Polka Til Ya Drop!

On Friday Sam and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary with great friends and great music! Polka Boy at Cool Creek Park! As always, one of the best nights of the year!!!

The park was packed with thousands of people!


The Polka Boys!


Sam & Em


Aaron & Megan and the kiddos! It was a little too loud at first for Benjamin!


Russ & Jen and their "baby" Haley!


Kristen & Brian


Wow! Dan & Margie both cooperating and smiling for the camera! What a nice picture!


Oh wait! There's the Dan & Margie we know and love!


Margie embracing her inner Canadian!


Dan embracing his inner gay Canadian???


It's guy love between two guys!


It's so handy having a bottle opener on the bottom of your shoe!


Robyn & her little dancing buddy, Elizabeth!


Oh my, how GQ! Make love to the camera dah-ling! Meooow!


What if the hokey-pokey is what it's all about? I'm not really sure what Sam & Margie are "putting in."


Wow, what short arms you have! They're like velociraptor arms or something!


Ahhh, that's amore!


Megan & Robyn


Aaron & Megan


Shelli & Aaron


Dan & Margie being...well, Dan & Margie!


Oh, poor babies! Their drinkies are empty!


Who can resist the primal, demon rhythm of the polka???

The accordian player does an Ethel Merman number it drag! Priceless!

In heaven there is no beer...that's why we drink it here!!!

Pour Some Sugar On Me!!!

Awesome concert!!! Cheap Trick, Poison and Def Leppard...does it get any better!?!

The place was packed!

This is a good look! I'm trying to get Sam to do this to all of his pants too! :-)

Bret Michaels' body guard on Rock of Love!

Darn my short little arms!!! Yep, that tiny sliver of face on the right hand side is me!

Un-skinny bop, bop, bop - just blows me away!

Rocket!

Love Bites!

Pour Some Sugar On Me!!!

Rockin' with The Involuntarys!

On Tuesday night we had the pleasure of seeing one of my old Heritage students perform with his band, The Involuntarys, at The Melody Inn! They were awesome and I really enjoyed seeing Chris (the drummer and my old student). Needless to say, he's changed a bit since our Heritage days. He works now as a body piercer at Artistic Skin Designs - so if you need anything pierced make sure you go see him! It was a very...um..."educational" experience talking to him after the show. Let's just say he was able to answer all of the questions I ever had about body modification...and then some! :-) It was a pretty good trade off, I think, for teaching him grammar!

The Involuntarys

Take a listen!

Em & Chris


After the Involuntarys played, another pretty cool band, The Independents, took the stage. I actually really enjoyed their music, which their website describes as pyscho-billy. I thought it was kind of a mix between rockabilly, punk and Elvis!

The lead singer liked jumping out into the audience and getting right up into people's faces and staring them down until they got uncomfortable! (You would have liked him, Dan!)

Gone Fishin'

A little impromtu dinner at my parents' house turned into a little evening "lake" fun! While Daddy and Chad did some fishing, Sam, Linds, Jen and I paddled around the lake!

Linds and Jen

Sam, Linds & Em


Daddy and Chad work on their sweet line casting!

Daddy hooks a tiny little fish!

Since they weren't having much luck with the lures, Daddy went into the yard to dig up some worms. Poor little fellers! All snug and safe and free in their natural environment only to be dug up and impaled on a hook, having their little life force snuffed out.

Chad shows off his little catch!

Oh, the horror! Linds can't watch as Chad trieds to remove the hook from the poor fishie's mouth!

After Chad looses the "big one" three different times, he snaps! We're pretty sure it was the same fish each time, and he's now swimming around down there with three lures hanging out of his lip!

Mom, Em & Daddy

Mom, Linds & Daddy

Jen, Linds, Mom & Em

Roughin' It At Turkey Run

The whole family was supposed to go camping this past weekend, but an unfortunately timed kidney stone kept dad and mom from joining us at the last minute. So Linds and Chad joined us for the night, camping at Shades State Park, canoeing on Sugar Creek, and hiking at Turkey Run!

Setting up their tent! Hmmm...tensions running a bit high?


That's when Sam steps in to help out! :-)


Ahhh...tent completion!




On Friday we were lucky enough to catch the last available canoe trip for the rest of the weekend!


Linds & Chad: master canoers!


Why yes, I am sitting in the very bottom of the canoe, thank you! It's much more stable there and I can hang on to the sides better!

On Saturday we did some hiking at Turkey Run.

Climbing the ladders on Trail 3!

Linds & Em

Here a pig, there a pig, everywhere a pig, pig!

On Thursday I joined Shannon, Megan and the kiddies at the Hamilton Country 4-H fair. It's a small little fair, but hey, it's free! I got some cute pics of the animals too!

Cute piggies snuggling!

This poor little feller doesn't play well with the other piggies!

This elk had the largest antlers I've ever seen!

The llamas were pretty darn cute too!

Some of the "weirder" lookin' bunnies!

A pygmy goat!

Happy Birthday, Sister!

Last Wednesday we celebrated my sister, Lindsay's 27th birthday with a small get together and cookout at our house!

Linds and her birthday cake!




Time to open gifts!



Daddy & Mom


Em & Linds


Mom, Linds & Daddy


The whole family: Sam, Em, Daddy, Mom, Grandma, Linds & Chad


Chad, Linds and their friends Grete & Aaron


Linds, Jen, Russ & Chad


Linds, Jen & Grete

Happy Birthday, Grammy!

The family got together to celebrate my Grammy's 81st birthday on Saturday with a cook out at my Uncle Norm's house. We were supposed to go to the race track that afternoon to watch my cousin drag race, but we got rained out! :-( Bummer! Oh well, we had a great time hanging out together all the same!

A picture of the birthday girls! It was Grandma's birthday on Saturday, but the others have birthdays coming up soon too!


My Grandma Logan (a.k.a. Muncie Grammy) and my Grandma Jina (a.k.a. Indy Grammy)!


Somethings never change...Linds still LOVES to cut the cake!


Grammy opening her presents!


Aunt Karol goofs around with the boys!


Sam, Chad & Daddy


Linds & Chad give their best "farmer" pose...or maybe Chad's just punching Linds in the boob.


Em & her two Grammies!

My cousin Mike's new Boxer puppy, Harley! How sweet!!!

Everybody wants to hold him!






The whole clan! The girls from left to right: My cousin's wife Sharon, my aunt Kathy, Grandma Jina, my mom, Grandma Logan, my aunt Karol, Linds & me! The guys from left to right: My uncle Norm, Sam, my cousin Mike, Daddy, my uncle Bruce & Chad!

It's A Family Polka!

Since my sister and her husband are in town, we took them (along with my dad) down to The Rathskeller to see the always fabulous Polka Boy! Linds was able to make through two sets, but Daddy stayed with us to close the place down! :-)

Em & Linds


Daddy & Em

Daddy enjoying a frosty beverage!

Chad & Linds

Doing the polka!

Drink A Coke...For A Good Cause!

Did you know that in the 15 years since the Ronald McDonald House Pop Tab Recycling program started, over $500,000 has been raised for the House! Funds received from the recycling of the tabs generates between $50,000-70,000 annually in revenue for the House! For those of you who may not know, the Ronald McDonald House provides a home-away-from-home for families with sick children who are being treated primarily at Riley Children's Hospital. This year the House's 5th Annual Pop Tab Drop is on August 7, 2009 on Monument Circle, Downtown Indy. Their goal this year is to collect over 15 million tabs in a three hour period (drop off time is 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.) If you drink anything at home with a tab top, would you join me in collecting them for the Ronald McDonald House? If you collect them, we can work out a way for me to get them from you and I'll drop them off! Hope to see you soon...with a bag of tabs! :-)

For info on the recycling program:

http://www.rmh-indiana.org/poptabs.html

Hmmm...

Hangin' Tough with NKOTB!

Talk about another blast from the WAY, WAY past! On Sunday night I got to go see The New Kids On The Block perform at Verizon! I saw them once before in middle school, all those years ago! :-) I did the recycle option again, so I got in free, but even so, Sam said (and I quote) there's not enough money in the world for him to go see NKOTB (free or not!) So I got a fellow NKOTB fan (who would like to remain anonymous :-) to join me! We had a surprisingly good time listening to all of our old favorites like Step By Step, Hangin' Tough and Cover Girl! And they performed some songs from their new album...What? A "new" album, you ask? Why, yes! My favorite new song is called Dirty Dancing with the killer chorus line of "You be my Baby and I'll be your Swayze!" Yeah, good stuff! Here are some videos!

You got the Right Stuff, baby!

Step By Step!

Hangin' Tough!

A Blast From The Past!!!

Last weekend Sam and I had a rockin' good time reliving our high school "glory days" by going to The Offspring concert at The Lawn at White River Gardens. I had heard about this really cool program where if you stay after the show to collect all of the recyclable plastic bottles and cans so they're not thrown in the trash, you get into the show for free!!!

Sittin' on the lawn waiting for the show to begin!




A little clean-up before hand!

Just a very small pile of bottles and cans left on the lawn after the show! It's a great way to keep all those recycables from just being thrown in the trash!


Come Out And Play!

I may be dumb, but I'm not a dweeb...I'm just a sucker with no Self-Esteem!