Where Ballerinas Reign

Well, i'm here. I'm on my lunch break at work. I'm not hungry at all, so i decided to come to the library. It's not the most quiet of places b/c kids are constantly walking in and out, but oh well - it works. I was up pretty late last night - wasn't able to fall asleep (which is to be expected after 32oz of caffine between the hours of 6pm-11pm). However, this morning I woke up pretty early and I wasn't able to fall back asleep, so i just layed in bed for a while before kicking off the covers. I hit up DB and 'Bou before I came to work. I wanted a latte from DB and i talked to my coworker and she wanted a pumpkin latte (which are only good at 'bou), so i went to both coffee shops this morning. Unfortunatly they are out of pumpkin flavoring syrup, but told me that they could make a hoho mocha!! I got that for her instead. Those are amazing. I forgot that today is now November, which means that Christmas music can be played in the classroom. I banned Stasha from playing it before November 1st. It is now November 2nd - aka - xmas music is okay. Don't get me wrong... i LOVE christmas music - i just don't want to get sick of it too soon this year. Last year i think we started listening to it in the middle of October. Anyway, i don't have much planned for tonight. I was invited to go square dancing which i think would be a blast, but i don't know if i'll be able to make it. My plans after work are to head straight to DB to get more wedding finished. Hopefully this time i'll be able to get a table. The coffee shop was so full last night that i had to make a make-shift table out of a chair and my lap for a good 2 hours. It wasn't a big deal, but I wasn't sad once a table opened up :). Know that feeling when you just want a hug from someone?? That is me right now. A big squeeze!! Haha - one of the guy teachers at our school just came up behind me and yanked on my hair as I typed that - not exactly what i was going for, but ok... Well, my latte is cold. I believe that I should go heat it up. I will most likely write more later when i need a break from editing, so bye for now!

I write this sitting at where else… you guessed it, DB – the one and only. My eyes are bugging out of my head, so I’m taking a break. I’m currently working on my never ending project titled: “Michelle and Chris’s Wedding Video.” Omg – I honestly feel like this is NEVER going to be finished. I have spent 5 months working on the same 30 minutes!!! This is all the preliminary, getting ready footage, but seriously it is taking me an eternity to do. Typically I’m able to do an entire wedding, beginning to end, in 10 hours. I’m being beyond perfectionist on this one though. It takes me 3 hours just to get 20 seconds completed. Kinda ridiculous I know. I hope it’s worth the long wait for Michelle and Chris. AHHHHHHH!!

So this weekend has been busy. Doesn’t really feel like there was much of one. Friday, right after work I flew down to Northfield to help Carisa teach. Then it was off to Jessie and TJ’s for a Halloween party. After I left, I went back to Carisa and Jay’s where we stayed up chatting till 4am. I actually fell asleep before Jay. Let’s just say for the record, I have NEVER fallen asleep before him – EVER! The next morning I got up, went home, and got ready for ballet and then rehearsal.

Ballet was amazing as usual!! It was just Carisa, Austen, and I, but we had a great time!! I have missed Tina’s classes TERRIBLY!! I haven’t been able to go the past two weekends due to Jessie’s bachelorette party and then wedding. Tina gave Carisa and I jam that she made from grapes in her yard. I tried some last night – it was delicious!!

After ballet, Carisa and I took off and got some food before we went back for rehearsal. I didn’t have rehearsal for myself specifically, but instead for understudying Carisa as Mary Poppins. I am honestly not a fan of the first couple rehearsals of our shows. I never have been. The reason I don’t like them is because you still are unsure of who your character is exactly. You’re just figuring out who they are, as is everyone else. It’s difficult to play off of the other people b/c no one really knows what they’re doing. Once you’re about a month or two into rehearsals, then it’s a lot of fun. That’s because you really get to play off of your character, and the other people dancing around you!!

Once rehearsal was over I went to DB and worked late into the night on Michelle’s wedding. I’ve got to get this thing finished. AHHH!

Anyway – so again, had rehearsal today. Once that was finished, I went over to Carisa and Jay’s and saw Carisa’s bday present from Jay – a new kitty!!! They got him from the humane society today. He is absolutely adorable. Miltion wasn’t too thrilled, but hopefully he’ll get over it. After helping Carisa upload some video footage onto her computer, I came back to DB. It’s a bit of a drive to get to the one in St Paul, but they’re the only one open late on Sunday (11pm!!), and I may stop at dance afterward to work on my solo. I drank a 16oz. mocha at Carisa’s, and I’m drinking a latte right now. I most likely will not be sleeping tonight.

Okay back to work. I seriously want to crawl out of my skin right now. I’ve got a lot on my mind. Editing is keeping me distracted, but the caffeine isn’t helping – just keeping me awake. AHHHHHHHH. Okay – bye for now.

You know that feeling of having something right at your fingertips, but never actually being able to have it?? That is what i am feeling right now and it is the worst feeling ever!!! Like literally killing me from the inside out. I won't go into anymore details than that. :(

Anyway, life had been busy, as usual, but good! We had rehearsals today for "All That Jazz" and "Step In Time". They are both very tiring dances, but a ton of fun all the same! It is nice to be back into the usual schedule of weekend rehearsals and such. I love being with all my friends at dance - they are the best time ever!! I typically do not see most of them during the week.

It is 2:24am and i need, need, need to get some sleep, but i'm wide awake. I went out w/ a good friend tonight, and we had coffee. I believe that's the reason my eyelids wont close. Unfortunately I have to work in the morning so i will probably be a zombie there instead. If i am able to get up early enough, i will either go to DB to use a gift certificate to get a coffee, or make one here at home.

So this is me killing time, getting something off my mind, and procrastinating trying to sleep. No substance to this post, so i'm sorry. Best to leave it at that!
g'night!!

Ever seen that Weebel and Bob "pie" video clip online? Don't know why I thought of it. Actually yea i do. For some reason I was thinking of the cherry pie that I got for my grandparents from Norske Nook on our way down to Madison last weekend. Omg, that was some good pie. Apparently thinking of that reminded me of the pie video clip online. That's all - no importance to that though floating around in my head. That's my randomness for the night!

I wish I was going to Madison again like last weekend. Matthew and I left around 5pm last Saturday after I got home from dance. We stopped at Dunn Bros, of course, before we hit the road. I was very well caffeined up for the long drive. We killed the first 2 hours listening to Dane Cook - good times. The rest of the time was spent listening to movies or random music on my ipod. Traffic was good and uneventful. I fortunately never got tired - Matt has no licence to drive, so despite his many offers to take over, it was up to me to get us down there. We stopped in Osseo to eat, and pick up that cherry pie - yummy! Anyway, we arrived at our grandparent's house around 10:30pm. Of course grampa says when I show him the pie we got (note that Norske Nook has won national awards for their pies...aka they're good!!) "How much did you spend on that? You could just go over to the walmart, and get a pie there for half of what you spent." My grampa is in love with the new super walmart that was built a half mile away from where he lives. It even has underground parking!! Seriously! All the parking is underneath the entire store - it is crazy!! Anyway, both our grandparents were still up when we got there, so we hung out chit chatting till about 11:30pm when our Aunt Peggy arrived to pick Matt up and take him to their house. My cousin Jacob wanted him to spend the night at their house. Jacob was at a cast party, so that's why they arrived so late getting Matthew.

At midnight Grammy finally went to bed, and I, who don't live with cable at home, but eat up the history, science, nat'l geographic...etc channels whenever I have access to cable, fell asleep watching some cool show on dinosaurs. About an hour later when i woke up, I made my way to a normal bed. One cool thing about my grandparent's home, is that it's the same home my mom and all my aunts and uncles grew up in. Any room we sleep in when we stay there, was one of my mom's bedrooms at sometime. It's just kind of cool to think about - who would've thought the 2rd generation would be staying in those rooms as well.

Anyway, Sunday I got to see many of my family members, and spend a little bit of time with all of them, so that was great!! I went to church with my Grandma, and then came home and went to an elderly care center with my grandpa - he visits the old ppl. Many of them are recovering from surgeries and stuff. Then Grampa and I went over to my Aunt Coleen's house, and I got a chance to visit with her and my Uncle Mike. Aunt Cokie even made me an almond latte :)!!!  Soooo sweet of her! After that visit, grampa dropped me off at Aunt Peg and Uncle Greg's house. Jacob's musical that we were going to see was at 2pm, and we'd all be driving together. I got a chance to visit with them for a little bit, and see my cousin Diana before she was picked up by a woman who helps take care of her (Diana has severe autism).

Jacob's musical that we saw was called "The Mystery of Edwin Drood". I thought that it was fantastic!! Jacob did a wonderful job! He pulled off a great accent for his character, and is just a awesome performer on stage - what else would you expect from the son of to former professional opera singers!? He did a great job singing, and two thumbs up all the way. I am thrilled that we got to see his show. The school he goes to, and that the musical was at, is actually the same high school that my mom went to!! Edgewood High School. I had never been there before, so that was fun to see!!

After the show Aunt Peggy dropped Matt and I off at Grammy and Grampa's. Grammy was in the midst of making us a delicious dinner of chili, mac and cheese, and hot dogs. Sounds random, but it was awesome!! We had our cherry pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert. It was a great way to end our short visit. After not even 24 hours spent in Madison, Matt and I were on the road heading back home.

I hate saying goodbye. I would give anything to live closer to all of them. Growing up, and even today, I always envy other people who got to see their grandparent's, aunts, uncles, and cousins all the time. I only get to see mine a few times a years. I guess it makes those times all the more special, to look at it on a brighter side. As a kid (and even still today), there's nothing more that I look forward to that going to Madison to see everyone!! I love being around people just at quirky as me, and knowing that they're family no matter what. I wonder how life would've been different if we had lived closer. Maybe someday I will get to live down there. Grampa asks me every time I visit, "when are you moving down here?" If that isn't salt in a wound, I don't know what is. I just remember how great it was when everyone came up to see me in Oliver. I hear of all my cousins who are in plays and musicals, and how everyone goes to see them, and it's all a great time. Things are much different when you live 5hrs away. I seriously have HATED growing up having the people I care for the most, the furthest away from me. At least I'm not alone. Part of our family is out in California, Phoenix, and Chicago - I know it's not any easier on any of them. At least I live in driving distance.

Okay, enough depressing thoughts - no point to dwell on that which we can't change, right? ANYWAY, the drive home from Madison actually was long! I was exhausted!! Without being fueled by my Dunn Bros, it was hard to keep me eye lids open. We stopped at Caribou Coffee, but their caffeine kick isn't as good. Ah well, we made it home safe and sound nonetheless.

So yea, that was my trip to Madison last weekend. This weekend will be much more uneventful. It's dance tomorrow, and then maybe going to a dance competition on sunday w/ Carisa. There may be something else that I can't remember - knowing me I wouldn't doubt it.

Alrighty... i am very tired. Gotta go downstairs and find my kitty and then it's time to sleep!! It's only 12:30am! Early night for Allie ;)!
Bye for now!

I have that song "how do you know" from Enchanted stuck in my head right now. Super cute song!! Here's a link if anyone wants to see it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv350WPnBNk

It was funny b/c when we were watching the Oscars, this song was up for an award, and they played it sometime in between presenters. Well, in part of the song, if you've never seen it, a Jamaican guy starts singing. Well, when we were watching it on the Oscars, Sara was like "wft??" - she had never seen the movie before and the Jamaican guy is pretty random. I explained to her what happened in the movie, and then she got it, but I can understand having never seen the movie before how that'd be weird.

Anyway, first day back to work - yuck. The day actually went really well, but I was not wanting to get up in the morning. I would've given anything to have stayed in bed for another 16 hours. I didn't get to sleep till 3:30am last night, so that's in part to blame for the sleepiness ;)! I did drag my butt downstairs first thing in the morning and made a latte, so that helped perk me up for the day. I will say that it was good to see the kids, and my coworkers again. Aside from being chilly outside taking the kids to recess, the sun was shining - which usually always makes for a good day!!

So yea, uneventful day at work... it ends about there.

I got some homework and other misc. projects done when I got home. My aunt Coleen gave me a feather mattress when we were down in Madison, so tonight I washed the cover that was on it, and am about to put it on my bed momentarily. When i took the cover that was on it, off to wash, there was a tag on the feather mattress itself saying that it had been sold for $300! Geez!! I will be sending a "thank you" in the mail to my aunt! That was super sweet of her. I'm thrilled b/c i've always wanted one, but they're so darn expensive I just couldn't afford it. YAY! Mom isn't too thrilled with me - there are feathers all over the living room floor. I am going to vacuum those up tonight as well. I don't want to have to deal with the wrath of my mother after she just vacuumed the house days ago.

Well.... that's about it. Like i said - uneventful day. I'm craving a vanilla latte at the moment, but since it's 10:20pm, i probably shouldn't, or I will be up until 4am tonight. I have a cute picture to post. Last night I was working on my laptop, and Lucy was asleep next to me in her cage. Well, at one point she rolled over onto her back (mind you she's sound asleep), and her head was hanging out of her cage, but the rest of her body was in it, and her little mouth was open. I of course took a picture of her - it was super cute!! She almost looked like she could've been dead. I'm glad she's not ;)!! I don't have my camera near me, so I'll upload it later.

Alrighty - that's all for now!!  Till next time...

Well, spring break has unfortunately come to an end!! It went way to fast, as it always does. I will try to sum it up briefly.

Saturday: It was an early morning since I had class (school) the night before till 10pm. Of course I was wide awake b/c I get my latte before class, but  I don't get home until 10:45pm or so, and by the time I'm asleep, it's late-late as usual. So saturday morning, starting at 9am, I taught 2 combo classes for Allison at dance. She's in Florida right now, and flaunted the fact by sending me pictures of her eating breakfast by the palm tree surrounded pool, located right on the beach to the ocean! Hah, no... i loved all the pictures she sent!! It's a great way to vicariously enjoy a trip to the beach... esp when you're living in Minnesota. I just recently got one from her where she wrote "hi Allie" in the sand - awww. Anyway... i'm off track... saturday.... I taught for Allison. Then I sort of helped Carisa with her little-littles. There were only a couple of them, and Amber was feeling really sick. She asked if I'd sit with her instead and talk w/ her to help distract her from feeling so yucky.
During the L5/6 ballet class, i drove to Dunn Bros and Brugers and got Carisa and myself some coffee and bagels - yumm!! My bagel was green for St. Patrick's Day!
In the company ballet class it was only Carisa and I. That's not unusual, but it has been a while since it was only just the two of us. It was actually a lot of fun b/c Tina really worked with us one-on-one correcting little things till we got them right. I love her ballet classes! It is great when there's the time to actually have a teacher really get down on you for the itty-bitty things, full combinations at a time. We worked out butts off :).

Sunday: I went over to Carisa's so we could work on dance resumes together. It was funny because I stopped and got us coffees before I went over. When i got there she was like, "I made coffee for you!". We both laughed, getting a kick out of the fact that we were both very much on the same wave-lengths for the sake of giving the other coffee. Anyway, we both got asked to teach at Metro over the week, and neither of us had a dance resume made up, so we got together so we could put one together to give to the folks at metro. She finished hers, and I only got a start on mine, which was all i needed to do. We ended up going to JoAnn Fabric b/c she wanted to start a x-stitch like the one that I'm making for my mom. Hers is going to be a picture of her and her mom when Carisa was just a baby. Ever since Willy Wonka ended, Carisa and I haven't seen much of each other, so it was a blast to hang out again.

Monday: Although it was my 1st day off from work for spring break, i was still in an elementary school from 8am-3pm. I got my last set of service hours done for school. I have now completed 21 hours in an urban setting elementary classroom. Whew! 21 down and about 100 left to go... sigh...

Tuesday: I taught a ballet class as a guest teacher at Metro. It was my first time teaching there, and I was nervous as ever!! Tina recommended me and Carisa to them, and they called the both of us asking to come in as a guest teachers and teach a class over their spring break. I didn't know what to expect aside from that I was teaching ballet. I didn't know how many students I would have, what levels I'd be teaching...etc! I ended up having 20 or so students of a variety of levels, and I even had some of the teachers take the class too. I ended up going very well, and I actually ran out of time and didn't get to everything I had planned - a good thing :)! So yeah, that was fun!

Wednesday: Mom and I spent the afternoon on Grand Ave shopping. After getting our coffee, we went to a bunch of the cute shops. We stopped in the bead store and she picked out beads she'd like me to make into a bracelet, anklet, and earrings for her. She also let me pick out some beads I wanted to make myself something with, and paid for them ;)! Making jewelry is not a cheap hobby, so I was thrilled to have her offer to pay :D!
      After spending the afternoon with mom, I headed off to dance. We had Cinderella rehearsal, and that went fine as usual - nothing much to report on that end. I went home afterward and edited some more music for Amber for Cinderella. I also watched some STV and worked on my x-stitch that i'm making for mom.
     That night at 12am I drove out to the airport to meet Carisa for her lunch. For those who don't know, aside from being a dancer, she's also an airplane mechanic and works on airplanes at night. Occasionally when I don't have work the following morning, I'll drive out and met her for her lunch break in baggage claim of the Minneapolis airport. Yea, i'm a dork, but it's fun none-the-less. I was there till about 1:30am or so. After I left, i drove over to dance to drop off  a prop for Cinderella (my lil' wooden ballet barre my dad made me years ago), and the newest music cd for Cinderella for Amber. I wanted her to have all the music and stuff before I left for Madison. I didn't get home till like 2:45am. It was a LOOOONG day!

Thursday:  Washed a ton of clothes and packed for Madison. You would think packing for 3 days wouldn't take that long, but omg, it took me every spare moment I had!! I met Carisa at Metro Dance Center at 1:15pm because we had been invited to take dance classes that the other dance teachers give each other on thursdays. First we had an hour of ballet from Tina, and then we did an hour of strength and conditioning/jazz class with Becky. I had the greatest time!! I am really bummed that class time happens to fall during when I am at work - boo :(! It was so much fun though. It was fantastic to dance in such a big studio - at least compared to what I'm used to.
Tina had invited Carisa and I to go over to her house for a bit before she (carisa) had to teach. Carisa's class time got moved though till later, so she was able to go home for a bit before teaching. We will go to Tina's house another time. Carisa and I did stop at Caribou together though before we went our separate ways.
Plans changed a bit, and it ended up that only mom and I went to Madison, instead of mom, dad, matt, and I. Mom and I left at 8:30pm. About 4 hours later than intended. Oh well! We listened to Wicked much of the way down, and then listened to the entire Wizard of Oz movie on my ipod. We both drove half way, so the other got some time to sit and do nothing. We arrived in Madison, WI at Aunt Peg's at 1:30am. Aunt Peggy was actually still awake, so the 3 of us stayed up and chatted till about 2:30am before we went to bed. Plans for the next day were to leave early for Chicago b/c there was a blizzard in the forecast.

Friday: Aunt Coleen met us at Aunt Peggy's house at 12pm, and we left right from there for Chicago. After making a stop at Caribou Coffee, we were on our way. It was snoooooooooowing like crazy!!! Roads were horrible, but Wicked wasn't until 8pm, so we had plenty of time to get there. The normal time to go from Madison to Chicago is about 2 hours. Well, it took us 4 1/2 hours. There were a TON of cars in the ditch and a TON of semi-trucks jack knifed. At one time there was a semi actually coming toward us, and passed us in the left lane, driving on the wrong side of the road!!!!! We were all like... "uhm...... that's not right!" What had happened was the truck had skidded and driven across the median, and ended up on the wrong side of the freeway! Poor driver - that must've sucked!
Thankfully we got to Chicago safely! The drive didn't seem 4 1/2 hours long because it was filled with conversation between the 4 of us. We got there around 4:30pm, and walked over to Macy's, which is just kiddy-corner to the Oriental Theater where Wicked was playing at. We had a wonderful dinner in the Walnut Room on the 7th floor of Macy's. Aunt Peggy and I had the best martini's ever!! We both got a State Street Martini, and what was cool about it, was that we were on State Street :)! After a delicious meal, and 2 1/2 hours of chit-chatting, we headed over to the theater to see Wicked!! YAAAY!!
Our seats were fantastic!! It almost felt like a dream to actually be back there seeing the show again. It was OF COURSE amazing as can be! Aunt Peggy, Mom, and Aunt Coleen are official Wicked lovers now :)! When listening to the music driving down, and "For Good" started playing, Aunt Peg had asked "Am I going to need a kleenex during the show?" I said, "No i don't think so." After the show she was like, "I did too need a kleenex!! I was sobbing during that song!"
Right as curtain call started, I dashed out of the theater and to the stage door located in the back of the theater. The last time I had been there was in Sept with Carisa on the haunted tour we took of the city. When we were there, I spent the entire time paying more attention to the Wicked cast members playing a bean bag game in the alleyway than I was paying attention to the guy guiding our haunted tour. Hehe - do you blame me?  Anyway, this time the weather was cold and drizzly, but that didn't stop me from waiting to get pics and autographs with the cast ;)! I'm such a nerd, but don't care. It was funny b/c I was the only one waiting out there, yet they still put up this barricade thing around the door. Aunt Peggy ended up joining me later by the stage door, and mom and aunt coleen went and waited in the car for us.
I was fortunate enough to meet quite a few people from the Chicago cast of Wicked! I was able to get autographs and pictures from: Jennifer DiNoia (Elphaba... Dee Roscioli is normally Elphaba, but Jennifer is the standby and the one we saw perform. She did an amazing job!!!), Erin Mackey (Glinda), Stanton Nash (Boq), Gene Weygandt (Chistery), Heidi Kettenring (Nessarose), Don Richard (Elphaba's father, and performer with Wicked since the tour), and was able to meet many of the chorus members of the show! It was really exciting!!
I guess it's somewhat bitter-sweet because a huge part of me longs for, and wishes that it were me who had just performed on stage, and that were me leaving from the stage door. I love performing so much, and I hate that I only get to do it a few times a year. I would give anything, and I mean ANYTHING to be able to perform in any one show for weeks at a time. I think part of the reason I love meeting people who perform in big shows, aside from the fact that I absolutely love the show itself, is that I really look up to the people who are performers. If I take a moment and look at what I am doing with my life, I feel really miserable and sad when I see that that is what they are doing for their living, and then I look and see that my living is going to be working in a classroom with students from 8am-3pm monday-friday. Of course I love the classroom, and of course I love working with kids or I wouldn't be going into it, but my heart aches to be on stage. I would give anything to always be able to smell that theater smell when you first walk in the stage door. I would give anything for that pre-show excitement/nerves while putting on makeup and warming up. I would give anything for that first moment you step on stage and your look out into the audience and have the lights shining down on you. I would give anything for the exhilaration there is just to be performing and dancing on stage. I would give anything for that final applause, bowing for the audience. Even scrubbing and scraping makeup off of your face after the show.... I wish that was something that could be a part of my life all the time, instead of just some of the time. I am very fortunate though that I get to perform as often as I do, but still, I wish that it were more.
Anyway, sorry about that tangent there... So yea - after I got my autographs and pictures, it was dashing out to the car to head back to Madison. By the time we were back on the road it was 11:30pm. Mom paid for 1/2 my ticket to Wicked as an early b-day present. The other part of my present was that she bought for me the Grimmerie Book, which is a book filled with behind-the-scenes stuff about Wicked. I couldn't really read it in the car since it was so dark out, but I was able to browse through it. The snow cleared up by the time we were heading back to Mad-town. We stopped for coffee, and of course sat to talk, so weren't back on the road till about 12am. I slept most of the way back. We arrived home at 2:30am. I literally went straight from the car, changed into my pajamas, and into bed when we got back to aunt pegs. I was exhausted!! It was a loooong, yet very VERY exciting day!!

Saturday: Big family Easter dinner at Aunt Coleen's. Right when I got up, I made my Aztec Salsa. It was very popular over Thanksgiving, so I picked up all the ingredients to make it before we left for madison on thursday. Me, Mom, Aunt Peggy, Uncle Greg, Jacob, and Diana arrived over at Aunt Coleen and Uncle Mike's at 3pm or so. Slowly everyone else arrived too. There were about 20 or so people this time. It was a smaller than normal Easter gathering, but still fun nonetheless. The food was plentiful and fantastic as usual. Conversations and laughs were abundant. Uncle Dan and Anne took me, my mom, and my cousin Jordan to see Anne's horse. She has a horse at a stable only 10 minutes from where we were, so we took a drive over there. Anne took her horse out into the arena and let it run around a bit. We all fed the other horses in the stable little carrots and such. It was fun. Well, we ended up staying at Aunt Coleen's till 11:30pm. There were college basketball games on all day long, and of course they were still on by the time we left - that's why we stayed so late.

Sunday: Happy Easter! Mom and I stayed home with Diana whilst Uncle Greg, Aunt Peggy, and Jacob went to church. When they got home, mom and I packed all our stuff up and went over to Grammy and Grandpa's. We were there for about an hour. Grandpa was in a VERY talk-a-tive mood. At one point he said he wanted to take me somewhere, and that I was driving. So I grabbed the keys, and Grandpa took me to the new super wal-mart that is right across the freeway from where they live (only 5 minutes away). It was pretty funny. Grandpa showed me all the things that were good deals, and that he liked buying. We were only there for like 10 minutes, and then went back home. After saying goodbye, and stopping at Caribou for a latte, mom and I were on our way home. I drove for the first part of the trip. I was able to hook my laptop up to the AUX system on dad's car, and mom and I were able to listen to the movie Calender Girls. The weather was really weird for the first hour of my driving. It would be partly cloudy and nice out, and out of no where turn into a white-out conditions blizzard with the biggest snowflakes ever!! Literally - it came out of no where. Then as fast as the snow came, it would disappear. This happened about 7 or 8 times. It was weird - but I guess that's Wisconsin for you. Apparently they have gotten 100 inches of snow this year!! Crazy I tell you!! That is a lot of snow!
Mom and I stopped at a little truck stop restaurant and had supper there. The food was very good, and much better tasting than the McDonald's across the street. It was from there that mom took over driving. We arrived at home around 8:30pm.

It is now 1:36am, and time for me to call it a night. This "short" entry ended up being a lot longer than I had anticipated. Well, it was a nice spring break, and It was kind of nice to go back thru and evaluate all that I did. I miss everyone in Madison, but it's nice to be back home. I missed my Lucy kitty, and Louie pup. Lucy is sleeping next to me right now on her back, laying in her cage. She loves her cage. She always goes in there by herself which I guess is a good thing. I've got two small fleece blankets in there for her to sleep on, so I am sure that helps.
Well, tomorrow it's back to work. I wish I were excited, but I am really not :(. I hate going back to work after a nice long break. Breaks never seem to be long enough. Oh well.... in 38 days I will be heading off to Florida for Michelle's wedding, and I very well know that that trip will arrive before I know it! It's hard to believe that Wicked is already over - the same time happen with FL too. I have a dance performance in a week, so maybe I should think about that first (yikes - i just realized it was that close!!)

OKAY - enough chitchat.. TIME FOR BED!! Bye for now friends!