Memory Monday: Adventures in Illinois and surrounding areas

Today I was sitting around needing a laugh and so I started thinking of some of the crazy laughable times in my life and I instantly thought of Murphysboro, IL. and my adventures with Jen and mandy and company! :)

In Illinois we lived in the home of a lady who was serving a mission in NY. Her name is Sister Schaack. Oh how we love and adore Sister Schaack. I never lived with her...but I have stayed with her on returning visits and she is a gem!

This is our favorite room in the house. That couch is THE MOST comfortable thing ever! (She would just die if she new how many times we vegged, slept and ate on her beautiful white couch! but it just was so inviting and just drew us in!)

Some of my favorite laughable moments on this couch would be.. all 4 seasons of 24 in a month were watched on this couch, outrageous teasing moments were done on this couch, Totinos pizza, diet coke and Graeters ice cream were consumed in quanities we won't mention here, Computer time was done here, sleepy time was done here and some of the most awkward social gatherings you will ever witness took place in this very room! :)

While in Illinois Jen and I became Road-trippers. I went went all over the place. Several times to Chicago and St. Louis, a couple to Nauvoo and other history sites, Memphis, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana (Kim S and I), Arkansas (with my Dad's family for Thanksgiving...bless Jen's heart!), Iowa and I could pretty much name all the midwest states and I went there at one time or another while living in Illinois. The next few pictures are memories from those very roadtrips...

When we went back to visit my Mission in Ohio... My former investigator Bob Dempsey decided he wanted to see me do some Tae something.. this is Jen's fav memory (minus Carol at Golden Corral without her teeth in gumming her steak). I have lost all pride in posting this... but it makes me laugh gut laughter so it MUST go on my laughing memory blog.

This is the 3 of us in our element! Oh was this an experience!! How I love my Jen and Er! Erika came to visit us after we left her roommate-less at the Crestwood when we moved to Illinois. Funny part is that when she came to IL and we decided that we wanted to go to Kentucky (mind you 4 hours away) so that we could have her experience Graeters Ice Cream. So on a wim we took off for Kentucky! Laughing all the way. We went to stay at a hotel, ate at cheesecake factory, went to a movie, came back to hotel, went to the Kentucky Temple the next morning then PF Changs and then to Graeters. We are crazy! We all bought take home ice cream $50 worth each I believe! hahaha Who does that? We did! Then we couldn't find ANYWHERE from Illinois to St Louis to buy dry ice so Er could take it home on the plane... so she had to leave it.. bummer for her.. blessing for us!

This is one of the stupidest ideas that we ever thought of and one of the most hideous pictures but I had to share it cause it is so funny! We brought this on a trip thinking we would watch the TV like that.. we had gone to Liberty jail area to do an EFY training...isn't that funny. we were laughing like crazy.. don't worry it didn't last

This is Jen and I when we met Ryan Tucker in Memphis for dinner! We went to Rum Boogie.. oh how we loved the food and the saxophone player and jazz music. One of the fun memories we had.See the little man in blue.. we will call him "TAZMANIAN DEVIL" this is the little boy I worked with at the brain injury center that kicked the "trash" out of me, caused me to have syatica and gave me my grey tooth. Can you believe a little dude like that could beat me up.. I had to state trooper him on the ground till my big black co-workers (in the back row that you can see) came to my rescue. What a memory... I must say, I still loved little man taz after that.

Thanks for joining me for a little ditty down memory lane :)