Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.

I really REALLY wanted to write out a nice post about all the fun we had this weekend. The funny conversations, the great food, spending time with Amber who I just love so fucking much I can’t even… there are just no words. I haven’t ever really written a lot about her here and that’s a shame because for a lot of years she’s been such a constant beam of positive light in my life. She isn’t just my ex-mother-in-law, she really is one of my best friends. One of those friendships that time or distance couldn’t ever ruin.

She’s the kind of friend you stand next to for 15 hours straight when she’s giving birth. Because I TOTALLY DID THAT. I was 18 at the time and she was giving birth to Carrielee. I didn’t eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, or TAKE A STEP AWAY FROM THE BED. For 15 hours. Because she was extremely sick, she needed me, and I was there. That kind of friendship.

She’s the kind of friend you call when you have what you think might be a hair-brained idea just to see what a normal person might think and when she tells you that you are out of your fucking mind and maybe come back to reality and pick up a loaf of bread on the way over, you know that it’s being said with love in her heart.

On top of all that she’s just generally a badass. True story.

ANYWAY! Like, I said I REALLY wanted to write out a long post about this weekend but I’m tired, work has been busy and evenings filled with cross country practice and meets and eye appointments and homework and dinner and… I’m TIRED! So look at pictures instead!

We took ALL the kids because we are “those” people that feel guilty for leaving the dogs behind. Dogs should get to vacation too! Cassidy made good use of the drive and watched three Vampire Diaries on her iPod then my laptop. She’s almost caught up!

Danica would like to know ARE WE THERE YET!? And also, could she possibly wipe her nose on the window more? I think she might have missed a spot.

We stopped for gas and to let the dogs play in the grass a bit at the half way point and there was a perfect Harvest Moon in the sky. I shot it then took a moment to just clear my mind and enjoy the moon, the dark, the sound of Cassidy giggle as she chased the dogs around. It was nice. Unfortunately, it was at Harris Ranch and smelled a lot like having your head shoved up a cow’s butthole.

Kumo was like, WHAT IS THAT SMELL?! And also, I’m totally cute, you should take my picture.

And Danica was like, I’m going to lay on this wet grass so I can make the carpet in the car match the window. DIRT IS GOOD. And also, I’m cute so take my picture.

Here are some pregnant cows at the fair. I mentioned on flickr that I am kind of in love with the pregnant cows. When I was younger I’d go to the fair alone and sit on the bleachers in the blazing sun for HOURS to watch baby cows be born. I’d have done it this time too but Ben and Amber were all STOP BEING WEIRD!

Don’t they look happy?! I imagine having a COW baby in you is not fun. They have FOUR LEGS!

These pigs were totally cute. I always forget how BIG pigs actually are. And okay, I’m just going to admit it, when I sat there and watched the pigs I was actually trying to calculate how much bacon you could get out of one pig. My final conclusion: A LOT.

When we were in the collection exhibit hall somehow my camera had magically set itself to monochrome and I didn’t realize right away but I loved this picture of Ben and Carrielee. The same Carrilee I watched be born because I stood next to her mom’s bed for 15 hours. WHERE DID THAT BABY GO!?

Ben and I totally made out on this Ferris Wheel. It was kind of funny because Cassidy and Carrielee were in the car behind us so we had to strategically time it so that we weren’t caught by little tween eyes. I felt like I was in high school again and might have swooned a little.

Between kissing we enjoyed the view.

I made them go back and look at the pregnant cows again. Stop judging me.

Sunday right before we pulled out of town we let all dogs play in the lakes at Riverwalk Park.

In her previous life Danica was a fish.

And now I’m actually going to wrap this up and enjoy my Starbucks. We are living pretty tight till Ben can get a job (and not to jinx it but he has a pretty good prospect on the horizon so please cross your fingers for him!) so we’ve gone quite awhile without a Starbucks fix but for my birthday my mom got me a few gift cards and one of them was Starbucks! We had just enough to do a family Starbucks run twice this week and it’s been a nice treat! It’s kind of awesome how much more you appreciate something when it’s a TREAT instead of a nightly habit.

TANGENT OVER!

Goodnight, friends!

Macro Monday: Burned out.

This is a shot I took last week but wanted to use it for my Macro Monday shot today. This is the guts of a light bulb from the master bathroom that fell and shattered when Ben was changing them out. I loved how it looked so I snapped some shots of it before throwing it away.

Macro Monday: Peanut

Reese started a cool meme called Macro Monday. I love love love macro photography and will take any chance I can get to put that 100mm lens onto my camera. I figured since I took this shot this weekend of Peanut I’d use him for my first submission.

This little guy is a constant ball of loving energy. He is so sweet and loves to play and cuddle and sleep under your covers. Amber and Lupe kept threatening to send him home with me and seriously, if Ben would not have COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT, I’d have totally stolen him and brought him with me. Although Amber and Lupe act tough, I know they’d be lost without him around because you can’t spend more than 2 minutes with this dog without completely falling him love with him.