Such. A. Busy. Day.

We ran 7,000 errands this morning and purchased way too many phallic shaped items.  These range from jello shot molds to drinking straws to pasta.  This is just a warning so you are prepared for pictures of the bachelorette party...

After totally losing track of time eating lunch with Ashley’s mom and keeping her almost ½ an hour after her hour lunch time, we headed up (over, down?? my geography sucks) to Wisconsin to see Ashley’s cousin Sami, her husband Mark, and their new baby Michaela Ann.  She is precious!  We gave Sami all the cute baby stuff Ashley got for her, cuddled with the squishy baby for a little bit, then took Sami out to Target for some baby needs and grabbed dinner at Q’doba.  Ashley and I got to use our new-found baby knowledge (Thanks Danielle, Chris, and Amelia!) to help with the shopping J.  Since the Kenosha Target did not have the baby rocker that Sami wanted, we headed to Waukegan for attempt #2.  Apparently, this whole time Michaela was at home screaming her head off for her dad…oops?  She seemed to like the results of the shopping trip and slept soundly in the rocker when we got home.  Her best protector, the family dog Abby, spent quite a while trying to figure out how to watch over Michaela in this new contraption that was just a little too tall for Abby’s comfort.  Hilarious!  Since pictures are SO much better when it comes to babies, enjoy the rest of today via images:

 These are pics of Ashley reading "I Am Small" to Michaela... cutest book ever if you haven't read it.  Amelia has one too :).

P.S. Ashley is READING The Hunger Games.  She claims she is not “hooked”, but she has read over 100 pages in a couple of days, which makes me beg to differ.  Carol and I will make a nerd out of her eventually!

Practice Trip

So, Ashley and I left this morning at 8:00 9:00 to head toward Chicagoland.  My life was threatened, but I managed to behave long enough to NOT get kicked out of the car in Kentucky.  The traffic was great and we were doing pretty well on time since it’s a week day.  Luckily for us, Ashley's parents gave us a heads up that a major highway in Chicago was closed due to a tractor trailer accident.  Why would an accident close 8 lanes of highway, you may ask?  Because it was an overturned semi full of hydrochloric acid, of course! Just another example of the ridiculousness that occurs when we travel together…

The detour turned out in our favor though, because we decided to go through Normal, Illinois.  Normal may sound like your average, boring Small Town, USA locale, but in reality it is the critically renowned home to Normal Avenue and Normal Police…oh, and Illinois State University.  ISU, as the school shall henceforth be referred, is the alma mater of the Chicago Mafia (Ashley, Melinda, Molly, and Kim).  Ashley took me on a little tour of campus, including such sights as the ginormous library, complete with an Occupy ISU protester camped out in front haha, and the beautiful quad.  We took a picture of Ashley’s favorite spot on campus, the prominent welcome bridge, from the top floor non-silent 4^th floor of the library.  Illinois trivia – there is a building at every state university campus that is a piece of a full castle when combined with the other buildings.  As the ISU redbird alums say - Spread the red everyone!

*Product Placement Alert* As we left Bloomington/Normal and were about to get on the highway, I saw a Schnuck’s grocery store!!! It’s not really the grocery store that is so wonderful, but the bakery inside the grocery store.  My family is spread out all over the Midwest, and the best way to get to see everyone no matter where we have lived has usually taken us through St. Louis, MO. This grocery store chain is prominent in St. Louis and we would always stop and get Gooey Butter Coffee Cake.  Most Delicious Treat Ever.  It is famous on both sides of my family; we would get in trouble if we ever showed up without some Gooey Butter.  Luckily they had one pan of the cake left and I was able to get it to introduce Ashley’s family to it as well.  For all you southern folk, I think it kind of tastes like chess pie, with a little thicker crust underneath.

Random funny story – my mother called at some point to ask about watching TV and movies on her new laptop.  She wanted to know if that “Hooha” site charged like Netflix… After breathlessly sharing this with Ashley and us sharing a good chuckle, I was able to share with my mother that you can watch many shows on HULU.COM without paying…the things parents say ;).

It was great to get into town and actually recognize a few places, since I was only here a few months ago.  I know Ashley was glad to be home and see her mom before she leaves Thursday for a work trip.  After running a few errands, we just hung out with the Evett family and enjoyed being back in Elk Grove.  Someone forgot to tell her parents about our summer road trip, so we got to share our exciting plan again! Some things don’t change no matter where you are though, and Ashley, her mom and I all fell asleep on the couches in the living room while watching TV.  

And the race is on...

As Ashley accustoms herself to her new Galaxy tab, I thought I should share where we are in the planning stages. Carol, Ashley and myself will be road-tripping through the wonderful East Coast this summer. (Be prepared for many noun to verb changes as well as more articles than you have heard used since you were learning how to speak a foreign language and all you knew were the basics...) This plan began as a pipe dream last summer during the National Education Association's Representative Assembly, heretofore referred to as the RA, in Chicago, Illinois. The three of us had some pretty amazing adventures in the city, both in a super-fun way and in a wow-we-narrowly-avoided-death way. Ashley and Carol are active in the local association, so they planned to attend the 2012 RA in Washington, DC. Since I invited myself to leech off their trip to Chicago so I could see the sights while they worked, I figured I should go ahead and do the same for DC and see all my college friends on the cheap. As life progressed, in its very rapid way, Ashley's best friend's wedding in northern Ohio turned out to be 2 weeks before the RA. (Again with me inviting myself places, I am attending this too, though I must say the bride is in my top 10 list of cool people.) We decided to road trip to Ohio and hit someplace cool before heading down to DC. Long story short, Carol is joining the road trip and we are going to The Big Apple and Beantown because she and Ashley both have their New England v-cards yet. I have thrown in a few of my favorite places on the way and will beg and plead (and probably whine) to get to visit them all.

In order to make this the most efficient and fun trip possible, we are making sure we have tickets to all cars on the technology train. Carol and I are big readers, so we have rival e-readers of the cozy-corner and fire-starting variety. I have an iPhone, Ashley and Carol have crazy droid things, and there are more iPods than can be accounted for. We needed a better way to communicate than a 3 inch screen, so Ashley decided the tablet was the way to go, and I convinced her (along with Brandon Kyle of Best Buy at The Avenue) to get that for herself ASAP. Finn (get to know this name - he may be in Australia when we are road-tripping, but his ideas span the globe) suggested blogging this epic event and I of course took that and ran with it in my usual ridiculous way. The Galaxy tablet has been purchased, Carol is on board with the narrative blogging, and my plans for video-logging the entire experience are just beginning to soar. Note to self: get a video camera.

Here is the current itinerary:

Kim's Wedding (Akron, OH)

Kate's Mom's house (Lykens, PA)

Hershey Park (Hershey, PA)

NYC, NY

Boston, MA

Newport, RI (this is new to everyone else on this trip, fingers are crossed on my end)

NEA RA (Washington, DC)

Savannah, GA

Atlanta, GA

Adios to the zero readers of this blog thus far,

Ali