LOTS of Catch-Up

I think I've mentioned before that one of the fun thing about coming home from vacation is catching up on all of the calendar pages I've missed out on.  I took pictures from July 19th, which was the day that was up on my church calendar.  Turns out when I started saving them I hadn't taken pictures since the 12th.  So there really should have been another week, here, but I think this is way more than plenty.  Ready?  Here we go!

 

 

Eh...I'm not a huge fan of the clear plastic.  Although, I did have some shoes as a kid that had clear plastic and I thought of them as my Cinderella glass slippers.  These not so much.



 

These are from the 40s, and while I like where they're trying to go, for me they are just a tiny bit off.

 

I know I've seen these in my searches for odd shoes.  These definitely qualify.

 

Not a fan.  They pretty much do nothing for me.

 

Of course these are from the 80s.  I have nothing new to say about this decade.

 

These...aren't boring?

 

Ugh...not the best the 90s had to offer.

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These are from 1905.  I actually like them in a weird way.  They also look like the retro (retro) version of Sgt. Pepper.

 



 

80s again (I think).  Fine.  Not really floating my boat.

 



 

Like the color.  Not crazy about the shape.  Maybe I would like them better on.



 

Like the inventiveness of the spring-loaded heel.  Hate pretty much everything else about them.  Although, they actually look better in the picture than in real life.  In the picture I could downgrade them to a solid dislike.

 

Home

We are home.  It was a long day.  It's not a bad drive, but we were both tired, so it felt longer.  At least for me, I won't speak for the hubby.  And of course once we got home there was the car to unload and mail to sort and the car to return, and all of those million little things that accompany returning from vacation.  So I am tired and I'm thinking it will be an early night.  I don't have much creativity tonight, so I'll post a picture I've gotten on facebook about 5 times now:

 

I've posted something similar before, but these have more variety.  They are almost too cute to eat.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to try to make some at some point.  But not tonight as all I will do is maybe dream about cupcakes.

 

Oh!  We stopped in Reno to use the bathroom and the hubby decided we should do the slots again.  I won $5!  And the hubby won $55.  Grrr....so then I broke the prearranged rules and spent the $5 I won out of annoyance.  But then I won $25!  Yay me!  It was awesome, we were able to fill the beast of a rental car before we returned it.  Good night, all.

 

Travel Day

The hubby woke me up at 5 this morning to see if I wanted to get on the road.  It's a 14 hour trip from Nevada City to home, and he figured we could make it in 1 day.  I could barely open my eyes and adamantly refused to get up.  Poor guy was trying to be nice and save us an extra night in a hotel.  I was not cooperative.  So tonight we are staying in Elko, NV.  It was a looooong day.  There is one part of the drive that feels like it takes forever.  I drove it last year and the hubby drove today and it's just brutal.  The best part of the trip is stopping at the Snake River Canyon.

 

 

The view looking down.

 

 

The view looking up.  The place is absolutely gorgeous.  This picture doesn't even do it justice.

 

So  now we are in Elko.  Our room is nice.  King bed, couch, chair, but the decor is straight out of the 80s.   Mom said we went from the 1880s to the 1980s and sadly she's right.  It's been an odd night so far.  When we got here the ac in our room was set at 52.  It was freezing.  It was only in the low 80s today, so I turned it off and we went to dinner.  When we came back it was still blowing like crazy.  I had to turn the heat on just to warm the room up because opening the door was taking too long.  At dinner I got an entire bottle of water dumped on me.  It was a very wet meal.  I was wet from chin to knee, and it also managed to seep under me so my butt was wet.  Then we decided to be silly and each put $4 in the slot machines.  The first 3 tries we both lost.  The 4th try I lost and the hubby won 50 bucks.  Yay, hubby!  Also very annoying as I NEVER win anything.  I would have been happy with $5.  Tomorrow we will drive home.  Hopefully I will be able to wake up a little earlier than today.



 

Virginia City

This morning the parents, hubby, and I got up, had breakfast, and then headed an hour or so from Bozeman to Virginia City to visit DJ.  DJ is living here with her grandmother this summer and working several jobs.  I can't believe how grown up she is!  We did touristy things (Mom even made DJ and I get one of those old-timey pictures.  We dressed slutty and had guns and hootch!).  Mom and Dad had to leave early to get back to run the theater tonight, but the hubby and I hung out with DJ for most of the day.  We (not DJ) even tried Rocky Mountain Oysters!  They weren't as disgusting as I was expecting, but now that I've tried them I never need to try them again.  One of the stores we went into had period clothes, hats and shoes.  I felt like Laura Ingalls in some of the hats (which of course I had to try on).  The clothes were lovely, and you know I took pictures of the shoes for you:

 

 

I love these.  I'm sure they were crazy uncomfortable in their time, but as a girl who read the Little House series 8 million times, I have always been enamored of shoes like these.  I want to wear them with a long skirt, a shirt-waist and a poke bonnet and ride around in a buggy with Almanzo.

 

Tonight we are staying in Nevada City, which is about a mile from Virginia City.  We have a really cool Victorian room that looks a bit like an elegant brothel.  Mom says it's fitting considering the picture DJ and I took today.

 

 

Tomorrow we start driving home.  Back to reality and done with vacation.  Rude.

 

Wedding!

So, back in my post-high school, pre-college, Birkenstock-wearing phase, I did daycare for a family in my hometown.  They had a 3 month old and a 2 1/2 year old, and I pretty quickly fell in love with them.  The one year I was going to take off before college turned into 2 1/2 when I finally forced myself to actually leave the babies and go to school.  It was such a fun period in my life, the kids were so smart and cute and perfect (I'm not biased at all).  Their parents were great role models, and they put up with me in all of my dorky awkwardness.  Oh, and they didn't freak out about me loving their children more than was probably healthy.  Well, today that 2 1/2 year old is almost 23 and she got married.  Mom, Dad, the hubby, and I drove to Bozeman for the big event.  She was sooo beautiful.  She IS beautiful, and smart, and talented, and amazing (and yes, I'm still biased).  I cried.  A lot.  Happy tears, though.  I can't even write about it without getting a little misty, which is why this entry is so random and scattered.  Let's just look at shoes, shall we?

 

 

The bride's shoes.  She was kind enough to let me take a picture without acting like I was crazy.  She may have been thinking it, but she didn't say it.  Look how adorable these are!

 



 

I, on the other hand, wore heels.  Because that's what I do.  And because the bride is now something like 5'11 and her brother is 6'3.  The wedding was outside, on a metal grated deck, hence the wedges.  I can be practical...

Island!

So, my extended family owns an island on Flathead Lake.  My grandmother's sister and her husband bought it decades ago and proceeded to have a family reunion there every 4th of July.  Some of my best summer memories are there.  The hubby, brother seester, brother-in-law, nieces, auntie and I all went up for the day and had a fantabulous time.  The water was amazing.  If you've ever swum in Flathead you know that 95% of the time it is COLD.  We're talking turn your lips purple, chatter your teeth until your jaw aches cold.  The hubby didn't agree, but the rest of us thought it was fabulous and spent most of the day in the water.  I have the sunburn to prove it, even though I thought I was using a ton of sunscreen.  The 3 older nieces are total fish, and Laughter is pretty comfortable in the water, but also content to play on the edge and entertain herself as long as she knows where all of her people are.  It was such a good day.  Here are some of the shoes that got worn for the adventure:

 

 

Flower and Laughter sporting their sandals.  Laughter's are too big for her because she keeps leaving her other shoes places.

 

The auntie's cute, red Keens.

 

Laughter and the seester in their matching shoes!

 

 

I couldn't resist this one.  Men in white socks and sandals crack me up.  At least they aren't wearing black socks with their sandals...

 

I didn't get a picture of  the brother's or the hubby's shoes.  Brother was wearing Birkenstocks, hubby was wearing Alpines.  Neither were wearing socks.





The Fam and a Search for Beavers

We had a mini family reunion today, which was awesome.  My aunt is staying with my parents this summer, so we've been enjoying visiting with her, and today my uncle came over to hang out.  It makes for a total of 13 people, which isn't huge, but it's my family and I love them to pieces.  So we spent time chatting and hanging out.  Most of us went for ice cream after dinner.  The hubby, seester, brother-in-law, Flower, Laughter and I went on a beaver hunt this evening.  We didn't find any, but we saw a heron, a million deer, 5 cormorants, 2 osprey (and a baby osprey!), and 2 baby ducks.  Fun fun fun.  This is where I grew up:

 

 

No shoes tonight.  Just nature.  Nature is prettier.  And more natural.

 

Yay, Friends!

Another lovely MT day.  We didn't do much but hang out with nieces, but that is perfectly fine with me.  Then this evening I had 2 friends from different parts of my life drive out to see us while we're home.  I have awesome friends.  Neither of these women know each other except for possibly meeting at the wedding last summer.  But since tonight was the night that worked best in their schedules they both came out.  I always find it fascinating when various parts of my life come together.  This time it was fun to hang out with both of them and watch them talk to and hang out with each other.  I'm very happy I got to see them, even though it was too brief.

 

In other friend news here are 2 pictures posted by friends of mine today and yesterday:

 

 

Cute!  Love the color, love the style.  Even like the bow.  I would wear these.



 

Oh man, I hope these are photo-shopped.  I didn't do any research to find out, just posting it for your enjoyment/horror. 

 

Coincidentally, Shoe Box P--- posted this today:

 

 

 

Thanks, friends, for all of the ways you are awesome!

 

The Bean's Choices

Another good day with the fam.  I had coffee with my seester at the bistro this morning, which was lovely.  The hubby and I took AA, The Bean, Flower, Pippi, Tink, and Laughter on an adventure and had a lot of fun.  Mom, hubby, AA and The Bean and I had a movie night this evening and watched 42.  Good stuff.  While The Bean and I snuggled I asked her what kind of shoes she wanted to look up and she said, "crazy."  These are her choices from that category:

 

 

Yep.  Crazy.  I would agree with her choices.  In other news, I have eaten way too much this trip.  We took AA and The Bean for ice cream last night and part of our adventure involved ice cream today.  We had birthday cake last night, and popcorn tonight.  I'm already at my biggest, at this rate I'm going to blow right past that and none of my clothes will fit.  Again.

Yay! We Made It!

Aaaaah....we made it.  The rest of the drive was fine, but it seemed to take forever.  One of the reasons was a good one as we got to see some friends I hadn't seen in years and the hubby had never met.  They were heading back to OR from MT, and we were going to pass at some point on the freeway anyway, so we met them in Spokane for a bit.  It was so fun to see them and their beautiful daughters!  Then we finally finally finally made it home.  We pulled in the driveway and 3/5 of the nieces plus 1 of the sort of nieces came screaming out of the house for hugs.  We had family dinner for The Bean's birthday, and it was wild and chaotic and fabulous.  I'm babbling, and I don't even care because I'm home and there are babies and what more could an auntie want?  Here are 4/5 of the nieces' shoes.  DJ is working in Virginia City this summer, so we are missing her terribly.

 

 

AA loves her some green.  These are sparkly, although you can't really tell.

 

 

The Bean is wearing her auntie's favorite color.  Cuz she is awesome like that.  These are also sparkly.

 

 

Flower! Her flip flops are about an inch and a half high so she's "tall."  This is also a hilarious angle from her knees down.

 







 



I only actually saw Laughter put these on right when she was leaving to go home.  The rest of the time she was blissfully barefoot.  Which is how I always preferred to be in the summer.

 

I love being home.  It makes me very happy.  The blog entries seem kind of hilarious, though, as it's my mom (Hi, Mom!) who is my most consistent reader, and she already knows what's going on as she's here.

Zodiac

And we're off!  The hubby and I drove 12 hours today and are more than half-way to our destination.  We are 4 hours further than we originally intended to be tonight, which is awesome.  Can't wait to get home to the fam tomorrow.  Since today was spent entirely in the car, I'm borrowing something from Shoe Box P--- today.  Take a look and see which shoes are yours.

 

 

I'm an Aries, and my shoes are OK, but not my favorite.  I have no idea how whoever put this together chose which shoes went with which sign.  Maybe there is a system, maybe it's totally random.  What do you think?  Are your shoes "you?"



Packing

The hubby and I are leaving tomorrow for a trip to MT.  Yay!  That means today is dedicated to laundry and packing and getting ready to go.  Or napping, which I just did and he is still doing.  But, I figure I can nap while the laundry is laundry-ing (yes, I know that's not the word, it's just more fun).  Anyhoodle, when I pack I first like to write a list.  I write out every day I'm going to be gone and then write in the outfits for each day.  It doesn't mean that I am necessarily going to wear that outfit that day, just means I know I'm taking enough for the trip.  I also include the accessories  Under the days I write all of the rest of the stuff that goes: toiletries, electronics, etc.  Whenever I start a list I always have to figure out how many pairs of shoes I'm going to take.  If I had my way, I'd take a different pair of shoes for each day or each outfit.  That's not always practical, so I try to plan outfits around 1 or 2 pairs of shoes for day-to-day, with 1-2 pairs of special shoes for church or other dress-up occasions.  This time we are driving.  Today I decided screw it, I'm taking as many pairs as I want!  I think I'll even  have a bag just for shoes.  The rental car place upgraded us to a friggin' Suburban, so we definitely have the room.  Yay, cute sandals!  Since the theme of this post is packing, I did an image search for shoes + suitcase.  Here are some of the cuter results:

 





Yep.  This is generally what my shoe situation looks like at the beginning of the packing process, at least in my head.  Then I have to go through and cull out 90% of them.

 



 

Oooh...vintage.  I love the shoes AND the suitcase.

 



 This one was a little odd.  It might be the same suitcase from the previous picture.  I love the colors on the shoes, but from this angle I'm not sure how I feel about the shoes themselves.

 

 

Blue.  Strappy.  Ankle Straps.  Yep.

 

Fam

Today is Flower's Gotcha Day.  If  you've never heard the term, it's the day we celebrate getting her.  The seester and brother-in-law were in China 7 years ago today, meeting a beautiful baby who would add joy to their, and our, lives.  We are so blessed to have her as part of our family!  Since it's her Gotcha Day, I thought I would go look and see what I could find in cute shoes for Chinese girls.  Unfortunately I had to wade through foot binding pictures, and no one needs another rant, especially on a happy day like today.  I found this pair before I got the hell out of that particular search:

 

 

These are beautiful, and made for children, so they're SUPPOSED to be small.  Flower sometimes has trouble with shoes because her heels are so narrow, and the shoes slip off.  Kind of like me and sling-backs, only on a much more extreme level.

 

Since we are talking about one of the nieces today, and since I am also a niece, I will also post a picture my aunt sent me today.

 

 

The aunt is currently visiting a friend of hers, and this the foot of the friend's daughter, who is (I think) in her early 20s.  She just got these cute shoes at Target.  My Target never seems to have any cute shoes lately.  Rude.  Oh well.  These are cute.  Good for you, Aunt's friend's daughter!

 

And once again, Happy Gotcha Day, Flower!  So so so happy you are in our lives!



 

200

This is my 200th post, which is pretty cool.  I stopped writing my last blog after 194 posts, so even if I stop writing this one I can at least say I wrote more entries than on my first try.  On a bit of a whim last night I did an image search for "200 shoes" just to see what would appear.  These were the very first picture:

 

 

I LOVE these shoes.  I want them.  They are adorable and my feet are sad with out them.

 

These are OK.  One of the bows needs to go and then maybe they would be better.

Awww....so cute!





 

I could care less about the tennis shoes, I just think the glow in the dark shoelaces are fun.

 

I also love these.  So cute!  I have no idea what any of these shoes have to do with the number 200.  Actually, I sort of do.  The top ones were listed  under "wedding shoes for under $200."  As for the rest, I wasn't so sure.  But it doesn't really matter since the search was just to find shoes for this post.