Our State Fair is the Best State Fair...

...don't miss it, don't even be late!

Ok - name that tune.....

It's the state fair song from Oklahoma. Although, I know they were talking about the Ohio State Fair and not Oklahoma. Or not. I've never been to the Oklahoma State Fair, but I hear it and Texas both have pretty nice state fairs. Maybe someday I'll visit those fairs.

Anyway, thanks to my job I get to spend a lot of time at the Ohio State Fair. I love it. I love getting out of the office for one thing (just for a change of scenery), but I also like being at the fair because so many people are there and I get to see lots of friends at one time. I basically just love fairs in general! I eat, sleep, and breath them during the summer. Just don't take deep breaths if you're there on the truck/tractor pull night. Or a night of demo derby (b.o.). :)

At the 2013 OSF I worked for my job, volunteered for another job, and worked a side job one night as a carney. I made lemonade shake ups all night. 8 hours. I'm now a pro.

with Patriot - the Columbus Zoo's mascot.

One of our students taught fair goers how to milk cows all day every day. 

I got to go to the breakfast where they inducted peeps into the Ohio Ag Hall of Fame.

I saw these piglets be born! Like born into the world. It was a amazing.

Abe Lincoln and General Custard (?) came back from the past for our fair!

Also saw these yayhoos carrying out this giant chair. Where are you going to put that? Really?

Fireworks!!

I checked on the bigs literally every day. No joke. They are too precious.

smokey used to seem so big. He did not remember my name.

molly and her pork express cart

The state fair was lots of fun. I got to see many of my old friends from my days in college and I also ran into many of the current students that I work with and hadn't seen all summer. It made me excited for school to start back up again - which has now started already and is one of the reasons I'm a month behind on posts!

I didn't do anything new at the OSF this year, other than try different kind of pork every time I ate from Molly's pork stand. No 'muddy pigs' or deep fried oreos. Maybe at another fair this summer.

Speaking of county fairs, I hit up a new one this year - Shelby County. Molly and I went to watch her boyfriends pigs at his home county fair. We've also made it to Pickaway, Franklin, Hartford Independent and I think that's it for me. She's been to a ton of others with friends and without me. :(

Lauren's Wedding

Earlier this month, my sweet friend Lauren got married. It was a beautifully sweet ceremony, in which I cried the entire time. Happy tears of course!

Lauren and I first met in 2004 because our then boyfriends were friends. She was her county fair queen and I was my county fair queen. :)

back in our 'pagent' days. 2006 ohio fair's queen contest.

Over the next 7 years we did lots of double dates - baseball games, dinners, watching OSU games. Then after both of our relationships ended with our significant others, she and I stayed friends. And she was my biggest fan and encourager, and I hers, through everything.

Anywhooooo....

Lauren was married to her junior high/high school sweetheart in an adorable ceremony on his family farm. Seeing how happy she was the entire time she walked down the aisle and stood at the alter I just cried and cried happy tears for her. I had never been more encouraged of what love is supposed to be like than I was at that wedding. And I have been to A LOT of weddings. A LOT!

reception venue - the family barn!

her husband wrote a song for her.

she's so excited to marry him.

walking down the aisle with her dad.

saying their vows.

so happy together.

her grandparents' cake topper.

her listening to nathan sing her song. :)

a sweet cutting of the cake.

i love her.

the barn from the road.

the back of her dress. :)

Lauren, I'm so, so happy for you. Let's hang out soon, cause I miss you.

Bahama Cruise - Day 1 & 2

Last weekend I went on a three day cruise with my good friend Jill and her (now my) friend Amy. We started planning this cruise back in March/April. It seemed like it would never get here. And now it's over!!! I want to do this every weekend. 

Friday we flew to Miami. We had a short layover in Atlanta and arrived in the party city around 1pm. We headed strait to our ship and were in our room by 3:30.

On the way to the boat port from the aiport, we passed where the Heat plays. I was of course snapping 293 pictures, because Lebron James could be walking outside! Or Brian Hartline! Or the Kardashians!!

goodness i look like a tourist.

 

After we get settled in our room, we head to the theater for a little tour of the ship, which takes us all over the place. Then we head down for the mandatory emergency meeting area. OMG, what a waste of time. We were there way early and had to wait on the people that had been at the pool all day and were just taking their time to get upstairs. It was downright miserable because you know no one was listening and if the ship was actually sinking, we would not be spending all of this time to get organized from shortest to tallest. #wasteoftime

 At 5pm we left Miami. I was thrilled to float by the road that you always see Horatio Cane driving on in CSI:Miami. :) And then we were out to sea. It started raining on us as we left the port and then we went through storm, which was amazing. We sat on the balcony of our room and took pictures of the lightening. It was amazing. This was the first time we said we were glad we got the balcony. We said it approximately 23,394 more times in two days.

The water was sooooo blue!

got it on 'film'!

After we got settled into our room, we went to dinner. There were so many different options, but we went to one of the nice dining halls. Dinner was great because you can order whatever you want and not have to pay for it! ha.

After dinner, we went to a comedy show in the theater. Andrew Kennedy was hilarious! His impersonations of our presidents and him talking about his family was so funny. The best part of the entire show was the fact that it wasn't raunchy or vulgar. It was a family friendly show and the entire audience was just busting out in laughter for an entire hour. Pretty much this exact same show here on youtube.

opening act of dancers.

the comedian.

Since it had been raining, we grabbed a late night snack at the buffet (they had fries that tasted like Chick-fil-a's!!!!) and then headed to bed early. We were exhausted.

Saturday morning we woke up somewhat early. I slept like a rock the night before. Soooo good. Until the loud noise of the ship stopping and anchoring woke me up. But when we opened the curtains we were in the middle of the beautiful Caribbean Sea.

After breakfast we loaded onto our tender boat (basically it's the shuttle) and spent the entire day on the private island. This was by far my favorite part of the entire trip. We found a little beach area away from all of the music and chaos and spent the entire day in the sun.

our ship from a distance.

First time stepping on foreign soil.

amy and i on the boat

Not photoshoped, that's the real deal.

The water was so incredibly clear that you could see the bottom perfectly. I rented a lounge raft and laid on it for hours. Almost drifted out to see too, whoops. I could have spent days doing that because it was so hot outside, but the water kept me the perfect temperature.

That's our ship!

perfect view

That's me out there!

If I could spend every vacation on a deserted island like this, I would totally do it. So peaceful and relaxing and I got a really nice tan too. :)

That evening, we got all dressed up for dinner and went to the other nice place to eat. This night we ate on the back of the ship and had a nice view of the sunset. After dinner, we went to see a show called 'Vegas'. The on-ship cast did performances from different eras of the Las Vegas. There was lots of dancing and glittery costumes. It was amazing. I've never been to a Vegas like show before, but this was exciting and pretty close to the real deal. 

i snuck a picture of the vegas show.

After the show, we got dressed in our white outfits for the White Hot party, which was lots of fun and line dancing until the crew was finished dancing on the stage and this group of girls and boys made it an inappropriate dance party. Ugh. #toomuchskin

crazy. crazy. crazy.

white HOTT!

panaramic of the party.

so much party.

We were so tired, we fell asleep as soon as we got back to our room. And I applied a bottle of lotion because I was semi-sunburt. :)

Random Summer Stuff

So there are quite a few trips I have on my bucket list to do. You can find some of them on my list of "101 things to do in 1001 days."


I think taking cross country road trip would be so much fun. It would be very important to do it with people that you actually enjoy being around for long periods of time, because this isn't a three day weekend kind of trip.

My friend Cara and I were talking the other day about we both enjoy taking trips alone. Flying to Florida last February was probably the best traveling experience I've ever had. It was just me and I didn't have to worry about anyone else. I think I cross-country trip might just be one of those occassions - stop where you want, when you want. Unless I can find a friend that is also interested in seeing the statue of Lucille Ball, driving the bridges of madison county, or eating at Bill Clinton's favorite BBQ in Arkansas, I might be going on this trip alone. I'm obviously weird and like to see weird things. Anyone know a guy equally as nerdy? ;)

Anyway, what got me thinking about road trips was this pin I saw last night. I went to the website out of pure curiosity and then watched this video of a time lapse of this guys drive across America! He goes from NY down the east coast (passes through the Myrtle Beach strip) across the south, up the pacific coast and across the midwest. So awesome and it got me pumped for a cross country trip. Which will probably not happen for at least two summers because next summer Tyler wants to go to Brazil for the World Cup and I'm saving my pennies to go with him.

But for fun, here ya go.






In other news, Molly and I have been doing our best to get to as many county fairs as we can this summer. So far we are only at 4 for me and 5 for her (she went with some friends to Madison Co and didn't take me! #salty).

The most recent one was the Shelby County Fair. It was our first time there. You can follow her county fair adventures on instagram with #mollysfairtour. A few years ago we started a map of all the Ohio fairs we have been to. Below is mine, updated this week to include ShelCo.

Molly's boyfriend raises show pigs in Shelby County, so we watched one of the hogs he showed win Reserve Grand Champion Barrow at the open show when we were there. And when I told him congratulations via twitter he responded "thanks sis". That boy is a keeper IMO. Even if he does get grouchy sometimes, but Molly does too sooooooo......

Two weekends ago I ran in another 5K. Dash for Donation was held downtown to bring awareness of organ donation. I've been a registered organ donor since I was 16 and so should you! What are you going to do with your organs when you're no longer here? Nothing, exactly. Give the gift of life and give them to someone who needs them. (Although, I'm not registered to give my eyeballs. Something about that just freaks me out!! Can I see in heaven without eyes? I'm sure I can. How awesome would it be to give the gift of eyesight to someone? Ok, now I will go register for that, too.)

I ran in this race with my friends Jennifer and Stephanie. Stephanie and her husband Pat had a little girl, Addy, who passed away last spring while waiting on a liver transplant. She was about 7-8 months old. Her organs were donated to help two other people. They put together a team and I ran in the race in Addy's memory. You can read all about Addy here. It was great to see both Jennifer and Stephanie their family. I used to see them every couple weeks or months, so it was great catching up since it's now been years since I've seen them.

I did OK in this race. My official time was 34. I want to get past 30 so bad!! Of course, I always think "I could have gone a little faster" AFTER I'm done. Never during. During I'm always thinking "I'm gonna die right now as I run up this .0004% incline." Maybe I need to be more hydrated? I think that is always a problem of mine.

This was Jennifer and Stephanie's first 5K. I was very proud of them. They've been doing the Couch to 5K program and I remember the pride I felt when I completed my first 5K after literally being a couch potato before starting. Way to go girls!

Most of the Lapp Family.

Pat and Stephanie and the poster they made for Addy.

Jennifer, Me and Stephanie.

Later that week I went to a private concert with Alicia! #highclass Emily Bell and John Evans Band played at some family friends of hers and it was a lot of fun.

iPhones take horrible photos after dark!

Brittany's baby shower was a few weeks ago and I went. There were a handful of people there that I knew, but not many. It was great getting to meet her friends from high school and college that I'd heard about so much over the last few years. It's always good to put a name with a face.

It was the cutest little shower. Her hosts did an excellent job of making it look sweet and sassy. And classy. :) I got a few photos of the decor, but not one of us together! Ugh! I'm so excited for little Hadley to arrive. #onemoremonth

Nothing to do with Britt's shower, but my precious girl. Who doesn't want anything to do with me these days. #teenager

One of my 'students' and friend Stacie is riding in Peltonia next month. I briefly thought about doing it with her, but I haven't trained at all and you have to raise $1,800 or they take it from your checking account! Holy Moly! I don't have that kind of money or that many friends that have cash piled up in their basement. So I'm not riding this year, but I do what I can to help Stacie train. Well, we aren't off to a good start. First off, she wrecked her bike a few weeks ago when she went for her first ride (at the end of her driveway!) and then this week we went for a really long ride and downtown she got a flat tire. womp. womp. She had to have a friend come pick her up. I hope she got it fixed. She had a race bike and I was on my mountain bike. And clearly to ride downtown on curbs you need a mountain bike. #mybad Did you know there are little bike helper stations downtown? Yeah, me neither. After waiting for her ride, I found one less than a block away on my ride home.

love riding by the Stadium in the sun.

Just waiting on a ride.

And that about sums up my week. I'm so pumped for this weekend I can't even stand it.