Adventures in Machesney Parkansas

I would definitely be lying to all my faithful blog readers if I said my birthday weekend was relaxing and uneventful. The weekend was crazy fun -- both in the literal sense and separately.

Jackson's Birthday Party (3/17/06)

I had an incredible night on St. Patty's Day, more importantly titled "Jackson's Birthday." My head hurt so bad that night from laughing and laughing, and talking LOUD so people could hear me, and laughing some more. My butt hurt, too, from all the butt slaps from Amy and Jill...mostly from Jill 'cause that girl gives a mean butt slap. The flash on our camera is not working, so I was not able to get any pictures of me and the girls (or me and Jackson a.k.a. "the infant playa" for that matter) and I checked T.J.'s Xanga site (Jill's hubby) for a pic he took of the 3 of us, but it isn't posted. Here is Jackson's 1 year picture to commemorate his St. Patty's Day / The Wiggles-themed birthday party and his first picture on justjoslyn.com!!

My Birthday (3/18/06)

My 28th birthday was relatively uneventful, but I was blessed to be able to spend the evening with not only my parents, but my good friends Amy and Cory, as well. Yes, Brad was there too, and one of our youth, Kira, who happens to be staying with us for awhile. My mom cooked a delicious inter-ethnic meal of enchiladas, Mexican rice, and Greek salad. And so to stay within common practice of the Hagstrom family, where no uneaten food is left behind, we had "left-over-St. Patrick's Day-green-pistachio-cake-with confetti sprinkles-added to it for the birthday effect" as dessert. I spent the evening talking genealogy with my Dad (what Brad calls "researching my dead relatives"), showing Amy my MySpace site (which Brad calls my new "time waster" [and it's www.myspace.com/justjoslyn for those interested]), and listening to Cory unashamedly tell stories about his poop extravaganzas. I don't have any pictures from this night, either, and my Mom was the designated photogropher, but I didn't like any of her shots (go figure). So instead I will post an image of the DVD Brad bought me that I was so excited about... even if it did follow a "Happy Bar Mitzvah" card. And it's only been a year and a half of marriage.

Life Lessons in Trespassing (3/19/06)

Sunday's events started about very pleasantly. We had plans to go to Cinderella at the high school, which was performed very well, with excellent singers cast as the leads! I was able to sit between some of my favorite junior high girls - Audi and Amanda - who, without knowing it, provide me such joy and remind me of how cool it is that I know them! After the musical, Brad and I car-pooled the high school students to a pizza dinner at our house. Needless to say, with the number of boys out-numbering the girls, the pizza was gone in less than 10 minutes after delivery. This creates a "dead time" issue, which was eventually filled for most of the boys by going out to play football with Brad. However, I was left with the remainder of the students, and before long, our idle conversation had become less than enthralling. Not being such a great "think-on-your-feet-event planner" I suggested that the slew of them go scope out the vacant trailer property across the street, as I was going to report it as an eye sore to the Village. I was going to explore the property myself eventually anyway, and I had already taken preliminary pictures of the rusty trailer and abandoned cars in the driveway. There were no "No Trespassing" signs posted and there was clearly no one living on the property. Apparently I am an idiot, and took for granted that I knew the law as it applies to Trespassing. Before I could even come up with a witty response for Brad when he comes back in the house to ask if I was "keeping an eye on the girls" and that the neighbors were over there with them, Lauren is calling me frantically stating, "the neighbors are calling the police and they won't let us leave." I hear the tears start to come and I tell her I'll be right over. As I approach the property, I calmly ask the woman on the cell phone (who also happens to be missing several of her front teeth and has previously been riding her 4-wheeler around her back yard) if there was anyway we could settle this misunderstanding without the police, to which she answers, "they are already on the phone." I calmly ask her if she could tell them not to come. She says, "the owners don't want this and there's been a problem in the past..." I tell the students to come with me, to which the woman responds, "they have to stay here." I calmly reply, tell the police to come talk to me across the street.

At about this time, the students' parents are arriving to pick them up, and the woman across the street is taking down the license plate numbers of every car leaving our driveway. Needless to say, the police did come to the scene of the crime, and I did get a slap on the wrist for poor judgement, but not without explaining that the property has no signs posted, and if the owners of the property have had problems with trespassing before, it seems this would be a normal response. I also learned from the friendly Machesney Park police that the owners of the property are waiting for the Village to buy it and demolish the trailer and sell the land. If this is truly the case (praise be to God if it is) then why is anybody concerned about anyone entering the property and doing anything to it? Despite my rationale for the entire event, I apologized to the police for endorsing such delinquent behavior and assured them that we would have adequate activities planned at our next event. I also wrote an apology letter to the said-toothless woman requesting her forgiveness and trust in me as a capable neighbor, because that is what makes me feel better about myself -- having ghetto hillbillies accept me as one of their own. You can read more about this event as told by one of the students looking outside-in at the event here. I am also posting the photos I took of the property last week for an added visual.