My first love...Evan Bunton

My second love...

Evan got me an iphone for my birthday (thank you honey).  I am giddy!  I have waited for several long months until our contract expired so that I could upgrade my phone.  I love this thing; it is so addicting!  

Not only that, but it goes so well in the new purse I bought yesterday from Sarah of www.sarahsellz.blogspot.com.

Watch out...here comes fashionably cool Ashley (that almost sounds like a barbie name)!

Weekend in St. Louis

After six long months, I finally got a chance to go and visit my BFF, Melissa, in St. Louis. We really kicked up our heels and caused a little trouble along the way.

Friday, we hit the bar to see some old friends and to watch a Van Halen cover band. The band was awesome, but their looks…not so much. The lead singer had major porn stash on his upper lip and the drummer was well, just icky. To my surprise, many women were throwing themselves at them during intermission. In addition to the band, we also had some side entertainment. We had some hoosiers hitting on us, a couple sucking face right by us, two chicks dancing together while their boyfriend’s snapped pictures of them, and finally some not very cute chick wearing a partial Playboy bunny outfit. Melissa said “Oh look she must have come from a Halloween party.” I let her process this comment until she realized Halloween was over a month away…too funny.

Saturday, we headed up to wine country. We went to Montelle Winery (love that place). I was sure to call my sister-in-law and rub it her face politely. We had a great wine tasting and then sat outside to enjoy a bottle or two of wine. Again, the free entertainment was in abundance. I could sit and people watch all day, especially drunk ones.

Modeling the sign

Testing out the wine...yummy

One glass down...many more to go!

View from the winery...beautiful!

Sunday we had lunch at Norton’s Café down in Soulard. After stuffing ourselves silly, I dragged the rest of my group to the St. Louis Arch. I had never been and was itching to go. Melissa is scared of heights and enclosed spaces, but she went anyway. Her mild panic attacks on the way up the arch made for a fun afternoon.

Checking out the pod

What we would look like if the pod got stuck

Andrew (Mel's son) and I in the pod.

Mike and Melissa

View of the stadium from the arch

Happy Birthday Momma Bunton

Glenda, don't you wish this is what we really got you for your birthday this year? Oh well...happy birthday! We love you!

Happy Birthday Momma Hobza

Happy Birthday Mom! Much love and happiness on your special day!

Stuff

Well, we made it through the weekend without any scratches. The storm was not as bad by us as they had predicted. We got a ton of rain, but the wind was not that bad.

Speaking of weather, it has been gorgeous here, which is unusual! It has been in the high 70’s in the day and upper 50’s at night. I love this time of year. I wish it would stay like this longer, but it always seems to disappear so fast.

Work and school have been crazy. I’m trying to get it all done before I head out of town this weekend. I’m going to St. Louis (yippee) to tear it up with my friend, Melissa! I’m sure we will get into some sort of trouble. No sooner do I come back and then Evan and I leave to go to Newton the following weekend. To great weekends back to back…should be a lot of fun!

I’m posting a picture of my new “green” grocery bag. I bought a couple at Kroger the other day. I am so pumped. Good riddance plastic bags! These new bags are so sturdy and big. I can jam so much stuff into them…its great! Plus they’re useful for a lot of other things.

That’s all for now. Later my little peeps.

Hurricane Ike A-comin'

It looks like we might be in for a rocky weekend of weather. They are saying that Ike could make landfall as a category 4 hurricane. That is insane! I’m guessing that evacuees will head this way for the weekend. The Dallas area could possibly see 10+ inches of rain and up to 50-60 mph winds.

This brings back bad memories of the 2004 hurricane season when Evan and I lived in Orlando. I feel for the people who have to evacuate their homes. I still remember one of the radio stations in Orlando playing a clip from a caller who said if you plan on staying you better “hunker down bitch!” That’s my advice to all of you.

9/11

I cannot believe it has been seven years already. I will never forget that day, where I was and what I was doing. The details are so vivid in my mind that it's hard for me to comprehend this much time has past. This country has forever been changed because of that day. Never forget.

Advice

I need some studying advice from my ladies. I am so drained after work and don't feel like I have the mental energy to study. I don't know if I'm absorbing any information. So tell me how all of you working mommies go to school and find time to study? Give me some tips on how and when you study? Maybe you all have some secret weapon to balancing it out that I don't know about. Also, is it totally unreasonable to try and maintain straight A's or should I give up that idea?

Redneck Weekend

Evan and I went to Devil’s Bowl Speedway this weekend to watch dirt track racing. The experience was redneck fabulous!

I’ve never been to a race before. It was loud, dirty and I’ll admit…fun! We had a good group of people, so that made it that much more enjoyable. I still have one nagging question though, why is it the bigger the girl the shorter the shirt?

Evan finished installing the lift on his Chevy this past week and I told him I would post some pictures of his new ride. Some days I wonder if there is anything that boy can’t do.

Trail Riding

This weekend Evan took me trail riding in the Jimmy. This was my first time, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’m not going to lie and say that I didn’t act like a girl on the first few hills we did. I was positive we were going to roll over, but we didn’t. Evan would look over every so often to see if I was still breathing. I managed to work through it and dropped the girliness about an hour in.

He also took me over to the hardcore trails and we watched several people climb some scary hills. The videos I took don’t even do the hills justice. You can’t even tell how steep they really are.. In order for you to go up them, you have to be equipped with a rollbar and harness seatbelts, neither of which we have, so those were a big fat no for us!

After lunch is where the real adventure began. On one of our runs, the Jimmy started acting funny. It was chugging a little, but I didn’t think much of it until it died while we were side ways in a ravine. I may have crapped my pants a little. Somehow, Evan managed to get the truck started again and got us up out of the ravine and up the hill a ways before it totally died. Since we were by ourselves, we had no choice but to walk. We walked 1.3 miles back to the heavy Chevy, so we could tow the Jimmy to safety. As we were walking, I told Evan I felt like Clark Griswold in National Lampoons Vacation. The temperature was hot, the park was like a desert and I was so tempted to put my pants on my head for a little relief. As much as Evan thought that was a great idea, I refrained from doing so. Anyway, we made it back, got the truck and towed the Jimmy back. All is good. The end!

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This is one of the trucks I filmed, while on a tougher trail. I'm mainly posting this for my brother because I know he would have loved to have been there.

80's Weekend

Did anyone catch VH1’s 80 hours of 80’s this past weekend…no, not all 80 hours, but a least a portion of it? It was awesome! There were so many videos neither Evan nor I had seen in ages. We started reminiscing about some of the 80’s groups we saw in concert; his being cool bands like Metallica and ACDC and mine being New Kids on the Block. There were a couple of times I thought he was outside, while I was singing my little heart out, only to find that he was standing behind me. He was not impressed with my singing skills. Oh well!