With the next presidential election less than a year away, the Republican nomination is still up for grabs, and all you people can come up with is THIS guy??!! (No need to watch the whole thing- the first minute will suffice.)

The Republicans might as well have Her as the candidate:

Or better yet, why not bring back former Tennessee governor candidate, Basil Marceaux??

No worries here, says the bleeding heart liberal!  

iLessons & iLaughs

My mom's phone died, so she recently upgraded to the iPhone.  Aside from the obvious necessaries, like how to answer a phone call (which is still a work in progress, by the way), she spent a nice chunk of our ladies' night learning new apps (a pointless funny ap that makes you have a helium voice & a coupon app called GeoQpons) and tricks, like tapping the home button twice to bring up a menu of all aps running at the bottom of the screen, and closing the ones you aren't using to save the battery life, from my aunts and cousins, who are already iPhone-savvy.

I am keenly interested in watching and learning, too, because I am counting down the days til I can purchase my own iPhone (December 27th!), so I spent part of the car trip to Evansville playing with mom's new toy phone.

Back story:  every year mom attends Christmas Village, a huge crafts fair where tons of vendors come to sell their wares.  She sees some of the same vendors every year, including a bakery based in Haubstadt, Indiana.  They ran out of the rolls she always gets, so I was trying to google Haubstadt on the iPhone on our way to Evansville to see how close it is.  Turns out, it's really close.

I anounced to mom that I had found Haubstadt on the map, and I further exclaimed that I had found the bakery on the map (mind you, I had no idea the name of the place)- "how cool is this?  I found the bakery- it's the um, Little Haubstadt Bakery!"  I laughed, thinking that would blow my cover.  "Really?"  A gullible mom answered.  I definitely gave her a hard time about that one. 

Shenanigan's

We went to Evansville yesterday, hence the lack of blog post, for a small sort of family get-together. There was no real occasion, but we drove up to stay with Michael & Missy, and went out last night for pizza at Turoni's, a local pizzeria and microbrewery.  The kids stayed at the house with a babysitter, so we actually all got to have a fun relaxing evening.



Bradley  & Addie

 We had to take 2 cars from the house, so the guys went on ahead to put our name on the list and get us a table, and the women got the kids settled with the babysitter, and left a few minutes later.  It was mom's idea to stop someplace along the way and see how long it took the guys to call asking where we were!  

Sisters, mom & Lisa

Good thing we stopped at this place, beccause not too much longer, we got texts saying the wait was an hour and forty-five minutes, so we took our time and let the guys stand around and wait on the table!  "Oh yes it's Ladies Night!  Oh, what a night!"  we sang.  The guys didn't believe us when we said that we had stopped at Deerhead's, so we had our server take a picture of us toasting the camera.  The guys in turn sent back their own statement via photo, and let's just say they were none too pleased to be standing around in a crowded restaurant while we made our pit stop!

Missy, Whitney, and me

We finally got to Turoni's and all ten of us got seated in this huge booth, where we proceeded to eat, drink and be merry, and the pictures prove it.

Jerry pretending to drink the pitcher

A sign above our table

There's always a Nashville connection!

Mom, Lisa, Dad, and Ryan

Whitney, Missy, Michael, Jerry, Me, and Eric

 Oh, and James Franco even made an appearance!

It was a short trip, but so many memories were made in such a short visit.  Shenanigan's!

My own Penned Statement

Jerry Sandusky's autobiography is aptly named... wait for it... Touched.

I swear, you can't make this stuff up.

On a more serious note, I haven't read the grand jury indictment, and I don't think I'm going to, given the purported graphic nature of it, so could someone please explain to me why the former grad assistant (and eye witness to key events) is still allowed to be on the coaching staff for Penn State?  Otherwise, it seems like the school has done a good job and wiped out all the head honchos who were part of this ghastly cover-up.