Off to Columbus, Ohio!

Rest of today I will be packing packing packing! I hate packing but I love this reason why! I am driving with Noah to Columbus, Ohio to see Alexis & Sami! She lives in North Carolina now, but her family is from the Columbus area, so we are meeting her and Sami there (her mom taking her older two, Chris and Em, for the weekend) Friday late afternoon! Plans are to stay in a hotel with a pool right next to awesome shopping . . . oh my goodness this is going to be so much fun! Hoping to shop till we drop (of course, two things we do so very well together) as long as Sam and Noah can stand us to (!), eat (oh wait, another thing we do really well together), gab (oh wait, still another!), and then of course all the fun things we have planned for Noah and Sami (Jack Hanna's zoo, CEC . . .).

It's also my birthday tomorrow (happy birthday to me!), and I'll be driving most of that day, but I can deal. We bought a portable DVD player for Noah and I have a few new games for him, too, and I have my ipod and my new Regina Spektor CD, so I am anticipating a good drive. Except (now this is crazy and what are the chances?!) that both the U of I and Southern Illinois (SIU) are playing in the NCAA basketball tourney which is in no other than Columbus, Ohio! So the traffic might be really really awful. Hoping not, but I'm going into it thinking the worst. On the flip-side, I don't really mind all that much because I like these people. They could be fellow alum! (I went to SIU and this is huge huge huge for them because 1 -I/they think they could go really really far and 2 - if SIU wins their game and U of I also wins their game, they would play each other! And really, that game would be in SIU's favor, and how freaking exciting would that be if they did win?!?!) So . . . I have to pack orange and blue and maroon and white in lieu of both my teams!

Well, "see" you all next week, . . . gooooo Illini!! . . . . and gooooo Saluki's!! . . . and . . . . happy 31st to me! (I also cannot forget my birthday hospital buddy, Jamie! We were born on the same day in the same hospital! My dear friend, Amberley - also 31, also shares the day and so does my friend, Randy - 30!! Happy Birthday, all of you!!! Love ya!) Well, off to patching a tire, getting my oil changed, cleaning out my car, & buying a few groceries. (You didn't know I had that motivation, did you?) See you, Brad, Chel & Ella on Monday! (They are coming home for the weekend, but Monday we get to spend the day with them. Have a safe trip to Illinois!)

Thought to end:
Life is what we make it.
Always has been, always will be.
-Grandma Moses