For Those of You Just Dying to Know...

I didn't win anything in CA or even make it onto the Price is Right, BUT I did have a pretty incredible time! We filled every minute of every day and while every part of it was not fun (stomach bugs, long waits, getting lost, and roads closed with no detours), we definitely made a lot of memories and even managed to still be best friends by the end of the week!

In LA, we did the whole tourist bit and went down Hollywood Blvd. and Rodeo Dr. We went to the Tonight Show with Jay Leno taping where the evening's guests were Ed Helms (Andy from the Office) and Chelsea Kane (from Dancing with the Stars). The whole thing was pretty neat to see, but we didn't really make it on tv. The Price is Right was pretty exciting. The very first person they called was the girl sitting in the seat right in front of me. A little later, I thought - for just a split second - that I made it on the show. It's so loud in there when they're calling the names that you can't really hear what they are saying. To find out if you're on, they have a guy standing in the front with the name on a big poster. I heard something Johnson and then looked to the board and saw Michael Johnson. Yeah, my heart skipped a beat or two, but then it all began to sink in as I saw a big guy stand up and make his way to the front. So close! Look for me on June 8th because while I didn't get to "come on down," I did get a lot of screen time!

California is such a beautiful state. I usually don't take a lot of scenery type pictures, but I couldn't help myself there. Between the miles and miles of farmland, the gorgeous ocean, and the majestic mountains, it's a little easy to go camera crazy! One of my favorite days was when we walked around Monterey. I loved all the amazing views and thought it was pretty cool to see tons (literally!) of sea lions and seals all on the beach. It's easy to forget animals like that actually live outside of zoos and aquariums!

San Francisco is definitely not one of my favorite cities, but I did really love our Alcatraz tour. I knew very little of the history, and it was all very fascinating. I'll spare you the long history lesson, but it started out as a military base, transitioned into a prison, became occupied by Indians hoping to claim some territory as their own, and is now part of the National Park Service. The island itself is very beautiful, and San Francisco looks a lot better from a distance! 

While I love the fact that I have some amazing friends and enjoy every chance I have to spend some time with them, by the end of the week I was so ready to be back home with my sweet little family! Nothing can compare to them and the life that we have together! The time I spend away from them makes me realize all over again how blessed I am! There's no place like home!

*For more pictures click here.

End of the Year Celebration

Our school year is officially over, and I had fully intended to post a brief overview of all that we've learned and done this year. Time's gotten away with me though, so it'll have to wait until later because I've got to get my bags packed and ready to go!!! We did have a big end of our first year celebration that included lunch at Chuck E. Cheese's (or the place where 92% of all pandemics begin, according to Andy).

My favorite students!

It was the first time the girls were more focused on which games give the most tickets instead of which little ride is the most fun. Just another sign that my babies are growing up. Sigh. It seems like I've seen more and more of that in the last several weeks.

It was a tough decision, but they finally got all of their tickets spent, and then because there were still plenty of hours left in our day of celebration, we headed off to a state park/lake.


The weather was perfect, and the crowds were non-existent.

Of course, Kerri had to try and make some furry friends

without their mommy's permission!

It was a great day to celebrate a great year!

In Her Own Little World

If you came to visit our house around 8:30 pm on any given night, you'd have about a 50% chance of seeing Kerri hopping around the house with both legs crammed into one side of her pants. "Why?" you ask . . .

because she's a mermaid of course!!

A little while back, she made the comment to me that she is 1/2 mermaid and 1/2 independent. Gotta love that girl!

5-11-11

Here's my monthly picture for my challenge to myself to take at least one picture of the girls together every month. To see the first four pictures, you can click here, here, here, and here! 

 I'm pretty sure that this is my favorite picture of the girls - ever! It was a quick moment of unprompted affection, and I just so happened to have my camera ready. Oh, how I love these sweet girls! I actually took quite a few pictures before/after this one. You can see the rest of them here if you'd like.

Sunshine(s)

You are my sunshine

My only sunshine

You make me happy

When skies are grey

You'll never know dear             
How much I love you             
Please don't take my sunshine away. 

Thank you sweet girls for giving me the best job in the world. I love being your mommy so much! I can't believe God gave me the two best girls in the world, but I'm so incredibly glad He did! I love you!

California or Bust

In less than 2 weeks, I'll be boarding a plane and landing in San Francisco to meet up with 2 out of 3 of my best friends from college (we're sooo sad our 4th couldn't make it to our annual get together this year, but she's got a pretty adorable little baby boy to make up for it!).

The four of us last year in Ocean City, MD

I think we've planned out almost every second, and we're pretty determined to fit in as much as possible! At this point, our itinerary includes checking out as much of San Fran as we can in a day, including a boat ride and a tour of Alcatraz, several days in LA taking in as many "must-sees" as we can and attending a taping of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno AND *insert drum roll here* the Price is Right!!! Plenty of beach time and a little trip to Lake Tahoe are also in our plans. Yes, I'm only going to be there for a week, but who needs sleep, right?!

Let's go back to the Price is Right thing - pretty much a dream come true for me! To say that I'm excited to have tickets to be in the audience is putting it mildly, add to that all the magnificent "what ifs" that are running through my head, I'll readily admit it: I'm having a hard time living in the land of reality here. Since it's always better to be prepared (ok, who am I fooling) Since I tend to spend a lot of time in the "what if" world, we've been doing a lot of game show watching around here, you know - just in case. With "Come on down!" being shouted at random times throughout the day and excited bids of "$1!" coming out of my children's mouths (along with requests to please win them that trip to Disney or that really cool cotton candy maker), I might just be creating a monster (well, several).

The other thing about going to the show is something that, I admit, is one of the very first things that popped into my mind when I found out: What shirts are we going to wear? There has got to be a line between game show spirit and TOO (because I know they all are on some level) tacky, but I'm pretty sure I don't know where it is. Here are my top two ideas:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Call me on down
Cause I *heart* Drew

or

I *heart* The Price is Right (on black t-shirt with rhinestones)

Neither one of them are the work of a creative genius, I know, but I'm working with the best I've got. Give me a little help, and tell me what you think!!

T-shirt Ideas
	Roses are red
	Rhinestones
	Go back to the drawing board!
	I've got a better idea
pollcode.com free polls

Goofy

Just because it has been that kind of day around here!

It's a Jungle Out There

Or at least it sounds like it. Here, listen for yourself -

Cicadas 2011 from Michaella Johnson on Vimeo.

Ok, here's your science lesson for today (and way more bug pictures than should be in any post but in some way it's grossly fascinating).

Ever heard of cicadas? You know, the little locust type bugs that leave their little brown shells around on trees and leaves?

Come to find out, there's another kind called periodical cicadas. These cicadas live underground for either 17 or 13 years (the ones we have right now are the 13 year ones), then they come out, mate, lay eggs, and die. In another 13 years, their offspring will follow the same pattern.

After a little research, here are some things I've discovered:

The source of the noise:
Cicada nymphs emerge from the ground, crawl up trees, shed their skins, and fly to the treetops from which the males call for mates. Females reply with wing clicks to lure in the males. They only sing during the day - at night everything's nice and peacefully quiet again.

Everywhere you look - up high, down low, or in the middle - you can spot tons of the shells

Weird fact:
Apparently, they taste good: cats, dogs, and even some people like to eat them.  I stumbled across recipes for cicada stir-fry, deep-fried cicada, and cicada rhubarb pie along with instructions on how to properly gather, blanch, and store them. Gross! (Please, if you've eaten a cicada - or any bug for that matter - don't ever tell me or I might not be able to get over it enough to ever hang out with you!)
 
Reasons not to be scared:
Cicadas are not pests -they don't eat up or damage plants or anything else (they eat tree sap, even when they are underground).
Cicadas are no threat to humans. They don't bite, sting, lay eggs on you or in you, or even land on you (unless, I'm guessing, in the case that you are camouflaged as a tree . . . then they might).

Reasons I'm still scared:
They are bugs.
They are big bugs.
They are big, freaky looking bugs. They have bright red eyes and orange on their huge wings. (Did I mention that they are big?)
They leave behind scary looking shells all over the place, and I don't want to accidentally touch or crunch one.

Basically, the only reason I'm still in Macon for the next 4-6 weeks is because (other than the noise and the shells which don't move so I can tolerate them) they really do keep to themselves. Trust me, if they were flying around all over the place, there is absolutely no way that I would venture out of the house! Every now and then, I'll spot a dead one, but that's it.

Little known fact:
Ok, here's the real reason why it bothers me so much. I can tune out just about anything: laughing, talking, singing, playing, crying, giggling, screaming - none of it bothers me. Little noises that shouldn't bother any normal person drive me crazy: buzzing from a speaker, humming of a light, the background noise of singing cicadas that I can still faintly hear inside my house. On second thought, maybe I should rethink the whole extended trip . . .

Guess who's pretty excited about it all though - this weird child of mine who doesn't mind any creature, no matter how disgusting or annoying they are (except for ants which totally freak her out - go figure!?)