Been A While...

So last night consisted of a whirlwind event starting with a haircut... That's right! I chopped four and a half inches off last night! Nice to have full healthy hair again instead of frizzy puffed out split ends...

This was followed up by a quick but much needed shopping trip at Lane Bryant... Love that store!

Finish the evening off with a french manicure... I've been growing my nails out for a while and gave myself a quick but not complete manicure last week. The guy actually said to me... "That's a lot of cuticle..." Yep, no tact whatsoever!

And finally today, I got the flip flops... You guessed it, summer shoe shopping!

MAN, I FEEL LIKE A WOMAN!

Nice to be primped and pampered a bit before I leave for Chicago next weekend. Hopefully I'll have lots of awesome pictures to do a new and exciting post when I get back!!!

Is This Real Life???

I was a little blue when only two people showed up for youth group tonight! But at least they were up for some fun!!!

Spelunking Otherwise Known As Caving

SPELUNKING: The hobby of practice of exploring caves

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spelunking)

Yes, Yes...I know it has been quite a while since I have posted... And I'm very sorry!!! But as I recently had quite a bit of fun exploring the Clarksville Caves in Clarksville, NY I thought it would be fun to post the pictures from the experience! Hope you all enjoy!!!

This is the before picture. We're all still nice and clean and dry!

And here's the after picture. We're soaked and filthy and gross!

This is the hole we had to go into in order to get down into the caves. Only slightly larger than me I think.


Once down in that hole we were in the actual cave. The entire ceiling of the first cavern was all fools gold. Doesn't it look so beautiful!!! It was stunning and this picture doesn't even begin to do it justice...

This was a bit further into the cave. There was a little underground stream running down the middle of the cave for almost the entire way. At first we were able to hop on different rocks and avoid getting wet but eventually the rocks thinned out and we ended up having to just walk right through the stream. And boy was it cold!

Just another picture in the cave. The ceiling was higher here but at some points it was very close to your head...other points you had to squat and shimmy or crawl.

Joy and her friends Hollan (green jacket) and Vartan (blue jacket) in the cave.

This is actually a shot of the group walking ahead of me although it's hard to tell because of the fogginess. The fog/mist effect was caused by our breath. I was very damp and cool in the cave and there wasn't much air flow so whenever we breathed out it created a mist that did not quickly dissipate. It was kind of a cool effect though because your breath just kind of hung in the air and then slowly moved away still almost in formation.

So the story behind my hand is this. Bubba attempted to climb up a piece of the cave wall behind us and a massive clump (bigger than my head) broke off of the wall where he was holding on. After it broke off though, we realized that it was actually a massive lump of clay and that there was a ton of clay in the actual wall of the cave! It was super moist and got on my hand because I felt the need to play with the clay...What can I say, it's the child in me!

This picture was taken after we as a group decided to go further up the tunnel/underground stream. We knew that the water got pretty deep (about waist high) but we wanted to go for it anyway. We started heading into the water and by the time we got as deep as we did it hurt so bad. We were all yelling "Ahhhh, it hurts...Pins and needles...Go back...Go back!" So we turned around and headed back...Appearantly there was a new tunnel a bit further up but we would have had to be in up to our waists...We decided to save that for a warmer day and plan on going back in couple more months.

Please Pray

Well as some of you may already know, my mom is in the hospital yet again. She had an infection that started on her face and kept getting worse even though she was on an antibiotic. So she went to the doctor's after going to the emergency room twice in 3 days and they sent her over to a different hospital to admit her. Once she was there they took cultures of the infection site and it tested positive for staff...And the infectious disease doctor is really concerned with the fact that it keeps spreading, the fact that it is a staff infection and the fact that it's so close to the brain. So...they've put her in her own private room (which is a bonus) because she can't have contact with any other patients because of the staff infection...

So yeah, if you could just keep her in your prayers that would be awesome!!!

Thanks

Unexpected Disaster

I awoke at about 2:00 this morning to the sound of glass breaking outside and Tucker whinning to go out. I got up out of bed and as soon as I did I saw the lights shinning in the house and realized something wasn't right. I could hear people shouting at each other and quickly went to the bathroom window. When I looked outside I saw about 8 firetrucks surrounding Alteri's Restaurant. There was smoke pouring out of the roof and they were breaking the windows so that a backdraft didn't happen. As the night progressed, the noise got louder, the ladders on top of the trucks went up to get the flames pouring out of the top of the building and they needed to use loudspeakers to make sure the firefighters could clearly hear directions. They were also sawing the roof in places and knocking holes in the walls to be able to reach the flames better!!! Eventually though, the flames just overtook everything and you could see them pouring out of the restaurant. At one point I opened the bathroom window and could actually feel the heat from the fire across the street. They ended up closing down 9w and reopened it around 8:00 this morning. Unfortunately we've lost a locally well known business...

Here's to you Alteri's...Sorry to see you go!

Unexpected Delivery

Yesterday proved to be quite the stressful day at work! Nearing the end of the day we had an incident in which a consumers fingers got shut in a van door and at the very end of the day she needed to be taken to the emergency room for x-rays. In the midst of my stress and me calling family, service coordinators, day hab coordinators, etc. my desk phone beeps in and tried to get my attention. Unfortunately I was on my work cell with someone regarding the incident so I told the receptionist that I would just come out to reception. Still on the cell phone I make my way out to reception to see what Mary needs only to open the door to the lobby and see my sweetheart standing there holding a dozen roses and a very sweet card! I can't tell you how much better I instantly felt. Even though I still had to deal with the phone calls and emergency procedures the burden and weight of the stress lifted. Instead I felt incredibly adored and significant!

My Cubicle

Here's a little view of my cubicle...I know it's not exciting (at least not to me) but it's where I spend a good portion of my life! I do like to try and personalize it as much as possible by brining in pictures of friends and family. Oh, and at the moment...it's a little cluttered...You'll see...

We should totally play a game of I Spy with my desk!

Yeah...I told you it was a bit cluttered!!! I need to file some stuff...my goodness...

Guess what I was doing while I was at work... hehehe

The heart that is on my phone says Jessica and it was from the pins that we made as nametags for the first women's retreat that we had at Camp Pinnacle. Remember making them Suzanne??? And the piece of paper is the memory verse for bible study this week...Acts 8:15-17.

And woohoo...it's me in my cubicle...lovely florescent light blaring over my head! Well I suppose I had better get back to work here in my cubicle...