Things not to do on a holiday weekend

I have put off grocery shopping (holiday weekend/payday), getting my new school ID (almost all the offices were closed), going to the library (there was a summer book-a-thon going on) and registering my car (takes upwards of one week to do in Georgia.) All of these things should NOT be attempted without some sort of patience booster, or perhaps Valium, during a holiday weekend.
The ARMY has tomorrow through the 4th off for the Fourth of July weekend extravaganza happening on post. (Yes, we ARE going to it.) Therefore the commissary was simply riddled with people (and, me, being super procrastinator) getting all their weekend shopping done. I stood in line with my grocery cart full for 35 minutes waiting to check out. The line went from the checkout in a horseshoe shape around the entire store. What fun!
Anyway, I survived, and now I have my ID, got my library books, am waiting for my registry, and we have food for the weekend.

This was the line 15 min after I got into it. It goes up the store on the right hand side and turns left

I finally got to turn left, and the end was in sight!

Well, I didn't do it!

Last night Ray was told to bring the garbage can back from the road. So, we all stepped outside to enjoy the evening and put away the garbage bin/lawn mower. As Eric turned around to go inside, he looked at Ray and said "that's not funny, give me the key." (In our house we joke around a lot) We both discovered that someone had locked the door! Ray denied vehemently that he did it. I know I didn't do it. Eric said he didn't do it. Hmmmm, were I Agatha Christie I might have decided to look into the case. As it was, late, and I was tired, now I just had to find a way to break into the house since none of us had a key.

So we found out that Ray had opened his window to get some air, and voila!

After we locked the window we came in through I went to check the door knob, just in case it was "slightly" turned to lock us out.... nope. One of us did it! And I'm sure of one thing... IT WASN'T ME!

Darn You Food Network!

So there we were, enjoying our evening watching a competition show about ribs on the Food Network. As we continued to watch, my mind was telling me how much I wanted to enjoy some BBQ as well. When I voiced this opinion it was met with a hearty "YES PLEASE" from both Eric and Ray. We haven't had BBQ in months due to the sugar and fat in it. But, because the Food Network showed those people enjoying it so much, I figured it was ok to do. :)

The next day I went to the store to grab a couple slabs of spare ribs. (Much cheaper and more flavor than baby back ribs) I came home, slathered some rub on 'em, grilled 'em, baked 'em, slathered some sauce on 'em, and ooooh did our house smell good. Just to round out the southern feel of the meal I made some greens and corn on the cob too. It was delish!

Done and soooo tender

Southern plate fit for a king

Eric's so excited we got BBQ

One Year

This morning the alarm went of at 4:20am. My husband does not wake up like normal people, wait, let me take that back. I do not wake up like normal people do. I am an awake person. Once you nudge me, or an alarm goes of, I'm UP and ready to take on the day! Needless to say, I've never met anyone who likes to sing Disney songs as much as I do right when I wake up.
But, I digress, you're probably wondering why I'm talking about this morning in particular. Well, one year ago today, I woke up as unmarried me, and went to sleep as married me. In that year things have changed significantly. I've moved from Kansas to Georgia, Eric has gone TDY to Alaska and South Carolina, my sister-in-law and her 3 boys moved in with us, then everyone left. Now we are just us again.
I have to say that this time around it was done right. I married my best friend, a wonderful man who accepts me for who I am and loves me just the way I am... even if I do pop out of bed singing Disney songs and cleaning house. :)

Married in the Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO

Our wedding reception meal with Mom and Dad Pride

Father's Day

I love holidays... I don't care if it's Flag Day, it's an excuse to make a holiday meal. This time I made a herb roasted chicken, savory smashed sweet potatoes, gravy and sauteed green beans for Eric's Father's Day feast. It was a beautiful meal, but by the time I realized to take a picture of it... it was just a chicken carcass and some empty plates.
I did, however, also make dessert. Root beer floats and ice-cream sandwiches on oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I made day of. Oh that was good. (For those of you who know I'm perpetually on a diet... it was diet root beer, sugar free ice cream, and the cookies... well those were just a treat)
Anyway, it was a happy Father's day all around.

root beer floats and nummy ice-cream sammiches

What a gorgeous day!

Today was great... sunny, beautiful. The whole family was up by 7 am. I made us all lattes. We got the oil changed in our other car, went grocery shopping. We even had time to go to Game Stop this afternoon. 95 degrees... not a cloud in the sky when we walked into the PX at 3:30.

This was 4:15.....

A lotta wind (see the cart blowing over on the left of the picture)

A lotta clouds coming in

A whole lotta rain

Just a tiny walk from the cars to the door

Waterfall off our roof

Braving the storm!

The Prodigal Key

Just a quickie update... they found our key at the dealership. It had fallen off the key board and behind the trash bin there (not in their shoes, dad, like you wanted me to ask them to look in). The manager was quite embarrassed, as I would have been if I hadn't thought to look on the ground. But, all's well that ends well. We have our key, the car got fixed, and Eric can almost drive again. :)

Text books are a billion dollars

Or so it seems when I open my pocketbook to pay for next quarter's college textbooks. I have found some ways around this, however, that are very helpful to people going to college on a budget.

1. Look about 2-3 weeks ahead of your first class day for your books. Your college will provide you with a list of books you need, so if you know you're not going to drop courses, then order early and beat the rush/sold out issues.
2. RENT... yes rent your books. Many bookstores like www.thebookhousega.com and www.barnesandnoble.com will rent books for the quarter/semester for around 1/8 of the price of the book. (I rented my anatomy textbook for 30$ instead of buying it for 187$)
3. If you have to buy, buy from a used book site, like www.amazon.com. I found one of my textbooks on there for 1.78$. The original price of the book was 75$. You do the math.

So, after I bought/rented my books for this next quarter, instead of spending 333$, I spent a whopping 78$. I don't know about you, but that planning was totally worth the extra 200+ dollars I didn't spend.

Tournament and Lost Keys

Today was a fun day. We woke up early so that Ray could go compete in a tournament at a video game store on post. 59 people showed up for a bracketed tournament. Ray made it to the semi-finals and then to the final six people to compete. Out of 59 people, he came in 5th. It was a lot of fun to see the people play and it was a great time to see Ray do so well. I never thought I would be proud of a kid for playing video games well. :) We celebrated by having lunch/dinner at T.G.I.Friday's. All in all, a fun time.

Waiting for the tournament to start

Eric's excited and knows Ray will do great

The rules briefing... Ray is on the left

Ray competing in the semi-final match (he came in first for that one)

In other news, we dropped our car (the same one that broke down before) off at the same dealership to get the last recalled part fixed. We went to pick it up after the tournament today... and they had no clue where the key was. They looked for 1/2 an hour while I stood there. Then I was tired of waiting so we went out to eat. That was our only key for the car. We got a call tonight saying that they still haven't found it. On the bright side, they're a dealership and they can replace the whole keyless entry for us for free if they don't find it. :)

You get what you wish for

Well, this morning I sat here on the computer, going over other people's blogs. I thought to myself... it's June 3 and nothing exciting or post-worthy has happened. I wondered what my next blog would be about.

Then... Eric and I got into the car to go run some errands... and this happened:

The gear shift was stuck permanently in park. We looked up the problem, apparently there is a recall on the gear-shifts for Eric's car.

So, we called the recall company, then the tow truck to tow the car to the nearest dealership to get it fixed.

The tow truck came out really quickly, was super nice, and very friendly. Mind you... it is 100 degrees when all this is happening.

He had to use some special skids to get the car on the tow truck, since the car was stuck in park and would not allow the wheels to move without stripping something.

We followed the truck to the dealership, and there it sits until we pick it up, fixed, tomorrow. As it happens, it is not only the recalled part but another broken part too. (Of course) So it was a little more than we were expecting, but we get reimbursed for most of it from Chevrolet.

And, so I ask you, what did Alison learn today? Do not wonder what next exciting thing will happen - they will happen, more often than not, different then you planned.