the entsminger clan

Pictures Pictures Pictures

2012-02-01T23:45:00.001-05:00

Don't worry, I'm not uploading them, as the thought of posting more than a handful of pictures makes my heart panic. Blogger doesn't like me sometimes.

Anyway, I do believe that I have posted links to the Shutterfly account up through the Missouri trip (yes, I realize there is a link on the right side bar, but I like to cover all of my bases, okay?) SO, here are some links:

Spring 2011

Summer 2011

Atlantic Beach 2011

Fall 2011

Christmastime 2011

And so far this year:

Wintertime in Roanoke - 2012

Did you know

2012-01-21T00:10:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if any of you are aware, but I'm crazy. I don't think Brandon is going to have me committed anytime soon, but I'm pretty crazy.
And I'm crazy about a few things, and that crazyness is pretty intense.
Namely -
Harry Potter
Batman
Doctor Who
Organization
My felines
Brandon
Pictures
Christmas Ornaments

Now, that doesn't mean that all I do is think about these things 24/7, but I'm crazy when it comes to these things. I won't go into detail about all of them, but this post is going to be about Christmas Ornaments and Pictures.

I LOVE Christmas Ornaments. Love love love them. Since I can remember my mom has always gotten me Hallmark ornaments for Christmas and I have quite the collection. And I am obsessed with taking pictures and documenting everything in my life. So. This year, I decided that it would be a brilliant idea to take pictures of every ornament that I have. *sigh* Yeah.
Well, I did it. After trying for hours to take pictures of them with my camera and finally giving up because there were all blurry or washed out, I finally asked to borrow my Mother-in-law's camera and spent a good solid hour making sure I had gotten every single one (but of-course I still missed about 8).
But then...I couldn't take down the ornaments yet because Brandon and I hadn't taken our family Christmas photo. Every year we take a picture of us by the tree as well as a picture of the cats and us by the tree (which is -always- a disaster...4 cats + 2 people + a self-timing camera doesn't always equal a good time). And we have to look pretty for the picture, of-course, which is pretty much just Sundays, because that's the only time we're simultaneously pretty. Long story short, we decided that today was the day we were going to take the picture and uncharacteristically got dressed up on a weekday and FINALLY took our picture.

I love Brandon's face in the one with the cats, lol.

Anyway, that brings us to taking down the Christmas ornaments. As I took down each one, I had to make sure I had a photo of it before I put it away, and then sorted each picture into folders by year of when we got the ornament (2006 and before were lumped together because I'm not -that- crazy...). So, 5 hours later, here I am, ornaments all off of the tree and their pictures sorted.
I told you I was crazy.
Good news is that next year I only have to take pictures of the new ones we get next year.

And that is why I didn't take down my Christmas tree until January 20th.

The problem with me is...

2012-01-01T17:44:00.000-05:00

The problem with me is that I am a procrastinator.
What's that you say? You don't believe me??
Well, here's my proof.
-I did not apply to college until April of my senior year. And I ended up only applying to one school (SVU, obviously) so...good thing they wanted me! And good thing for Student Ambassadors who called me to see if I was applying or not, haha. Otherwise I may have never gone.
-I am always, always late. This has nothing to do with how early or late I get up (unless, of-course, you count my procrastination of getting out of bed) because I can start getting ready 2 hours before I have to leave or 20 minutes, it doesn't matter, I will nearly always be late.
-I put off doing things because they seem overwhelming (um, blogging?) and the longer I wait, the more overwhelming they become, and the longer still I wait. *sigh* I never just man up (woman up) and do them, until it is something that takes me all day, and I devote an entire day to doing whatever it is, and thereby procrastinate -other- things that need to be done that are more overwhelming than the aforementioned task. (scrapbooking, blogging, journaling, bill paying, unpacking, etc.)
-I will almost always, always, always rather watch television or goof around on Facebook than do anything productive. It doesn't matter that I have looked at so-and-so's pictures a half a dozen times before already, it will always be more attractive to me than folding laundry or doing dishes.
-I can probably count more papers that I turned in late than ones I turned in on time in college. Good thing I had professors who were cool. If I'm ever a professor, I think I will make it a blanket rule that there's a 36 hour grace period. The later they turn it in, the longer I have to grade it...right? But I won't tell my students that. So...if you are reading this in the future and you're my future student, just assume that I've changed my mind and you need to not be like me and turn in your papers on time. *cough*

Shall I go on? Or is that enough proof for you? I'm going to assume that it's enough, and move on.
So. On to the original intent of this post.
You know what day it is. January 1st. And you know what that means.
New Beginnings, Resolutions, Goals, Tasks I want to complete in the next 365 days.

However, since I am incapable of moving on without feeling some sense of closure of the year before, I feel that I must recap all of the (mostly boring) events of the past year that I have not blogged about. It is amazing how much breaking my ankle put me behind...which is funny because you would think that all of that time there sitting on the couch with my ankle propped up would be perfect for blogging, but it wasn't. It was perfect time for watching television. And Facebook.

So, I do believe that I was caught up through the break of the ankle, yes? Let's go on, but quickly, because....I don't have all day to do this today. I have stuff to do!

April 2011

April 28th-
-Got my cast off, and went back into the boot.

Um, can't forget the Royal Wedding!!
And, in case you were wondering, yes, I was obsessed with the whole thing.

April 30th, 2011 - Brandon graduated from SVU-

May 2011

May 4th-
Please don't judge my hairy leg....

May 8th - Mother's Day
Being a crip isn't cool when everyone else is having fun....

But...it did leave me with time to revisit an old friend while I prepared for the new movie.

May 20th- Healing update-

May 23-
Pita was my buddy through the whole process. She and I put my new swing to good use in the back yard.

June 2011

June 18th-
Brandon and I celebrated our 3rd Anniversary down in Wilmington, NC.

June 26th - July 3rd
Atlantic Beach, NC

July 2011

July 14th/15th -Harry Potter 7.2 Premier
So, um, yeah, no I don't usually look like this - I'm actually dressed up, despite the fact that it is hard to tell. I'm Luna.

August 2011

August 9th-
I'm still in denial that I'm 26...I think I will stay 25. 25 sounds good.

August 20-21st - Isabella's Birthday Party
Brandon -was- there too, I just didn't have any good pictures of him.

September 2011

I got a hair-cut

October 2011

We moved into a new house -

November 2011

I saw a deer in the backyard.

I made a pie.

I built a box for the kitty litter boxes (this is unfinished, obviously, but it now has a fourth wall and a lid on hinges. And it's painted blue.

I hosted Thanksgiving.

We went to the zoo.

We took our annual picture by the Christmas tree.

December 2011

First frost

The Tardis broke down... sad. She just needed to regenerate. Aka, she needed a new starter.

These are some a.m.a.z.i.n.g. lights we saw - I swear there were at least 5 acres of lights, these pictures don't do them justice in any way.

Christmas Day

And then down in North Carolina...

If Beau looks like death, that's because he felt like death. Sicky McSickerson.

Isabella wearing a dress Dad picked up for her in Korea.

Making cupcakes - let's just say that we were more than grateful that Isabella didn't like them so that we didn't have to eat them! Cupcake mix that just requires water isn't as amazing as you would think it would be (and I didn't think there were going to be amazing).

And THAT, my friends, family, and random strangers who stumble upon my blog, is the rest of 2011. Let's hope that I can keep this more updated for you/myself so that I don't have to spend hours fighting with blogger to upload pictures every time I post.

Going batty

2011-07-15T21:47:00.001-04:00

This is a tale - a tale of a girl who dared to venture into her attic to investigate a strange noise and suffered the terrible consequences.

Tuesday, April 12

The spring season had officially fallen in Buena Vista, Virginia and Anne Entsminger was reading on her front porch enjoying the new warmth of the air. Her new book was Snow Falling on Cedars, the selection for her next book club meeting. The front door was propped open so that the cats would be free to come and go as they pleased and at times one of them would climb up in her lap. Since being in their new home, the Entsmingers had learned that the tree in the side yard is very easy for the cats to climb up and jump to the roof, but is a difficult thing for their cats to jump back to, resulting in many trips up a ladder.

On the day our story takes place, Anne heard many noises coming from the roof above her and was distracted several times from her book {which I was having a hard time getting into anyway} by having to stop and peek up towards the roof to see who had been trapped this time. Being herself, she of-course was not wearing shoes as she walked around the house peering up at the roof. The odd thing was that every time she looked up at the roof, she could not see a cat, and all of them seemed to be present and accounted for throughout the day. After her husband, Brandon, had gone to work for the night and the sun had gone down a bit, Anne decided to go inside and watch a little television. She had barely turned on the T.V. and was about to close the front door when she heard even louder noises coming from above the ceiling. She was worried that one of the cats had gotten stuck on the roof and had somehow gotten into the attic {please don't judge me} where they would have access to rat poison that had been up there since before they moved in. Worrying for their safety, and also not knowing for sure what was up there, Anne decided to go up into the attic to investigate. This did not seem like an overly foolish idea since she had been up into the attic many times since living in the house and had never had any problems with being afraid.

But this time was different.

As she didn't really believe that it was a cat, but there was certainly something alive up in there, Anne pulled down the ladder to the attic slowly and peered up into the dark space above. One step at a time she carefully and slowly crept up, once freaking out because the metal hinge caught on her hair, causing her to whip around and go back down a step. Finally getting up the ladder enough to reach up and pull the light chord, she turned on the light and went back down a couple of steps. She waited for a second, then slowly went back up and peeked her head into the opening and looked around. Suddenly, out of nowhere, something came out of the darkness at her {oh my gosh, I'm having panic problems just writing this} and caused her to go back down the ladder. Quickly, one step then two steps down and then...where was the next step? Nowhere - so down she went onto the floor 2 - 3 feet below, turning her ankle in the process. Pain shot through her and the words "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, it didn't happen, it didn't happen, oh my god it didn't happen" was all she could say as she rolled over onto her other side and felt her foot flop from one side to the other. Having sprained the same ankle two years before, she immediately knew that it was not the same thing. And as she was laying on the floor, screaming bloody murder, all she could think about was closing the front door so that no one would hear her {haha}. After pushing the door closed, she looked up into the attic above her and saw bats swarming around the attic, one of which had knocked down her witch hat she bought for her Harry Potter Party back in November, and was caught inside, causing it too to fly around the attic {actually pretty hilarious looking back on the event}. She managed to pull herself over to the living room where her cell phone was thankfully on the coffee table, within reach of an invalid on the floor. Her immediate reaction was to call Brandon, who of-course didn't answer because he's not supposed to answer the phone at work {don't worry, hun, I don't blame you for not answering :)}. Freaking out still, she called her friend Justan who was thankfully still awake, and the conversation with something like this:

"Hello"

"Hey, Justan, what are you doing?"

"Oh, sitting here reading Harry Potter, what are you up to?"

"Do you think you could come over real quick?"

"Yeah, I'll be right there"

"Okay, thanks"

And then I hung up.

She continued to lay on the floor, screaming a little bit and the main thing on her mind was the fact that the cats could now get up into the attic because the ladder was still down, and now not only was there rat poison up there, but angry bats as well. Justan came right over and immediately upon coming in the front door said "Oh my gosh, what happened?!" as she was still laying on the floor. He proceeded to call his girlfriend, Shana, who is in nursing school, to find out how to tell if a bone is broken and she told him to take Anne to the hospital. When he set her ankle on its side on a pillow, she could feel her bones grinding together and she too knew that it was probably broken.

So off they went. But not before Anne made Justan poke his head up into the attic to make sure there were no cats up there before he closed the ladder. She called Brandon at work on the way - this time looking up the number in the phone book that Justan thankfully had in his car.

Brandon met them at the hospital and after being asked a million questions, including "when was your last period?" three times, and a small wait for the doctor - who she apologized to several times for her dirty feet since she had been walking around outside all day, Anne was wheeled into the x-ray room where she was attended by her mother-in-law and a nice nurse {Liz works in Radiology at the hospital}. After the nurse went into the other room to look at the x-rays with Liz, she heard her say "Oh gosh, it's both sides!" Anne put her hands over her ears, rocking back and forth, and said "She's not talking about me, and if she is, let her be wrong, but she's not talking about me, she's not talking about me..."

Unfortunately, she was talking about Anne, and she wasn't wrong. So she left the ER with a temporary cast, a few pills of Percocet and instructions to contact the Orthopedic surgeon in the morning for a visit.

Okay, enough of third person narrative.

Wednesday, April 13

Doctor visit - check
More Percocet - check
A black boot that the nurse tried to get me to shove my STILL BROKEN ankle into but I refused to - check
New crutches - check
A visit to the hospital for blood work, more questions of when my last period was and instructions for the next day's surgery - check

Okay...no, my ankle is NOT usually this big. Later, I'll post comparison photos, but I wasn't thinking well enough to get that before the operation.

Thursday, April 14

I woke up on time for my appointment at 9:15, only to get a phone call to tell me that they didn't need me there until 9:30, only to get another phone call on the way there that they were just kidding, and they really did want me there at 9:15. Oh, Stonewall Jackson Memorial.

On the way to the hospital

I got there and it was all pretty quick (ok, the mix up with my paperwork when I first got there wasn't) I got wheeled upstairs, changed into a gown, got put on the bed, and hooked up to an iv (after which I forced them to tell me what time it was constantly). They wheeled me into the OR and gave me a "cocktail" that put me out pretty quickly - the last time I remember it being was 10:20. THANK GOODNESS I wasn't allowed to wear my contacts and that I'm basically blind without them, because I would have been so scared if I could actually see what was going on.

So, 45 minutes later, I woke up, and then about 2 hours later (after convincing them that all the morphine they were pumping me with was NOT working, after crying from the pain a lot, after getting Percocet into my system which did work, and after nearly passing out because they made me use the restroom before I could leave and the anesthesia made it really difficult) I was able to go home. I suppose that's the meat of the story. The rest is all mixed in with life, so I'll talk about it with other stuff.

This is not my ankle.

I have "before" x-rays, but not "after" ones, so I googled ankle x-rays, and found this picture that is pretty dang similar to my screws and plate.

Alright, it's pretty similar to mine (B, obviously) except I have three screws going in on the left side, not just the one and the screws going into the plate on the right side are a little different, but I couldn't really begin to describe how. But like I said, it's pretty close.

He initialed my leg, haha

Missouri Trip - Days 4 - 9

2011-07-12T01:36:00.000-04:00

Well. I haven't posted in a while. And I suppose you might want me to finish the blog about my trip (in other words, no one actually reads this regularly, but it's going to bug me forever if I don't finish it).
So.
Here we go!
P.S. Most of the pictures are going to be on the Shutterfly Page for the Missouri trip.

Day 4

(March 8)

A day in Kansas City.
This day was super cool. We went to the City Market, which in the spring, summer and fall is an outdoor farmer's market, but it wasn't open yet for that, but we were still able to go in and buy some cool spices. Pretty sure the guy we bought the spices from was either stoned or just really needed some sleep.

The next place we went was this AMAZING (I would say little, but it certainly was NOT little) local garden shop. 1 million times more awesome than the garden center at Lowes! It's called "Planters" and I fell in love. I may just move to Kansas City just to go shop there more often. Okay, probably not, but I might visit more often to see it.

Look at all of the tea pots! I love tea pots, p.s.

Next up:
The Chinese market.
Oh. My. Gosh. Brandon was in heaven. He loves places like this. So, Planters for me, Chinese Market for him!

We had gotten a late start that morning, so that's all we did out and about that day.

Day 5

(March 9)

Kansas City
Take 2
We were too late to go to the Steamboat Arabia the day before, so that was our first stop this morning. The Steamboat Arabia was a steamboat (go figure) that sunk in the Missouri River soon before the Civil War, and it sunk so fast that they weren't able to get all of their things off of it before it was completely submerged under water (no deaths, thankfully) and then as the river moved throughout the years, the boat wound up in the middle of some guy's current farm field. It wasn't until the 80's that they had the technology to go out there and get it up because the water-table in the ground was so high and the boat kept on getting bogged down with water every time anyone tried to dig it up. So anyway, they finally were able to do something with it, and they put all of their finding in a museum in Kansas City called the:

It was actually really cool. There was so much stuff! It went down before it reached its first destination down the river, so it still had all of the cargo on it that it had when it set sail (which turned out to be a LOT).

Um, so Blogger tried to be "smart" and flipped this photo when it wasn't supposed to be, and heck if I know how to fix it... But those are a bunch of the buttons found on the boat. They also had a ton of knives, shoes, plates, medicines, etc. Pretty much anything that you could think of that someone was taking with them out onto the frontier, they found on this boat. They say it is the largest single pre-Civil War collection of artifacts like this. Brandon doesn't believe it, but that's what they said.

This was the original (maybe? perhaps it's a replica...don't think so, though...) wheel thing that I don't know the name of. I never studied steam boats. Water wheel?

Throwing pennies into the water (probably some nickles in there too)

Crazy, huh. They're STILL working on preserving and cleaning up things that they've gotten out of this thing.

After the Steamboat - LUNCH
at the Farmhouse. You know those amazing restaurants on TV that get spotlighted because they have such fresh and quality ingredients? (i.e. not Ruby Tuesday, Applebees, etc) THIS was one of those restaurants. We don't get many like that in Rockbridge County so it was good going to a place that here. I had a ham and cheese sandwich (sounds simple right?) but it had brie and some of the best ham I've ever had, ever. SO GOOD.

Let me reiterate. So Good.

Our next destination was Union Station. Yes, there's more than one (hey, I didn't know there was).

I'm not sure I've ever been in a train station before. And it's funny, I didn't go into the actual train part. We went to the model train exhibit.

This is just a tiny part of all of the trains. There would have been no way to get all of it in one shot. There were a few sets behind me in this picture, the one you see, and then even more on the other side of that wall. It was crazy. Brandon loved it the most, I think. Well, and Isabella.

So. You might judge me. But I took a picture of the women's bathroom. :-/

It. was. MASSIVE! You don't even know. This is like...1/7 of it. Some people may be thinking "oh, that's nothing to things I've seen" well bully for you, but this is the largest bathroom I've ever been in. And it was complete with a hispanic woman screaming into her cell phone which was amplified like crazy in this room.
It was awesome.
Oh, and apart from the screaming cleaning lady, I was the only person in it. Awesome use of space. Yes, yes, I'm sure it gets busier, or it used to when people took trains more.
:)

Bah! There's so much to talk about!!!

We then went across the street to the Crown Center (Crown - Hallmark - Kansas City is the hometown of Hallmark) so Izzy could play in an "under the sea" thing they had going on for kids.

This place even had a waterfall in it:

Why am I in no pictures??? I really need to share the camera.

Day 6

(March 10)

Churchy stuff
So, the Liberty/Independence, Missouri area is big in the Church history department. And we couldn't go out there without seeing some of it. I think it would be hard to see it all in one week, but we certainly got some of it in.
Stop 1: Independence, MO Visitor's center.

Across the street is the temple for the Community of Christ church (formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) and it looks kinda cool.

People talk about being able to "feel" a big difference between the two sides of the road, but I think everyone has their heart in the right place and it doesn't matter who's right and who's wrong, God loves all of his children, no matter what they believe. It isn't even a requirement to believe in God to have His love.
Anyway.

Izzy should have been a Pioneer!

I've always loved the way the insides of log cabins look.


I love this. I kinda wish the plexiglass case wasn't in the way because of the glare, but I think it's still cool. That's the Book of Mormon, in-case you can't read the title.

They are building a temple in the Kansas City area (Shoal Creek,Clay Co. to be specific), and they were just about to put up the second spire base when we were there. This will be the temple my parents will go to when it's done, as opposed to having to go to St. Louis, 4 hours away.

And for dinner:

Kansas City BBQ! That was one of the things that I was most looking forward too! And it was pretty good!
But I have to say...I prefer Memphis. Sorry. I suppose I'll have to go to Memphis and try their local BBQ to tell for sure, but based on what I've had from here and Smoke Bones in Roanoke, I prefer Memphis.

Day 7

(March 11)

Churchy stuff continued
Well, if we can't see it all in a week, we certainly can't see it all in a day. So, this day we went to:
Far West

Adam-Ondi-Ahman:

I love this

I love this too

Adam-Ondi-Ahman was my favorite of all the places we went to go see. It was just so peaceful. I stole a rock.

And Jamesport (not Church-related, it's an Amish community - population 505)

Phew. Am I done yet?? Almost.

This is the one and only photo of the whole family together from that week (please do no go searching for a picture to prove me wrong, as I am pretty sure this is the case but I don't feel like searching through 1200 pictures to verify).

Bahahaha I look SO terrible!!!! But it was the only one of the several it took that didn't have Izzy or Beau pulling some crazy face. And it's fuzzy. *sigh* Did you know that a photo does not exist of these 6 human beings that is respectable? Next time we are all together I aim to change that fact. Professional photographer, here we come. It's cute of Isabella, though, no? And Mom and Dad.

Day 8

(March 12)

Going home.
Part 1.

Bye, Mom.

This was not in the original plan, but since I have a great husband who knew I was secretly crying because I didn't get a picture of the "Welcome to Missouri" sign, we passed St. Louis, turned around, went back to St. Louis to get the sign (it's only visible from one direction) then we hung out since we were already there.
But, uh, not before stopping at White Castle -

May I just mention that I personally think it has some of the worst food...

It was the weekend before St. Patrick's Day. Can you tell?

Oh! And there was a big parade, so maybe -that's- why Superman was out that day...? I'm not sure why he was in St. Louis. I suppose he was just continuing on his stroll across America..although, he was supposed to be in-between Kansas and Colorado at the time (for full reference hilarity, please see the current story line of Superman by DC Comics).

Again with the Blogger "smart" technology!

The above picture is me with my feed in the Mississippi River :) Although, I suppose I'm on the wrong side to really be proud to have my feet in it.
Ok, real quick like -

Kentucky

And finally:

Day 9

(March 13)

Going home.

Part 2

Whew!! Ok, it's not home yet, but we're actually getting there! We dropped Beau & Izzy off (on the complete other side of the state) and then headed back home.

Uh, I know you can't tell what it says. Just trust me. It says "Virginia Welcomes You"
Here, here's a sign from another trip. (Yes, I'm crazy)

One might ask why I didn't just put that one in the first place, but I would ignore such silly questions and move on with my blog. That has taken me 2 1/2 hours and cost me 1 1/2 hours of my sleep time. But I need to FINISH THIS SO I CAN MOVE ON WITH MY LIFE and so you can hear about my broken ankle in chronological order.

Okay.
You know what I forgot?
Deadpool.
We take him on every trip with us.

At least, we try to. And he was Brandon's faithful buddy. For more Deadpool pictures, see Brandon's Facebook Mobile Uploads. You may need to have a Facebook account...and you may have to be his friend. Not sure, I've never tried without my Facebook account. :) Oh, and you'll also have to weed through other random mobile uploads, so enter at your own risk.

Anyway.
We took him along with us (we = Brandon) and kept him in his pocket the whole time.
Well, he forgot to take him -out- of his pocket...and he wound up in the wash.
Deadpool was not happy.

What's funny is this is EXACTLY how I took him out of the bottom of the washing machine!!! Which is especially funny if you've ever read Deadpool comics (no, watching the Wolverine Origin movie doesn't count - because they did a terrible job with his character in that movie).

Alright. That's our trip!
Long hours in the car + a whole week with the whole family + experiencing new things + enduring the Missouri cold weather + more long hours in the car = a fun trip.
Yes, I skipped the unpleasant parts. :) Haha

THE END!!
Don't forget more pictures on Shutterfly.

Missouri Trip - Day 3

2011-05-10T22:13:00.000-04:00

Day 3

(March 7)

Dad works for a company called Northrop Grumman and works out of Fort Leavenworth, so we went to visit him and look around (We spent time in Leavenworth!)

My stupid camera ate through all of its batteries before I could get pictures of all the cool stuff in the museum (full of carriages, horses, and other stuff I can't remember...see why I needed a camera!)

But it was pretty neat - living on the east coast, there's a lot about the mid-west that I don't know, so it was certainly a learning experience.

This is the pathway that many settlers used to get to the Missouri River, which used to be right there, and it's awesome to stand there and just imagine all of the thousands of early Americans that traveled there many years ago.

Buffalo Soldier

Fort Leavenworth - the prison

Playing with the fake mustache we got from the thing-a-ma-thing at the Chinese Restaurant (which was FANTASTIC!!!)


This was the funniest thing in the world to watch - the squirrel wouldn't leave the bird feeder alone and it was so stinkin' cute! He fell a few times, but he always got back up and kept on trying. Lessons for life, right?


Fortunes from the cookies at the Chinese Restaurant - I found those first two amusing.

Well that's day 3! Pretty fun - minus trying to fit 6 people (1 in a car seat) in a 5 seater car!

More pictures on our Shutterfly Page.

Missouri Trip - Day 2

2011-05-10T20:47:00.001-04:00

DAY 2 (March 6):

Now that we were in Kansas City and rested (mostly) we spent some good family time.

Our first (and only) stop was:

We took a little tour of the Liberty Jail, which was really cool - I didn't know too much about it beforehand.

It looks so small!

Sorry for the fuzziness, but I thought that this picture showed the walls and the basement really well.

I always love replicas of the Golden Plates

Most of the rest of the time was spent just hanging out so I don't have a whole lot more to blog about...

But day two was a success!

We did take more pictures from around the jail, I have them on our Shutterfly Photo Album.

Missouri Trip - Day 1

2011-05-10T19:50:00.002-04:00

Just thinking about blogging about the entire trip to Missouri makes me panic. I took 1200+ pictures! Granted, some (a lot) of them were pictures taken by my 4 year old niece and won't be making it into the blog or the scrapbook, but regardless, that's a lot to go through! Plus, that's just a lot of information for one blog post.
So. The plan is to break it up by day. I don't like when people do that, and I've never had an instance when I needed to do it too, but now I have a reason, and I'm going to do it and I no longer blame other people for doing it!
So. Here we go.
Day 1 (March 5):
The journey

{I just wanted to include this picture from when I went down to NC to pick up Beau & Isabella before we officially started our trip because I think it's amazing. I have no idea why there is a stuffed lion there, but I found it hilarious!}

So, in terms of state line pictures, I need you to keep an open mind!
A couple of them were taken at different points in the trip - like this one :)

So, we left Buena Vista at around...9:00 AM

Brandon took Deadpool along again (see Boston trip pictures)

First state line to cross:

West Virginia!

The only thing I didn't like about West Virginia was that there was a bridge that pretty much went from one mountain top to another and I about had a panic attack. I never would have imagined I would react that way! But...next time I think I'll opt to either be asleep during that section or go around it.

Next up:

I think this was the first time I've driven through Kentucky. Too bad it was raining and I

couldn't really enjoy it!

a stop at Big Boy (and a few jokes about local Kentucky people by Beau and Brandon that made

me afraid that they would all gang up on us and kill us).

After Kentucky:

For SURE the first time I've been in Indiana - Brandon used to live in Indianapolis, though

By this point it was about 7:00 PM and we'd been in the car for 10 hours (10 hours!) and there were still 3 states to go! (through Indiana, through Illinois and then to the other side of Missouri)

Just so you know - I was crankier than Isabella :)

She did have her DVD player, after all

Well, only 2 more state lines to cross....

What, can't see it? Well, you try and take a picture of the state line in a moving vehicle at night!
That does say Illinois, by-the-way.

FINALLY!

{Vision Goggles: we actually crossed into Missouri at around 11 PM, this picture was taken
on the return trip -more on THAT later-}

So...St. Louis, MO is right on the border between IL and MO, so the state line sign was in the city as we crossed over the bridge over the Mississippi River, and we weren't able to get that picture, which actually bums me out, but you know, I got a picture, so I'm good :) I'm so strange about getting state line signs (noticed yet?). In addition...I was the one driving in St. Louis and it was a NIGHTMARE. I have an extremely hard time keeping my calm at night in a city that I travel often, but throw in the fact that I've never been there before and it was terrible! I had to literally peel my fingers off of the steering wheel as we drove out of the city. Ugh.

Well, St. Louis is on the east side of the state and we were headed to the west side...so there were 4 more hours to go... But we eventually got to Mom and Dad's place at around 3 AM (2 AM local time).
{Uh, in case you weren't counting, that's 18 hours}

Next up:

Day 2! (naturally)

P.S. More pictures on our Shutterfly page.

The incredibly (un)grand adventures of the Entsmingers during the (un)fabulous months of Janurary and February, 2011

2011-03-29T15:01:00.003-04:00

Warning: events may or not be in chronological order.


We forgot to keep our "gear" on, so, in actuality, this picture could have been taken whenever, but it was on New Years morning, I promise.

I hate the cold. It is awful. And once the new year is over, what is the point of winter? Other than to be dreary and cold and miserable. There was one bout of snow (or maybe two, I'm sure I didn't keep track).

There are, however, two good things about winter.
1) Valentine's Day.
2) It ends, albeit, not as soon as one (I) would like.

Brandon and I trade off years for Valentine's Day (as opposed to our Anniversary, which is always the hubby's job) and it was my year this year. So, I put two of the things that we love the most in life (sushi and movies) together and we had a lovely night in, not just eating sushi, but MAKING sushi! I ate my first ever sushi roll with Brandon (2007), and I made my first ever sushi roll with Brandon (2011). Everyone ready to witness the amazingness??

Thank you, thank you, no applaud necessary.

Oh yeah. And it was better than it looks. Which, seeing the magnified picture, doesn't actually compare with Sushi Matsumoto, buuuuutttttt, it's still pretty cool, seeing as how I'm a country bumpkin from North Cakalaki, not a sushi master from Japan. :)
To the right, you will see the entire spread of sushi. And no, not all of it was consumed in one night - and no, sushi is not as good the next day.
Missing from the photo are: pickled ginger (a brand which we will never again purchase), hoisin sauce (homemade by Brandon L. Entsminger), soy sauce (Kikkoman), and chop sticks (the only way to eat sushi).

Hmmm....other events that occurred during winter:

Our friend Shana's Birthday.

The Super Bowl. XLV - what is that...45? Which if it is, I don't understand why it's not VL. isn't that 45?? L is 50, XL is 40, so why isn't it VL? 45? I don't get it, I guess. I'm a simpleton.

Ah ha, thank you wikipedia:
"Proper form is to subtract only a value with the next lower power of 10. Thus, 900 is written CM, but 990 would not be XM - properly, it is CM for the 900 portion and XC for the 90 portion, or CMXC. Similarly, 999 would not be IM but rather CMXCIX - CM for the 900 portion, XC for the 90 portion, and IX for the 9 portion. Only values with 1's are ever used to subtract; 45 is properly XLV, not VL."
I really am grateful for the internet. It's such a beautiful thing.

Oh, here's a big event. I made my first apple pie! I've "made" plenty of frozen pies in my life, in-fact, I love them. Mrs. Smith is a genius. But there was one day when I just felt like baking, so I did. I baked an apple pie (pictured below), a chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookies (not pictured, because they're not new for me). And man oh man...it was good.

Note to fellow bakers:
Please don't skip (or ignore, or accidentally omit) the step that says to PEEL your apples...
It doesn't change the flavor, but it makes a big difference.

I would go into the story behind the awesomeness that I made my first apple pie, but it's a long, drawn out story, so if you really want to know, you may ask. I just really don't feel like writing the back story. Which probably could have been done in the time it took me to say that I didn't want to do it.
Which reminds me, I was playing a video game recently, and I was following parts of the walkthrough online to get all of the treasures (Tomb Raider, anyone?) and there was an in-particular treasure where the guy said:

******************************************
   *      Treasure: Silver Coatimundi         *
  *                                            *
  * This treasure you can get now but since    *
  * you pass it in a later chapter anyways I   *
  * will list it in that chapter instead. You  *
  * can locate it on your own now if you       *
  * want. I'll point you in the direction of   *
  * where to find it. If you face away from    *
  * the ramp you entered this area from        *
  * search the small area through the tunnel   *
  * at the far left corner of this area.       *
  **********************************************

I'm not even sure why I am saying anything about this here - other than to say it was dumb. Why say you're

not going to tell me where it is, if you're going to tell me where it is?

p.s. it wasn't actually Tomb Raider, it was Uncharted - which is pretty much Tomb Raider with a boy

instead of Lara Croft.

Annnyyyywaaaayyyy......

That's all for today.

Next up is our trip to Missouri to see my parents. :) That'll be a long post. But not as long as the drive!

CAN'T FORGET THE PICTURES!!!
Shutterfly - Winter 2011

Christmas time in Entsminger-land 2010

2011-03-03T21:05:00.001-05:00

December is awesome. I love it. The twinkle lights, and Christmas trees and the smell of cinnamon everywhere are just so...calming. I love spring and summer more, but the majesticness of December is pretty great.
I don't have much to say about Christmas, though. It was there, it happened, we got presents, went down and saw Beau, Mandy and Isabella, ate dinner at Brandon's parents' house. Pretty much the same that happened last year - except some of the backdrops of those events were different.
I'll post some pictures for you:

Putting up Christmas Lights and the first snow of the season:

And the Tree:

"What's this white stuff?"

My Christmas Cactus is starting to bloom!

Music at the Palms:

SVU at Christmas:

Christmas Eve:

Christmas Day:

Snow on Christmas!!

The snow was nice on Christmas day, but we had to drive down to NC - and the roads looked like this at first:

Not too bad.

And then they looked like this:

And they just got worse as it got darker...awesome. Ah well. I'm just glad we made it down to Wilmington alive!

And of course, the snow followed us...

"nap time" No...of COURSE it's not staged. :-/ We have a picture like this for every Christmas. I couldn't NOT get one for her 5th Christmas. Probably the last picture like this I get, but that's okay.

My favorite picture EVER! I love it.

Anyway, that's pretty much Christmas in a nut shell! It was pretty good. :)

Next up:

Winter 2011. New Years and beyond. (And then maybe, just maybe, I'll be caught up!)

There are more pictures on our Shutterfly account for Christmas time in Entsminger-land.

Give Thanks in All Things

2011-03-03T02:14:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I do. Most of the time I don't. But it's always a good motto to have hanging around.

Thanksgiving this year was at our house. It was the first time I've ever hosted it! And it was pretty dang fun. I think I prepared enough so that it wasn't too stressful. Except when I thought Brandon ran away and I had to go hunt him down. That wasn't fun. He hadn't run away - just so you know.
We also had the blessing of having Beau and Isabella come again this year - man I love that kid. Beau's okay too. :)

Preparing for things is always my favorite part. I'm good at that. Lists and organizing. It's the completion that I'm a little weak on. But I think I did alright.

Menu:

Turkey with garlic, rosemary, sage, thyme & lemon
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Sausage and Apple Stuffing
Sweet Potato Souffle
Broccoli and cauliflower Gratin Mac n Cheese
Cranberry Orange Relish
Devilled Eggs
Collard Greens
Gravy

People also brought: Peas, Corn, Rolls, Green Bean Casserole, Punch & Chex Mix

But let's back up a second.
Time for a couple of pictures.

A stop in Raleigh on the way back to BV. We dropped by Crabtree mall to go to the Disney Store and to help Izzy stretch her legs.

It's such an awesome hat! (Especially because it was only $3 on clearance after Halloween!)

Okay, back to Dinner.
I planned for days for Thanksgiving. I had recipes on the computer and printed them out and had them all in a special binder. Beau said I was taking things a little too far... but I don't think so. The night before I made a huge chunk of the food:
Turkey prepped.
Mac & Cheese and Stuffing prepped.
Cranberry Relish done.
Devilled Egg filling done.

The Big Day!

All ready to go! She looks so naked.

Basting is obnoxious, but it's also the greatest thing ever. So is chicken stock.

oooh Yeah. She's all tan and beautiful.

My new favorite ingredient:

For the Collards, of-course.

And here we are! Voila!

I wish I had gotten some cooler pictures of the food before we devoured it. But I was running around a bit like a turkey with her head cut off. I'm just glad I was able to shower and get my makeup on (unlike my birthday party...when I was able to shower, but my hair was gross and I had no makeup).
The table:

Now that I look at it, I should have had flowers or something.

The Dinner Party

Thanksgiving: Done.

Here are a few other cute pictures from that week:

Izzy helped put up the tree. The day after Thanksgiving, of-course.

You probably can't tell, but those are my hand prints from when I made this apron in the third grade.

Taking a break from watching Hannah Montana and Sonny with a Chance for hours.

Another fall season over...
Next up:
Christmas Season!
See our Shuterfly Account for more fall pictures.

The Party for the Potter

2011-03-01T22:54:00.170-05:00

Harry Potter is a part of me. And I am not ashamed. Since the first chapter I was introduced to in the summer of 2000 on a road trip to New York, I have been hooked. I couldn't even begin to explain...there would be no way to put into words the place that Harry Potter has in my life.
That being said - the movies aren't always a delight. The books, of-course, are flawless (for me) but in all honesty, some of the movies suck. I have a friend who after the third movie refused to watch any more of them. And I don't blame her (though I tried to convince her otherwise at the time). The first two were SO good and I felt that they really captured the spirit of the books. Chris Columbus did a great job. But then enter: Alfonso Cuaron. I don't know who hired him, but I want to slap them for hiring him. The third movie was awful. As a movie in and of itself, completely separate from the book - it STILL sucked. I have heard some people say (2, actually) that this was their favorite one and I think they're crazy. No offense. I understand that changes have to be made to a story when you morph it from words on a page to moving pictures on screen, but REALLY?? Really? You don't have to murder it. Don't make people act untrue to their character. Ugh. So, this man directed the third movie and was part way through the fourth movie when the third one hit the theaters and they fired him.
THANK YOU! Apparently someone somewhere in the world of common sense and reality saw what crap he was and sacked him.
So - then we're back on track, right? Well, no. While he wasn't anywhere near the atrocity that Cuaron was, Mike Newell didn't do a whole lot to redeem the Potter movie world. I was so mad when Dumbledore yelled at Harry. I mean, have you read the books? And Hermione - get a grip! You don't sit on the stairs crying your eyes out. By this point, I was pretty disappointed. You're 2 for 2, Hollywood. Best thing I have to say, though: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR FINALLY HIRING A BRITISH DIRECTOR!!! As much as I love America...and as much as I love American films, Americans aren't British. And Harry Potter is British. Americans don't get it - we're born, raised and grown differently over here, and it takes a Brit to make a British film. Have you seen The King's Speech? Can you IMAGINE if an American had made that movie??? Ugh.
Anyway. Back on track.
Then there's the fifth movie. My least favorite book, just so you know. But finally, thank you, finally, they have started to come back on track. They haven't come back all the way yet, but they're starting to come around. In comes David Yates - I want to kiss his mother for encouraging him to go into directing. But for some reason, they brought in a different screenwriter for this one...which I think is the reason why it wasn't amazing. I mean, why would you get rid of Steve Kloves? It wasn't his fault the last two sucked. But the scene in the Ministry with the OotP and the Death Eaters fighting and Sirius falls through the archway - nothing short of brilliant. I hated who I was supposed to hate and I loved who I was supposed to love, and I wanted to smack Harry in the face, which is how I was supposed to feel. There were changes, of-course, but I was okay with them. You know, since I'm the one that the filmmakers have to get to approve their movies *cough*
Then...movie six...yes sir. You. Have. Redeemed. Yourself. I wasn't so sure I enjoyed Michael Gambon's Dumbledore, but that scene in the cave was amazing - he just emitted powerful wizard-ness. Even with drinking from the basin - which is what made him amazing. I wasn't so sure about the whole Harry & Ginny in the Room of Requirement thing... but other than that, I was a fan. Yes, again, it wasn't identical to the book, but you can't possibly have a clone for a movie, it just wouldn't work. The point is to tell the same story (who cares if her dress is pink instead of blue!) not have a reading of the book on screen. And thank you so much for bringing Kloves back into the process!
So, that brings us to November 18, 2010. The day the 7th movie came out. I haven't watched a preview of the movie before it came out since the third one (I don't want to see potential things that will make me not excited for the movie), and this time wasn't any different. However, I did accidentally see a flash of Dobby while fast forwarding through it once and it made me sad because I knew they were going to have him in there and I was going to have to watch what happens to him. You have no idea how funny I look running out of a theater with my hands over my ears so I don't even hear the preview. But anyway....
The Harry Potter Party.
I've never had one before, even though I always go to the premier. And I decided to go all out. Well, I tried to, at least.
I made wands:

Pita was my buddy the whole time.

And money:
(I only made Galleons and Sickles)


I had wooden galleons too, I'm bummed I didn't get a picture of them as well. Did you know that little wooden disks are, um, expensive when you buy a ton of them?

You entered through Platform 9 3/4:
(Pardon the fuzziness)

And then take a stop at Gringotts:

I just realized that this is misspelled.

And then into the Common Room:

Where we are watching Harry Potter 6. I think this was only the second time anyone had seen this film...the first for everyone being in the theater.

Grab a wand and a cape/robe/thing: (1 Galleon a piece):

Yes, some broke. Possibly all of them. It made me sad.

Don't forget to notice the flue powder:

And then...on to the food!

Butterbeer. Pumpkin Pasties. A Snitch Cake. Mulled Cider.

Complete with the 4 House colors.

Sad:

So then...off to the movie!

Tonks & Lupin

Ellen, Matt, Sara, Cody, Brandon & Me

I almost don't want to post this because I look like such a loser, but I have to. It's pretty awesome. The news was out, and since we were dressed up, we were on the 11 o'clock news!

Yup, I'm such a geek!!! I totally corrected Brandon on television. *sigh* I guess I was just being true to myself.

Cake is just as good the day after!

So...that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.
I would give a review...you know, I am going to give a review of the movie. It was great. There were differences, yeah, but like I said, that doesn't matter when you keep the spirit of the story. I do have to say that the whole CGI Hermione and Ron making out thing was a little weird. But they knocked this one out of the park! The whole feel of the movie was just like to book for me.
LOVED it! Can't wait until July 15!

More Photos: Autumn 2010

Halloween

2011-02-25T20:16:00.004-05:00

It's time for spookiness and candy!! Uh, way too much candy. We had to go to the store for more (when I say we, I mean Brandon) and get just about as much that time as we did originally. Maple Avenue is MUCH crazier than Orange Ave.

We had a ton of fun carving pumpkins (especially because we missed last year), but we waited a little too long to get started, so there we were with knives in our hands as little children started to walk up the walkway. I guess it added to the horror!
Brandon's was awesome (go figure) but I have decided that I don't have much creativity...
Brandon's:

It's a little house for mice (I think). So cute.

Fantastic.

2008

Now...here's mine:

2010

Uh...anything look similar? In fact, I think I REGRESSED! Plegh. I actually find it slightly amusing. For kicks, here's Brandon's from 2008:

2008

He's so talented.

Anyway, here's what the ones from this year look like at night:

I think all jack-o-lanterns look better at night.

And a few pictures of kitties that I don't know where else to place:

Pita climbed a tree, jumped on the roof from a branch and then couldn't jump back on the branch to get off of the roof...So I had to climb up a ladder to get her.

Lolita - the good kitty who stays on the ground.


Getting Pita down the second time was easy(ish) but getting Tink down... Can you see her? She's to the right of Pita and getting her down was HELL! I had to drop her (from half way up the ladder) to keep my skin in tact.

Anyway, that's Halloween! And some more fall pictures. :)

Next up:

Harry Potter Party!!!

Shutterfly Pictures: Autumn 2010

MOVING DAY!

2011-02-25T19:31:00.001-05:00

We've lived in the same house for 2 years (which is not a long time, considering I lived in my childhood home for 12 years before I came to college) and we decided that it was time to move on.
Moving Day was October 1, 2010
So - we moved from here:

(Oct 2008)

To here:

We are in love! Mostly me. It has an extra bedroom, bigger rooms in general and a fireplace :)
Here are some other shots from around the yard -

And a peek-a-boo of the kitchen:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, those are sea-foam green cabinets, haha. And we love them!
More indoor photos later. This post is just about moving day :)

Shutterfly Photos: Autumn 2010

Fall time in the Blue Ridge

2010-12-24T19:55:00.002-05:00

You know, there's a reason why the Shenandoah Valley has a song -

Oh Shenandoah,

I long to see you,

And hear your rolling river,

Oh Shenandoah,

I long to see you,

Away, we're bound away

Across the wide Missouri.

It's because it's so dang beautiful. And the fall is a time when it is most beautiful.

I think these are beautiful, but the fog keeps you from seeing the vivid colors. They're gorgeous.

Shutterfly photos for Autumn 2010

Boston Boston Boston Boston and more Boston

2010-12-24T18:29:00.001-05:00

Oh my GOSH, Boston was AMAZING!!! We are in love with it. We are moving there. Okay, probably not, but we will certainly go back.

I take too many pictures in life...and the Boston trip certainly didn't help my camera obsession, so for more pictures (which still isn't even all of them) you can visit my Shutterfly Page for our Boston Trip.

MONDAY
Well, to get to Boston, we had to drive through other places to get to Boston. So, we started in Buena Vista, VA (our lovely home town), went North to:

West Virginia

Followed by:

Maryland - no Welcome Center. Losers.

Pennsylvania.

They had a cool Welcome Center.

Then New York - they didn't have a Welcome Center either. Barely even a sign. I don't think they wanted us there.

I didn't realize that we drove all the way to New York to go to Goshen...Last I checked it was only 30 min away!

Connecticut! I was pumped for Connecticut.

TUESDAY
So, the reason we stopped in Connecticut was to go see Stars Hollow (Stars Hollow - Wikipedia). Well, we didn't go to the ACTUAL town that it was based on (I found out after the fact) but it was still awesome. We went to Collinsville. Next time we'll go to Washington Depot, the REAL fake Stars Hollow.

It sure was pretty.
So, then we made it up to....

Massachusetts!!! Woo Hoo!!


You could see Fenway from our hotel room window. Which, the Buckminster, by-the-way, is pretty freakin' sweet.

Comicopia - the hole-in-the wall comic shop that was cool, but not as cool as our comic shop.

Yawkey Way

Brandon's first look at Fenway

Our Seats

Final Score: Tampa Bay: 14, Red Sox: 5... *sigh* you know, the Red Sox won the night before and the night after, but not the night we were there. What the heck, man.

We had great seats, under one of Brandon's favorite things.


Sad faces because we lost.

WEDNESDAY
Our day to really tour the city -

A little rain - but it didn't last long.

Oh my gosh, the gardens were beautiful! I couldn't possibly add all of the pictures that I took, so just go look at Shutterfly.

Good 'ol George Washington

This was the one place (other than Fenway and Boston Gardens) that Brandon wanted to go.

Isn't the city just beautiful? I was expecting grossness and trash, but it was green and awesome. I keep using the word awesome, but that's because it's what it is! Awesomely awesome.

A random man doing yoga (I think) in the middle of the park.

WICKED! The greatest show EVER!!!

At the Boston Opera House, the most beautiful place EVER!

There was so much walking....our feet were so tired.

THURSDAY
Time to pack up and tour a little more before headin' out of town -

Boston Garden - home of the Boston Celtics

Paul Revere

The Old North Church


We also went to the Quincy Market, ate a great lunch, bought a Boston Christmas ornament (that I can't find to put up on my tree...) and watched this guy juggle doll babies while on a unicycle. Pretty entertaining, actually.

It was then that we left...

The rain drops were symbolic of our tears. Haha.

Our favorite stop on the way home -


We tried to get a different picture of the "Welcome to Scranton" sign, you know, the one that's in the opening scene of The Office, but it was dark and we didn't know where we going, so this is what I had to get!

FRIDAY
I could post all of the state signs again, but that's too much space.
And I tried so hard to find a picture of the Mason Dixon line between Pennsylvania & Maryland, but I didn't take one, and couldn't find one online. Oh well. But I did get one of:

Virginia, home sweet home!

Headin' back to Buena Vista!

And here we are...after a long trip.

We have to back soon. Very soon. Okay, not too soon, because Boston is too expensive, but soon.

July & August

2010-12-24T15:50:00.003-05:00

>Before I start, for more Summer pictures, visit my Shutterfly Page for Summer '10, because I surely can't fit them all on here.<

I stink at this blogging thing.
I missed the following (not in order):
Boston.
Isabella's Birthday party.
Mountain Days Festival.
Moving Day.
Fall Folliage.
Halloween.
Harry Potter Party.
Thanksgiving and Family.
Pre-Christmas.
Life.

Should I try and fit it all in one post? I think I will!

Let's start with the end of the Summer:
I think Summer is my favorite time of the year. Well, I say that now, as I sit in my living room bundled up because it's so freakin' cold outside and there's snow on the ground.
Our summer was pretty normal and uneventful.

The Southern Inn caught fire. That was a big deal. This was also the day that I decided to walk to go eat lunch in bazillion degree weather and I almost died. It's true. Just so I could see what happened. Bad decision.

There was a carnival in town and it was cute. But we were scared to ride any of the rides because we value our lives. :)

My Lolita. Ok, Our Lolita. Brandon likes her most of the time too.

Tink, enjoying her Summer in the tree.

And Pita, just enjoying being outside in general.

The Blue Ridge Mountains, as seen from BV, VA

The general direction of our house from up high.

Summer veggies.

Summer veggies which will soon be....

Pasta sauce! Yumm

So, another reason I like the Summer is because it includes MY BIRTHDAY, and this year was a big one because I turned 25! Yuck, quarter of a century! I suppose that's the point of life.

The cake that the ladies at work made for me.


Mary Sue, Nora & Steve

Matt & Ellen (Background: PawPaw, India , Shana & Justan)

Debbie & Nancy - Dusk is NOT the best time to take pictures!

Larry, Cody, Justan, Brandon, Matt, Steve & Mary Sue


My cake - next time I will begin making it much much earlier in the day. Note the Princess and Batman cups in the background - that was my theme! :)

Of-course, now-a-days, the most important thing of the summer is ISABELLA'S BIRTHDAY. She turned 4 this year! So Brandon and I went down for her party and it was great.

Birthday girl!

This year it was Barbie themed.

And she got a brand new bike!

A bike that Mommy wanted to ride too, haha.

Annie thought it was going to be a Belle party, so we got her a Belle crown, a Belle necklace and a Belle bracelet, as well as a Flounder to go with all of her Ariel stuff.

Alright, that's the end of summer...so on to FALL next!
I have to do a separate post. I can't handle it.

More Summertime Photos:
June, July & August Photos on Shutterfly

21 years and counting!

2010-07-22T19:47:00.001-04:00

For the 21st year (we may have missed one) we took our family vacation to Atlantic Beach, NC. We love it. This year, it was Mom & Dad, Beau & Isabella and Brandon & myself.

Of-course, as it is with any family, practically all of my pictures are of the baby! Well, the little girl.

"I love Annie because she got me a tattoo!"

She also loved the Mickey Mouse pool. The only pool she ever wanted to go to was the Mickey Mouse pool. I'm SO glad it was the one next to our apartment! :) It's the one I always wanted to go to when I was little too.

The kids and one of the kid's kid and the other kid's hubby.

The bros-in-law looking and dreaming of one day having a boat. I was too.

I find this picture somewhat poetic. I love it. Izzy and her daddy's shoes.

If she didn't want to go swimming in the Mickey Mouse pool, she wanted to play with sparklers! It was super cute.

Annie and her Izzy. Or Izzy and her Annie. Both work for me!

Beau and Isabella.

We got Izzy an Ariel towel and she was in love. Ariel is her favorite. She made herself a cute little fort with it and everything. Can you see Enchanted on the TV? We watched it, no joke, everyday, sometimes twice.

I realized that I didn't have any good pictures of my parents at the beach....so here's one of them at Boxerwood Gardens a couple of days before we left to go down there :)

And one last one of the little one with the superhero look. I'm gonna say a pink Batgirl, cuz she's awesome.

Well, there we go! Family Vacation #21 in a nutshell! We spent a lot of family time and watched Enchanted 9 times. And Mom, Brandon and I got strep throat. Awesome. But other than that, it was great!

Shutterfly Photos for Family Vacation 2010

Year 2 ends and Year 3 begins!

2010-07-05T11:26:00.001-04:00

Well, it has now been 2 years since Brandon and I got married! The first year seemed to take FOREVER but this last year has flown by. Brandon keeps saying, "so which anniversary is this? number 8, 9?" haha.
Anyway, this year, we didn't do anything super fancy, we just got away for the weekend, and it was really nice. Friday (June 18th) we drove down to Greensboro, at at Qdoba (one of my favorite restaurants) and saw Shrek 4. Some people might say "how lame!" but it wasn't lame for us, it was perfect. It was so "us". Dinner and a movie, just by ourselves, relaxed, carefree, awesome. We stayed in a hotel that night and then stayed the rest of the weekend with Jared Arny, a good buddy of ours. He and his wife helped out a lot with the wedding and we haven't seen them since then, so we figured it would be a good thing to go and hang out with them a bit. Unfortunately, Scarlett was out of town with the kids...but we did see Jared and accomplished a lot of chillin'. Wii Resort was involved. And a driving range. Fun stuff. :) All-in-all, 2 years down, eternity to go! Chapter 2 has closed and chapter 3 has begun.

Our typical pose. I don't know of a trip that we've been on where I didn't take a picture exactly like this one.

Hittin' balls.

Jared & Brandon

What was I doing, you ask?? Reading like a good girl. Actually, this was a lot of fun. Ridiculously hot, but fun.

Getting their money's worth. It said don't remove balls from the driving range, it didn't say they couldn't reuse them!

By-the-way, this was the day that Brandon realized that he doesn't want to be a golfer. :)

Bunny.

The end!

End: chapter 2.

Fallen Soldier

2010-07-05T10:52:00.000-04:00

We have the blessing of living in a house that came with lots of trees and shrubs that we didn't have to buy! :) One of my favorite of all of them (second only to the dogwoods and lilacs) is the huge apple tree in the back yard that takes up a good portion of our yard. It gives us lots of shade and apples (that we never use...) and it's really just beautiful.

Well. A limb fell. I was so sad! It's not like the whole tree fell or anything, but it's still depressing to see a huge part of it on the ground. The only members of our family that didn't seem upset were the cats. They had a TON of fun making it into their temporary jungle gym.

Can't you hear Taps playing in the background?

The new playground

Do work, son!

My burly lumberjack husband :)

Don't worry, I made him trim up his beard. Well, he decided to do it, and I certainly didn't argue! :)

The Red Sox!

2010-06-17T22:20:00.001-04:00

May 5, 2010
Well, the Salem Red Sox, their farm team in Salem, VA. Brandon and I have gone a couple of times and we're in love. We are a Boston family (well, I married a Boston man, so we are a Boston family) and the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics are pretty much a part of the family. The Bruins would be too, but we don't watch hockey. Anyway.
The Red Sox. We are going to Boston to see the Sox in the fall, but when we figured we could settle for the Salem Red Sox in the mean time!

Faces

If you look closely, you can see the fast ball.

The mascot. I forgot his name... But he was great.

Beautiful Virginia Sky

Sweet Caroline!

Final Score

The end.

More pictures:
Shutterfly Pictures of the Salem Red Sox

Shutterfly

2010-06-10T22:08:00.003-04:00

Shutterfly and I are best friends. It's free website where you can upload as many pictures as you want and it's SO easy to use!
I updated it today.

Summertime 2009

Isabella's 3rd Birthday

Fall 2009

Thanksgiving 2009

Winter 2009 - 2010

Christmas 2009

Open Mic Night at the Palms

Spring has SPRUNG!!! Well, it did almost 3 months ago...

2010-06-10T20:50:00.004-04:00

Spring has finally arrived!!!
And with spring, glorious spring, comes EASTER!

It has been a family tradition in the Cliffe family to have a bunny trail. That is, to have a trail of candy running from your bed to your Easter basket. So, this is Brandon's prize after following the bunny trail.

And My Easter basket.

My butt hurts.
What?
I do love that joke.

We started our garden inside this spring just like we did last year.
All of our seedlings died.
We then bought plants at Lowes.
:)

Strawberry plants from last year. I was SO glad they didn't die.

Tink

Pita and Lolita enjoying the outdoors.

Lolita

So, this spring, we got the 3 of our 4 cats who were not fixed, fixed. Pita was first (since she was in heat for 4 months and Brandon and I thought we were going to go insane), then Tink & Lolita went at the same time. Lolita did beautifully, just like Pita, but Tink...Tink is apparently a licker. So, a week of licking her tummy led to her spending the next week like this:

It was so sad and hilarious to see her try and do things. At first she would only walk with her head faced towards the floor, then she would constantly walk into walls because she couldn't see them or didn't realize that they were close enough to knock her cone. Hahaha. Sorry, Tink, I shouldn't laugh.

So, do you know what WASN'T funny? Giving her her antibiotics. Nope. That was NOT funny. Or fun.

But I'm glad it's over and now we have 4 cats who will never add to the Entsminger cat population! But that black cat that's been coming around seems friendly.... just kidding!

I think Spring is my favorite time of year. There's just something about coming out of the long, cold winter and seeing things sprout and bud and bloom that is simply lovely. Brandon and I have had a garden ever since we've been together. We both love planting (or rather, Brandon tilling and Anne planting) things and watching them grow, and as spring turns into summer, we enjoy eating our home grown vegetables. It's a glorious thing to be able to walk out your back door and pick fresh basil, warm tomatoes and peppers, walk back inside, put them all together and enjoy the magic of your hard work. I haven't taken as many pictures of our garden this spring as I did last year. Probably because it's not as new to me. "Cool, a tomato plant. Looks just like the one last year!" hahaha. Right now we just have a garden that spans the back side of our small house, and I can't wait to get into a bigger yard and to be able to spread out. Maybe add a few chickens. :)

I was going to add some pretty spring flower pictures. Flowers and trees that I will have in my yard one day! But Blogger photo loader and I are not friends.

Springtime pictures on Shutterfly

Brandon. My eternal companion.

2010-03-24T23:15:00.004-04:00

I just wanted to take a minute to say how grateful I am for my husband. I never in a million years would have been able to foresee the qualities that he has which are so perfect for me. Neither of us are perfect, but we sure do have fun!

Brandon at work

On a random trip to Richmond

Being goofy!

Happy Birthday, hun!

Futurama. One passion we don't share. :)

During General Conference, we weren't "bored" but we had some down time and decided to have some fun drawing on each others' feet. haha

From top to bottom:
Superman
Green Lantern
Martian Man Hunter
Batman

Flowers and animals playing instruments

He's so much more creative than I am! All I could come up with were swirls and flowers.

I love you, hunny! <3

Random Winter Happenings

2010-03-20T22:33:00.001-04:00

Here are some random things that have happened this winter. I do love our life.

It rained and rained after it had snowed and snowed, and the river flooded! So, we went for a walk and took some pictures.

Just look at that beautiful sky!

I never thought it would stop snowing. Never before EVER have I seen so much snow!

Tink

Papusa

My husband. Yes, I knew he was like this before I married him :)

Bierer's Pharmacy! This is where I work.

You can see Nora in the window. She's compounding some drugs.

Super Bowl!
Go Saints!!!

Valentine's Day

Christmas Cactus. They're so beautiful.

All four felines sleeping in their basket.

Shana's Birthday at the Bistro

This is my life. Cats laying all over me. :)

Shutterfly:

Winter 2009 - 2010

Music at the Palms

2010-02-05T22:16:00.003-05:00

So, Brandon is the bartender (yes, a Mormon bartender) at a local bar, The Palms, and he started an open mic night on Mondays and it has been AWESOME!!! It has just taken off, and Mondays have become their busiest night. Yup, all cuz of my hubby! Anyway, here are a few pictures from some of the nights at the Palms.

Brandon and Dave playingJustan Slagle, our good buddy

Cody Shafer, another good buddy

Dane and Shana being goofy and some guy in the background (I'm sure Brandon could tell you his name)

Our good friend, Gary

Brandon, doing his thing!

Sara Beth and Cody Shafer

It's pretty awesome. And not to be too obvious, but if you're in BV, you should totally come on a Monday night! After FHE, of-course. :)

Shutterfly Pictures:
Open Mic Photos

Catching up...

2010-01-24T21:08:00.002-05:00

We'll try to see what has been going on this year! Where to start....

Probably Christmas 2009...which is actually last year. :)

I think I'm bad at this blogging thing. Partially because I fell as if our life doesn't have enough story to it to document, and partially because I'm lazy. But here we go. Christmas. Fun stuff. Full of Christmas-ness.

Our Christmas tree made out of cinnamon buns. Family tradition for as long as I can remember!

The Entsmingers. All 6 of us!

We totally do Santa stuff even though we don't have kids yet.

Brandon, of-course, plays the part of Santa.

Entsminger Christmas Dinner

Our house! All snowy and lit up for Christmas.

Mr. and Mrs. Claus hang up their hats.

Welcome to North Carolina!

Little Miss Isabella

Isabella and Uncle Brandon

Annie and Isabella

Our yearly Christmas nap

Isabella and Amanda (Mommy)

Beau (Daddy), Isabella and Amanda

We were only there a couple of days, and then it was....back to:
Cold, snowy, yet beautiful Virginia.

Tink in her Santa outfit. Too cute! She hated it.

So did Lolita :)

Our new ornaments for the year:

The Flash

Captain America

David Ortiz ( I think...)

Belle (mine, obviously)

Harry Potter!

The Simpsons

Jimminy Cricket

Another Harry Potter one

Ruby Red Slippers

Pita under the tree.

Miss Tink

A tile my parents got us, isn't it awesome!? I love it.

And that was Christmas 2009! Lovely. Awesome. Moving on!

Shutterfly Pictures:
Christmas 2009 Photos

Portraits

2009-12-13T14:52:00.017-05:00

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am FINALLY posting our portraits that we got done a month and half ago! :)
Brinn Willis was kind enough to do them for us, and we love them.

Fall. And Thanksgiving. I forgot Fall & Thanksgiving.

2009-12-01T20:56:00.000-05:00

So, I'm posting this in June, after I posted Christmas, Winter & Spring....because I forgot Fall & Thanksgiving. I'm lame. Who forgets Thanksgiving? I forgot Isabella's birthday and the rest of summer too... *sigh* I really shouldn't have gone this long without posting.

We grow kittens here in the Entsminger household.

Thanksgiving at Aunt DeeDee's house:

We taught Isabella how to use a hula hoop (or at-least we tried!) and then she took over with the camera:

Uncle Wayne took a few portraits of the family. This was the last time I saw Aunt Francie.

Dad, Mom, Beau, Uncle Wayne, Aunt Francie, Uncle Danny, Aunt DeeDee, Brandon, Me & Isabella.

Dad, Mom, Beau, Isabella, Brandon & Me

After Thanksgiving, Isabella helped us put up the Christmas Tree!

Alright, now I've included Fall and Thanksgiving!

Summer 2009

2009-08-31T21:27:00.000-04:00

So.
It is now June 2010 and I just spent an hour putting the photos from the summer of '09 on Shutterfly (plus other stuff), posting Fall/Thanksgiving '09, and Spring '10 and I really really really really don't feel like loading a bunch of photos from Summer '09.
2 reasons:
1. Blogger takes forever to load pictures. I am not a fan.
2. I'm tired of looking at these pictures....! :)

SO, if you're interested in looking at photos, you can visit our Shutterfly account for the following happenings in our lives:
Summertime '09
This includes random Summerness, my 24th Birthday, early garden photos, DC with Tiffany, etc.

Isabella's 3rd Birthday
This one is self explanatory. We went down to NC for Izzy's birthday, and here are the pictures!

Posting a link to Shutterfly is so easy...I might do this more! :)

HARRY FREAKIN' POTTER!!!

2009-07-16T23:23:00.000-04:00

So...I just found this post as a "draft" who knew! So, I'm posting it because Harry Potter awesomeness deserves to be posted and viewed by the public.

After a very very very very long time of waiting...the day came!!! Woo Hoo!!!
Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince!
Tuesday night at Midnight! Well, I think our ticket "technically" says 12:01 on Wednesday the 15th, whatever.

SO EXCITED!!!
pardon the fuzzy camera.

Now that THAT'S out of the way....:) I can't believe I forgot it! And that it took me nearly a year to post it.
6 months until the next one, now!

First Anniversary!

2009-06-18T19:41:00.001-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, we have made it a whole year! I'm a little surprised we didn't kill each other in the process, but miracles happen. Brandon decided to surprise me with what we were doing and I didn't "officially" know our whole plan until we got there.

We started off at Tastee Freeze! Yum yum yum.

And as we were driving to our next destination, we stopped at a pull off spot in-between Augusta and Highland counties (both beautiful places, by-the-way).

Soooo pretty!
I'm going to miss the mountains whenever we move away.

Anyway, we did a little exploring at this point. Apparently it was the spot of Ford Johnson and the Confederate Breastworks making place...

I did a tiny bit of rule breaking...

After that we got back on the road and saw a few weird things...

what a strange place for a phone booth!

And a few beautiful things...

And we found this Bed & Breakfast in Hidden Valley!!! It's actually called Hidden Valley Bed & Breakfast near Hot Springs, VA in Bath County.

It was built in the 1860s

And they had their own functioning garden!

Beautiful views...

Chickens...

Lots of cats...

A natural spring and a curing house. It actually had meat hanging in it. We think it was ham.

And a big gate (not in operation) for carriages!

So so so so pretty. Loved it. Brandon and I want to own an Inn one day, so it was good inspiration for the future. Loved it!

Then we went to dinner at Sam Snead's Tavern

Brandon used to work here and it was great to see old friends and eat DELICIOUS food!!! The Homestead Resort never lets us down in regards to food. mmmm

So that was pretty much it! We had a great time!

Shutterfly Pictures:

1st Annivesary Photos

Summer Goings

2009-06-06T16:58:00.000-04:00

I have to say, post-graduation life is not NEARLY as interesting as I thought it would be! There have been a few cool things that have happened since May 2nd - I quit my job as a Student Ambassador at SVU and started back up with Pampered Chef (so if you need to order something, you know who to go to ;) ) and...that's it! Brandon and I for sure get to spend a lot more time together and as a result, we've gone to see several movies. Oh yeah. Movies are our thing, for sure. So, since we don't have much else to blog about...we'll blog about our highly sophisticated movie opinions *cough*

X-Men Origins: Wolverine 7 out of 10
This was a movie that Brandon has been waiting for for FOREVER and he was so disappointed! I thought it was good, but I'm not a Wolverine comic fan, so slight changes didn't bother me. His biggest beef with the movie was how they portrayed Deadpool. We saw a brief interview with Ryan Reynolds and they asked him what he thought about Deadpool in the movie, and he said that it's a Wolverine origins movie, not a Deadpool origins movie. Fortunately, there is a Deadpool movie in the works! Let's hope (for Brandon's sake) that they do him justice. I don't care much about Marvel, though...that's Brandon's thing. Brandon did say, though, that they biggest redeeming quality of the movie was the scene after the credits. If you didn't wait for it, you have to see it! It changes the entire ending of the movie, for him at least.

Star Trek 9 out of 10
This was a move that I was SOOOOO excited about!!!!! And I was not disappointed at all. As a kid, we never watched much of the original Star Trek show, I grew up in the Star Trek: the Next Generation era, and Brandon never watched any Star Trek shows, so any indiscrepancies were completely lost on us. I loved it because I recognized a lot of the winks and nudges to the original show. Spock had to be my favorite, because they brought back Leonard Nimoy and introduced Zachary Quinto. I am a huge Heroes fan, so seeing Sylar on the big screen was exciting. I thought it was just an over-all great film

Terminator: Salvation 8.5 out of 10
You would be right if you said that I wasn't an authentic Terminator fan, since I only watched the movies for the first time in the last year or so. But I have been a pretty faithful fan since then, especially with the Sarah Connor show. I have to be honest, I wasn't a fan of the CGI Arnold Schwarzenegger at the end. There were a few other things that I wasn't too fond of, but I still really liked it.

Angels & Demons 9.5 of 10
This has to be my favorite movie that I've seen so far this summer. For me, it was even better than the Da Vinci Code. I think I loved it so much because I called the ending before Brandon, haha! I just love that kind of movie. You obviously can't watch these movies without the acknowledgement that they're not supposed to depict the truth. Tom Hanks does such a great job in these movies.

The blogging begins!

2009-06-06T12:16:00.000-04:00

Well...I've decided that Brandon and I need a blog. Since we're just the two of us, there's not TOO much to blog about, but I'm sure I can think of something! So I suppose this particular blog doesn't have much to do with anything other than introducing ourselves to the blogging world...we'll see how this goes. :)

A merging of the blogs

2009-05-06T19:28:00.001-04:00

Well, this is what's happened...our Family website, Sampa.com, has decided to shut down, so we were forced to start a new family website. But what I've decided is to use what I already have and just vamp them up a little bit. I've copied all of the old blogs from Sampa onto this blog, so if you ever want to go back and read things, you won't be missing anything :)
So, that's why these other blogs have appeared out of thin air, for those of you who were wondering!
(5/6/09)

Also...all of the blogs that are before this one are funky for some reason.
Funky = the pictures won't load right. Something about importing them from Sampa did something crazy.
SO, when I have some spare time, I'm going to go back and fix them (hopefully). Gosh that's going to take forever.
(3/29/11)

Graduation and More!

2009-05-05T19:26:00.000-04:00

The weekend of May 2nd was a big one for me, I graduated! And nearly a month later, I'm technically done with school. (I had a one credit class to get out of the way) So, hello, world! It looks the same. :) I waited a very very long time for this, and it has finally passed. That degree on the wall has been six years in the making, but I finally have it and that's what matters, right?
So...what now? I don't know. Ha. I'm currently weighing my options for jobs, and I'll keep you updated when something important happens. We have decided, though, to stay in Buena Vista for another year. It is just the best option for us at the moment. After that, we plan on hopefully moving to North Carolina, and I'm crossing my fingers that nothing will change that in a year, because I really miss it. That's where we feel our life is, so that's where we're headed.

Alright, here are some graduation pictures! and pictures from the weekend with the family.

Christmas Time!

2008-12-31T19:25:00.000-05:00

Our First Christmas!

I LOVE these stockings! Mom and Dad gave them to us last Christmas.

At the Staunton Christmas Parade

Papusa, Pita and Salem. Our three babies.

We went down to see Beau, Amanda and Isabella the day after Christmas and stayed with them for a few days.

Coloring with Isabella

Amanda and Beau

Sleeping with Isabella

Isabella and Auntie Anne

I love this little girl.

Reception - 21 June 2008 - Lexington, Virginia

2008-11-14T19:24:00.000-05:00

We did everything so wrong. Look at us cutting the cake before anything else. Ah well.

Yes, he did do a little smashing :)

Momma helping out.

Cliffe girls. Aw, I'm not a Cliffe by name anymore...

Brandon playing the song for Daddy and me to dance our dance.

Daddy-Daughter dance

Mother-Son dance

She just kept tickling me, so cute.

Throwing the bouquet!

Hi, Justan! the best man.

Isabella and Jacob Arny, just trottin' along.

Dad, Aunt DeeDee, Aunt Francie & Aunt Jamie

Me and the Aunties.

Me, the Aunties and James.

Bye, bye Reception!

The End!

Ring Ceremony! - 21 June 2008 - Buena Vista, Virginia

2008-11-14T19:21:00.000-05:00

Here are some pictures of the Ring Ceremony :)

Waiting to walk out with Dad.

Isabella didn't want to wear her hair piece. sad.

Look, Mom, you can see the flowers :)

Brandon saying sweet stuff

Me saying silly stuff

Yay, Ring Ceremony is over! haha

Matron of Honor and the Best Man: Mandy and Justan

That is just too dang cute

The Wedding Party

Haha, I just like this one.

Flower Girl, Matron of Honor, Bride, Groom, Best Man

Isabella, Mandy, Anne, Brandon, Justan

Cliffe Family

Cliffes & Englishes

Entsminger family

Brandon, the Best Man, and Ushers...minus Beau

L-R-James, Justan, Jared, Brandon, Sam & Steve

Brandon's Paw Paw and Maw Maw

The Arny Family!

Heh

The Wallace Group

Just look at that youngin'

Flip Flops!

stinks that my hair is in my face. Oh well.

Temple Wedding Pictures - 18 June 2008 - Raleigh, North Caroina

2008-11-13T19:16:00.000-05:00

A blog from our Sampa website (now closed).

Since I couldn't figure out how to add a new album, I'm just posting our wedding pictures in a blog. These are from the Temple in Raleigh, NC. Great day.

Blog Number One

2008-11-13T19:11:00.000-05:00

From our Sampa site blog (site has now closed down...I needed to find a new home for my blogs!)

You know, I can't remember the last time I blogged... It has to have been over three years ago. But here I am. Blogging again. Ha.

Anyway, most of you were either at the wedding or knew that Brandon and I got married in June. Yay!

Life has been...interesting since then. We went on our honeymoon to Surfside, SC and it was great. It was nice to just relax after the experience of trying to pull off a wedding with my incredibly incapable skills. I hope to never, ever get married again, haha. The next week we went on family vacation with my family in Atlantic Beach, NC. Yeah, in retrospect, that wasn't such a great idea. Week two of being married shouldn't be spent on a pull out couch in the living room with your parents, brother and nearly 2 year old niece in the other rooms. Yeah, I'm just glad that I never have to live through THAT again. Year one plus one week of being married will hopefully be different.

ANYWAY!

So, we came back to Buena Vista to live in my house

...which had two other girls in it. *sigh* Poor Brandon. My landlord wouldn't let me out of my lease, so it was either live there or pay two rents. So, that's how we spent the first two months of being married. In a house with two other girls, a property manager who walked in the house unannounced, and a total of 9 cats.

Yeah. I was alright, but poor Brandon. Finally, at the end of August, the lease was up, we moved out, cut it down to 3 cats (all 3 of which we liked), and moved into our own home.

And life finally began for us. And we like it. Most of the time. :)

So, school started again for me, my second to last semester!!! And Brandon started working at the Ford place in town, well, he started working there soon after we got back from NC, so I guess he just continued to work there. Then I got my job at the Admissions office at SVU. I love it, I spend 12 hours a week calling people trying to get them to come to the school that I love. It cuts into homework time, but it's not for forever. I think what bums me out the most is that there are books that we're reading for this semester that I really want to read but there just never seems to be enough time. You know, the free time that I'm not spending to starting up a family website, ha.

So that's how life was, week after week, until Brandon's boss decided to stand there and cuss at him for 20 minutes for no good reason, so he quit. I don't blame him, I wouldn't have put up with it either. Fortunately, he had already been planning to leave Rockbridge Ford, so he had started another job at a local radio station selling ads, so he had something to fall back on. And there we are. The past four, nearly five months in a nutshell.