frenchkitten.net

Quite a few years ago when I was just out of high school the really popular thing with my group of friends was to take road trips. The really neat thing about a road trip is the spur of the moment, not planning anything, not knowing where you are going to end up aspect of it all. The downside to it is that you usually end up missing out on all the cool things that city has to offer because of the lack of planning involved.

Like one time when we ended up in Illinois. It was a pretty long road trip, but we were determined to make it to Chicago and have some fun. With all of us being under the age of 21 it wasn’t like we could wander into any local hot spot at night and just meet people. We found ourselves checking into the cheapest hotel and looking for things to do in Chicago. The fact that it was midday and most of the things we could think of were closing for the evening.

Unfortunately for us we had to leave the very next day to just get back home in time for school. So, our trip to Chicago ended up consisting of many fast food stops, many gas station breaks, and a really long, hot car ride with great music. I haven’t been back there since, but I still want to visit the Shedd Aquarium. If I had done a little bit of planning with Trusted Tours & Attractions I would have been able to plan that out a little better and spend my one day in Chicago there instead of the local roach motel. I could have also found a much better motel at a similar rate.

Lucky for my family I plan a lot better these days. I was browsing the Trusted Tours site for some family vacation ideas for this summer. Sydney is begging to go to a zoo, any zoo that will take us. Sure, we could visit the local one, but it’s just not as exciting as one of the top zoo’s in the country would be. I’m considering a short trip to the San Diego zoo which would have everything we are hoping to see and more.

While I was on the site I saw that they are giving away an iPod Nano. All you have to do is sign up for the Trusted Travels eNewsletter and you are entered to win. I figured it was a win/win situation. I’ll sign up for the newsletter and get valuable information on traveling, something I love to do, and I might end up winning an iPod Nano to listen to while I’m getting to my destination. Feel free to sign up as well, offer ends March 31st, 2008.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Ok, so not just anywhere in Indiana, but the town I grew up in. While his wife’s visit to the state on Thursday is being highly publicized, his visit on Tuesday was not so much. At least in our local paper. I should note that the local paper sucks donkey balls anyway, and our town is highly Republican. Oh, wait did I say our town? I meant that town. I moved, at least a little bit away.

Anyway, had I known with more than 24 hours noticed I would have gone. As it turns out, I didn’t know with 24 hours notice and it was nearly impossible for me to make a plan with a four year old in the rain. I hear there was a pretty good turn out. My husband read something to me that was in the online version of the paper. It was a quote from a Republican. See what I mean?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Lately I’ve been thinking about taking a trip to Branson. My goal is to take my grandmother and aunt with my family for a 4-5 day trip. When I was a little girl I spent most of my summers running around the country with my aunt and grandparents. I remember them taking me to country music concerts as early as 4 years old, the same age Sydney is now. I remember a place named Silver Dollar City that we went to every single summer. I want so badly to have my daughter experience that same family vacation with them like I did every year.

I started to look at the different options we have in Branson. Grandma is getting pretty old, she’s in her 70’s so we’d need someplace that was comfortable and safe for her if she wanted to pass on an outing. I could hardly get to the actual lodging options for looking at all the photos of the scenery. It’s breathtaking! It didn’t take me long to fall in love with the Cabins At Grand Mountain. All the comforts of home with a great view of the Ozark Mountains, plus a pool and jacuzzi made it stick out. Then I saw that it had electronic door locks which made it feel a bit more safe for the reasons I already mentioned.

We’ll of course visit Silver Dollar City which I’m sure is fun for the entire family. I would also love to see one of the shows. My grandma loves Loretta Lynn and I’ve heard that she does shows in Branson, but that would be time sensitive. Just browsing some of the ongoing shows they have I found the Dixie Stampede. The Stampede has 32 horses doing tricks and competitions. Sydney would go crazy for this one. I also found From Patsy To Present. Another one of granny’s favorites that I just know she would enjoy watching.

I guess you could call me a sentimental person or just completely family oriented. Either way, Branson seems like the perfect family oriented tourist town for me to reconnect and bring back some of those old memories. Not to mention, loads of fun!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

So my dad and step mom are moving. They are downsizing to a smaller house and since both my nephew and my daughter have a room at their current home I had a bright idea. When my niece and nephew come to visit in the summer they can sleep in either room, but I honestly don’t think that either of my nephews want to sleep in a Strawberry Shortcake canopy bed. So I figured they were putting the futon/bunk bed in the extra bedroom and leaving at that.

Since Sydney decided to break her current POS bed I thought we’d take her bedroom set from my dad’s. Yeah, in theory it works out really good. That is until you find all the crap she’s hidden like socks and food in her bedroom in the most unbelievable places. That is until she throws a fit over not getting rid of any little broken toy from a Happy Meal that she’s had for 4 years.

Now, my biggest pain in the rear has been moving the current furniture out of the room and putting the new stuff in. The bed and dresser are in the room, the other bed is in pieces until tomorrow. The old dresser is still in her room. Toys are strewn about. I’m about to throw out a perfectly good mattress that could be given to anyone, but I just don’t have any place to store it. I also don’t know anyone who wants it.

It’s become a real pain in the rear end! It also makes me fear the day we move the entire house to a bigger house. I have a feeling even though we’ll be upgrading it will be painful.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Being a mom is draining some days. Today isn’t one of those days, but yeah I’m tired anyway. I think the cold is just dragging me down. Lately I’ve been talking about looking at different vacation options. Nothing concrete yet. Although we are thinking of taking a 3-4 day long trip to let Sydney visit family and dragging my mom along. She really wants to go somewhere and she’s not ever able to because of my grandmother. So we figured, perfect opportunity!

I’ve actually been looking at exotic vacations. Although I can’t really say anything about that so I’m not sure why I even brought it up. I can say that Sydney is psyched to ride an elephant. I love elephants.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Again.

We’re about to have a winter storm. Oh goody. The sad part is that I really need to run out to the store for something, that can’t wait. I think as long as I avoid the bread, milk, and eggs I’ll be ok. No french toast for us! We’re supposed to get the whole deal this time. Snow. Ice. Wind.

I’m lucky I don’t have to go out during it. Sydney has a little sniffle again. Not sure if she keeps picking it up from school or what? Winter just pretty much blows.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Well Perez (gag me with a pitch fork) says it’s not happening, but according to every media outlet on the face of the earth and the official NKOTB site it is. What am I talking about? New Kids On The Block coming back and recording an album. I have to add that I’m going on the word of the 2 radio stations I was listening to yesterday that read the news release, logged onto the site while on air, and read from the website. However, Perez says that The Monkey’s official myspace page sent out a bulletin that said differently.

Normally I wouldn’t care about such issues. Normally I’d chalk this up to what it’s being pass off as which is taking a page out of the Spice Girls book of etiquette and doing a comeback tour. Hey it worked for the Spice Girls so it could work for NKOTB right? I’m not going to question them, I’m obsessed with the Becks so I say go for it, if Posh can do it so can you.

However, yesterday was my birthday. Did you hear? I got in my car and took the child to preschool. I mean I remembered doing that much. I remembered brushing her teeth and putting her socks on and climbing into bed and tickling the piss out of her whilst demanding that she tell me Happy Birthday Dear Beautiful Mommy and actually sing to me. She was so tired, I had to dress and tidy her up.

When I get in my car after dropping her off and hear Hangin Tough on the radio and The Right Stuff I start to question if I’m 32 or 12. I have flashbacks. I wonder if someone is dead? I hear the news. I literally tinkle in my panties at the prospect of actually being old enough to rent a hotel room, hang out in the bar area at 2:00 am and have cocktails beside Jordan Knight instead of being wisked away by security after a middle aged mom beats the holy crap out of me with her elbow so I can’t touch Jordan and her snotty nosed little brat can.

So I’ve decided to go on the search for the real answers. I’ll have to actually visit their site later, visit various other sites, and of course see what the word on the street is. I also pledged my love for my husband and told him that I’d love him forever for staying with me after I lost all control trying to get concert tickets so I could relive my childhood, drove me to the show, sat through it with me, and bailed me out of jail. I’ll still love you I said, I hope you’ll still love me.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I’m so over today. I could just get in bed and pretend it never happened. In the last couple of days I have been exposed to more than my fair share of crazy 2-5 year olds. Add some over 5 year old boys in there. If it’s not parents letting them run wild in the toy section of you pick a store’s name, then it’s just them acting up right in front of their parents who are too busy chit chatting with their BFF and not watching the 6 combined kids they have. Or, it’s the one that they throw in the cart and ignore so they can scream for hours.

Today it was my own child. She went nuts at Meijer. All I wanted was to finish up some grocery shopping, fair enough. We went over the rules when we got there. I also said if she was good I’d buy her that film she’s desperate to get those grubby little hands on. She succeeded in paying attention when I said her name, but she wanted to skip every other square and run into carts. Some lady was offended because after about the 14th time I told her to get back here, quit walking that way, and older ladies remarked honey don’t get hit I said………..I hope you get smacked with a cart so you’ll finally knock it off. Hey, consequences.

The lady looked offended. I wanted to tell her to go suck a donkey egg. Needless to say we didn’t get all we needed. By normal standards she probably is a normal every day four year old, but today I can’t handle it. I’m frazzled for some reason. I started to get sick to my stomach as well so I was kinda glad to head home. I wanted to puke.

For the most part my day has been touch something, watch it fall apart. For my grand finale I dropped an entire can of Coke in my purse. So screw you today, I’m over you.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

If I were super geeky and I had a clue how to upload the videos from my digital camera to the computer and then share them with you I would. However, I’m not super geeky at this time, nor am I really in the mood to learn anything new. Before I go on, let me say that the headache I had last night is still there, alive and kicking. Nothing is helping. I’m taking the hint and actually going to the optometrist ASAP and going to wear the glasses I get. I’ve had them since I was 14, I just simply refuse to wear them. I think it caught up with me. Nothing a really cute pair of glasses won’t help solve.

We cleaned out cars off, well Kevin cleaned our car and I half assed cleaning one of them. It was fun. I was all bundled up, my step mom dropped Sydney off and her and Kevin had a snowball fight. She made snow angels as well. I video taped it with my digital camera. Like I said not super geeky so you’re getting a photo.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

It snowed a bunch today. It was gorgeous. Maybe I’ll post some photos tomorrow, when my head isn’t pounding and my brain isn’t pretending to come out of my eye sockets. I think the dry, cold weather has really gotten to my head the last couple of days. I purchased some Utter Balm type lotion for my dry skin. For someone who loves winter, it sure takes a toll on me. My skin is DRY!

We went out this afternoon and had lunch, shopped. Then the weather really didn’t do anything else so we went out this evening and shopped some more. We got home around 10:30. All I know is Kevin purchased me one thing, it’s very small. Or it might be smaller than I think or bigger than I think. I’m just really hopping he didn’t spend a ton of money on it. I picked out my own gift bag though, which indicates nothing because he’s known for attempting to put smaller things in larger bags. I’m pretty sure it isn’t a sewing machine, which is something I really, really want.

I got more of the stuffing bears, they are called Little Luvables. I got her a set of three different colored baby bears that are in fake high chairs in the photo and two different outfits for the other bear I got her. I think a bee outfit and something else I can’t even remember. Other than that miscellaneous baking items were bought.

Now tonight I have to wrap the presents from my aunt and grandmother, the bears from tonight, two dvd’s, and a few odds and ends. Fun fun. I’ll sit here and wait on more snow and freezing rain while I do that!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!