Meet my friend Basil.

I’m calling this little green thing my friend in hopes that it will believe me.  You see my thumbs are not even close to a shade of green.  They say people who kill plants have black thumbs then mine are about as black as they come.  It’s not that I don’t care for them.  I think I’ve tried everything but playing Mozart to them.  The Lord missed giving me the special gift for growing things.

While in Ohio over the 4th my mother in law decided I needed a fresh basil plant at our house; I laughed.  She showed me how big they can grow and I just shook my head.  She claimed to have about 50 little plants that were just growing and she would give me some in a pot to take back to Memphis…my husband looked at her like she was nuts.  Seriously, I took a potted plant home from his grandfather’s funeral in hopes that I could give life to the flowers and keep them for years to come.  Dave didn’t know what to say when they were dead in a week.  

She knows the fate of greens in my possession.  Nevertheless, She insisted saying it would be OK even in my hands…I guess she had enough big basil bushes that she didn’t really care about these precious new little ones…  because the reality is I tend to kill plants.

But please don’t tell my new friend.

Jill & Brad had a BBQ this weekend and the whole neighborhood turned out.  Well the cool street anyway

We had a great time playing games and getting to know everyone better. 

Our new neighbors came too.  They asked if it’s like that every Friday night…not sure if that’s good or bad question.  We assured them that it was very different, normally we all eat dinner on our own and we’re in the front of the house instead of a backyard

More picts on Picasa just click the Photo’s link above.

Over the 4th, we went to Ohio for the wedding and when I wasn’t in Newark we spent the rest of our time with Dave’s family in Mount Vernon.  Everyone came out for a picnic on Sunday.  My mom is in town this week so in an effort to not take 3 months to share our holiday weekend with you, I’m going to let the pictures tell the story.  Here are a few to get you started, but for more click on the link above.

When trying to look up direction to the church for the wedding weekend Brenda (MIL) and I realized that google maps wanted to take me 20 minutes of the way. We worked hard at finding the most direct route, changed it on the computer so I could get the step by step directions written out and away I went. We all know how bad I am at directions so I thankfully took Dustin’s GPS with me just in case.

I was driving down the roadwithout any problem and began to slow as my first real turn off was approaching about 20 minutes into my drive. I passed 2 roads as we thought I would and I came up over a hill to my turn off. The turn off was straight down. I didn’t know there were hills like that in OH but seriously like a vertical drop….well it felt that way in Dave’s gigantic truck I was driving by myself. I took the death defying drop in stride as the road flattened out. At this point I’m out in the middle of nowhere. The last house was at the top of the 10,000ft plunge and about 10 minutes away. I check my mileage and realize I should be coming up on my next turn only to look up and realize I’m passing it. I take another plunge downward and turn around in a forbidden driveway at the bottom of the hill. Only after I am halfway through my turn around do I see the old man and his wife stepping away from their little garden to stare at me like they haven’t seen people in years, much less a gigantic Chevy truck. I sped away just as the old man was regripping his garden tool in a defensive move as if I’m going to jump out of the truck and attack them.

I urged the truck to the top of the hill from which I had plummeted and made my turn. It took me about 5 seconds to realize the road I was on was barely a 1 lane dirt/gravel road. Did I mention I was driving Dave’s gigantic truck? I looked back to my left and saw the little old man (who had by this point made his way down to the road pitch fork in hand) staring at me like an alien so I decided to make my escape. Looking back he was probably just thinking I was lost and needed help but when I get slightly lost and see tiny roads in front of me while driving big trucks I panic a little and everything around me looks ominous.

Because I live in the age of cell phones I thought it necessary to call by brother in law at that instant to tell him that I was on a dirt road and if he didn’t hear from me to come looking. I promptly hung up so I could keep both hands on the steering wheel and started to move. The road was scary. The back end of the truck was empty and light so even in my 10mi/hour driving I still felt like I was going to lose control and skid off the road. It wouldn’t have been hard since my tires of this overly large truck were already barley gripping the sides as it was. There were only a couple of small houses and several trailers on this 2 hour…I mean 2 mile drive into nowhere. The sky suddenly got dark, men on their front porch were waiting to come after me with their shot guns, the jeep that tore off in front of me was waiting around the corner to drive me into a ditch and the children playing on the trampoline became children of the corn….and then suddenly as if the nightmare never existed, the sky lightened and a beautiful blacktop road appeared in front of me. I was never so glad to see asphalt in my life.

I now can sympathize with how small town/country people feel when they go to weddings or any event for that matter in an unfamiliar large city. I promise if you ever visit this city girl that I’ll keep you away from alleys and parking garages.

My good friend Jen got married on the 4th of July this year.  What better way to spend your anniversary each year than with fireworks   The bride was beautiful, the groom full of anticipation and the wedding party was ready to have fun.

Erin announced her enagement before the rehersal on friday night! We zipped through the rehersal and heded over to the grooms’ house for yummy food and some 4th of July fun..  And I even made it back to Mount Vernon early enough to catch a few fireworks and attempted to take a few picture of them with my point & shoot.

Saturday started bright and early at the salon.  I don’t know why hair stylists don’t listen to me when I tell them my hair doesn’t hold curl. She didn’t believe me until she got half way through with it and the bottom was sticky (re: ton’s of hairspray) and stringy with very little of the curls she had taken time to make.  I tried to tell her. Oh well, a few touch-ups at the church made it last long enough. Lunch then off to meet the limo where we found out that some of the girls had stayed up late on Friday to make 300 (yes you read that right) jello shots for the limo rides to and from the church.  Between that and the cooler of bud-light the boys bought the groom’s jitters were mostly worked out by the time we arrived at the church.

Between fixing bad tan lines (mine and Kim’s), steaming dresses, fixing flower girl bows & ring bearer collars, and dressing the bride, we all stayed pretty busy right up until picture time.  All of their pictures taken separately were done before the ceremony started.  They had a great photographer who was very nice and determined to get to know each of us in the little time he had.  That’s rare if you find it hire them!

Finally the moment had arrived.  We were all lining up in the side room when the youngest ring bearer realized he was almost on and broke down.  He was not as excited as is older brother about walking down the aisle holding a pretty little pillow.  As kids will do, he decided that the only person who could comfort him was his sweet aunt who despite being dressed like a princess ready to meet her prince charming she scooped him up and tried to sooth his fears.  I wanted kids in my wedding for the unpredictability of them, but you have to be OK when they don’t cooperate.  In this case Aiden decided that we would make it about 1/4 of the way out and laid down on the floor before even making it to the center aisle.  Then as soon as he saw his Aunt Jen (accompanied by her brother, his dad) he stood right up and helped escort her to her waiting groom.  The rest of the ceremony went off without a hitch.  The candles and flowers were beautiful, the pastor said wonderful things about the couple and we sent them off in their chariot in a shower of bubbles.
The reception hall was complete with Minnie and Mickey sending them off on their Disney honeymoon. We had a great time on into the night dancing and eating yummy food. 
Congratulations Mr & Mrs Vogel!