Want to see something creepy?

Happy late Halloween! I wanted to share with you our night out on Halloween and where I got the idea for my costume.

We have been watching this show on TLC called "Toddlers in Tiaras." It is a show about kids that are in beauty pageants and the parents that actually put them in these contests. It's all really people no actors and the ages of the kids that are in the pageants range from new born on up. It is the craziest show because they put these kids in ridiculous costumes with big hair, lots of makeup and fake teeth called "Flippers." These poor kids look like adults all made up and it is so weird they have a talent competition, beauty walks, and my favorite part of the pageant is Western Wear. I love it! This is my interpretation of the show...I clearly won Grand Supreme! By the way my crown was 7" high oww!This is the walk these little girls do, love the action shot.The parents in this show are the worst, they are usually crazy and the ones pushing their kids to do this. If you haven't seen the show my costume is a little ridiculous please watch, it's like a car crash you can't stop watching. Happy Halloween 2009!

My favorite part of the night was when we were getting ready to leave, two girls came running up to me screaming and laughing. They were screaming Toddlers in Tiaras they loved my costume. They thought it was the funniest thing they had seen all night and totally knew what my costume was from. Those two girls made my night and all the time it took to make my costume. Yep, I said make I sewed the whole thing myself. It was probably the most uncomfortable costume I have ever worn, next year gunny sac.

Roger I love you!

I heard that Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers were going to be in town and I needed tickets. The band is formally known as The Refreshments and I love their music. They were scheduled to perform at the baseball Field after the Diamondbacks game which I thought was pretty cool. See some baseball then a concert and my friend Lisa from work also wanted to go. We got to the baseball game a little late so we could get cheep tickets only $6! I'm not a huge fan of baseball but I enjoy watching, hanging out, and posing with cardboard cut outs of baseball players but we were really there for the concert. Go D-backs! We got up to use the restroom and some random lady that worked there asked if we were there to see Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, yes!!! Then she handed us VIP passes to go down on the field and see them up close and personal after the baseball game!!! Ahhhh We were screaming and jumping up and down like little kids...I might have even hugged this random lady too. We were so excited. We were still jumping up and down when we realized she disappeared like a ghost, she gave us the passes and disappeared. If we didn't have the VIP passes we would have had to watch the concert from the stadium with everyone else.

The concert was amazing, I love Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers and seeing them down on the field was so awesome because it's really bright and the stadium is huge! Sorry Lisa I love this picture this is how excited we are!!!I wanted them to play a certain song so I got into my bag and wrote on a piece of paper the song so I could hold it up. This song is called Leaky little boat and it isn't something they play a lot and it's one of those secret songs...Anyway I held up the piece of paper and Roger himself looked right at me and shrugged his shoulders and said maybe. OMG! He looked right at me, that was so cool! Roger I love you! We had the best time.

Some of the band members signed my sign, and we had on matching Chuck Taylors.

Ben? What are you doing at the baseball games snack bar...weird?

We had the best time....I wonder if I will ever grow up....probably not. :)

Sun City! Ahoy I'm saling!

So, we have started garage sailin' the last couple of weeks because it's not a bajillion degrees out anymore. We have been yard sailing in our area and they are ok but there are never very many. So we decided we would go up North where all the old people live because they have all the good stuff. We started a couple of weeks ago going to Sun City and it was awesome cha-ching, jack pot, ahoy I'm sailing! We score every single week.

Sun City is the most amazing place to yard sale ever, totally worth the 30 minute drive for sure. All the houses are from the the 50's-70's and are in perfect shape. They kind of look like the neighborhoods in the movie Edward Scissor Hands and they all have astro turf or green rock no one has grass...no one. Oh did I forget the nick nacs, each house has several items in the front of their houses like frogs playing a banjo, or a fake bridge and wishing well, you even get the occasional flamingos. Fab-u-lous!

It's a 55+ community and everyone is just so dang nice about selling their crap, I love it. Of course I am always looking for anything vintage and we always find it. A couple of weeks ago I was looking for all things sewing because I'm crafting lately. I was on the look for vintage fabrics, ribbons, and notions and we found it. I bought 4 boxes of stuff for only $15.00, it was an estate sale and the grand kids of the grandmother that had died we in charge of the yard sale. When they saw I was looking for all the sewing stuff they invited me inside the house to rummage through 2 closets and 2 dressers of fabrics that they hadn't pulled out yet.

They said they weren't even going to bring it out because they didn't think anyone would be interested in old fabrics, wrong I am! Here are some photos of what I got, probably doesn't look like anything but a pile of crap but trust me it's everything I was looking for that week.

What's new?

Nick posing silly for the camera

Nick has only 2 weeks of school left and he already has a job doing what he wants to be doing. I'm so proud of him, and can't wait to here how much he enjoys his new job. To celebrate his graduation I asked Nick if he wanted to take a quick cruise or go out of town somewhere for the weekend and surprisingly he said he wanted to go to Bisbee of all places. We have some friends that we annually take a trip to Bisbee with and we love that town. So, our friends are meeting us there and we will do the usual Bisbee stuff which usually involves a lot of antiques. I love Bisbee!!!

I got an A in my math class, that's right ME an A in math, I know you can't believe it and I didn't even cheat :) and I have already started the second math class. I think I might be able to do this after all. I still need everyone to keep their fingers crossed for me though.

I had a day off a week or so ago, and what do you do on a day off? You make homemade bread of course.

I was really nervous because I have seen Mom make it a thousand times but I have never done it myself and unsupervised. I called Mom before I got started to walk me through the recipe and she recommended that since I have a smaller mixer I should make smaller batches and then combine it all in the end by hand. I guess it can burn out the mixers motor if you have to much in it? Mom also recommended that I should write down the recipe because I was going to half it, and I thought that was silly because I could just half the recipe in my head as I go....well I got started and Mom was right I should have wrote everything down first because I started making the whole recipe instead of halfing it. Oh well, it turned out good for my first attempt and was really tasty. They aren't as pretty and perfect as Moms bread but it was my first time.

The famous green tuperware thanks Mom!

It's kind of lumpy but not bad, not bad at all.

On a totally random, but funny note I keep a glass of water on the night stand for Roxy our cat because yes she is spoiled and has me trained. Any how, I woke up that morning and from my view from the bed this is the first thing I saw kind of creepy. Ah ha ha ha h a...it is a bobble head that was made for Nick and then I added the sombrero can't you see the resemblance it looks just like him. I laughed out loud, totally random I know.

Attention I have Amazing News!!!

Guess who got an A on her math test??? Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!! I haven't been in a math class in 7 years owww you don't even know! Keep your fingers crossed the grade I got wasn't a mistake :)

We're Moving to Chicago wish us luck!

Just kidding I wish we were moving to Chicago. Jane says I wouldn't last one winter...she's probably right I think I'm doomed to live in the desert my whole life wah wah.

I went to Chicago a couple of weeks ago for business...wow I sound all grown up :) One of the companies that I work with gets a ton of money from us we are their biggest client and I mean HUGE! They asked if our design department wanted to go to Chicago for the annual NeoCon trip. NeoCon if you are not familiar is a week event held every year in Chicago and features everything that is new and exciting in the design world like new furniture, fabrics, and carpet. Blah blah blah it's a big deal if you are in my field. I've always wanted to go but tickets are expensive and at my last job you had to be a senior designer to be able to go and I was next in line but I quit that job.

Anyhow it was amazing I love Chicago so much I would move there in a heart beat. There is something about that town, I like it better than New York. It feels so much more active, friendly, cleaner, I don't something is in the air there. Chicago, Chicago that lovely town! Yep and we sang that all week. Here is how my trip to NeoCon went in a nut shell.

Me in front of my absolute favorite building ever, I can't wait to be an architect...it looks like Gotham City no? The black building.

We flew to Chicago and arrived at our very nice hotel, when we checked in Facilitec (That's the company that paid for everything) had goodie bags waiting for us. That's fun. Then we were limoed around, wined and dined at Fancy shmancy restaurants...we ate at the restaurant that Johnny Depp ate at a week after we were in Chicago where he gave a $4,000 tip. Yep we just missed him.

Here are some photos of me at NeoCon trying out all the new stuff so fun...if you're into that kind of a thing. It's 14 stories high of nothing but trying stuff out. It's kind of like going to IKEA for the first time x 14 stories :)

Get off you can't afford that lounge, ah so sleepy.
Companies that are featured at NeoCon have giveaways and there were a lot of awesome bags given out. Now we don't ever have to use plastic at the grocery stores.

Ahh local flavor, this guy was down by the pier recording people kicking him in the nuts so he could post it on Utube...yep you know I did it I'll bet I'm on utube somewhere :)

Bah ah ah ah ah ah

This is a local bar, I thought the sign was great I had to do the same pose!

I really wanted to do all things they did in Ferris Bueller's Day off, but we didn't have much time to ourselves our days were pretty planned out for us. This is the same shot from the movie, next time I go I will go to the top of the Sears tower, lean and put my forehead on the glass and look down at all the people in the city that look like ants from up there.

Catching up

I haven't blogged in quite a while so I will catch you up to speed on what has been going on at the Graves house. Nick is almost done with school and graduates September 11th, kind of a weird day to graduate but I'll bet no one will forget. He had to take a test a couple of weeks ago on AC, it is required by Arizona to be licenced and we got his test results 100%!!! He's quite amazing and I'm very proud of him for going back to school.

Speaking of school...I started going back to school a couple of weeks ago...MATH Ahhhhhhhhhhh. I still hate math, who ever said math is easier when your older is a liar!
I had just got back into town from Chicago (I will post about the trip another day) and got a reminder email from my academic counselor that I had class that night crap I totally forgot and was unprepared.

I went to class, no big deal until she started in with math problems. I started to panic and wasn't quite sure I was ready for this but I stayed. Then I started my homework the night before my next class, yep the night before that's the Turner way :) I didn't really understand everything but not to worry my teacher said she would go over any questions in our next class.

Well I go to class and realize I didn't do a bunch of the homework I was supposed to do because I didn't see all the problems crap #1. Then students were talking about math problems that we didn't even go over in class crap #2. I started to panic yet again, so I did decide to take the next class and be more prepared. I don't think I was ready yet and I already felt lost, not to worry I start class in a couple of weeks and I won't wait until the night before to do my homework, and I will read everything that is due. I forgot to mention that this class still makes you do a bunch of stuff online which is very difficult to understand and not user friendly but my job pays for me to go back to school so I need to stick with it.

We are looking into buying a home if we can. We are renting a home now and our lease is up at the end of September so we need to be out. We have had nothing but problems from the second we moved in, the property managers aren't keeping the 100 year old home in good condition and it takes them forever to fix anything basically I hate them and we're moving :)

We should have all the pre-qualification paperwork figured out in the next week or so. Buying a home is very overwhelming and I'm over it before it has even begun, I'm not really excited anymore but people do it every day it can't be that hard can it? There are just so many options and we still don't really know where good areas and bad areas are in Phoenix because it's very patchy.


Happy homemaker update

Way cute pillows hand made for the couch, as if we didn't have enough color going on in this house :)

Pot pie which is delicious by the way.

More to come, I'll try and be better about blogging....it's so hot here already and I need to stay inside so I shouldn't have any excuses.

We are The "Gutterz"

I joined a 16 week bowling league with my friend, her sister, and her dad ...16 weeks! I thought to myself what am I doing because 4 months every single Thursday was a big commitment. We were on one of those really serious leagues where you couldn't miss any days or be a little late. I think we were the only ones there just to hang out and have fun, some people were waaay to serious. I didn't know if I was going to make it or not, but hey Nick was in class I had nothing better to do. So, I made it every week and now that it's over I don't know what I'm going to do with my Thursday evenings.

Ah, we all have such unique form

Mine usually turns out to be more like a tada at the end.

We called ourselves the Gutterz, and yes we lived up to our name some weeks. Over all I think everyone got better every week.

BR got a Turkey so we made him do the Turkey dance ah ah ah ah

There was a total of 13 teams and at the end of the league they had a party and everyone brought food and then they awarded the money! Yes, money we thought we would only get about $5.00 each back because we came in 12th place wah wah wah. All we wanted was to not come in last place and success! So each member on our team was given $20.00 amazing I wonder what 1st place got?

For the bowling party I brought my world famous white girl guacamole, and bowling pin sugar cookies. I was up late frosting all nine million of them and I couldn't stop giggling they were so cute and quite the hit amongst the other bowlers. We had a blast and are going to be doing another bowling league later in the year when Nick is done with his classes. Tons of fun!

Happy Valentines Day...what?

Happy Valentines Day! I know, I know its April but hey my Mom still has her Christmas decorations up so that must be where I get it from.

It's always Valentine's Day at the Graves house

So Valentine's Day is my most favorite day ever! It's also my birthday, I love everything about it and I mean everything. If it is red or pink with hearts on it, I probably have it. My Mom always gives me all the valentines day stuff, I have everything from ice trays to casserole dishes...and then some....see for yourself, obsessed much? I also leave it up all year round, I have a happy little Valentine's bathroom and all. I think Nick is a good sport because he seems to think we don't need everything in hearts, I do however disagree. Take a look at our Valentines day garb, and I hope everyone had as great a day as we did.