saints, toilet paper, and birthday cake

well, today was insane.

i planned on taking the day off to help dad out with some birthday plans for my mom's birthday today, but i had two assignments and a lunch date to smush in there... and, so, i was running around like a crazy person. for my second assignment i had to drive out to des allemands to photograph this chick who is CRAZY about the saints. seriously.. i've never seen anything like it. i thought i've met sports nuts before in my day, but nono. nothing compared to this chick. nothing. she could rattle off player stats, who got traded when and to what team, what year they were drafted, what teams the coaches played for, their mommas' maiden names, pediatricians names, their fanta flavor preferences... holy. fricking. cow. it was insane. super interesting though.

here's a couple of shots from that assignment (and, yes... that is, indeed, saints toilet paper)









then i went to my mom's for her 60th birthday bash. woohooh! yay for cake.

this is a shot of her, my godchild lauren, and taylor trying to put out the forest fire...





it was fun, especially since i got to visit with my great uncle felix... "uncle p". he's my favorite uncle, and one of the funniest people i know. i love it when i can call someone "old fart" and he replies with "hey, who invited this monkey?". so fun. at one point, we were letting him listen to southpark and family guy clips. i thought he was going to pee his pants.

for this photo, i told him to give me his best "mcelroy" face, and this is what he gave....






and my brother garrett brought over the newest member of the mcelroy family... "buster". he's a 6 week old boston terrier. and his breath smells like puppy. i think instead of spearmint or peppermint flavored mints.. they should make "puppy breath" mints. that would be awesome.

here's a couple pictures i snagged of buster (one of them i just really like because dustin looks funny)












after the party, taylor decided it was time to attempt rollerblading. she's about as good at rollerblading as i am at peeing standing up.
here's a shot of her just after taking a spill near a neighbor's house.






on another note...
earlier in the day me and dustin went pick up a bottle of wine for mom as a gift... and while we were there, we decided to each get our own bottle of wine. and, although i always said that if i ever bought a bottle of wine, i'd get one with the coolest looking bottle.... i lied. while we were shopping, dustin said "hey, this one's good.. and it's really cheap too"... well, whatta ya know. i'm a cheap kind of girl. so we each got one. now, this is the first time i've ever gotten a bottle of wine, so, frankly, i haven't a clue what to do with it. i wonder if it's considered poor form to drink it from a mardi gras cup.





so, here's my problem. i don't have a corkscrew. i ALMOST had one, but dustin said "you can find a better one than that"... well... stupid me decided that he was probably right, even though i knew that it wasn't likely that i was going to go anywhere else to get one... and now i'm stuck with a bottle of wine that i CAN'T OPEN. geez. so, if anyone would like to drive their corkscrew over to my house, i'll let you have some of my "probably costs less than the bottle it's in" wine. so, come on.

i'll just be sitting here holding my empty mardi gras cup in my hand, watching tv, not going to work,... until you get here with your corkscrew. and i'll just blame you for not being able to go to work.

sweet. drive careful.