Life with Gling

Ok…it’s been way too long since I’ve gone to Cornerstone. (ie…the best Christian music festival EVER!!!) Jared and I are going this year…and the college is paying. WAHOO!!! Oh the joys of being an admissions counselor. They needed someone to go promote the college, and we were the lucky ones selected. (Ok…so nobody else wanted to camp out for a week in crazy hot weather.) I absolutely LOVE cornerstone…and I’m so excited to be going again. We have to work the college booth in the main vendors tent most of the day, but then we get to watch bands at night. So I guess if you’re at Cornerstone…come and see us in the main merchant tent! We’ll be at the booth with Greenville College stuff…makes sense huh?! Anyway…I’m almost done with work…and then we’re packing up the van. We’re staying in Emden for the night and then finishing the trip tomorrow morning. AHHHH!!! Ok, more updates when we return. Keep us in your prayers!

So Jared and I watched “Closer” last night. Definitely a strange movie. I really enjoyed it, but I’m still trying to process it. (If anyone reading this has seen it…let me know what you think!) We grilled out again last night. Jared cooked us up some yummy porkchops and I made mashed potatoes and croissants. It was super yummy. We cleaned a little bit more, but I wanted to watch the movie instead. So we picked up a few things, I watered the flowers and porch, and we snuggled up for the movie. My good buddy Nicole (from IWU) gave me a call last night too. Made me miss all of my friends that I’m not around anymore. Why can’t we all just live in one place!? Today Jared’s brother and his wife stopped through Greenville and took us out for lunch. It was good to see them. They’re super great about stopping by to see us whenever they’re in the area. They’re great in-laws. Anyway, tonight I have to clean some more. We’re having another cook-out tomorrow night, so the house needs to be clean by then. (I have some major cleaning to do!) Adios!

Another day in the office….so is the story of my life. We had a good weekend back in Emden/Bloomington. We officially got the title for our new truck and ordered new plates for it as well. My parents had a cook-out on Friday night, so that was a good time. Lots of being silly with our nephews and lots of holding new baby Danielle. She’s so cute! Saturday we slept in until noon. I can’t even begin to explain how good it felt to finally sleep in again! We ate lunch with my mom and then Jared went to Bloomington to visit with his mom for a bit. My mom and I headed out to Lincoln to see South Pacific at the community theatre…followed by a super dinner at Cracker Barrel. My good friend from high school, Amy, was in town visiting her parents for the week, so I got to hang out with her that night as well. I haven’t seen her in months, so it was amazing to hang out again. (Life is just too busy!) Sunday was Jared’s birthday. After church we had a yummy birthday dinner with my parents at Famous Dave’s. (Drooool….) They brought out a big bowl of ice cream and hot fudge with a massive sparkler on top. I think Jared was embarrassed, but it was worth it. It seriously looked like a rocket getting ready to take off from the ice cream. I got Jared some fun Cub’s stuff (as usual). New hat, new shirt and Cub’s tickets for the last Cub’s/Cardinals game at Busch Stadium. Should be a good time. We finally made it back to Greenville around midnight…as usual. We’ve been trying to get the house cleaned up again. It’s become quite the blackhole since vacation. Hopefully we’re done cleaning tonight! Anyway…time for a meeting…gotta go!

Well I’m finally back in Greenville. I got back on Sunday night, and am just now finally catching up with life here. Last week I was in Grand Rapids, Michigan for a NACCAP conference (it’s for work). It was a lot of fun and Michigan was awesome as always. We (the other counselors and our director and VP) also spent a day in Chicago on the way back. We ate at Gino’s East (YUM!), took a boatride on the lake, shopped and enjoyed yummy ice cream. It was such a fun night and a great way to relax. We took the L back to our hotel and stayed up late and left for home in the morning. We stayed at the Hyatt by O’Hare, which was really cool. I’d actually been there before for youth conference, back in high school. Good memories! Anyway, we finally got home and I’ve been pretty lazy since then. Monday we headed back to Emden to go with my mom and grandma to a memorial service. My brother’s dad passed away last week, and they had this service for him instead of a funeral. It was strange to be there, partially because this is a part of their lives that I’m not included in. They’re great brothers though…I’m so lucky to have them. We also got to spend some time with the nephews and our niece…which is always great! We had to drive back to Greenville late that night, which is usually fine. However…with drove through the biggest storm EVER right around Springfield. It was pretty scary, but we made it home safely. Anyway, that brings us up to now. I’m sitting here at work trying to finish up a few more things before I take off for the night. We need to go to Wal-Mart and re-stock our fridge…it’s looking pretty sad right now. I also need to clean…because our house is pretty scary. Adios!

Ok, so we’re back from vacation. Needless to say, I wish we weren’t. Not that I don’t like Greenville…it’s really not that bad…but the mountains were just so awesome and so was the chalet! I’ll provide a brief recap just to let you know how much fun we had.

Day 1: Drive 4 hours to Nashville, stop at Cracker Barrel for lunch (cause they’re EVERYWHERE down there), get more gas for the car, and continue on. 4 more hours in the car and we’re finally to our destination. It was around 7:00 when we got to the chalet, and it was just as amazing as it was last year. We unpacked a grabbed a quick fast-food supper before hopping into the hot tub. Hot tub and then sleeping.

Day 2: Slept in until like noon or something like that. (It was awesome!) Ate at Corky’s BBQ for lunch. It was seriously the best bbq pulled pork I’ve ever had. Yummmmm! That afternoon we shopped at some of the outlet malls in Pigeon Forge. I love shopping, especially at outlet stores. I got some cute new work outfits, so that was fun. That night we cooked out at the chalet and lounged around in the hot tub and watched some movies.

Day 3: Slept in once again…oh the joys of vacation. We ate a late breakfast at the chalet and headed out to the arts and crafts community of Gatlinburg. I know…it sounds cheesy, but it was a lot of fun. There were so many neat shops and things to do. We went to a shop where this man makes dulcimers…and he taught Jared how to play one. If we had the money…I think we would have bought one right then and there. The best store though, was “A Troll in the Park”. This man makes little woodland trolls and sells them….and they’re the coolest! Look up trolls.com to see for yourself. Anyway, we bought ourselves a little computer wizzard troll and some little troll pets to keep him company. That night we went to Dixie’s Stampede. It’s this big elaborate dinner theatre show with horses and so much more! It’s kinda like Medieval Times…with Civil War stuff. They serve you this massive dinner….but you don’t get to use silverwear…which was actually a lot of fun. We were skeptical going into it (espcially after the huge chunk of money it cost us to get in)…but it was totally worth every penny! After that we went home, watched movies, and fell asleep.

Day 4: Slept in…of course. We went to the Old Mill Square in Pigeon Forge around lunchtime. We ate at the Old Mill Bakery and had some delicious baked potato soup and sweet tea. We looked around there for awhile and then we headed over to Boyd’s Bear Country. I love Boyd’s Bears…so this was lots of fun. It was a HUGE 3-story barn filled with them…and on the third floor…you could make your own Boyd’s Bear. (It was a lot like Build-A-Bear.) Jared and I decided that we’d splurge and each make our own bear. Well actually, I made a bear and Jared made a moose. You get to pick out your bear, stuff it with magic beans, put a gold heart in it, name it, and then pick out clothes for it. Jared named his moose, “Moosen” and I named my bear “Suzy”. They’re so cute! That night we ate at Calhoun’s in downtown Gatlinburg. They’re supposed to have awesome ribs and bbq. The ribs were good…but the sauce was pretty nasty in my opinion. Anyway, after supper we played hillbilly mini-golf on the side of a mountain…it was a blast!

Day 5: We hung out in Gatlinburg and did all the silly tourist stuff there. We went to the Star Cars museum and saw all sorts of good stuff. We got to see the time machine from back to the future…so cool! We ate at a little Italian place downtown for lunch. It was pretty good. We played more mini-golf and went go-karting that night. And again…more being lazy and sitting around in the hot tub.

Day 6: Yay…it was our anniversary! We were lazy a good portion of the day. In the afternoon we went on a drive through the mountains to take pictures and just enjoy nature. It’s soooo pretty down there! We got lots of good pictures and had a great time. For supper we got all dressed up and went out to eat at “The Open Hearth”. It was this amazing restaurant on the edge of Gatlinburg, in the mountains. It was delicious! They sat us in front of this MONSTROUS fireplace we had a view of the town. It was perfect. We splurged and had filet mignon….drooool. Also cool, was that another couple was seated near us…and they were celebrating their anniversary as well. It was an older couple, probably in their 70’s. They were cute. Anyway…we went back to the chalet and enjoyed some DELICIOUS year old wedding cake while watching our wedding video. I didn’t think that the cake would still be good…but it was awesome.

Day 7: Up early to pack and leave. We left the chalet around 11:00 and stopped at a few more shops before leaving town. (J Crew outlet rules!) We ate at Famous Daves in Knoxville…which was greatness. We made it back to Greenville by 9:00 last night. It’s a long drive, but well worth it.

It’s sad to see vacation go, but at least we had the chance to get away. I leave again tomorrow morning for Grand Rapids, Michigan. We have a big conference for work that we have to go to. Hopefully it’s fun though. We’ll see how it goes! Oh…sometime soon we’ll get some pictures from the vacation posted on our picture page. Jared got an awesome digital camera for graduation, so we got a chance to really make use of it while we were gone. Adios!