Yesterday... Wow... Yester-DAY!Okay, let me begin at the beginning...
The day began by waking up way too late. This is always a nice stressful way to start the day. So, up we flew (thank goodness we have two children who love to sleep in) and got our day started. We slept til almost 10:30 and I had to leave at ONE for the whole day... leaving the daddy with the babies all day long. This was quite an adventure for him. He was smothering me with hugs and praises for what I do all day long when I returned at 9:15 last night! I was gone from Noah for 8 hours... phew.. that was a hard one.
Okay, so I went at one to Dunn for my sister to chop my hair before the photoshoot with Amy. This just slightly tore my nerves up. A brand new... super short hair-do right before the most exciting photo session ever. My sister rocks, though, so it worked out well.
After that, I had tons of time to kill before meeting Amy, so I went shopping. I got Emma and Noah some cute clothes for next fall on the 75% off rack at one of my favorite children's boutiques, Snapdragons, then I went over to Belk's, where I got Noah and myself some cute shoes on sale.
After this, it was time to head out to meet Amy in Warsaw, which is half-way between her and me.... forty-five minute drive for us both.
Before leaving Dunn, I noticed that my gas needle was getting a little low, but I was eating chicken wraps and talking to Amy on the phone, so I figured I'd just pull off on an exit along the way and fill up.
Thirty minutes later, I was still on the phone and had forgotten all about my low gas tank that was needing to be attended to. I was quickly brought back to reality by the bright red shining light and the needle that was sitting directly on top of the empty line.
I started to panic a little.
I was on a stretch of I-40 where the exits are nothing but farmlands. No gas stations in sight.
I relay this panic to Amy and she starts making plans to come rescue me on the side of the interstate. Then, thank goodness.... I saw an exit advertising a gas station, so I pulled off and it said the station was 3.2 miles to the left, so I took a left and kept talking to Amy.
Well, about FIFTEEN MILES later, I still had not come across this gas station and now my gas needle was below.... well below the empty line and not only that, I kept feeling like my car was hesitating.
So, I really started freaking out. If I ran out of gas now, Amy was not even gonna know where to find me. She's horrible with directions. So, I was close to tears on the phone with her. I rolled down my window and started trying to wave down the people passing me, hoping they would stop and tell me where the nearest town with gas was. No one did. So, I kept driving. Finally, I saw a huge Wal-Mart sign towering above the tree line.
A town. A blessed town.
So, I coasted into the Hess station on fumes and twenty gallons later, I was on my merry way.
Now... the real fun begins.
Amy and I do not know anything about this little town called Warsaw. We only know this is the point that I get on the interstated when going to see her and she gets off the interstate to come see me. So, we left my car in the parking lot at McDonald's and set off to find the perfect spot in her car.
After driving around for a long time on lots of roads we didn't know... hoping we'd be able to find our way back to our starting point, we rounded a bend and there it was. The perfect spot.
Up on a grassy hill was an old broke down house with opens fields and an equally broke down barn. We turned onto the dirt driveway. I noticed this sign at the end, nailed to a tree..
...but we ignored it because I read the sign as saying, "No Tresspassing at the POND.... not the HOUSE". Plus, we're two nice, sweet girls... who would care if we were taking pictures here?
So, we pulled behind the house, up on the hill, got out of the car, stripped down and started picking out our outifts, fixing our hair and make-up, and spraying layers of OFF on us. The bugs were horrible!
Next thing we know, this creepy old man pulls up in his little car and gets out, staring us down (We were dressed at this point, by the way). He has this huge smile on his face and he's chuckling with every mean word sputtered. He starts telling us how we're tresspassing and he has got the cops on the way.
We were all... "You're kidding right?"
HE was all.... "Absolutely not. You girls are tresspassing on private property and you're gonna learn your lesson. I guess you'll learn it when that door slams behind you, WON'T YOU? I'm gonna go ahead and go now so I can meet you in Kenansville (where the jail is) and sign the papers to have you prosecuted.... YADA, YADA, YADA."
This MEAN man let this go on for ten minutes or more. NO JOKE. And what was so flippin creepy was that he was smiling and laughing the whole time, but being TOTALLY serious. This man was a FREAK.
Amy's getting really mad. Her nostrils are flaring, she's pacing.
I was getting really scared. I was thinking of all the Forensic Files I've seen. I was picturing this man whipping out a gun and forcing us into the old house and... well, you can just use your own imaginations from here...
So, I started begging. "Please, just let us go. We'll never come back. We'll never do this again. WE are SO sorry! I've got two babies at home waiting on me. Please. Please. Don't do this. We are SO SORRY!!!"
I don't know how many times I said this. I was truly more terrified than I have ever been in my entire life.
Finally, after this devil-man had let this go on for what seemed like forever, he gave in and told us it was fine, that we seemed like nice girls, we could stay there and take pictures for as long as we wanted, but that we should really not do this again.
Fine by me!
Amy was PISSED. Sorry to use that word, but nothing else can describe it. Then, the man, on his way back to his car, turned to us and said, "Are you familiar with the gospel of Jesus Christ?"
Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!?!?!! You are going to preach to us about Jesus. The most kind, generous, patient.. and every other good word... Saint to ever walk this earth after you just tortured us and made us think you were either going to kill us or have us in prison for parking behind a old, broke down house for the last.... TOO MANY minutes!?!?!!?!
WHAT. ever.
Amy was even more pissed. Amy is the most religious person I've EVER known, so this just did not go over well with her. She kept giving me looks while this man was preaching his gospel to us. Her nostrils were flaring, she was not enjoying this impromptu Sunday Service by the devil himself.
So, when this man finally left us alone.. he had wasted about thirty minutes of our good afternoon/evening sunlight. We were not pleased.
We did stay there and do our pictures, but not without feeling totally creeped out the whole time. Amy's pictures are GORGEOUS!!! Go see the preview of them here. There will be many, many more to come.
And here are a few of me! She took them with my camera, so the first one is a little blurry (she was still getting used to the camera), but she's absolutely amazing, so I LOVE them!!! There will be many more of me to come too, but these were just a few of my favorites. If you'd like to see more of her photography, go here. She's incredible. I love her.
So, today's lessons learned:
1. Always fill up gas tank BEFORE getting on interstate, especially if the needle is anywhere below half a tank.
2. Never go on property that has any kind of NO TRESSPASSING sign posted, regardless of how you interpret it.
3. Always carry something to protect myself with when doing shoots on location, you never know when a crazy person might come to greet you out of nowhere.
Noah is not present in this one, because he was mad, the candy I was slipping into his mouth to keep him from screaming in the above pictures had become ineffective, so he slid himself off the couch, so... then there were three...
