TGIM!!

Yep, you got it right...that actually stands for Thank Goodness it's Monday!!

We had a FANTASTIC weekend, but it was so filled-to-the-brim and so exhausting that I'm really glad it's just plain ole Monday so I can do things like... sleep a few minutes late, do some housework, and get refueled all over again!

The writers conference was outstanding, as always (we had around 185 in attendance!), but it wore me out! My sessions went great, there were so many sweet people there, and I got to talk a lot about the nuts-and-bolts of writing, but I think that it was too much because my brain feels kinda fuzzy and overworked this morning. Too much intellectual stimulation, you know? (Maybe my plans for today should be reading a good, non-meaningful mystery novel! lol) If you want to check out a few pics, I've put them on the conference blog HERE.

Before the conference, the girls and I met my bf Angela for lunch and a birthday celebration (aka buying extravaganza) at Books-a-Million! Angela reads more than anyone I know and always knows what's "in" in books! She's a middle school librarian, but like no librarian you ever had. She's cool, and Delaney likes to point out that she's much cooler and younger than me! (although Ang is actually six months older than me! lol) Anyway...Angela always treats the girls to a shopping spree at the bookstore for their birthdays and since we hadn't met for McKenna's or Sydney's, she got to buy for all three girls! They were beyond excited, I gotta tell you, because they are all readers(well, Delaney and McKenna are; Sydney isn't quite reading yet, but soon... LOL). Their hands were full when they left the store!

While McKenna, Sydney, and I were in Tuscaloosa most of the weekend, Delaney was with Gary at a softball tournament. They got rained out Friday, but then played on Saturday and won the tournament. It was a qualifier for the ASA national tournament, so they qualified by winning. So that was great news for The Bolts!

On Sunday, I overslept and didn't get to church (which I almost never do!); I was just SO tired and it felt really good to sleep until 10:30. Not a habit I want to get into, but I think I needed it yesterday! We celebrated Father's Day by giving Gary a homemade ice cream maker!! We are SO excited about this (it really was a family gift!) and I plan on trying a few flavors this week!

We spent the rest of the day with Gary's family and I felt absolutely crammed and bloated last night because I ate SO much over there and over the weekend! We did homemade ice cream, roast, all sorts of good Southern veggies, a cookie cake for Delaney's birthday (we had to celebrate AGAIN!), and an angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream.

I think I really was still recovering from the food I ate down at my parents' too (my Grandma from Texas, who is the most AMAZING cook in the world, made me a big plate of fried green tomatoes and I was absolutely in heaven. Everyone laughed at me when I gave Grandma a big hug and said, "These just make me happy!"), so I seriously think I gained 5 pounds over the weekend. Not a good thing (but the food was absolutely good!), and I guess I need to go run around the block or something! lol

For this week...
doing my scrapbook class tomorrow night,
going to help Delaney buy an IPOD with her birthday money (she's beyond excited!),
doing some scrap challenges,
writing two articles that just got assigned to me,
going to the water park,
experimenting with homemade ice cream (I'm thinking butterfinger, or blueberry!)
and finding whatever other trouble I can get into!
It should be a good one!!

(Three favorite pics real quick from the weekend.

This one I love, although it's a little bit blurry. Sydney had her own name tag at the conference and it was too cute!!

Gary took this one at Delaney's tournament and, of course, I wasn't there. But Delaney told me how miserable it was to be at this location. She said it was SO hot all day Saturday and they could see, from their dugout, all these kids diving and sliding into the swimming pool across the street. She said it was torture! And you can see the pool behind Delaney pitching here!

And then Sunday, when we went to Gary's parents for Father's Day, I had to catch all the girl cousins being silly. They must have spent 30 minutes climbing all over each other. This one was one of my faves!


INSERT imaginary picture here of the girls and I with Angela, big smiles on everyone's faces and big bags of books in our arms!

INSERT imaginary picture here of me with my wonderful Grandma!

(I left our camera in Tuscaloosa, so I don't have those pics to download. Very sad about that, because I actually have a few scrapbook pages in mind already for some of them! Guess that will have to wait until later on!)

I will try and pop by your blogs sometime today and see what everyone is and has been up to! Hope it's a good Monday for everyone!