My First Speeding Ticket EVER

Monday was a horrible day. One of the worst that I've had in a long time. My birthday is this Sunday (April 20) and I'm turning 30. That means it's time for a new driver's license. unfortunately, the station here in town is closed on Mondays, so I dropped off Little Man (who was already very whiney for me) with my next door neighbor and drove 30 minutes or so to LaVergne where I waited for approximately 1-1/2 hours. I finally got through, got my license and left. I remember thinking as I put my new license in my wallet that I'd better not need it! Sure enough, I had just barely entered Smyrna (about 5-10 minutes after I left) when I got pulled over. I was talking on my cell phone and didn't see that the speed had dropped, so got caught red-handed. To make matters worse, for some reason, the current copy of my insurance wasn't in my car, so I got cited for that, too. Thankfully, that'll be completely dropped when I show up for court in June. Also, I can go to Traffic School to get the ticket dropped. Seeing that I haven't had Driver's Ed in about 14 years, I know Traffic School will do me some good. However, I'm still mad at myself for speeding in the first place. Grrr! I've NEVER been ticketed in my LIFE!!! That's 15 years worth of driving!

The rest of that day only got slightly better. Shad and I both had softball games that evening and it was COLD!!! I think it got down to about 38 while we were playing. I layered up, though, and Shad sent some hot chocolate for the team, so I ended up doing much better than expected!

My team had a double header: we won our first game 11-2, but lost our second 9-8. The 2nd game was againt our nemesis, Lady Elite. That's the team that beat us twice in the regular season last year (we ultimately beat them twice in the post-season tournament and took 1st place!). Dadgummit if they didn't beat us the EXACT same way as last year's games! We led the ENTIRE game until their last at-bat. We had a rally. When they went to bat, they also had a rally...and went ahead of us. We had 1 more chance, but couldn't pull it off. We get to play them once more this season (we'll be home team), so hopefully we'll beat them then!!!

So, that was my Monday. Loads of fun! Hopefully, I won't have anymore days like that for a LONG time!

2008 Smyrna Air Show

For those of you who haven't heard, Shad and I took C to the air show in Smyrna to see the Blue Angels. It's something I made the mistake of mentioning a couple of weeks before, so that's all he talked about for 2 straight weeks! Despite the cold wind, we all had a very good time. C LOVED all the airplanes! Especially the F16 and the Blue Angels! The F16 caught us off guard, though, so we didn't warn C to cover his ears. Oops! It scared him, but he still had the BIGGEST grin on his face! After that, he kept his ears covered the rest of the time. LOL!

Here are a few pictures that I took:

Blue Angel #7 (the one that flies guest passengers)


Shad and C in front of Blue Angel #7


C standing in front of Vanderbilt LifeFlight



C sitting inside Vanderbilt LifeFlight



He had such a blast watching "airplanes go whoosh!" and touring the helicopter that he's STILL talking about it almost a week later! Do we have a future pilot on our hands??? If so, Shad's gonna make him go the military route so it won't cost us anything! LOL!

Who has a 12-year Reunion?

The THS Class of 1996, that's who!

Yes, we're the class that HAS to be different! We just had our 12-year reunion last night because we couldn't get it together to have a 10-year back in 2006. We're also the class that had a 5-year reunion back in 2001.

All in all, the reunion went pretty well. The food was very yummy! I wasn't expecting much at all (invitation said hors d'oeuvres), but was pleasantly surprised to see a nice selection of Subway sandwiches, nachos and meatballs, in addition to your typical fruit, veggie and cheese spread. There was also a cash bar, but I only drank non-alcoholic beverages since someone had to be the designated driver (yes, Shad had a few).

My biggest complaint, though, was that the music was WAY TOO LOUD! It was a REUNION, not a high school dance! It made it difficult to carry on a conversation and catch up with everyone. I managed to get a few tidbits of info from a few people, but not nearly enough. It was nice seeing so many people that I hadn't seen in at least 7 years (since our 5 year reunion). Some of the others, I hadn't seen in 12 years!!!

I think I did *okay* about remembering most everyone. Out of about 30-40 of us that showed up, there was 1 person that I didn't even know back in high school. Then, there were approximately 3-5 people that I knew and recognized, but drew a blank on their names. Then, there were about 3 people who I knew back in high school, but didn't recognize last night. Oops! Talk about feeling horrible! It probably would've helped to pull out my year books, but they're buried in our garage closet under a mound of boxes and storage bins and we'll only get to them once we tackle the project of organizing that room. I don't know what we were thinking when we put our memento storage bins ON THE VERY BOTTOM!

What really helped me tremendously was that I've been able to reconnect with several old friends and classmates via Facebook and MySpace. Without those sites, I'm pretty sure I would've done a lot worse at remembering everyone!!!

The biggest surprise for me was when one of our old teachers made an announcement asking for donations for a new auditorium. Apparently, the ceiling in the current auditorium COLLAPSED back in 2006! Thank God it happened on a Wednesday evening when nobody was in there at the time! It broke seats, so I can only imagine how bad it would've gotten had there been people in there! It's so sad to think that that auditorium is no longer there. :( My senior year, when we were in the process of getting a new, state-of-the-art band room, the auditorium was our make-shift home. We ended up having 3 band rooms that year: the old one, the auditorium and then the new one. However, the majority of the school year was spent in the auditorium. Sure, it wasn't a very good band room, but it holds memories. Our former teacher is asking each graduating class to donate at least $250 (the cost of 1 chair). I'm hoping our class is able to acheive that goal. If we do, we'll get a plaque on the back of the chair with our class year noted on it.

While Shad and I were gone, Christopher spent the night with Granddaddy in Nashville. They sure had a blast together! They ate a pizza dinner at Chuck E. Cheese where Christopher had fun playing games and riding rides. Afterward, they went to visit the fish tank at The Aquarium (a restaurant in Opry Mills Mall). Christopher left there with a stuffed dolphin that wiggles its tail and sounds like it's blowing bubbles when you press a button. On Sunday morning, they went to Granddaddy's church, went to McDonald's for lunch and then came home. Since he only got about a 30-minute nap while on the drive home, he was quite the monster this evening at church (well, at least while I was in the room with him...he did much better after I left, go figure)! He didn't waste any time at all going to sleep at bedtime!

So, that pretty much sums everything up. I'll leave you with a few pictures:


The Banquet Room


The Dance Floor...yep, that's chess pieces


Shad and me


My friend, Heather, and me


Group Shot