VT/NH

Oh my goodness. I made the poor decision to not pack my laptop and to blog from Jackson's iPad. This is awful. I had to buy an app to do it and it uploaded my photos in reverse order. Wow. I'm over it. I'm doing this post in reverse. 

We ate dinner at a kitchy little place in New Hampshire. If the hotel has free coupons for recommending a place DO NOT GO. It is a trap! They've got an arrangement to send people there. Someone somewhere gets a bonus. That person was not me. I was lead astray! Astray I tell you. In exciting news, we got a Toyota toy car (OK, it was a Yaris) when we first rented. We drove it through Vermont so that no one would try to vandalize a non-green car. We then realized that driving a toy car stunk and got upgraded to a new (fully-loaded, non-toy-car) Chrysler 300. Amazing what that Jackson can do when I request him to fix something. ;)

We were nearly out of Vermont when we realized that we'd forgotten to get syrup for people who requested it. As we passed a random exit I turned to Jackson and said, "do you think they have a little gift shop near here to get syrup?" He first looked at me like I was crazy and then said NO! I pulled off the interstate anyway and THERE STOOD A SYRUP SHOP!!!!!!! I'm not kidding. I was elated. If I am honest, I was more excited that Jackson was wrong than getting syrup but whatever. ;)

Vermont looked EXACTLY like I expected it to: gorgeous. The capital is Montpelier so we headed there. The steeples were amazing. We stopped on the 16% grade road to our hiking spot to snap the photo above. That's right, 16% grade. It was insane!

We went hiking at Hubbard Park right in the middle of Montpelier. It was a beautiful area. The weather was perfect for a quick 2 mile hike. I wanted to say quick and easy but that is a lie. The hills were killer on my already sore from working out legs!

 There was a tower in the middle of Hubbard park with stairs going up to an observation area. The place would have been awesome except for 5 kids screaming. I hate bad parents.

Jackson going down the stairs. See? This is in REVERSE ORDER! Stupid iPad.

 The view from the top of the tower. We still have no idea why the tower was there. It was a beautiful place to take in the landscape, though.

 Oh, look! Jackson at the BOTTOM of the tower. Wouldn't that have been cool about 5 photos ago?

 Again, it was a gorgeous day. As I post I still do not know why the tower was there. Can you tell that it is bothering me? I'd better google it.

 I honestly googled and still cannot find a true purpose for the tower. I give up!

Dartmouth College- an Ivy League school. We've now hit 6 of the 8 Ivy members. Watch out Penn and Cornell. Well...don't watch too closely. I have no idea when we'll hit your campuses. Darn. Penn- if our flight through Philly on Tuesday gets delayed I'm cabbing it to your place. ;)

 The center of town in Hanover, New Hampshire. It was seriously the cutest town. It was vintage.

 Jackson laughing at me trying to get a photo of town center WITHOUT dudes throwing the Frisbee in it. That was NOT an easy task.

 We stopped for lunch at a little bakery in town called Umpleby's. The chicken salad was amazing. Amazing. The bread was sourdough- so good. The lettuce was fresh. Oh, it was so good! 

 I made Jackson pose with my lunch for our TripAdvisor.com review. In case you didn't know, I'm a top contributor on the site. Does that make me a big deal? Well, no. But I like saying it. (They did send me a luggage tag to thank me for all my reviews. What now?!)

Well you went through our day backwards- hooray! Thanks for sticking with me through technical difficulties. I hope to learn this stupid app a little better before posting again. Sigh. Technology.

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"The Name Game"

My parents told me a lot of little lies while I was growing up. All parents do. I present the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. Ok, I didn't get to believe in Santa, but still. Imagine my horror when a lady in my office started singing, "Jenna, Jenna, Bo Benna..." to me the other day. I said, "That's my mom's song! How did you know that?!" I was beside myself. As it turns out, this was not a song that my Mom made up. She must have forgotten to tell me that when she forgot to tell me that, though I was born on Flag Day, people didn't put their flags out JUST to wish me a happy birthday. (I'll always love flags, though, because they made me feel special when I was little and they stand for something pretty important, too!)

You can see me asking my Mom about this omission above. She is quick to take credit for making the "stinky song." A song that went, "pu-wee, Jenna Leigh, pu, pu, Kylie stinky, too!" Yep. I guess that is why she didn't tell me that she didn't make up the Jenna, Jenna, Bo Benna song...because it was a lot better. HA! :)

Weekend...

Saturday morning was gorgeous and we took MacKenzie to the Fishers Farmer's Market before I headed to Carmel for reformer pilates. MacKenzie loved all the attention that she got from other shoppers. We were so surprised. ;)

We tried out a new church, Northview in Carmel, and loved it! It was HUGE...just the way I like my churches.

We went to dinner afterwards and saw this gorgeous sky.

Sunday we spent time at our neighborhood pool. It was awesome because there were NO KIDS! Not a single child was in or around the pool. We had the whole pool to ourselves.

Ok, there was one big kid. ;) It was so nice to catch some rays as the summer winds down.

MacKenzie borrowed my new visor to remind everyone that the BMW Championship is coming to Carmel in a couple of weeks. TIGER WOODS WILL BE (basically) PLAYING GOLF IN MY BACKYARD! YESSSSSSS!

MacK got in some ball games.

There is not a single thing better if you ask her. :)

Everywhereist

I love reading travel blogs. Since our plan is to eventually be big travelers ourselves I like to see how those who are already wild and free do it. A friend recommended "The Everywhereist" to me and I've been loving her blog ever since. Well, until this post the other day.

http://www.everywhereist.com/10-weirdly-wonderful-things-about-jacksonville-or/

Reason #6 on her list made her enemy #1 in my book. Listing cinnamon smell as a positive? Come on! That's insane. (I detest cinnamon for those of you living under a rock.)

Anyway, she really is a witty and fun writer. She's worth adding to your blog list for sure!

"Unhappy"

In light of my previous downer of a post, I thought that this kind of tongue-in-cheek look at happiness was appropriate. I love this blogger and recommend surfing around his site for some really great thoughts and ideas on life he's learned while traveling the globe. He couldn't be more spot-on with this post if he tried, in my opinion.

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/unhappy/ 

Bad news bears

The last few weeks have been trying to say the least. I guess I'll start at the beginning.

Two weeks ago today Jackson lost his job. I was home from work that day because I had a nasty case of strep throat. I was out work for 2.5 days and even had to miss seeing Tim Tebow play in Cincinnati because I was so sick. Yep. I'm pretty certain missing Tim might have been the worst thing to happen. I'm only kidding...kind of. ;)

We've been pretty much reeling since this news hit.

We put our house on the market last week. We had been itching to get rid of it because it is a ton of work, more space than we'll ever need and expensive to maintain. It was obviously not our original plan to unload it after just one year but when life happens we have to be willing to roll with its punches. We are currently negotiating an offer on it so please pray that it works out and can be a fairly painless process.

In addition the excitement of the unemployment line and selling the house I got pulled over for speeding on Friday evening. I really didn't mean to be speeding. I was just lost in my thoughts and on a country road winding into Fishers. I was going 53 in a "35" (I still think a 35 is ludicrous, but I'm not in charge) so I got a $152 ticket and a "have a nice day" from Officer Jerkface. I think that might have really been his name. ;) While waiting for Jerkface to write my ticket, birds pooped all over and in my car. Yes, my top was down. I pretty much lost it for the first time at that point. My husband lost his job, we're selling our house ahead of schedule (I LOVE planning and I HATE compromising) and now I've gotten my first lousy speeding ticket in years. GREAT! I had about an hour long pity party that my poor Mom got to attend with me via telephone. (Sorry about that, Mom. Thanks for listening!)

The rest of last weekend was pretty uneventful. We had a great dinner with some of my former co-workers from Deloitte on Saturday night and went to church that evening, too. Sunday I went to dinner with my friends Shaya and Nicole. It was so nice to catch up with them. When we paid the waiter dropped my debit card through the holes in their outside deck and was unable to retrieve it at that time. I decided at that point that the universe was out to get me. I got my meal for free, they promised to try to retrieve the debit card and I went home. About an hour later they called and had my card. I was so happy. I got dinner for free and got my card back without the hassle of canceling it. I called it my blessing in disguise. Perhaps it was proof that God doesn't hate me? I'm not sure.

I'm sure you're all thinking, "WHAT IS THE PLAN NOW?!" The answer to that is a resounding, "we haven't a clue, not one singular clue." Jackson has applied for some jobs around here and was able to work some connections about jobs elsewhere. He has some interviews next week. We're really in a holding pattern right now. We hope the house sells but then we're homeless so even that is a double-edged sword. We hope that something falls into place soon for Jackson on the job front but we are highly doubtful that his job hunt will leave us in central Indiana which is sad. Well, kind of sad. There are certainly people and things that we'd miss. Since nothing is set in stone yet I have no feelings about anything. I've decided to try to stay as unemotional about this situation because if I stew too long I get really down and out.

What is the good news? The good news is that we even had a house to sell. Some people have nothing. The good news is that neither of us are terminally ill. We've still got our health. The good news is we had already booked a trip to Maine for Labor Day weekend so we have something to look forward to among a cloudy time in our lives. The good news is that we have each other. The good news is that we have MacKenzie and she is the best little puppy ever. The good news is that we have an amazing support team who helps hold us up when we want to give up and cry. The good news is that I bought pilates reformer packages on a groupon a few weeks ago and am obsessed with the class. (Random? Sure. I thought it was worthy of a good news shout out, though!) The GREAT news? God is still good. He is still with us. HE HAS A PLAN. Even if He is being a little hard on me and not showing me the details. The nerve. ;) I feel hopeful that things will work out because with God on our team how could things not eventually be beautiful?

Whew. That was a lot for one blog post. Hence it being about two weeks late. I sincerely hope you're all doing well. I also hope you know that I know things could be worse. I  do have an attitude of gratefulness even through this trying time. I hope that you have an attitude of gratitude, too.

Eric McLean

This video will TOTALLY make you bawl like a small child. If it doesn't then you might need to check to see if you're human. When Eric says that he is 28 (like me) I totally and completely lost it. It was not a good idea to watch this video before I went to bed last night. I do not think Eric has passed yet so please keep him and his family in your prayers during this tough time. I hope God's peace will find Eric soon.