mini road trip to vinita

the mother road

it was another warm, beautiful day in oklahoma, so the boys and i went on another road trip!  spencer wanted to go back to the world's largest totem pole in foyil so we could go inside it.  this is what it looks like inside:

this is the view standing inside looking up.

i like the outside better!  it's much more colorful in the middle of the day than at dusk.  (that's what time we were there the first trip.)  the base of the totem pole is a turtle!  i love turtles!

  there was also a gift shop/museum where the boys bought arrowheads.  then we found a little nature trail.  spencer asked if we could go on it....duh!  i love nature trails!  there's so much to see and photograph!!!  like these little gems....

after that we got back on the mother road and headed northeast (i think. it was the opposite way of home, anyway.)  we just kept driving until somebody wanted a picture, saw an antique store or had to go potty.  so pretty much i did most of the requesting to stop!  the boys really liked the antique stores again!  i thought maybe the first time we went it was a fluke, but both of them found treasures and spent their own money on them!  spencer found an old {maybe :)} nutcracker (which he named nutty) and colby found a miniature spoon all the way from london. he was very excited about that since he just learned about london at school during their christmas around the world study.  i found some old buttons (imagine that) to add to my collection.

we went to one junk shop in chelsea, oklahoma and i first thought we had hit a gold mine of goodies.  but it turned out to be a huge let-down.  first of all, their bathroom was outside of the main building.  the lady told us to go through the stockroom, up the ramp through the BIG door, and the bathroom would be on the right outside.  when i stepped outside i just laughed because this is the first thing i saw!

(but there was a nice bottle of bath and body works soap in the real bathroom. too bad the bathroom smelled like rotten cabbage!)

then spencer found a spongebob toy he wanted but it didn't have a price on it.  so he took it to the counter and asked the lady how much it was.  she told him she couldn't sell it to him unless HE could find the price.  WHAT???  IT'S A JUNK STORE/FLEA MARKET!!!!!!!  IT'S A TOY!!!!! make up the price for goodness' sake!!!  he was mad! so i told him we weren't buying it anyway, and he was DONE with that place.  he didn't want to look at anything else because of that woman.

so we drove on to vinita.  i passed 3 more antique stores, but i could tell the boys were done.  i turned around and headed back home.  spencer quickly fell asleep and snored the whole way!  colby buried his little head in his DS.

it was a good day.

movie review

ok.  i just got back from seeing the movie Twilight. (12 girls from church went to see it together!)  i've been anxiously awaiting this film....sort of.  i was unsure about seeing it because i already had the story played out perfectly in my mind.  i knew what all the characters looked like, so i didn't know if hollywood could do as good a job as my imagination did.  but at the same time, i wanted to see if the movie was anywhere near as wonderful as the book!!!  does that make any sense???

so here's my review:

out of 5 stars, i'd give it 3.  if i hadn't read the book, i would have thought of this as a low budget, amateur film.  maybe that's how the director meant for it to come across.  i don't know.  i know they couldn't put everything from the book into the movie, but i did feel like they didn't develop the characters enough.  there were some details that should have been added to help understand the characters a little better...like jasper.  if you didn't know that jasper had the hardest time controlling himself around bella, then you would think he was pretty stupid standing there looking all crazy!

edward...i went in not liking the actor that was chosen to play him.  i've never seen him in harry potter, so that wasn't why.  edward was described as beautiful and dangerous, and this guy just didn't seem very beautiful to me.

but the longer i watched the film, the more i liked edward.  he was very handsome in the candlelight at the restaurant.  since my mom and mother-in-law read this, i can't say he was sexy in parts, so i'll say he was very alluring.  that sounds better, doesn't it?  so i'd give edward 4 stars.

now jacob....he's not what i expected at all!  i thought he'd be much more handsome AND have his hair pulled back in pony tail!  ick on the hair!  i'm just not a long-hair-on-guys kind of girl.

what was really cool, though, is that both bella's house and the cullen house (on the outside) were exactly what i had pictured in my mind!

overall it was an ok movie.   i wouldn't pay full price to see it again (unlike the lady in front of me who was seeing it for the 13th time!  geez louise!).  i will definitely go see the next movie, though. 

what a maroon!!!

i don't often admit this, but sometimes i can be a real maroon!  (that's moron according to Bugs Bunny)  and today was one of those rare occasions when i was a real maroon. 

the weather was unusually warm...73 degrees on december 26th!!!  so i thought it would be fun to go on a little road trip with the varmints and show them the blue whale in catoosa, after all it's history just a few miles away! 

 i was so excited about sharing this experience with them that i did something i have NEVER done in my entire life........i locked my keys in the car!!!  of course i remembered to get my camera!  i even took the keys out of the ignition and put them in the exact place i always put them in my purse AND tucked my purse under the seat so no one could see it!  then, i locked the doors like i always do.  i didn't even realize what i had done until we went back to the car to get in!  

there was no one else there, so we had to go find a phone.  right as we started walking we saw a police officer.  we flagged him down and asked him if he could help us, and all he could do was call a wrecker.  i said no thanks!  so we trekked down the road to lil' reasors and the guy there smiled when i told him what happened and dialed the preacher's number for me.  

on our way back to the blue whale, we passed a yard with this sign posted on it.  i thought it was funny...

we only had to wait about 30 minutes before the preacher came and rescued us.  much to my surprise, the boys wanted to keep going on our little road trip so we stayed on route 66 and headed to claremore.  i had never been there before so it was exciting for me!  we found several antique stores there which the boys actually enjoyed going in (another surprise).  since we weren't far from foyil, home of the world's largest totem pole, we decided to keep going.  it was getting dark so we knew we wouldn't be able to go in, but spencer and i agreed we should check it out just to see if we should come back another time.

this totem pole was literally in the middle of nowhere right in someone's back yard!!  no kidding!  there is a house and the totem pole is RIGHT THERE!

even though it was kind of weird being in someone's yard, we decided to definitely come back someday and check out the inside.  we had a fun time despite the little mistake with the keys.  every time we stopped somewhere after that, spencer reminded me to get them!

happy birthday to me!!!

i am officially 35 years old today, and according to colby, i am still young.  he says you don't turn old until you are 36!  thank goodness i have one more year!

2 days...

this was our second day out of school!  all this "light precipitation" that came ponding down on us in a matter of hours sunday night is still here!  the temperature hasn't been above freezing since all this mess started, so it's not melting!  i don't know if we'll have school tomorrow yet or not, but i kind of doubt it.  all of the side and residential streets in broken arrow are still completely covered with ice.  none of the BIG districts(tulsa, jenks, union) have announced their plans for tomorrow yet.  once one of them makes a decision, then they all do.

colby actually prayed for school tomorrow!!!  what is the matter with that boy??  

blessed 13...

13 years ago today, i married this man.

what an adventure the past 13 years have been!  i could go on and on about how wonderful he is and how blessed i am, but i'm not feeling real sappy tonight!  so i'll just say this...happy anniversary to us.  

i love daryl and i thank God for bringing us together.

why?

last night there was some crazy weather in broken arrow!  the wind was whipping and howling outside my bedroom window.  the power went out a couple of times in the night setting off our security alarm.  that sucker is LOUD!  

as we were driving to school this morning, we noticed that there was no power at liberty elementary and there were adults standing in the parking lot telling people there was no school today. (lucky them!)  just a few feet down the road we saw power lines down, poles leaning and one pole was even snapped in half!  it was wild!  a huge section of a neighborhood fence was down and there was a toppled shed.  tree limbs littered the road.  it looked like a tornado had hit there!

i should have taken pictures of the damage this morning on my way to school, but i didn't want to be in the way of the power company trucks.  so i managed to take a few this afternoon.

in case you can't tell, the power poles are leaning!

we turned on the 5 0'clock news to see how much snow we are going to get tonight (hardly any) and the weatherman said to stay tuned for more of our forecast AND a report about a tornado in broken arrow last night!!!  what??!!  if the national weather service CONFIRMED a tornado, then WHY didn't the sirens go off last night???  they even said that the damage stretched for 4 miles!  HELLO!!!!!!  again, WHY didn't the sirens blow?  

all of this damage i mentioned is less than a mile from my house!!  there are lots of neighborhoods in this area!  we didn't have any notification!  that kind of ticks me off! 

new tradition

thank you, jill, for introducing me to my newest christmas tradition....christmas gathering at battlecreek church!!!

last night i met 3 other ladies for a fun night of food, entertainment and free stuff!  

the church at battlecreek has this extravaganza for women to kick start the christmas season.  there is food everywhere (and women, too!) and then you go to their sanctuary for a program.  it was like watching a christmas talk show where they give you lots of ideas for christmas decorations, gifts, food, etc.  at the end of each segment the "elves" came out and gave us free stuff!  it was awesome! 

one of the elves...

free stuff!!

beaded casserole dish holders

after the free stuff, we had a short devotional.  the lady talked about mary and martha.  she made an interesting point that i have never really thought about before....while martha was so busy being busy, she missed out on precious time with christ.  what are we missing out on when we are too busy to spend time with our savior?  wow!  what a convicting thought!

christmas prayer

tonight after bible reading, colby said our family prayer.  it went something like this:

"dear God,

thank you for this day.

thank you for our home, our family and our friends.

please let us have a good lunch when part of our family comes.

and please let us have a good, merry christmas.

HO, HO, HO!

in Jesus' name,

amen."

i couldn't help but laugh out loud!!  the boy cracks me up!  

elf

tonight i kicked off my favorite month of the year by watching one of my favorite christmas movies, elf!!!  it's so cheesey and dorky and goofy and I LOVE IT!

one of the funniest scenes in the whole movie is where Buddy the Elf thinks Miles Finch ( an angry author) is an elf, too, because he's a little person.  Buddy asks Miles if he had to borrow a reindeer to get down here!!!  you just have to see it because it's hysterical when Miles beats up Buddy!