The post in which I scream like a little girl

Meet Charlotte.

She is a barn spider and she lives on our porch. This is her in October when she was still "little".

She is big. And hairy. And ugly.

Carrie and I let her crawl on our faces

She tried to eat me.

This is her tonight, November 21. We think she is "with child" at the moment. See how she is bigger? And hairyer hairier more hairy? And uglier? No, I'm not saying pregnant women are big, hairy and ugly. Only spider-women. Spider-women that live on my porch.

Dad is the only one brave enough to get close. Since I am typically not afraid of any bug (except roaches), I tried. I did. I couldn't do it. She is just too big. I even tried sticking a ruler up there, but the ruler slightly touched the web and she tried to attack. I screamed. Like a little girl. And ran inside. And threw the ruler down. And screamed some more.

Yes, this is our friend Charlotte. As long as she doesn't touch me, her web doesn't cross my path, and she and her soon to be baby Charlottes stay out of the house, she is welcome to stay as long as she likes.

Genius!

This is awesome. That's all there is to it.

Banjo Hero!

I don't understand the phenomenon that is Guitar Hero. Then again, I've never actually played Guitar Hero. It just hasn't interested me. I guess I'd rather sit around and play a real guitar. A real, marketable skill

That said... I think there is a veritable market for a variation of the game called....

BANJO HERO!

See, the difference is that playing a banjo really isn't a marketable skill so therefore, it doesn't matter if you play a real one or a plastic one. Besides, let's be honest, either one will get the dogs howling and any human within earshot calling the cops on you in a matter of minutes.

The object of the game, of course, would be to get better and better (Or do I mean worse and worse? We ARE talking about the banjo here) As you progressed through the levels, your character would lose more and more teeth and his appearance would grow increasingly more.... hillbilly.

Then, WHAM!! before you know it, you're sitting on a rickety old porch, toothless, barefoot, holes in your overalls, a piece of straw sticking out of your mouth, and your scraggly dog Jethro sitting at your feet, having mastered the game Banjo Hero.

There could even be accompaniment instruments you could buy to go along with it such as the Washboard, Washtub Bass, Jug, Spoons, Bones, and for the especially enthusiastic, the musical Saw (watch your fingers, kids!).

I definitely think there is a market for this game! It would be THE hot item at Best Buy the day after Thanksgiving (at least in Arkansas). I know I'd buy it. Or burn it. Um.. one of the two.

You're building a WHAT?!

I went out into the shop to see what Dad was building on Friday afternoon and found this...

It's a coffin.

Dad found out he has FOUR broken ribs, not one, so his doctor told him to go ahead and make a coffin.

Not really.

It IS a coffin, and he DOES have 4 broken ribs, and his doctor DID tell him to build it...

Thankfully, it's not going to be used any time soon for it's real intended purpose. I'm sure Doc wanted it for Halloween, but it will undoubtedly eventually end up in his cowboy town, Marrow Bone Springs. It was rather odd to come home and find Dad out back putting together a coffin though!

There's no place like home...but what if you're homeless?

Just a little update on the housing situation... We have decided to build again! We looked at pretty much every house in the area and couldn't find anything that met our criteria so we gave up and decided to start from scratch. Josh spoiled me by building me my first house! We went last night and reserved our lot and talk to the builder about what we want and need. He's going to take some time this week and draw up some plans since it's going to be a custom build. We're then going to delay the start until January or February. That will put us moving in sometime in the late spring. Works for us!

One of the downfalls of building in this area is that it's a tad more than we were looking to spend so we have to save a little more first. Hence the delayed start. We're fine with it though. We're enjoying living with my folks (yes, Josh too) and just taking our time. We're going to be going on an insane budget though so all fun stuff, that costs money that is, is out until after we move!

I'm excited and freaked out/scared to death all at the same time. I tend to worry a lot more than anyone I know and I stress about everything. I'm working really hard on that trusting the Lord thing, but my feeble mind sometimes takes the reigns again.

So, there's a quick update on what's up on the home front!

OPA!!!

This past weekend, St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in Euless held their Greek Fest. Carrie found out about it and I was all up for going! I love little festivals! Especially when there is food involved! We had a fabulous time!

They had a bunch of Greek music playing and some dancers doing traditional Greek dancing








I got the Mezza Platter which had a dolmathe (seasoned meat and rice in grape leaves), two Spanakopitas (cheese and spinach in filo dough), a Tiropita (cheese filling in buttered filo), and some Greek olives. They were all good, except the olives since I despise olives, but the tiropita was definitely my favorite. Carrie and I split everything so we got to try it all!


Carrie ordered the Moussaka which is a casserole of ground beef, eggplant and potatoes with some creamy sauce. Looks kinda like a lasagna. It was really really good. We also had some desserts but I forgot to take pictures of them before we devoured them. We split a baklava sundae and a Galatobouriko which is Greek custard wrapped in filo layers and covered in honey syrup. OMGosh they were both amazing!


They also served octopus there. They took a whole octopus and threw it on the grill. When it was done, they chopped it up and put it in a bowl. It looked incredibly disgusting. I totally wanted to try it, but I didn't want to pay the money for something I'd likely only take a few bites of. So, I settled for a picture


The kids got up to dance too!



As soon as we got there, they announced that they were giving church tours and one was about to start. Of course, we totally jumped on that ship since we'd never been to a Greek Orthodox church before. We figured it would be kind of a "here's our sanctuary, here's our children's rooms, etc" type of tour, but it wasn't. We sat in the sanctuary (I'm not sure if that's what they call it or not, but whatever.. the main worship room) and the guy talked A LOT about what they believe. It was so interesting.

I guess Greek Orthodox is just one of those religions you don't hear much about. We hear all kinds of stuff about Catholics, Muslims, Jehovah's Witness, etc. I wish I'd taken a picture inside, but I felt weird doing it so I didn't. It had a lot of very ornate decor in there. TONS of pictures (Or icons as they call them) depicting Jesus, Mary and the saints, though they don't call them saints. It's just the easiest word to describe it. You could also smell the incense they'd used that morning. It was a lot of info, so bear with me while I try to give a quick run down from what I remember -

There is so much symbolism in the Greek Orthodox church. In fact, it seems to be where they put most of their focus. He kept pointing out things that symbolize parts of the religion. Like, the bread, the gold, the incredibly ornately decorated Bible, the platters, etc. One thing Carrie and I thought was interesting was that they have have this ritual thing that symbolizes giving your heart (or self?) to God. It made us sad because they're so steeped in symbolism that they never actually DO give their heart to Christ.

He said that they believe Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life but that it is through Mary that we can get to God. They believe in God's grace, BUT that he doesn't dole that out until you die. You become a "Christian" when you are baptized, but that doesn't guarantee you'll go to heaven. The guy said it's a life long thing of living a good life, doing good works basically, and hoping that God decides to show you his mercy when you die. (After Mary carries you to Him....) I can't imagine living my life not knowing what was going to happen in the end. There was a lot more information, and I know I'm probably forgetting important stuff, but it's hard to remember it all.

It almost brought me to tears knowing that their teachings are so close, yet so far away from the Truth. So please, remember the Greek Orthodox Church in your prayers. They're just as lost, and it seems they're often forgotten when discussing religions (or maybe it's just in my neck of the woods.. I never hear about them). They need the Truth to infiltrate them!!

Anyway, the Greek fest was awesome and I definitely want to go again next time! I had so much fun checking it all out and also, just hanging out with my seester! I consider myself so lucky and blessed to be related to such an awesome chick!

Fair Day!

On Saturday, Josh, Carrie and I headed out to the Texas State Fair. We had a great time. When we left that morning, the forecast said it was supposed to get up to around 70 and be sunny. Well, I don't think it ever got above 60 and I certainly never saw a single ray of sunshine! So it was freezing, but that's ok. I still got my corn dog and we still had a blast.

This year, they are running the DART right to the front gate so we decided to take advantage of that. BOY HOWDY is that the way to do it. It was $7.50 per person for the TRE and DART passes and all we had to do was sit and ride. No ridiculous fair traffic. No walking a mile to the front gate. It was great. We parked at Centerport and rode the TRE to Victory, then hopped on the DART and ended up RIGHT at the gate. Perfect! In the future, we'll definitely be doing this again.

Here is Carrie and me waiting for the train to get there. We were coooold.



Josh being goofy on the train. I told him to smile and this is what I got :)



Yeah, I dunno what we're doing



Big Tex says "Welcome!"



Big Tex is really kinda freaky and spooky looking up close.

The African Acrobats (who were really Jamaican, but whatev) I was impressed with this dude's limbo skills

Carrie had a polish sausage while Josh and I had the customary Fletcher's corn dogs

In all the years I've gone to the fair, I'd never tried one of the specialty fried foods. I always say I'm going to but then take a look at the prices and change my mind. Not this year! I've officially tried my first fried Fair food! Josh and I split the fried pecan pie. It was surprisingly really good! We wanted to try the fried peaches and cream, but the line was OUTRAGEOUS.

We stopped by the petting zoo. This guy looked so smug. He was super cute. Or was it a she? Who knows. In my book, animals are always male by default... unless they start popping out a baby.

And speaking of.... this brown llama was DEFINITELY female! We were looking around and Josh says "hey, that llama has an extra set of legs sticking out her butt". Um, sure enough! I look over and see two little hoofed feet kicking around. At first, I think we were the only ones to notice. The mama llama was sitting down just chillin'. The only clue that she was about to have a baby (other than the butt legs) was that her ears were back. Anyway, she stood up suddenly and a few seconds later, "plop", out dropped this disgusting looking, long legged, long necked ball of goosh. It was bizarre. But sooooo cool! I have a vid of it happening, but I don't know if everyone wants to see it so I don't know that I'll post it! it's awesome though.

I LOVED watching all the other llamas in the pen. They were so curious. Nosy little suckers.

This guy was peeling off the....gook. Or something. I'm no expert on animal births, especially llama births, but it looked like the sack or something was covering it. Very weird. He very gently peeled it off the baby's head so that it could breathe easier. All while concerned new mama llama watched ever so closely

The nosy llamas again. Good grief, can't a girl get some privacy?!

Sorry, I know this is kind of gross, but it was awesome. The baby kept trying to hold his head up, but couldn't yet. It was pretty funny to see it flailing around because of the weight. I guess if I had a neck that long, I'd probably be flailing too. Especially 2 minutes after birth. Those llamas have high and lofty expectations for their newborns. I mean really "hey you've just been through major trauma by come out of the birth canal. There are tons of people staring at your gloppy, messy self and taking pictures, so hurry up... stand up and look cute!"

No pressure or anything.

The whole deal was pretty cool. There was also a goat in there that had just given birth and still had another one in the chute. It was definitely a birth day at the state fair. Let's just say I'm glad I'm not a llama. Or a goat.

More pictures:

The Dodge section of the car show was giving out these goofy red and orange beads with their logo and either OU or Texas on the other side. Of course, I had to get OU. Not because I care a lick about OU (sorry fans) or football for that matter, but I think if I'd grabbed the Texas one, Josh might have divorced me on the spot.

Regardless, Carrie and I took off the dorky medallions and I made an even better fashion accessory out of them.

The only downside (and it's not really a downside) to riding the TRE/DART is that the TRE only runs every 1 1/2 hours or so, so you really have to plan your departure from the fair or else you'll be stuck waiting at the train station for awhile. We got to the TRE station about 30 minutes early so we walked around Victory Park. Not that there was anything to see. Except this....

SNOW!!!! WAHOOOO!!!!

Oh wait.. that's just ice that someone dumped on the side of the road. Darn.

All in all, it was a great day at the fair. If you've never been to the Texas State Fair, you gotta go!

More Winfield!!!!

Every year since the beginning of time, my family has gone to Winfield, KS the third weekend of September for the Walnut Valley Festival. We always look forward to it! In my 28 years, I think I've only missed 4 or 5 total. It's a blast.

This year, Josh and I went up on Wednesday night and stayed through Sunday, which is definitely the way to go! We had a good crowd this year too. The two of us, my parents, Carrie, my cousin Dinah and her husband and kids, and then the Jackson clan was right there with us too. They brought the entire family (all 6 kids) this year which was fun!

Anyway, I have over 640 pictures from those 4 days, so that is my excuse for it taking a while to get anything up!

This is on Thursday. My dad playing tricks on 5 of the Jackson kids. First he lines them all up on one knee....




Then pushes 'em over :)




Scott and his oldest daughter, Sarah, as we were all walking to the train trestle to throw rocks off.




On the trestle




Two of the boys, Daniel and Grant, throwing rocks into the river below




Josh stood between the two tracks.. it was a lot further down than it looks in this picture. Yikes




Gay.




Speaking of gay, this is a lady from the band that played before the Wiyos on Thursday night. Who the crap plays one of those things still?! What is this, 1986? She was totally into it too. Now, I'm not typically one to knock any instrument, but c'mon... It was funny too because she kept wiggling her fingers on the keys as if it would give her some vibrato sound. Yeah, no. It doesn't do that, woman. One of the other guys in the band called her out on it on stage later which I found really funny. Anyway, this band, Mountain Smoke, were awful. I mean, I guess they were ok by bluegrass standards, but really, they were awful. In fact, I kinda took to calling them Mountain Suck. Alas, we had to sit through Mountain Suck (several times) so we could have good seats for the Wiyos.




And now... THE WIYOS!!! Best band there all weekend. We didn't miss a single set!




Doesn't this dude kinda look like Jason Mraz? He sounded a lot like him too in my opinion. He played the steel guitar




This guys voice was awesome. He has amazing stage presence too! He had this character he played during all the sets. He never smiled and never spoke. He'd just tip his hat.




This guy played guitar, ukulele, and banjo. He also sang several songs and also has a great voice!

This guy cracked us up. His expressions were hilarious! He interacted with the main vocalist a lot. Way awesome.

Washboard! Dude rocked it

Our tents were set up across the path from the horse barns and apparently, they have barn cats. We saw 3, but this little one decided to make our campsite his home while we were there. It was over all the time! Sweetest thing

Cousins! Dinah, me and Carrie. We were headed over towards *dun dun dun* the Pecan Grove!

The Pecan Grove is an interesting place. Some people camp there and never even set foot in the festival grounds. It's one of those things that is hard to explain. You just have to see it. It is the most crowded camping scene I've ever seen, but also the most incredible. Quite a few of the folks camping there are crazy wild hippies. Many of the buses, vans, campers, etc are straight out of the 60s and 70s. There are old green army parachutes hung from trees, music coming from every corner, smoke EVERYWHERE, and of course, drunk people. It really is an experience.

They have a competition every year for the best campsite and people go all out. I mean ALL out. I've seen some pretty wild stuff over there. It's a great place to take your kids if you want to show them how stupid getting trashed on alcohol and drugs is. Seriously. And the best part is, it's totally safe. I've never once heard of anything bad happening over there. I've been going over there by myself since I was probably 10 years old. Winfield is just awesome.

Since Dinah and Jeremy were Winfield Virgins, meaning they'd never been before, we took them over one night with the kids to just show them around. We found this one campsite that had a huge camping chair set up by the road. Isabelle just loved it!! If you click to enlarge this photo, you can see her face. It's priceless!

Yeah, this speaks for itself. Like I said, you'll see anything over there. They actually had a very realistic looking pair of *ahem*, you know, that you could stick in there. Jeremy decided to try it out in all his glory though.

We saw Jupiter! If you look closely, you can see the moons next to it. It was way awesome, but very hard to photograph. I probably looked really stupid holding my camera lens up to the binoculars to take this picture... Hey, it worked though!

This is Bill Wedekind. Amazing amazing story. He lost his hands and his sight in Vietnam. Shortly after it happened, a family member suggested he take up pottery. With no hands. He had a doctor fashion two nubs on each arm using the bones. It took him a while to learn to use the muscles correctly, but now, look at him! He's a great testament to never letting anything stop you. He and his wife have a booth every year in the craft barns. I always like going by. And his pottery is so cool.

This was pretty typical. The Jackson boys wrasslin' Josh. I think they all had a great time. They're really great kids. Some of the most well behaved I've EVER seen. It's unreal. They're also good about stopping when Josh would say "That's enough".

And, when Josh had had enough, they went after each other :) I just love Daniel's face here. At one point, I really thought he was going to pass out, though! Grant had him in a tight headlock. Boys will be boys!

This is their beautiful sister, Sarah. She's such a doll!

And here is the baby of the family, Rachel. She's also way too cute

Isabelle was not happy for some reason and Jeremy (her daddy) and I were teasing her about her big lower lip.

At stage 3, Autumn had had enough! She was so sweet

Indiana was FILTHY. And incidentally, so was Dinah since she was sitting next to her son!

Here's a little story that played out at Stage 2 one afternoon while we were keeping an eye on the Jackson 6 so their parents could sneak away for a little bit.

Meet Billy Cole. He is the youngest of the 4 boys and a ladies man for sure! He made friends with this pretty little girl.

They sat on the hill and got to know each other. Cole read all her stats on her little "If I get lost" card. It was true love.

Then, Cole's brother Levi came around. The little girl was overcome with this older man and started hugging on him before Cole even knew what was happening.

Levi tried to explain to Cole that it was all her doing and that he hadn't tried to steal her away!

Levi then went to Josh to get some advice (at least for the purpose of the story, that's what he's doing here!) to which Josh said "Pshhhh.. Women!" and then told him that Cole would get over it. With 4 good looking boys in their family, they might as well get used to fighting over women because, let's face it, in their small town, the pickings will probably be slim and run-ins with each other are bound to happen.

Cole decided to have a Come to Jesus meeting with the little girl about the events that had just transpired.

Her excuses were pretty lame so he decided she wasn't worth it. There are plenty of other fish in the sea! The End.

Later in the evening, we went and saw the Greencards perform. They are super. They're actually from Australia and England but met in Nashville.

Then we watched the David Munnelly Band. They're an Irish group that is phenomenal. They had a dancer come out for some of their tunes

This is Shauna Mullin. She sang with the David Munnelly Band on several songs. She has a great voice, but she sang the same 4 or 5 songs EVERY SINGLE SET. That got old.

Isabelle had fun dancing to the music.

Indy climbed to the top of a pole!

He also managed to push Izzy down and skin her knee. Here she is sitting in Autumn's stroller, protecting her battle wound.

This time, there were about 8 kids attacking Josh. I think all 6 of the Jackson's are in there somewhere along with Indiana and Isabelle. Autumn is just watching from the comfort of her stroller

We went to see the Wiyo's last set on Stage 3, Saturday night. We got their super early just so we could be front row. Yes, we had to sit through Mountain Suck again. But it was worth it! Before they started playing, during the sound check, the lead singer was goofing off (without saying a word, of course). He hopped off the stage and went and sat in my mom's lap! He took a sip of my sister's hot chocolate as well. She turned bright red. It was great.

He went to get back up on stage and motioned to Josh to come give him a boost. I wish I had video of this.... He basically played it up really big and ended up hanging onto Josh. It was great!

Their sound checks are just as entertaining as their sets! Anyway, they finally got to playing and it was fabulous.

When the Wiyo's set wrapped up around 12:30 AM, we went back to camp to grab our instruments and head to the Pecan Grove. You see, the Pecan Grove is well known for their jams. There is a dirt road through the middle and people set up all along the way and just play. People come and go with their instruments and it goes on pretty much all night and day. This night, Dad, Scott, me and Carrie set up under one of the lights. It was a lot of fun and there were some WILD people out there.

We left there around 2:00 AM and went over to Carp Camp, which is in another section of the camp grounds. It's were the more conservative hippies camp! They're like the orchestra of jam sessions. They're amazing. While at Carp Camp, everyone but Dad, Mom and I went back to go to bed. Around 3:45 AM, Dad and I went over to the Pecan Grove again to just wander and see what was going on. Right before we went in though, we heard this HUGE loud bang and saw this bright flash of light all the way across the grove. It was really weird. So, being the smarty pants that we are, we went in anyway :) We think someone was playing with black powder and lit it up. Luckily, we didn't hear of anyone getting hurt, which is really amazing considering how big it was!

Right after it happened, Josh sent me a text message asking me what the heck it was. He didn't believe me when I told them that someone shot a banjo player. So I fessed up and told him I had no idea. He said he felt it was over at our campsite, which is a ways away! Thankfully, Dad and I didn't see or hear anymore bangs while we were in the grove. At 4:00 AM though, the place was still hopping! They have several unofficial stages over there and one of the ones we went by was still going strong. So fun! We finally left and went back to go to bed.

The next morning, Sunday, Carrie found this guy IN her tent. Carrie HATES spiders, so I'm actually still impressed that she managed to get it in the box. He was gigantic.

So that is Winfield condensed into as small a post as I could make it. It's a great time for people of all ages! This was one of the best ones in the last several years too. I can't wait to go back next year!!