting old.

In the morning I had to go into work for a few hours and then I went to the gym afterwards. Erin came over in the afternoon to see me and we celebrated my Birthday with my Mom and Casey as Dad was working late in the fields to make up for the wet spring.

Mom fixed Meatloaf for dinner which I had requested, it was really good as well as making me a Red Velvet cake. She even got Happy Birthday Candles.

Erin got me a Wind-Up Hippo Bank which is awesome



and.....


a LASER DISC PLAYER!




Which if you follow my blog, you know completes one of my goals in life of owning one of these neat but obsolete pieces of technology. Laser Disc


Casey got me one of my favorite movies, Muppet Treasure Island on DVD as well.


Overall it was a really good Birthday, like I said the only problem is that I'm getting older and am reminded by it everytime I punch my weight/age into the treadmill or elliptical machine at the gym blah. Sometimes it seems like my life hasn't progressed much these last few years since getting out of college. Oh well.

Tigers! Oh My!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!.... well no lions, and only two bears....

Yesterday Erin took me on an adventure to see a 4 day old baby Tiger named Grayson. One of Erin's friends Josie is what I guess you'd call the "cat girl" at a local petting zoo... Stapps Ranch and is now taking care of their newest addition a baby tiger named Grayson.

Erin and I met up at Wolf Theatres where we planned to see a movie later and then headed out to Stapps with a gift from taco bell in hand (for Josie, not the tiger). We ,met Josie at the gift shop and headed to her room (she lives in one of the buildings on the ranch during the summer, where she now cares for the tiger all day/night) and got to see and pet the little guy who still has a few days before he even opens his eyes. Josie explained that they take the kittens from the mothers a couple hours after birth because the mothers rarely raise their young in captivity and that on the few occasions they do, the bond between them is hard/dangerous to break later on.


Josie Bottle feeding


More Bottle feeding


The Tiger and I


Another picture of Grayson and I


Erin and the Tiger


Erin and Grayson


They have the tiger, Grayson, on loan for 20 weeks from a zoo in Oklahoma, after which they will send him back. They do however have three other tigers of their own and have been breeding two of them.




Josie and a more mature Tiger she helped raise

The zoo/farm also has a wide variety of other animals; including lemurs, bears, donkey, goats, fallow deer... etc. Since we were just stopping in for the tiger/josie and not paying for a tour and what not we didn't stop and look at much. Erin did take more photos I just grabbed a few to use for this blog.


Random picture of a camel

After visiting the tiger we went to see the movie Bridesmaids and it was funny as advertised by her mom and worth checking out. I'd say the comparisons to a female wedding crashers/hangover comedy were decent though it was certainly its own movie and didn't try to rip things off.

From the movie we headed across the street to Buffalo Wings and Rings where we shared an order of Buffalo Chicken Nachos for dinner. Then we hit the McDonalds truckstop for ice cream before heading back to my house to wrap up the night.

Overall it was a great day/night.



P.S.

I hope I'm not the only person who thinks of this...

Everytime I hear Josie's name. Erin didn't get the reference, so maybe I have just watched too many cartoons.