I'm back!

This has been the longest week of my life. I haven’t done anything differently, it is just dragging. I’m dying here, I can’t believe that it is only Thursday. Maybe it’s because I have tickets to see Batman Friday night, or maybe it’s because in two weeks I’m going to Utah. But for the past 7 months time has been flying and suddenly it comes to a screeching halt this week.
I went to Michigan the weekend of July 4th to go and see my dad’s side of the family.

Road Trip!

Kathryn and I finger dancing in the car.

It was fun. Normally when we go to Michigan we hang out with Uncle Ken and Aunt Sue and their son Scottie, occasionally their daughter Christy makes an appearance, like two summers ago when she took us to Cedar point and I got the worst sun burn ever. I thought I had more time to get that sunscreen on, but I rode two roller coasters (I’m not a roller coaster kind of person). Anyway, back to this year.

Watching the snake (not a real one, it's a firework type thing).

But this year there was a big Fourth of July party at my Aunt’s house. Everyone in Michigan has big yards, even if they are “small” in comparison to some of the yards they are all much bigger than any yard I’ve seen in Richmond, unless I was on a farm, which I haven’t done often. She has a pond in the backyard that they made and they treat it so all the kids were swimming and we had a big cookout. And when I say big we are talking about a huge family who shares the same weakness for sweet confections that I do. So the dessert table was almost as big as the dinner table and that was pretty big. We got there around 11 am and stayed until at least 10 pm and I don’t think we stopped eating. It was easy, you stand too close to the tables and you find yourself with another hamburger in hand, or another one of my aunt’s amazing snickerdoodles. I have to admit though; it was weird being with all my cousins because I don’t really know them. They all live up there together and my dad is the only one who lives far away, so they definitely have the advantage. But I was picking up on names and doing pretty good for myself I think. Of course all my cousins my age were either married or had children (yes, that’s an either/or statement). So I didn’t feel like my “group” was there. If that makes sense. There were those there that were my age, but there weren’t many I had anything in common with. So I tended to hang out with Mike and Kathryn a lot, or with some of my older cousins.

Sandbag toss with Mike

My dad with his family! 4 brothers and 5 sisters and his dad. (Uncle Ronnie is a paper plate next to my dad this year...but we've all been paper plates at some point in our lives)

In other news, we are moving buildings at work. Last Friday all the underwriters in the company and their managers were all packed up and ready to go. Monday morning there were only about 40 or so of us left in the building. Going from 160 to 40 is quite the difference. The office is quiet, but it’s not like it was loud before. I barely notice they are gone except that not as many people are coming over to my workstation complaining about things. The best part is, external calls can’t make it through to us so I don’t have to worry about my phone ringing. We do have to check our voicemail periodically just to make sure we aren’t missing anything important, but every time I check I have nothing, which is a relief, but it’s also depressing and I told my boss so. She laughed and said I’ll have plenty to deal with at the new building so just enjoy it….great.
Monday morning when we came in Wanda (Payroll) and I walked around the building, checking to see what was left behind and cleaning up a bit. Since no one was around I hopped on some dolly’s that were stacked up and rode it around like the Flintstones mobile. Yes, I got a picture, who wouldn’t?

Yesterday was pretty funny though because Wanda and I went upstairs to get more crates, and we have to take the elevator down (duh) with those. So I get in the elevator and she starts to push the crates in but the wheel on the dolly gets stuck and suddenly the doors are closing and I don't react because I figure that they will hit the crates and open again. Not the case, they push the crates back towards Wanda and I look at her just before the door closes all the way and I start cracking up. It was the funniest thing to me! Probably because the look of surprise on her face. She said that on her side the inner door pushed her out slightly, but the outer door didn't close all the way and she panicked that she was going to have to go tell our boss that I was stuck in the elevator. I finally get my senses and hit the third floor button so the doors will open again and we get her and the crates into the elevator. I was laughing so hard that I had tears streaming down my face. When my boss saw us she got really worried that I had been hurt and then she asked if Julie hit me (mostly because Julie does hit me...not in a mean way, but seriously, I bruise easily). So we told her the story...and she may not have been following, or maybe this story is one of those where you had to be there. But you are reading the blog of a girl who went hysterical during math class because everytime the teacher drew one of the math equations it looked like a little football shaped smiley face...no one else thought that was quite as funny either.