this and that

--after 2 years of stealing wi-fi from our neighbors (yes we're THOSE people) they finally password protected their network. I'm really bummed. no more internet at home anymore. we're going to try to hold out until after christmas to actually have to pay for it ourselves. we'll see how long that lasts!

--i got a free facial last night. it was fabulous! my friend, ciara, bought this "year of beauty" thing from a skin care place and gave it to me. you get one facial, one make-up application, and one waxing a month for a whole year! it's pretty cool. i'll definitely do the facial, we'll see about the make-up (i'd need a place to go all gussied up) and i don't do waxing-i'm a baby. which brings me to my next point.

--my friend, colleen, is throwing a halloween party. it's a costume party. i figure, since i get a free make-up application i should take full advantage. so, keeping this in mind, what the heck should i dress up as? and should justin and i dress up together (like matching costumes-both pirates or football player and cheerleader or whatever) or should we just do our own thing? i need your advice!

--also, i am seriously considering starting a cookie business. specifically sugar cookies with my mom's secret recipe. i have received rave reviews every time i make them and i've have multiple people tell me i could sell them. so, heck, i'm going to try. first, i need a name. we originally decided on "the sweet secret" but thanks to some of my friend's dirty minds we decided that could be misinterpreted. SO...i need your input. what would you name a sugar cookie shop full of soft, delicious, melt in your mouth, amazingly decorated sugar cookies? :)

natchez trace parkway

the other day we went to the natchez trace parkway. we explored a little, but didn't walk any of the trails because they looked a little over-run with poison ivy. knowing my track record, we didn't want to take any chances with our shorts and flip-flops. there is a concrete bridge that is over a quarter mile long that is part of the beautiful drive. it's pretty cool. the view from the top is amazing. i want to go back when the trees start to turn colors. here's the afternoon in pictures.

NO GAS!

well, hurricane ike has started to affect nashville. justin went to four gas stations yesterday before finding gas at the 5th one. the two gas stations across the main street from our neighborhood are completely out. there are no prices on the signs and bags over the pumps. i was listening to the radio today and a lady called in saying she was at a gas station in brentwood and there were 50 people in line, 5-0!! and that the cops were there keeping the peace. AND, that they would only let you have so much. you were only allowed like 10 gallons or something. craziness!! they say it's supposed to be like this for 2 weeks.

poker night

we had our small group from church over for poker last night. (get up off the floor and back into your chair. YES, our church played poker.) and we played for money! (i'll give you another minute to get back in you chair again.) we also had some friends who aren't normally in our group. we had a blast!! enjoy the photos...

this is the non-competitive group. see how they're playing for pretzels and not real money? patient erich is teaching them how to play.

these pictures show the funniest part of the night. it's chris versus amanda. amanda has no clue how to play poker and chris is very competitive. i don't know if you can tell, but the flip is a 4 and two aces. (the flop doesn't matter in this scenario) chris goes all in. amanda calls him, so he has to show his cards first. he shows and 4 and something else that doesn't matter. so he has a pair of 4s and a pair of aces. amanda shows her cards and says, "aw man! all i have is two 4s!" (this means she has a full house and wins, but has no idea.) the look of joy at amanda's tone of voice and then pain when he realized he lost on chris's face was hilarious!

the winners! colleen and amanda decided to split the pot.

3 year olds are hilarious!

i talked to dakota today. here's how the conversation went:

A: Hey Kota!

D: When are you going to come visit me? And bring Riley?

A: Aw man! It's going to be a while. Probably not til Christmas. Is that ok?

D: I guess. I look at pictures of you on Nana's computer.

A: That's cool. Do you want me to send some new ones?

D: Yeah.

A: Ok, I'll send some new ones.

D: Ok, drive safe! And watch out for gloomy guses!

root canal

justin had to get a root canal on thursday. yucky! actually it wasn't that bad. he had chipped a tooth a while ago. i made a dentist appointment for him in may and they couldn't get him in til the end of august. craziness!

anyway, the dentist said he would have to get a root canal and a crown. before he left i looked into his mouth. i originally thought, oh he chipped a tooth, there must be a little tiny piece gone. a quarter of the freaking tooth was gone!! yikes. so he's finished with the first step and only a bit chipmunky on one side. i would not advise getting a root canal. they are freakishly expensive-even if you have insurance! he was in and out in less than 2 hours which is pretty good-i think. he gets his crown at the end of the month unless we can convince them to let him in earlier. he also has to have one of his wisdom teeth removed! argh dental work.

labor day weekend

we had a fun weekend. although it started out sad. friday night i helped our friends, ciara and mike, pack up their budget truck for their move to florida. sad! :( they're moving so mike can work for the devil rays and ciara can go to medical school. now we have one more fun vacation place to go visit friends. san fran, LA, soon denver, KANSAS (ha!) and now tampa.

justin had shows in minnesota on friday and saturday. he'll tell you about them if he ever finishes his series. after i helped ciara and mike move, i took riley to the dog park, stopped at blockbuster and ran 1.5 miles. pretty productive if i do say so myself. saturday i was pretty much a bum until late morning. i went to wal-mart to finish scanning our wedding pictures for my scrapbook that i'm putting off. my creative juices have stopped flowing. that night i watched step up 2. it's pretty much one of the most awesome movies ever if you go into it knowing the acting is going to be REALLY bad. i love cheesy teen dance movies. center stage? anyone?

justin got home sunday morning around 9:00. I convinced him to shower and go to church with me even though he was exhausted. good thing too, otherwise he'd be going to hell. i grilled lunch and before i was finished, justin was asleep. i ever so gently woke him up by bouncing on the bed and telling him he better get up NOW before the chicken got cold. then we both went back to sleep for about 2 hours! watching cheesy teen dance movies late at night makes me tired. justin had a show at tootsie's sunday night and i went to watch another friend of our's band, mean tambourines. it was pretty good. it was nice because it was outside. we both fell into bed hoping to fall asleep quickly because we had to get up eeeeearly the next morning.

that's right, on labor day, the one day i didn't have to set my alarm for work, my alarm went off at 5:30 am. we dragged ourselves out of bed and drove down to franklin for the franklin classic 5K. a bunch of our friends from church were running too, so it was fun. justin and i did pretty good for not really training at all. justin finished in 31 minutes and i finished in 33. we came back home, fell into bed and slept til about 11:30. We didn't go on a hike like last year, but we did have a pretty active day. We headed back down to spring hill for sand volleyball at 2. we played for 2 hours before we all decided if we played any longer we'd collapse. then we went over to the worstell's (a family at church) house for a bbq. when we got back home and flopped into bed at 8:30, it felt like 11:30. we decided that since we had been terrible dog owners we should take riley for a walk. so we did. then we really went to bed. i think i was asleep 2.5 seconds BEFORE my head hit the pillow.

p.s. because i didn't have pictures, i tried to put links to as many things as possible in this post. :)