To Nashville to Nashville to race a Boat oh wait it's Knoxville!

Dustin and I took a road trip this weekend to Nashville scratch that Knoxville to participate in Dragon Boat fundraiser for Knoxville Area Rescue Ministries. (I thought the entire time we were going to Nashville but it was Knoxville!  Doh!)  We raised money for their ministries, along with some of our friends at wheeler mission and drove down.  After our long drive with some traffic in Louisville but we made it to Knoxville.   Friday we had a practice session where our boat full of rookies realized its harder than it looks to paddle in sync.  Basically a dragon boat is a long skinny crew or canoe like boat, it seats 22, 20 paddlers, a drummer and a steersman.  You are ridiculously close to the person in front of you so you absolutely must paddle with the person in front of you or you go no where fast.  Our team was pretty evenly balanced size wise with the center of the boat filled with big burly men to row with strong pulls.  Practice was a mess and both Dustin and I were drenched afterward.

Saturday was the big race with 62 teams.  Bethany got us ridiculous dragon hats that were a huge hit, and had our drummer wear a childsize dragon costume.  We did pretty well although I had issues paddling our team got two respectable times, and finished 22.  I also got to take a swim in the lake so it was a win win.  We stayed with our friend Ty and his grandparents- we've missed Ty - and they were so accomdating.  It was a fun event all around.  WTG KARM on all the fundraising and a successful event we loved it!  

then on the drive home we stopped to see some "big things". Nothing like a pink elephant or roaring lion to complete a quick roadtrip.

14/365

Another week of photos. This week I was back in New York which always provides an array of awesome to snap photos of. Then back in Indy for the weekend. Photos are Monday - my view of Central Park, Tuesday - Lincoln center for the arts, Wed - Seinfeld Diner, Thursday - LGA airport, Friday - chili for one, Saturday - home make over projects with sparkle flats, Sunday - beech grove bowl with Jono. It was a good week.

New Years with Big Things

For New years I took a roadtrip to St. Louis with my mom and sister. We saw many big things. It was so spontaneous and fun. And it was good to get away just a few days. It was also awesome because Momo and Lita had never been to St. Louis. So of course a trip to the arch was needed.  We didn't really plan anything except the arch before we arrived.  When we got there we looked up places on iPhone Apps, and in a magazine in our hotel room and we planned what we wanted to see - interesting weirdness mostly with a side of ice cream, and pizza for Lita.   It was great to plan it out that way so we could map it all out and hit stop after stop instead of being like "what's next".  It worked well. Anyhow now for some photos.  

Da Arch

Big Ugly Indian.  This sculpture is apparently repulsive even to the artist.  I kind of liked him.

Union Station. 

Giant Snapping Turtle. 

Giant Tortise

Mini Giant Baby Turtle (that's an oxymoron)

Lita on Snapping Turtle

This could eat you.

Elephant at the zoo - you know what I loved about the zoo - it's FREE - meaning we could just go and see what we wanted and leave.

Like the Penguin Exhibit

Which you can practically touch.  It was great for the last Penguin adventure of 2012.

Giant Shoe Made of Shoes. 

Giant Catsup Bottle. 

We had lunch at this adorable diner when the other place we attempted to try was closed.

View from the arch.

Here we are at the top all blurry and such.

We also went to Goodwill Outlet - which is kinda "yucky"  but I did spend $0.22 and got a hand made hat and a coin purse.  And we saw this guy which made the adventure priceless.  Yes that's right he's wearing a fur cap, green sunglasses and his GIANT earphones.  He was all business looking for some great finds.

I also snapped this photobooth strip.

I found a giant bobble head which BTW they do NOT want you to touch. Whoops luckily I did not have to buy him as he was $10K and I don't even know his name.

December - Best of Life Video #12

Here is the 12th and final installment of the Best of Life Videos from 2011. I accidentally deleted like three segments of the footage too - whoops! Song is Joe Cocker's - I Get By with A Little Help from My Friends. If you need to see the rest of the videos they are here.  This has been a fun way to document my life and I love that it's full of imperfections because so is life.  In 2012 I'm thinking I might need to change it up a bit - but I'm not sure if I will or not yet.

Best of Life - November has Come - Video #11

Here is the 11th segment of my videos for 2011 - the songs used are November has Come by Gorillaz and Changing by Airborne Toxic Event.  I found some templates in the editing software and I'm liking creating these much more now - this has been a fun project and I can't wait to continue it in 2012 and document more of my life this way.  To view prior videos click here.

If you can't get the above to work you can view the video here.

#7 West Coast Tacos

So #7 on my list of 52 things was to eat West Coast Tacos and cross this off my list recently.  Food trucks are all the rage in Indy right now I think there are like 9 of them all around the city.   And West Coast I think it one of the original ones.  So I hit it up with a friend in the snow.  

They really only serve one kind of taco with various meats or a burrito and various beers/sodas on any given day.  When I went it was teriyaki tacos.  No lettuce, no tomatoes, no cheese - I don't know if this is how it is everyday or not but I would have liked to have some lettuce for my taco.  Otherwise they were very flavorful and yummy with a unique asian sort of taco and with a soda it's only $6  - pretty cheap.  Kathleen and I decided however we needed to try out the Naco Taco truck next because that's the authentic mexican kind.