Go Gators!

My Uncle Dennis has quite possibly the greatest preacher I have ever met. I love this guy. Bro. JD is so funny that sometimes I foget he is a preacher. He's great. He embraced the whole crazy Tittle family, not just the ones that go his church. We also have an ongoing prank war. He's a HUGE Alabama fan. We are constantly going back and forth. It started small... I snuck in his office and left a UT Smokey dog. Then I cropped out thier heads and stuck them on pics of TN football players and hung up the pics since they were having a sports themed Vacation Bible School. He got me once at Christmas, but I really don't remember much of what he does to me becasue mine are always so much better. Case in point, on his last birthday, we snuck into his office and inserted this 8 foot Tim Tebow Florida Gator beside his desk.. along with the National championship helmet that painted for him. It was just after FL had beaten AL for the title. Yes... we go to sick links to torture each other. It's GREAT. And I have a small little present in store for him when he comes to stay at the Hotel at the end of the month. It just gets better and better... :0)

Ceramics!

It's official.... I have turned into an old lady. I have joined a ceramics class with some of the ladies from my church. WiCKeD CoOL!!! Chef thinks I'm insane. I worked on a plate tonight. It's very therapeutic and very fun. My teacher's name is BUD. He's nice. OK, it's late. I've got to go. :0)

David Phelps: The Voice

Well, we took another little road trip this afternoon. What a good one it was. Sister and I went to Gardendale, AL to see David Phelps live and in concert. It was AWESOME!! Bowz and I were discussing it. He was going to a concert tonight as well , but not the David Phelps concert. I'm confident mine was better. David even said that it's always better when God shows up. And IT WAS GOOD. Here are a few pics from the night. In the group shot we have (l to r) David, his sister Sheri, the violin girl in the back... no clue who she is other than violin girl, and his wife's cousin, Jack. Jack is particularly funny because his last name is Daniels. David said one night when they were in AL, he had introduced Jack Daniels and he did a couple of songs or whatever and the crowd loved him. The pastor of the church was also there and loved him as well. But for the second show of the night, the pastor didn't come in so he had no idea that David had forgotten to introduce Jack Daniels so the second crowd didn't have a clue who he was. After they were finished the pastor reappeared on stage and yelled, "Wouldn't ya'll like some more Jack Daniels?! I love Jack Daniels!" You had to be there. Funny story.
The cross is what the curch had in it's front yard. Gardendale Baptist is HUGE. I heard an old

man in front of us telling that it seated up to 3,000 I believe. Crazy big. They even have a couple of baseball fields and soccer fields. The other is just poster/flyer thing. I liked it though. Hope your night was as fun as mine. :0)

Mule Day Pics

Oh the Mule Day...
These are just a few of the pics I took from our little shopping adventure.
The sign was obviously the first thing I spotted. They line the streets. Next, was Irene.. the Democratic Donkey. She is always there, so I finally asked the old man sitting beside her if it was the same Irene every year or if they changed every so often. He said that was the same Irene every year and that she is 34 years old!!! I had no idea donkeys lived that long. He also told me that she had been deemed the official National Democratic Donkey and had marched in both of President Clinton's Inaugural Parades. Here's a link if you need more info. It's kinda awesome. http://www.leftinalabama.com/diary/3062/ The peanut man is just a little thing I saw and thought it was kind of cool. While looking at it, Skip found the knives she'd been so desperately searching for. It's a little crazy that they just have these things just laying around for anybody to pick up. I tried to get Skip to pose as she was pretending to chop, but she wouldn't do it. Fun times. :0)

The Mule March

Yee Haw. It's MULE DAY! This age old tradition has been going on in Winfield, AL since long before I was around. BUT, ever since I was around 10 or 11 I have gone with my dear Aunt Skipper to the most redneck festival of the year and I love it! We have a blast. We have a routine. Around 8am we head to Winfield. We go to all of the booths on both sides of the street. Around 10:30am we line up for the big mule march. This is hysterical. It still cracks me up every single time. There is just something so funny about tens of thousands of people lining up on either side of the street to watch a bunch of mules parade down the road. ALSO, when it's election year, all of these hoity-toity politicians will be riding on a wagon behind a mule, smiling and waving like they are having a blast. Yeah, right. Anyway, after the march, Skip and I head to Subway, because it's tradition. We have lunch and then we go to Wal Mart. Most of the time it's to do some grocery shopping for Skip, but some years we just go because that's what we do. Then, we head over to the FoodLand, finish up the grocery shoppin and head home. That's the day. And we do it... every third Saturday in September. I'm having some difficulty with my new memory card, so I'll update all adventures of the weekend when I get that straightened out. Until then, enjoy a short video of the clumpity-clump of the Mule March. :0)

Robbie, Birthday Cakes, and Chef

Monday was my dear friend, Robert Poole's birthday. I call him Robbie. He works up in 360 and has lived in Hawaii. We are kindred spirits. Absolute sweetest guy in the world. SO, I decided to bake him a birthday cake. He told me he liked chocolate and caramel. Now obviously Betty Crocker doesn't make a mix for that, so I wasn't quite sure how I was going to pull that one off. Well, I found a recipe and wasn't quite up to fighting the crazies at Wal-Mart, so I went to Dollar General. Can you believe that they had Carrot Cake and Red Velvet Cake but no chocolate cake? What the blank?! So I found a brownie mix that said "For cakelike brownies, do blah blah blah". Perfect solution I thought. Oh was a wrong. I also bought Pet Milk instead of Sweetened Condensed so that was no good. In short, it was a DISASTER! I, of course, came in the next morning and had to tell Chef all about it. He knows to brace himself when I begin with... "I tried to cook last night". Well, Tuesday night I tried again. This time, I made an edible cake. It was even pretty. Gave it to Robbie on Wednesday. He loved it. Just told me he loved it. Success! Back to Chef, yesterday we were talking about someone we aren't very fond of. Everytime I suggest we get rid of somebody, I just say there's a big river out back of the Hotel. He told me to cook for them. Any cake I'd bake would be sure to kill them. He's wicked funny like that. Good day! :0)

Inventory...

Today was china, glass, silver and linen inventory. Working together, we all count every spoon, dish, glass, napkin, etc at the Hotel. BLAH! Count, count, count. In the spirit of the day... I chose a pic of everyone's favorite Count from Sesame Street! Fun times. :0)