Home again

Last weekend Matt and I took the long 10 hour trek back home to attend a wedding of, our good friends, Elisha and Chad McMullin. The weekend was packed full of activities. We arrived home in Mediapolis at 3AM after battling heavy rains and driving 25 MPH the last hour of our drive. Friday night was rehearsal dinner, Saturday was the wedding starting the day at 6:30AM, Sunday was the gift opening luncheon and hanging out with my parents, Monday was visiting Matt's family in Washington and visiting the Rila side of my family in Mt. Pleasant, and Tuesday was visiting my Granny and driving home. Wow, what an exhausting trip!

To put some more excitement on the trip, Matt's car got backed into the morning of the wedding by the brides mom! Thank goodness it was morning and Matt was half asleep when I told him the news. He took the news very well, which was surprising considering that car is his baby! The damage to the car was less than we expected it to be which is good but the car will not be fixed until July 30th! Apparently the dealership he got the estimate at is the place to go in Murfreesboro!
-A

Camping...FINALLY!

We like to call ourselves campers but when we sit back and think about how many times we've gone camping recently, it's kind of pathetic!

We finally went camping for the first time in nearly 8 months over Memorial Day weekend. We camped out at Hiwassee State Park, which is in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It was a 2 hour car ride to the park but it was worth every minute of it. While we were there, Matt took me white water rafting down the Ocoee River for my birthday. We were on the river about an hour and a half. What fun! I'm ready to do again!
-A

Dude, you're getting a Dell...job

After the ups and downs of waiting tables for 3 months, I'm considered a pro. While it's nice to know that I've mastered the art of serving food, yahoo (sarcasm), the job sucks horriby. In our endless searching for replacement jobs, Ashley came across an advertisement for a Dell career fair. After 2 interveiws they called me back to tell me that things went well, and they'd like to have me come up to the Nashville campus for testing. After the testing I waited, nervously, for a call saying things had gone well again; at that point I really wanted the job. I received the call from Sam, in talent acquisition, after about a week. He offered me the position but there were some problems. The first 5 weeks of the job are training, and I'm not allowed to miss even one day. With JD and Sara coming to town and fulfilling my duties as an usher in a wedding on the 23rd, I wasn't able to accept the start date he proposed. He told me July was a possibility, and that he was 90% sure I'd be able to start then. June 1st, 2007 Dell announces a loss in market share, and lays off 10% of their workforce globally, 8,000 people. AAAARRRRGHHHH!!! at this point I'm thinking, well at least I didn't take the job in June, only to get laid off a week later. On June, 5, Sam called me back to let me know that they had in fact approved a July class, and that he'd like me to be a part of it!
YAHOO!!! (no sarcasm) So, now I'm just waiting for July, so I can stop saying "Welcome to Puleo's, can I start you off with a Big Orange Belinni, a Puleo's pina colada, or a glass of our secret sangria?" However, those word will probably be replaced by some other corporate phrase...oh well.
-M

More Iowa visitors!

Looking back on previous blog posts, I realized that I never blogged about our second set of visitors...big surprise! We are trying to get better at blogging and if I do say so myself, I think we are improving.

Anyways, clear back in April a really good friend of mine, Kate, and her friend from college, Christina, came to visit us for a long weekend. We had a really great time hanging out. Unfortunately we didn't get to hang out with them as much as we would have liked because Matt and I had to go to St. Louis the weekend they were here. But they found lots of stuff to do and had some city experiences. They were in a parking lot and had a hit and run. Some woman backed into her car and sped off. Her bumper got dented but a short while later it popped out. Her bumper obviously got cracked but it is almost impossible to see. Then on their way back to our apartment around 10 pm they got lost in a shady part of town and wound up on a street with lots of police cars. Come to find out on the news the next day, they were right by a double homicide crime scene...good thing they drove by after the fact!


This week, JD and Sara, Matt's friends from Washington, IA, came for 3 days. They took a vacation that made a big circle around the Midwest. Many of their friends have moved away and decided to go visit them. We were their second to last stop. We showed them around the city and took them to Lynchburg. Lynchburg is the home to the Jack Daniel distillery. It's kind of funny that the world's best selling whiskey is located in a dry county. Even though we didn't get a free sample like many distilleries offer, it was still a great time.
-A

Watermelon toes

Today is my birthday and I want to thank all of you for all my birthday wishes and presents! It meant a lot to me!

Being my birthday, I thought I would treat myself and Matt by getting a take-out order of fried dill pickles. I have been craving them ever since we moved to TN. So, I called Toot's to place the order and 20 minutes later we were at home eating them for lunch. Big mistake!!! Being people who don't eat fried food and haven't even had a bite of fried food in 2 months, this was not good. Our tummies were not happy with us and we paid for it hours later. The fried pickles weren't even that good, too salty. What a bummer to have to pay for something that wasn't worth eating. Oh well, you live and you learn.

In an attempt to make myself feel younger I did something juvenile and I just had to share it with everyone. I painted my toes to look like watermelons...how corny! But it was fun and brought back some memories of the good ol' days.

-A

Oh, the month of May

Wow! The month of May has flown by. A couple of my good friends are getting married exactly one month from today and I have yet to finish their gift. I'm sure most of you know how that goes, 'oh it is a ways away, I can give it a few more days!' But now it's getting to be crunch time!

This month my time has be occupied by Harry Potter. I have had the first 4 books for years. I started collecting them shortly after they became popular but I never read them. I would always start the first one and never found time again to continue reading it until a year later. By that time I had forgotten what I had read previously, so it turned out to be a never ending battle and I gave up. Now, that I no longer have class and homework to do, I have rediscovered them. I love them and I'm reading the 5th book now. I haven't decided if I'm going to go on to the 6th book right away or wait until the 7th comes out on paperback, which is about 6 weeks after the hardback comes out. I hear the 6th book leaves you hanging. Anyone got any suggestions?
-A

Fall Creek Falls

Tuesday Ashley and I drove about an hour and a half to Fall Creek Falls State Park, the home of eastern United States' tallest waterfall, plunging 256 feet. The park sits at the junction of two largish creeks(almost rivers), Fall creek and Cane creek. There are miles of hiking, horseback riding, and biking trails (thankfully they are all separate) which wind through a moist Oak and Hickory forest.
We did 2 hikes on Tuesday. First the very scenic Gorge Overlook trail, which gives a few expansive views the northeastern edge of the Cumberland plateau, and then the 1/2 mile Cable trail, which descends 300 feet down a rocky face to the bottom of the falls.
After we climbed out, we were beat. We went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner and Margaritas, YUM!
-M