Wedding Video Highlight Segment posted

Posted on the wedding site - get there by clicking here (scroll down to Adrianne and Elliott :)

Chi-Omega Mom's Weekend

On Friday, right after Danny left for the retreat, I headed down to Bloomington for Chi-Omega's Mom's weekend. Although the traffic was heavy heading south on a Friday evening, the ice shining in the trees was beautiful! I got to the house about 6:00 and visited with Emily and Erin (Lenny) until we left for dinner.

Emily's pledge class made arrangements to have dinner at the Colorado Steakhouse and we sat at a table with Cara and her mom (from Carmel), and Erin and her mom and sister (from Little Rock Arkansas). It is always good to be with Emily and her friends and it was good to catch up with some of the other moms as well.

After dinner we drove back to the house for Emily to pick up a few things and headed back to Fishers. We got home about 11 and went to bed soon after. Lady was so excited that Emily was home :)

Saturday morning Heidi and I walked for a couple of hours in the snow - slow going! We got another 4" of snow by the time it tapered off. Emily slept in and finally got up about 11. At 1:15, Laurie picked us up, we stopped by to pick up Debbie and then looked at 11 houses for sale. At the 10th one, the driveway and sidewalk had not been touched since before the first snow and there were drifts a few feet high. Emily volunteered to wade through and look in the windows - the snow was more than half way up her body! After she made footprints that we could all step into, we followed her to the door. It's funny, because this is the one house that I think we will make an offer on :)

After Laurie dropped us off at home, Emily, Debbie and I discussed all the houses, had coffee and a fresh loaf of bread and visited for a while. I drove Debbie home and stopped by Blockbuster to rent "Little Miss Sunshine" and then by Kroger to pick up a cake mix - Emily had been talking about chocolate cake since the day before. I bought a mix by Betty Crocker called "Triple Chocolate Hot Fudge Cake" and made it when I got home. We really liked the movie and Emily was in chocolate heaven when I set the whole cake pan in front of her :)

On Sunday morning we got up and left the house about 9:15. The plan was to attend the 11:00 service at the church that Emily and Grant attend - Sherwood Oaks Christian Church. While we were on 465 a light started flashing on the dashboard and at County Line Road we pulled off to a Shell station to investigate. Turns out the light is related to the transmission and it was a good thing we were in a parking lot as the car would go no further. Hmmm, what to do? We called AAA and the recorded greeting mentioned long delays. I finally talked to a dispatcher and arranged for a tow, but they could not give ANY estimate of how long it might take - not even if it would be the same day. Because of the long delays, they were authorizing private service, but you had to find a private contractor, pay them, and then arrange for remibursement. I left my info with AAA and we pondered what to do next - then we remembered that we had the rest of the chocolate cake - we found a plastic spoon and fork and we both dug in! We laughed at the situation for quite a while.

Emily called Erin to see what her schedule was and she said she would be happy to come and get both of us and drive me back to Fishers. I started the car to warm us up and slipped it into gear - it would go for a few feet but then just stop. I called a towing company - HIX - and arranged for them to tow my car. At first they said it would be a couple of hours and that was fine (we had the cake!). Erin headed up 37 but the tow truck showed up in about 10 minutes. I was able to ride back to Fishers with the driver but Lenny wasn't there yet. Emily gathered up her stuff and we walked over to the gas station. A clerk named Linda was working and we explained the situation and Emily waited inside with her - I looked out and my car was loaded onto the truck so I left with the driver. Emily and I both made new friends - the tow truck driver races stock cars on the weekends at the Speedrome and Linda and Emily are BFF! We dropped my car at Don Hinds and he was kind enough to take me a little further on down the road and dropped me at home.


Not quite the typical Mom's Weekend! I'm grateful that we both made it home safely and fingers crossed that I don't need a brand new transmission. . . .

Senior High Winter Retreat

Danny and Tommy left yesterday for the Senior High Winter Retreat through Grace Community Church. They are traveling by bus to the Laurelville Mennonite Church Center in Mt. Pleasant, PA . The speaker for the weekend is Chris Jarvis and they are both signed up for skiing on Sunday at Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Pennslyvania. Looks like the weather there is great for skiing! Debbie took the boys for their annual candy run to Target before dropping them off at church - they'll be home Monday evening.

"Lifelogging"

"In the grocery store, clerks asked me if I was doing some kind of crazy university study. Sort of, I replied. "You're recording your life all the time?" people said. "Why would anyone want to do that?"

I thought it was challenging trying to keep my pictures and videos organized - just imagine if your whole life was digitally captured - here's an article on one author's experience with "lifelogging"

Click here to read his article

Mr. Shafer and family in Costa Rica

Sarah's third grade teacher, Mr. Shafer teaches now at Forest Glen Elementary in Lawrence Township. His children go to Sand Creek Elementary, where I saw Victoria right before Christmas. She told me that Dave received a grant that allows their family to live and teach in Costa Rica for this semester and she was excited about the opportunity for their family to share in this together.

Mr. Shafer's classroom was incredible - Sarah loved the hissing cockroaches and the space mission - I volunteered throughout that year (with Danny in tow) and I remember helping put together the "bat unit". It's interesting now to read about the bat unit in Costa Rica.

Mr. Shafer's blog can be found here:

http://dshafer5.blogspot.com/

Snow measures 10+ inches in Fishers!

It's been a crazy week of weather - it started snowing late Monday night and by the time it stopped on Wednesday, we had over 10 inches of snow! School was cancelled for Tuesday and Wednesday and we had a two hour delay this morning. Our neighbor Lee kept the driveways in the neighborhood passable, Danny shoveled a path for Lady many times and also kept the front sidewalk clear. Yesterday afternoon the sun came out and Danny and I dug out the top of the driveway so that we could get the cars out - thankfully they were both in the garage while the snow was falling.