Great, another photo meme for me to become addicted to!! This one I blame fully on Emmie_Bee who I saw post last week, but it wasn’t until this week that I asked her about.  Well shoot!  I am now hooked.

I had to ditch my Crackberry after it went swimming at the Great Wolf Lodge (read that story here).  So, to replace my trusty (and crappy picture-taking) Crackberry, I bought the new MyTouch G4 (or 4G) from T-Mobile.  So now I am part of the Android community, a touch-screen fanatic, and have been running around saying “there’s an app for that” every chance I get.  You can slap me – I know that’s soooo last year! Haha.

That night (Tuesday morning really), the first snow of the season came.  Fantastic.  NOT! Snow = busy at work, no matter what the snow fall.  Now let me say, I live in Oregon, and even with the tiniest bit of snow, us Oregonians FREAK!!!  We don’t drive in it, and most that have to, shouldn’t.  That makes for fun commutes…… It was really pretty though, even if it was just a small dusting.

That, coupled with sub-freezing temperatures, allowed the waterfall at our apartment complex to partially freeze over.  Now THAT was gorgeous!!!

more…

I had planned entirely on posting before, but ya know, life really seems to get the better of us sometimes, doesn’t it?  Between unpacking, the little snow we had (I work for a company where no matter how much snow, it tends to be a big deal), and then Thanksgiving(and Black Friday – hehe), the week following the Great Wolf Lodge Eco-Friendly Mom Blogger Summit (that was a mouthful), really came and went before I could blink.

While I could go on and rave over this bloggy conference forever, I have compiled my thoughts and narrowed down the experience into several different sections, so as not to completely overwhelm you with everything at once.  How sweet am I, don’t ya think? lol.  Then I figured I could dedicate a post all in its own to the photos.  Oh, there were photos.  And memories.  And then some more photos.  Hundreds of them, in fact.  In my case, over 650…. Yes, I know.  Not that you expected anything less from me, though, right? 

So, first of all I must give a huge thank you to Kristin from OurOrdinaryLife, who really put this whole shindig together!  She did a spectacular job and really, I admire her for being so passionate about being eco-friendly!  You are super amazing, my friend!

Also, a big thank you to Great Wolf Lodge for dealing with our shenanigans and for allowing us to run amok in your resort for the weekend.  Honestly, I haven’t had so much fun in a long time!  The Great Wolf Lodge is truly beautiful!!!!  Touring the facilities and seeing how you are making an impact to preserve our environment was fantastic!  What an experience – we will definitely be returning in the future for a more extended stay.

Nature’s Path – You are such a caring and fantastic company doing great things for the environment and the people in this world!  Thank you so much to Maria in particular, for coming to speak and for all the great things you taught us and let us take home!!  I can’t express how much you taught me over the weekend.  Well, I can, and I will, just not in this post.

A thank you shout out to Stephanie and her husband, Brian, for having an extra memory card for me to use.  Hehe.  In my turmoil to get out of the house Friday evening, I didn’t realize that my sweet, adorable children went through the camera bag, removing my case of memory cards.

Every one else who came to experience this weekend with me – it was truly great to meet you all!  A lot of you I know through our blogs and Twitter, so meeting in person was absolutely great!  Plus, I made a few new friends along the way, which is truly never a bad thing, and really a blessing.  You were all so sweet and your families so cute!  I hope that this is a kick-start to some long-lasting friendships.

Here is a list of the sponsors from our Great Wolf Lodge Eco-Friendly Mom Blogger Summit.  Each had their own role to make this event flawless, perfection, and as wonderful as it was.  Thank you to each and every one of them for not only that, but for doing what they are able to do to be eco-friendly/organic:

Great Wolf Lodge
Nature’s Path
Organic Valley
Oregon Zoo
Bridgeport Brewery
Naked Wines
Simply Organic
AuraCalia
Seventh Generation
Oregon Rain
Dave’s Killer Bread
Fairy Tales – Haircare For Children
Truly Organic Baking
Crayola
Dropps
Seeds of Change

Please be on the lookout for some other great posts in relation to this fun-filled weekend.  I really have more to share than I deem appropriate for one post, so we shall leave it here for now.

Sooooo… As some of you know.. I had the fabulous opportunity to go to Great Wolf Lodge over this past weekend.  While there will be more of that grand adventure in very near future posts, this one is a post more on the unfortunate side.

For those of you that were there, you know my phone went swimming… Fantastic, huh?

There really its an epic story behind it all, and since I have time, I might as well tell you, right? Also, I have the resources and time to have said story time.

So, upon arriving at Great Wolf Lodge, Konnor immediately spotted the water park, and informed me we had to go, right then.  Lovely…. Considering it was like, oh, 8 o’clock when we got there and the water park closed at 9, it was hard to convince him we had to wait for the next day.

We, did, eventually, get him to realize that we could go first thing in the morning.

What a mistake those words were.  That kid was up at 7am asking to go to the water park!!! For real dude??  Don’t get me wrong, never did I imagine that my kids would do something as silly as sleep in for once, but darn it!

Getting back on track, we were at the water park at 9am when it opened.  Konnor went and did his thing and Ariana and I stayed at the little toddler pool so she could splash and giggle and have a grand time.  (As a side note: yes, I let Konnor roam because I knew where he was, he doesn’t like deep water, and there are about 50,000 lifeguards watching every nook and cranny of that place)

Ariana didn’t really care much for the water, as I suspected she wouldn’t.  She is much like her brother in the sense that she would rather just watch kids swim and splash while sitting on the sidelines, in about 3 inches of water.  That is what she did.

Until the bright idea to take her down the toddler slide came up.

In my defense, it was a little slide, really.  Tiny.  Maybe 3 feet in length down to what I would consider a shallow pool at the end.

Shallow? Ha!  Looks can be deceiving, my friends.

My phone, which had been with me all morning and which doesn’t leave my side because of my addiction to pictures and twitter alike, was securely placed inside of my bathing suit top (yes, in my boobies!), which is where it would have been safest.

Ariana sat in my lap and I sat on the slide, full intention of just going.  However, when I looked, my confidence of my phone’s safety was hindered and I took it out of my top to hold it above my head.

WHYYYYY?!?!?!?!  Seriously, big idiot move.

Here comes the blur of events:  We slide down.  Ariana goes under.  She is too heavy to pick up with one arm.  Instinctively, my other arm (Blackberry in hand) goes underwater to grab her and pick her up.  I realize phone is in pocket. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!!!!

Too late.  Damage done.  I pop the back off, pull the battery out, and curse myself.  Kristin and Lindsay are looking at me, wondering if what they saw really just happened.  Ariana is pissed off at me.  I’m dumbfounded, not quite sure how the bottom of the slide really had water that deep.

The phone sat out, completely taken apart, for the rest of the trip.  When we got home, it moved to a bowl full of rice, still completely dis-assembled.  Monday night I turned the phone on, which, suprisingly, it was (almost) fully functional! SCORE!!!  However, when I went to send a text message, it sat there, waiting to send.  Great….. I made a phone call – the quality of said call sucked.  Then I even went as far as to Tweet and Facebook, which worked fine.  Well, at least I had that.

Ultimately, I decided that I could notlive without my text messaging, and somehow managed to talk my mom into buying me a new phone for Christmas.  She is so awesome!  She bought me a MyTouch 4G from T-mobile.  Now, it has only been two days, but I am totally and absolutely in LOVE with this phone. 

Officially, I am in the world of Android.  Coming from a Blackberry, this is night and day!  They truly do have an app for everything!  I’m not totally sure how I managed to live without this thing before. 

People, I have an app to manage and post to my blog from my phone!!  Sorry if this is not a new feature, nor a new app, but the WordPress App is pretty fantastical!

Anyways, that’s all. =)

I will have more to say about Great Wolf Lodge and the Eco Moms Conference really soon.  I promise!

Ps, the pictures? friggin AMAZING!!!

Happy Fawk You Friday all!! Did you miss me last week?  Sorry was super busy.  I am this week as well, but damn I have some serious venting to do up in here. 

Love that now I have an excuse to curse like a sailor on my blog.  You see, I curse like a sailor on my Facebook, but I guess I find my blog to be a bit more public so I put my “good girl” panties on when I blog.  BUT NOT ON FRIDAYS!!!! Lol.. Anywho, onto the juicies!

FUCK YOU to the ovarian cyst that decided to rupture last Friday (another reason I didn’t participate).. Yeah, um, pain so intense that I pass out?? So not cool!  You think I enjoy going into for an emergency ultrasound to make sure that my IUD didn’t try and make a run through the border?  Yeah, not so much.  Though, the ultrasound tech was a pretty hott young man! Still, FUUUUUUUCK YOU!!!

FAWK YOU to the Justin’s front tooth that is going to cost us $1,000.00 to fix!! What shitty timing for you to decide to break – granted, it was Miss A’s fault for head-butting her Daddy, you should have held strong!!!! Jerk.

FAWK YOU to the weather forecasters.  How dare you tell me that the valley floor in Oregon could possibly see snow in NOVEMBER!!!! That is just pure crazy talk!! You are never right when it comes to snow anyways, so this could all be a big fat tease.  If it is, then FUUUUCK YOUUU!!!!

FAWK YOU mother nature!!!!!!!  How dare you and La Nina decide that temperatures get low enough in Oregon to get the weather forecasters excited enough to tell us there will be snow in NOVEMBER!! Do you know they are talking a WHITE THANKSGIVING?!?!?! Come on, who does that?? We didn’t even have shit for summer.  FAWK YOU, YOU CRAZY HORMONAL BITCH!!!!! I’m buying you some menopause medication for Christmas. Mmmmkay!

That’s all for this week.  Make sure you stop by all the other fabulous blogger’s Fawk You Friday’s to see what they are cursing this week.

And you can all curse me because I’m going back to packing for my weekend at the Great Wolf Lodge for a bloggy conference! 

A test of your local blogging mommy’s new-found publishing software.  Windows Live Writer….

Please bare with me as I test:

a few
different

things….

hehe!

But of course to ease the pain, here are some pictures!!!

thanks to Miss Lindsay for telling me about this fantastic program!!! Maybe now I can figure out a siggy to put at the bottom of all my posts.