Help me, Genius Bar!

You might not get a good post from me for a while... my computer is having an issue. The screen is black and won't do anything. SO, make sure and say a little prayer tonight that my friends at the Apple Genius Bar can help and bring my computer back to life. I have an appointment at the Galleria at 2:00 tomorrow... and losing my stuff would be a DISASTER. Eeep!

"Why do blessings wear disguises? If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked." -Sophia Petrillo

I've watched and laughed at The Golden Girls since I was a little kid (weird, I know), and I was so bummed to hear about the death of Estelle Getty/Sophia Petrillo yesterday. She was so cute, and she was such a riot on the show. I know she had been sick for a long time, so I'm hoping she's in a better place now... and NOT at Shady Pines. So, R.I.P. Sophia, and thank you for being a friend.

I'm also quite bummed tonight because my mom took my adorable and incredibly moody dog Lilly back home. I'd been keeping here here in Collinsville for the past couple weeks and she had been such great company. She's very easy to irritate, but boy can she cuddle! My bed is quiet tonight without her loud snoring next to me. Here are a couple pictures to highlight the time that Lil spent here with me: 

I also decided to take Lilly to my personal beauty shop and gave her one massive haircut. She was NOT happy... but given the result, I can't say that I blame her. But in my defense, she wouldn't hold still!  (notice her uneven mustache) Pretty bad, huh?

However, on a much happier note, I got to see my brother/favorite buddy Peyton today! I hadn't seen little Petey in about a month, and beli me, he's not so little anymore! I swear he grew an inch! It's crazy- he's dropping the baby fat and looking less like a baby and more like a little boy. He scoots all around the house, cruises around the furniture, and he even climbed a couple stairs last week. He says "Ash" (Ath), "Alex" (A-ekth), and a broken version of "I love you," and has an extensive portfolio of sign language knowledge. His newest sign is "swim." It's funny, mom's frustrated that he says mine and Alex's name, but still calls her "Nana" instead of "Mama." haha. Since I hadn't seen him in so long I wondered if he would fully remember me, but he smiled at me and right away said "Ath." Mom told him that they he was going to see me. Aww.

I joined Petey and mom at Petey's walking therapy appointment (he's made a lot of progress), and then we chose to eat lunch at P.F. Changs, a favorite of mine. I think mom likes it when I'm around because I assume all Peyton duty and it gives her a break. I enjoy it, and Peyton likes having his freedom to be a little monkey under my care... and mom is relieved to get a break from the kid's never ending energy.

But my day ending with unfortunately having to go to work, but when I came home, Joy had made a super chocolately and fabulously rich cake. Needless to say I overindulged and I had probably the least healthy supper that I have ever had in my entire life. Eh, you only live once, right? After that "dinner," my one time of living might have decreased a bit.

What Should Ferris Do?

Well, if Ferris Bueller ever gets another day off, he should go to Six Flags. That's what Joy and I did today on our days off, and it was fabulous. Joy has a season pass and gave me one of her vouchers to get me in too, so we had a grand day on an extremely low budget. AND, even though we had a lot of fun, this day was most definitely not void of Joy and Ashley's innate ability to have unfortunate luck multiple times throughout the day.

We spent a good chunk of the day at the Hurricane Harbor water park, of course, 1) because it was 90+ degrees and sunny and 2) because there are few things that we love more than a good splash down a water slide. Well, when we got in, Joy got in line to get a locker to put our crap in ( I won't even tell you how much that cost because you would wet yourself with shock), and I got in line to get us each an $8 (!) tube. SO, we lugged these darn tubes into the crowded locker room (which I'm sure the other people did not appreciate), threw our junk in the locker, and walked in our bare feet on the hot concrete into the park. Come to find out, we could have worn our shoes in the park and put them in cubbies, but that's a disappointment in and of itself. So imagine us, lugging these huge tubes around this water park, and then imagine the looks on our faces when we realize that we didn't even need them in the first place! Neither of us had been to Hurricane Harbor in a long, long time, so we assumed that you needed to rent these tubes in order to ride on the slides. Come to find out, tubes are provided... who knew? Okay, I'm sure everyone but us knew. So, we took a spin on the lazy river, and then we found a really intense and hasty dad that we sold our tubes to for $5 each. We ended up losing a few bucks, but oh well.

So after our hunger was overtaking our ability to see straight, we went into the amusement park, ate a mammoth turkey leg, and rode some rides. Well, apparently Six Flags doesn't allow you to carry your bags onto rides now, so we rented a ride locker near the Excalibur for $1. After standing in some long and some short lines, we saved our favorite- The Batman- for last. There was absolutely no line, and we walked the 3 miles down and up the path to get to the ride only to find that the ride was temporarily closed for a problem. They didn't know how long it would take to fix, but we were stubborn and decided to wait. So after about 10 minutes of waiting we rode it, then returned to our locker to get our stuff.

Well, the locker "key" was a barcode printed on a piece of paper, and I was incredibly proud of myself for not losing it and even keeping it relatively dry after riding Thunder River and the Log Flume since I tend to lose things more often than not. So as I was scanning it to open the locker, Joy reads a small sign that noted that locker use was limited to 2 hours... we had been using it for a good 4! Needless to say, our locker wouldn't open, and we had to find some master key guy to come and open it. Even more needless to say, he wasn't happy.

Oh, and we also didn't bring sunscreen, so you can decide the conclusion on that one.

Amusement parks are great, but they really know how to get ya on all of the little extra costs... and they also really get my mind thinking about all of the nasty hands that have touched the handrails and sweaty bodies that have sat on the rides. And don't even get me started on the pools in the water park... you might as well have someone come and just pee directly on me. EW. All that's enough to make me gag on a bit of vomit.

But really, we had a blast... it was great to actually do something for a change. I have officially decided that when I make my millions, there will most definitely be an intense roller coaster and a mile-long water slide in my bag yard. All of my readers are invited over for a party. Joy and I have also decided that we would like to use the roller coaster as an alternative to a hair dryer, because it works and it's a heck of a lot more fun.

On a final note, check out this picture my mom e-mailed to me. My family went to Boston for the National Down Syndrome Conference last week, so apparently this is a picture of Peyton with a Boston crab hat on. I haven't asked yet, but I really hope they bought this for him. I think it will be a great conversation piece at home.

I'm BAAAAACCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!

I got a little frisky (and bored) today so I decided to pull up my old blog that I had to do for my Interactive Advertising class. (All of those old posts suck, not to mention they're boring, so pretend they're not even there.

I guess I don't particularly have anything to 

actually blog about, but I figured it might be interesting to pull this up down the road and l

augh about how incredibly uneventful my life used to be... granted it's more eventful down the road.

By some miracle of God I have the evening off tonight and I didn't go into the office today, so it's been quite nice. I slept in, scruffled with my doggie for a bit, watched the E! True Hollywood Story documenting the life of Heath Ledger, sat 

on the deck to give myself a bit of sun coloring, and took a shower. I just finished up with a nice bowl of cold watermelon and I'm relaxing on the couch while the doggie snores next to me. I'm really going to hate when Mom comes to get her next week- she's been great company.

Joysie and I are going to look at our (hopefully) new place tonight. I'm pretty stoked. I'm not really looking forward to the actual act moving again since I just did 2 months ago, but whatever, I'll be glad to move into the city. I g

uess I have apartment ADD... but hopefully I'll sta

y in one place for a little while. Frankly, I'm just tired of having to get my mail forwarded to new addresses. Post Office people are NOT jolly.

My final thought, I haven't seen a good sunset like this in a while. This is from when I was home last month: