# 159 Its not goodbye, its see you later....

This is Nicholas and his friend Justin earlier this evening. That's a look of terror on Parkers face. We met this evening in Glucksdadt to exchange Parker for a few days- giving Parker a chance to see the grandparents and my wallet a chance to breathe without paying for her to be boarded. I'm headed to Pickwick Lake for the weekend with some friends!

It wasn't easy to leave her, especially with those two. It took them 15 minutes to move everything to the back of the car so Parker wouldn't "get anything dirty". Can't wait for those two to have kids. Though, preferably not together. Unless they move to New York, of course.

I sent her food, her pink polka dot pillow, her toys and her July 4th sundress. I miss her already! Going to be a long weekend without her!

But thanks to Justin and blog critic Nick for meeting me. Even if they chose to eat at Five Guys. Yuck.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone

# 158

Before we went back to the past Saturday night, we took a stroll downtown Corinth (see: previous posts) and we decided to have lunch at Borrums, a super cute old-timey drug store that's one of the oldest stores.

Katie went wild and ordered a Cherry Coke. I had my usual DC but they actually make the sodas here-- they put in the flavoring and then add carbonation and mix the two together, so even my boring old DC was a bit exciting! You tricked me, Borrums! You know how I like being unexciting.

The three sweet, pretty girls.

They made me say that. Just kidding! Aren't my friends pretty? And I promise you, they are sweet too. Mostly. I think it was right around this picture that they started getting annoyed at my incessant picture-taking. Again, this blog doesn't write itself! If it did, I'd be out of a job, er, hobby, er, reason to post obnoxious pictures.

You can see in the picture below that this store has been opened since 1865-- so more than 150 years! You can also see some of the Borrum family portraits. Not a very portraitogenic bunch, huh?

Finally, here's the big surprise-- a SLUGBURGER!!! Corinth is known for their slugburgers and places all over town sell these things-- there is even the Slugburger Festival coming up week after next, if you are in the Northeast Mississippi corridor. No one was brave enough to order it as their only meal, so we decided to order something each but also to get a slugburger and share it, just to taste it. Slugburgers were invented back in the day when there wasn't much money-- its basically a small amount of pork and some breading and flour and other things, fried. I had the first few bites because I didn't want mayo or mustard or anything else on there. After I finished, they added the "fixins" and took their bites. To me, it sorta tasted like a friend bread sandwhich. Not the worst thing I've ever tasted. I might even order it again.

Here's Courtney contemplating. Or praying. Or contemplating praying. Not sure. I am pretty sure it was necessary for her to try the slugburger-- isn't there a rule that says you cannot live in Corinth without trying one? They give you a 6 month grace period, I think, but her time was rapidly coming to and end, if she didn't try one.

Fun day with a fun group. After this, we went back home, hopped in the car (which looked really funny) and drove around town seeing the sights. Till I got carsick and got to go home while they got to go get a snowcone. Darn you, carsickness.

# 157 I love it when a plan comes together...

The word of the day is... Awesome. Its time for some totally gnarly pictures from our rad 80s party. When you want to have an excuse to dress up like a total idiot and hang out with your best friends, who you gonna call? No, not the ghostbusters. My wicked, bad to the bone, homegirls.

First off, lessons learned--

It is NOT easy to be, like, an 80s party girl. It takes a long time. And a lot of effort. Its a wonder people in the 80s ever got anything done. The hair alone takes a small army, a month's salary worth of hairspray, major patience and a lot of time. Of course, its totally worth it. And for me, at least, it was probably the most fun part of a totally phat evening. We girls spent a long time applying our makeup, fixing each other's hair, checking out our outfits, laughing uncontrollably at our outfits, dancing around to 80s music and saying 80s phrases (Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!)

Tight rolling can be painful

Do you think we look this good naturally? This was only a small part of the makeup we all had to use!

And here it is.... ta-da...

Like, totally awesome...

Whatcha talking bout, Chailland?

We had the very best time-- there are other pictures that I will post soon! It took a really long time to get these all dolled up with the frames and artwork, but it was totally worth it, I think! The entire weekend couldn't have been more fun!

# 156 So go downtown, things will be great when you're downtown...

My Corinth adventure continues with a trip to Corinth downtown on Saturday. Courtney lives right downtown, and we headed down and saw the really pretty courthouse and lots of other cute stores.

You are probably wondering why I've just not posted the dead-gum 80s pictures already. Well. This blog isn't just here for you happiness. Its here for mine. Its important to me, that while you are reading this blog, you are becoming better people, and I'm positive that when you read about exciting events such as re-organizing my work files, baking a cake, taking pictures of Parker in her outfits, waxing poetic on WonderWoman, etc., I think it makes you all much more well-rounded readers. So I'm trying to teach you patience here.

Once again, someone on this blog seems nice and kind and sweet, but, lessons learned-- appearances deceive. A few people that I spent the weekend with, and I won't name names (but you can see their picture below) suggested that they needed more blog time. Their requests for more blog time were almost terroristic. I originally thought I wouldn't give into their demands-- you know, if you change your life, the terrorists win.

But, digging deeper, I realized something. They were right. They deserve a lot of blog time, and I plan on giving it to them. Mostly because they were really persistent and annoying about this and I want them to stop. But also because I really love these ladies and I owe them a whole heck of a lot more than a few blog posts. Their fruit baskets are being delivered on Thursday.

Katherine, Mindy and Courtney-- three of the best people I've ever met. Seriously. They are great. You should get their autograph if you ever meet them. Try to get their autograph on the picture of the 80s party I will be posting soon.

However, I do want to point out that while these three were quite vocal about my blog posting, they were not quite as willing to live with the reality of being a super-blogger like I am. Bloggings not easy, people. It takes work. Taking pictures, coming up with good ideas, retaking pictures, coming up with witty things to say, researching blog posts, etc. These things take time and effort. And the Three Musketeers above learned that it ain't easy. I'd like to think they were impressed with my work ethic and my ability to be constantly thinking of clever blog ideas. But, in reality, they were embarrassed and annoyed at my constant picture taking and blog talking. Comes with the territory. Sorry if I embarrassed you girls when we were walking around town in Corinth-- but its such a cute little town, I couldn't help it!

They were good enough sports to attempt a Beatles-type walk-about. Of course, this was early in the day.

Also? They weren't very good at it. But I still love them!

# 155 Four girls walk into a pizza joint...

This weekend I hit the road and headed over to visit my friend, Courtney, who lives in Corinth, MS. Courtney's birthday is December 26 and each year, we have good intentions of celebrating in the fabulous style that she deserves, and every year, by December 25th, we are tired, broke, and having too much "family fun" to ever follow through with those good intentions. Yes, we fail as friends.

Courtney's a new resident of Corinth (working as a Labor and Delivery Nurse at the hospital there!) and she arrived about the same time I moved to Cleveland, so we've been able to bond over our new circumstances. Also, we don't have anyone else to talk to so we just talk to each other. Its more fun than talking to ourselves. Usually.

Anyway, this year, Courtney's decided to have a Housewarming/Happy Half Unbirthday party. To make it even more enticing, she decided to have an 80s theme. It was like, totally awesome, dude. If I can ever quit laughing at the photos long enough to write a blog about it, you can see for yourselves.

But the weekend was so much fun and with so much going on that I've decided to break the weekend into more manageable and more blogable posts. So as to dole out the fun a bit at a time. Don't want you people to get too excited.

Courtney's house is super, super cute and its right in the downtown area. So Friday night, we walked down the street to Pizza Grocery where we had a fabulous meal. Which reminds me, I never got to eat those leftovers! Dang!

Here are some pictures of the night:

Courtney and Katherine

Courtney and Mindy (Courtney's a bit of a camera hog it seems!)

These three girls are quite literally three of my most favorite people in the world. Right behind Parker but right ahead of Jason Bateman. And WAY ahead of anyone on any Real Housewives Show. But my list isn't the point of this blog. The point is that these girls are super fun, super cool, super smart and SUPER good friends. There will be more on this to come!!

# 154 I was a'splishin and a'splashin and a'rollin and a'strollin...

My weekend o'fun continued with a trip to the Splash Park for Conner's birthday party last Saturday. The party was at the same place last year, but this year we had a picnic area close to the play area so it was even better. The splash park is a lot of fun and it was impossible to not get a bit wet! Here are some pictures of the fun:

Getting ready for the party-- it was a Cars theme and there were presents galore

Avid blog reader Mrs. Peggy (mom to Karen, grandmother to Conner and Hannah, friend to all, you get the picture) and pretty girl Hannah in her cute little swimsuit. While I don't think Hannah actually got wet, she looked the part of a Splash Park participant in her cute little suit, and that's all that matters, right? It was good to see all of Karen's family-- its hard to believe that I've been hanging around Karen for 14 years or so now (and she hasn't figured out how to shake me yet-- I'm stubborn like that!), so I love seeing her family (almost as much as I love seeing my family. Now that I think about it, maybe more... just kidding Mom!). Plus, Mrs. Peggy and Karen's sister Kathy are blog readers (Shout-out! Thanks for reading!) and they are super nice and encouraging and polite about my blog (instead of grabbing the children in their family and running away screaming from me as a lot of other friends' family members do...). Its always nice to hear people who like reading my blog and it makes me like this super great family even more, but honestly, I'd like them even if they didn't read it!

Before the fun begins- sunscreen. Sun safety is no joke, people.

Look at all the possible ways to tire a kid out:

In keeping with the cool cake tradition, here's this years:

I went with Karen to get the cake that morning before the party and got a huge laugh when Karen asked me if I would carry the cake from the store to the car. As if. It was much safer for me to carry the balloons. If the balloons lifted me off, it would be better than me to be the one to ruin a kid's party by dropping the cake. Yeah, no.

Three of the cutest kids in the world-- Ela Frazier, Conner Loden and Patrick Bowen. I've seen these kids grow up from teeny tiny babies and I'm way past feeling old about this...

Karin had to step in and help with the candles

Cute family alert-- Nathan, Taylor and Coen-- check out her blog over here.

Playing around

The best time-- PRESENTS! There were tons of presents, but for blogging purposes only, this one is the only one which matters- MINE!

I love shopping for these kids and each present I give them, I really do hope they enjoy (as opposed to presents I give my family at Christmas and stuff when I don't really care if they like it or not. How's that pet rock, Dad?). For Conner I got him this little placemat/writing tablet to practice his words and rubber ducky bath foam soap. I bought both of these for myself, as well.

Now, more playing:

Karin and Patrick

Getting ready for the big bucket splash thing-- it took forever and by the time it finally came down, I'd put my picture down. But it came down hard and was really fun to watch the kids getting ready for it. The anticipation was great-- and the water was pretty substantial- at least one child was found floating in the parking lot after it came down.

All in all, it was a pretty fun day! We went back to the Loden's house and ate lunch and did some swimming, then I headed home to Newton to see Dave.

Happy 4th Birthday, Conner!!!

# 153 Hippos and Marbles and Birthdays, Oh My!

Boy are you readers lucky today-- more fun pictures of my weekend! It was a really good weekend and I am glad to get to show some pictures of one of my favorite kiddos-- Conner.

Conner is 4. Well, now he is 4, but in those pictures, he was actually 3 and 364.5/365. He looks a lot more grown up now, what with the facial hair and all. Just kidding! He's still as sweet and cute as he was in the pictures, but now he's been a four year old for several days.

His uncle and aunt sent him an oldie but a goodie as a gift-- Hungry Hungry Hippos. I put it together for him and we got busy playing before bedtime. I remember playing this as a child and it was lots of fun getting to play again! I LOVED Candyland and Hi-Ho Cherry-O as a kid. I was never a Snakes and Ladders fan (though I love the Joss Stone song)-- never really figured out how to play- it seemed quite complicated and I wasn't very bright. I also had the Baby Sitter's Club game-- Santa brought it to me one year. Well, Santa "forgot" to bring it inside and left it in my dad's car, "Old Blue", where it was practically frozen. Yeah, that explanation didn't make much sense then either. It seems Santa got a bit sloppy that year.

Cute kid, right?

We played several games-- I won once, and Conner won a couple, but then Karen's game improved greatly and she went on a long streak.

The game was lots of fun, but as in all games, the excitement wore off pretty quickly. Lucky for us, we showed Conner how to use each hand on a separate hippo, so you didn't need anyone else! He caught on quickly and played for a while longer, and when I woke up the next morning, he was back to playing! I'm guessing he won. I'd say the present was a success!

# 152 Fro-yo and friends...

Friday night, after my brain woke up, I headed out for a night on the town with the Loden's. After the previous night's Cracker Barrel excursion, I was too worn out for too much fun, but we had just the right amount of fun!

We went to Newks (my fav!) and then after dinner, went to the yogurt shop next door, where I got the great combination of birthday cake yogurt, marshmallows and chocolate chips. Divine. I'm only sad I didn't see the sprinkles till after I'd paid.

Some of my favorite memories of my childhood are heading to the yogurt shop (shoppe?) after Sunday night church in Laurel. It was where all the cool Baptists hung out. The Carr family were regulars. Even Nick who was apparently a bit "lactose intolerant" as a child and always made a big mess. We started leaving him at home alone while we went. The yogurt shop of the late 80's/early 90's wasn't nearly as nice as the ones these days. Oh these kids don't know how lucky they have it. When I was young, we had to walk uphill in the snow to get to the yogurt shop and there weren't any spoons so we had to make do with our hands. The good old days.

This fancy smancy yogurt shop allowed you to get any combination of all these different flavors and add all types of toppings. You pay by the weight. Despite all the sugar, my price was a reasonable $3 bucks and change.

Jeremy and Hannah

Conner the birthday boy-- I'm pretty sure he got the birthday cake yogurt as well, but his toppings included gummi bears AND sour worms. He's a risk-taker.

Two pretty girls-- Karen and sweet Hannah

It was a really good night and I'm glad the Loden family let me hang out with them just like I'm a member of the family. I don't have kids of my own, but I'm super blessed to be able to be a part of lots of other families and get to enjoy the kids of my dear friends. I'm the cool aunt, you know! no really, quit laughing. I AM the cool aunt. I am cool. Don't roll your eyes. Seriously.

# 151 Germs, Germs, the Invisible Dog...

Friday morning I headed out to the world's most boring CLE ever. Surprisingly, that's not how they titled it nor was that description in the marketing pamphlet. But it should have been. The only redeeming quality was that it was free. Or close to it.

Luckily my law school friend Rebecca Henley was there, although she was polite enough to attempt to take notes while I had to struggle to keep my eyes from rolling back into my head. She was also smart enough to print out some sodoku puzzles and share them with me so instead of dreaming of things worse than this CLE (being Paris Hilton's BFF, cutting my grass with nail clippers, listening to a Justin Beiber CD, being forced to ring a cowbell and cheer for the dawgs, eating mayonnaise out of the jar), I was able to focus on how incredibly awful I was at sodoku. Much better!

During our break, Rebecca and I went over to her house where I met the world's smallest little dog, Bella. Rebecca is dog sitting Bella and her stories about the tiny dog are hilarious. That's Rebecca's size 6 shoe there to give you an idea.

And here is Bella with her "friend". Bella's friend is a teddy bear who let's Bella "have her way" with him. A lot. Its kinda hilarious. You'd think Bella would be a bit more of a lady and at least buy the guy dinner or something, but...

(Blogger's Side Note: The title of this Blog is "Germs, Germs, the Invisible Dog". Does anyone recall this song? The lyrics go something like "I hide him in my pocket where no one else can see... Germs, Germs, the Invisible Dog". Anyone? Bueller? I learned this song at church choir many years ago and this is all I can remember of it and no one else remembers it but me. Did I make Germs up? Does anyone remember Germs? I mean, I know you can't see him, since he's invisible and all, but do you remember the song?)