I'm back from The Fort! It was good to see the 'rents. On the way to The Fort, I stopped in Texarkana and went to the wedding of one of my friends I taught with, Jennifer. It was a really really long ceremony, but the cake was great!

And the groom's cake... His (their) last name is Benedetti.

Sarah and I saw the coolest upper-end-of-middle-aged person you've never met, Diana Landa. She teaches third grade at the school where we used to teach.

Here they are with their FIVE combined children. Whoa.

On the way to take pictures, we caught her and her new hubby.

All of the friends from Texarkana.

The church had an amazing red door that I loved.

This was a reposing of a picture that we took Halloween '06 at the Fairview Elementary. This one:

After the wedding back at Sarah's parents' house.
I get out in the sun more than she does.

So then I went to Fort Worth. Monday my mom drove us to Ikea in Frisco. Love that place! We spent several hours there and she ended up spending about $50 on me. (I could have spent a million. Easy.) The two big things I got were these:

I got one of these swirly mirrors (without the ugly chair reflection).

And this cloth drawer thing for my bathroom. Fits perfectly!
I got that cloth on top at Pier One this weekend too. It's a placemat but I knew I wanted to use it in my bathroom somehow since it matches my curtain so well. It works perfectly too!

There are fake rooms set up in the Ikea for decorating ideas.
This was funny every time.

Another day we went to Garden Ridge and saw this hilarious thing. Mom modeled.

Posted in: Fort Worth, friends, funny things, the fam on Thursday, June 12, 2008 at at 7:48 PM 1 comments    

Did I mention that everyone I know is pregnant? Twenty of them, to be specific. Eight of them are in our Sunday School. It's like a breeding ground for... breeding. Five of the twenty are due this month though, including my sister-in-law, Candice. We had a shower for her both last Friday and tonight.
Last Friday was a Diaper Dinner (mmmmm!) for the girls in our Sunday School class.

The simply adorable cake

The HUGE diaper cake made of 240 diapers!

The expectant mama: due June 27th

She scored a bunch of diapers.

Including these super cute ones wrapped in clothes by yours truly.

And this cute towel made by a girl in our Sunday School class (one of the pregnant ones!)

Tonight we had a cook-out for all of the other people that Candice knows that aren't in our Sunday School class. We had it out at a park by the river.

Here is my very favorite father-in-law playing with Alisa's camera, which is just like mine. And there's Alisa!

The super-cute miniature diaper cake centerpieces made by Melissa.

I got this picture of Jon and his dad. They look a lot alike.

Mmmmmmm... meat.

Daniel called me a Camera Nerd after the previous picture. So I took his picture.
It's very Zoolander.

And of course, I made the cupcakes. Yellow cake with chocolate icing, requested by Candice.

Alyssa Kate is thinking "What in the world is wrong with this kid?"
Greyson's just loving his cupcake.

Although she didn't do much better.

The hostesses and the mama. (I've been outside a lot recently.)

I'm headed to a wedding in Texarkana tomorrow. (I know three people getting married tomorrow!) After the wedding, I'm continuing west on I-30 to Fort Worth to see the fam until Wednesday. When I come back I will be posting something I haven't done in a while and something I haven't done in forever! Funny things and kid quotes. Get excited!

Posted in: baking, friends, husb, niece, showers, the fam on Friday, June 06, 2008 at at 11:27 PM 2 comments    

Brought to you by: The Family I Work For

In the kitchen

In the pantry

Also in the pantry

Posted in: Boss Cat, ridiculousness on at at 1:36 AM 1 comments    

This is both hilarious and pretty much exactly how I feel.
Politics compared to tv, especially LOST.

Posted in: LOST, tv shows on Thursday, June 05, 2008 at at 12:28 AM 0 comments    

Two things I wanted to mention, but am just putting them in one post. A few nights ago, circa midnight when I was sitting at the computer, I heard a fire truck going down the street outside the apartment complex. This happens often around here. However, I heard the siren stop close. I went outside and saw it pulled into our complex, down at the building around the bend. Jon came out and I noticed that there was black smoke. Something was on fire, but we couldn't tell if it was a building, dumpster, or car. We put on shoes and walked down there and saw a car engulfed in flames. Engulfed! By the time we got all the way down there, the actual fire was out and the car was still smoking. I decided not to bring my camera because that just wouldn't be right.
I didn't mind taking it back to the scene of the crime the next day though. The car that was on fire was gone, but the one next to it was still there.

The ground below the car that had been on fire was clearly badly burned. The car next to it was also totaled. I went up close and the whole driver's side was burned out on the inside, since the windows blew in. I feel so sorry for both of these people. What a crazy thing to happen! Jon said that he saw police cars still there past 2:30am (He couldn't sleep that night.) so maybe something happened involving arson. Crazy!

And now for a completely different story. I'm teaching 2nd grade crafts at our church's Vacation Bible School in a couple of weeks. All of the grades are doing the same crafts and tonight we had practice night to make the crafts. We had to see what might be hard for the kids or whatever and make examples for them to see. We made these adorable turtles with river rocks and large puzzle pieces. I didn't want to lose mine because it came out so cute, so I brought it home.


And I got the best compliment after my evening of giving good ideas and painting my super cute turtle. A lady asked me "Are you an art teacher?" I said "No, but I used to teach first grade." "Oh!"

Posted in: craziness, creativity on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 at at 11:06 PM 0 comments    

{Scene: Ashley is about to leave the boss family's house for the day and the boss mom is reading off all of the scheduled events for the summer.}

Boss Mom: ...and we're going to Hawaii the last week in July.
Ashley: Everyone or just you two?
Boss Mom: Do you mean YOU?
Ashley: No, I was just wondering if the kids were...
Boss Dad: Hey! That's a good idea!
Ashley:
Boss Mom: Would you like to go to Hawaii?
Ashley: I would LOVE to go to Hawaii!
Boss Dad: I meant it was a good idea for us to go alone without the kids.
Boss Mom: But it would be like we were alone if Ashley went with us and watched the kids.

{End Scene}

Posted in: awesomeness on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 at at 12:43 AM 1 comments    

I seem to recently be really bad about posting pictures in a timely manner. On Memorial Day weekend each year, Little Rock has this huge thing down at the Arkansas River called Riverfest. It's huge. It lasts all weekend. We went all weekend.

Friday night we saw Huey Lewis and the News. (Yep. Bad picture.)

This lady with a glowing headband and glowing tambourine really enjoyed the show.

Saturday we went back. When we got to the concert area, we saw this guy with the weirdest shoes ever.

We saw Better Than Ezra.

And One Republic. (I know. Bad again.)

Jesus was there.

Saturday my BFF Sarah came into town and went with us. She went with us on Sunday too. Here we are riding the shuttle to the fest. It's the only picture I got of myself all weekend. And yes, we're wearing the same shirt. That happens a lot. I also took my new camera that night.

When we got there we walked across the new Junction Bridge across the river.

This is the Little Rock side crossbeams.

This is the north Little Rock side crossbeams.

Pretty sunset on the Arkansas river.

That night we saw ZZ Top!

It smelled like marijuana.
And lots of people were taking high quality pictures with their camera phones.

Then fireworks!

These were weird parachute-wearing fireworks-on-a-string. (Better if you make it bigger.)

We ran into two couples from our Sunday School class on the way to watch the fireworks, so we sat with them and their adorable children.

Watching the fireworks.

So precious.

Mom and the kids.

Posted in: camera on Monday, June 02, 2008 at at 11:40 PM 0 comments    

If you've been watching ABC at all over the past few months, you have seen flashes right before the shows come back from commercials for one of the best shows ever canceled. Back in the winter/spring of 2001, The Mole premiered on ABC. I watched it in my dorm room. My roommate may have watched with me. I don't remember. The second season started in the fall of 2001, but for some reason was only on for a few weeks. They finally finished the season in the summer of 2002 and I watched it with my three roommates in our apartment. It was great! The next two seasons fell into the unfortunate format of "Celebrity Edition" and weren't as good but were still fun.
Great news, though! After six years, the original Mole is back on ABC starting tomorrow night! You have to watch it! If you love The Amazing Race, you'll love The Mole. They're nothing alike, but are equally awesome and are the two best reality shows on TV. The premise is this: Twelve people will be competing in several challenges during each episode. They are working to earn money that will go into the final prize amount for the winner. Some challenges will be group tasks and some will be individual. They will earn money for completing the task or for however many people complete the task. HOWEVER, one of the twelve people is The Mole and is sabotaging the tasks to keep them from earning the prize money. They won't be able to sabotage every task because they'd get caught, but they have to try to do as much as possible. At the end of each episode all twelve contestants will take a quiz about who they think The Mole is. It will ask questions such as "Which team was the Mole on in the whatever challenge?" or "Who was The Mole sitting next to at dinner?" and so on. The person who gets the fewest questions right is kicked off. (Or in the case of a tie, whoever took longer to finish the quiz.)
You really really really should watch. It's a great show. I don't want it to be canceled again. I'd love it if it would come back for several or lots of seasons. Watch it! Tomorrow night (Monday) on ABC at 10/9c. Do it!

Posted in: tv shows on Sunday, June 01, 2008 at at 8:06 PM 1 comments