hooooomaiiiigawshhhhhimtireddddd

Translated: It's been a long day.

I'm not sure why, exactly. We didn't really do much today. I woke up earlier because we were planning on going to Birmingham, which is about an hour from my grandparents' house (where I'm staying at the moment, for those of you not in the know). So I figured that getting up and around sooner might help. I was showered, dressed, and Cap'n-Crunch-filled by nine o'clock, I do believe. And where was half of our lovely team?

Asleep, of course.

So we didn't get out the door until eleven-thirty, which ultimately means I could have slept in longer. Doing so probably would've helped with later. Anyway, we did make it out to Birmingham, listening to Classic Queen and the Wicked soundtrack as we went (something tells me my twelve year old cousin, Griffin, was not so pleased with this second selection). The nature center was nice and cost absolutely nothing (although they did ask for a two dollar donation per person, and being the awesome people we are, we obliged). They had a little zoo-like area inside the actual nature center building that we checked out first. There were turtles and snakes and they said they had a flying squirrel but I didn't see one. >>

We did eventually make it on the actual trail, and at first it was pretty okay. The trail itself was pretty flat, although pretty narrow. Okay, it was really, REALLY narrow. I was very afraid my mom would fall over at some point because she has balance issues. D: We did fine until we were a little over halfway to the wetlands trail, our wondrous destination. Megan, my sister, had lost her shirt, so my dad ran back to see if he could find it (he ended up going back almost all the way to the nature center, I think). We (which was me, my sister, my mom, and Griffin, if you hadn't assumed that already) continued on and got tired really, really quickly. We each had a water bottle for ourselves, so we were good on the hydration front, somewhat. Our little bit of om-nom-nom-age had been eaten on the way to Birmingham by a certain growing boy....so we had nothing to eat. My dad caught up with us and we were all kind of like "OMG LET'S TURN AROUNDDDDD D:". Well, at least my mom and I were. Megan and Griffin were determined to see those darned wetlands. We eventually did make it, despite feeling like I was gonna collapse (Cap'n Crunch does NOT go as far as you might think). The wetlands WERE pretty, despite all the crap it took to get there. There were a couple of small ponds, complete with splashing things that we couldn't see (probably fish; maybe some alien species hiding on our planet, I don't know), tadpoles, and dragonflies. The tadpoles were absolutely ADORABLE, in my opinion. One even had itty bitty little arms! ....yes, I AM a girl. I'm allowed to coo over cute things. We got done with the wetlands kinda quickly though, 'cuz, well...y'know. We were tired. On the way back, Griffin and I went all AUTO-PILOT! and walked and walked and walked until we were back in the air conditioned nature center. xD Then he was awesome and got me chips from the vending machine (verrrrry yummy after I long walk, I must say). Slowly but surely, the rest of the group showed up and we were OUTTA THERE!

We attempted to check out this shopping-center-thing called the Pepper Place. It used to be a bottling plant for Dr. Pepper, but now it's just a bunch of tiny little shops, restaurants, and a theater. We only went to a couple of stores, though, 'cuz we were tired. On the way back, my dad was awesome and we stopped for milkshakes and fries at Mickey D's. :D Not too much, though because we were gonna have dinner semi-soon. It was almost five o'clock, I think. Walking the trail had definitely taken a lot longer than I thought it would.

SOOOO we did eventually get back. I'm pretty sure all the kids fell asleep in the car (I know I did), and we did pretty much that same thing when we came inside. After we ate our om-nom-nomy BLTs that were dinner, my mom discovered she had a tick. And then, when she was getting ready to take a shower, she found another one.

.....needless to say, I'm a little paranoid now.

Anyway, random question of the day: How do my earbuds manage to tie themselves in a knot?

Ponder on that for me.