Stuff I've bought recently. Yeah, a lot of older things this time, along with the DSi and DS lite I got up north, and that silly Nintendo R.O.B. And Harvest Moon plushies. Aww, cute. ^_^

I've been playing Dragon Age a lot lately. It's better than I had expected. I might actually finish it and even play through it again. O_O

Yeah, that's it for this blog.

Oh? You want something more? Then here's a picture of my kitty. And another. And another. And another. And... hey, don't run away! =O

Yeah, right after returning from my trip north, I headed south yesterday. Went with my younger sisters and my mom to Sylvester in southern Georgia. Unfortunately, it was to a funeral this time. My mom's younger stepbrother, one of my favorite uncles, passed away Tuesday.

He had gone to the hospital the Thursday before, and they had told him he had an upper respiratory infection and sent him home. He went back in worse condition on Monday, and they discovered he had a very rare type of cancer that progressed hourly. It completely encased his heart by Tuesday morning, and there was nothing that could be done to save him.

He was only 37 years old. He was fine just days before, and suddenly he's gone. Just a reminder that you can go at any time, so don't take life too seriously and enjoy it while you can.

On another note, we may have saved another man's life on the way home yesterday. We were driving back last night, and kept smelling something burning. We thought it was our car at first, but the gauges all read normal. Then I saw it up ahead, the wheel on the rear of a tractor trailer was sparking, and then the tire started burning.

We were still back a bit, and all these other cars just passed by this truck, not even trying to warn the driver. All they wanted to do was get past him so they wouldn't end up getting crushed if he crashed. It pissed me off to see how uncaring people can be.

Anyway, we finally got up beside him, and my mom flashed the lights and blew the horn to get his attention. He looked over, so I pointed back to his tire and he rolled down the window. I yelled to him that his tire was on fire, so he yelled a thank you and pulled over. My mom pulled over as well and ran our fire extinquisher to him and he put the fire out.

They looked at it and the guy diagnosed the problem as the hub assembly coming apart. He thanked us several times and said he would limp his truck up the exit we were sitting at. So at least that turned out well.

As some of you know, I headed north to Michigan for a family reunion over the weekend. We also stopped in to visit relatives in other states during the trip. We left Friday morning and got back yesterday afternoon. That was a lot of time spent in the car. O_O

Our route, starting and ending in GA

The drive through the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky were my favorite part. Made me want to get out and hike around. I fell asleep going into Ohio, so I didn't see Cincinnati. I woke up in Columbus though, and found it incredibly fugly. Unfortunately, we stopped there for the night at some crappy hotel with bad internet, a buzzing tv, and an invasion of ants.

Saturday, we headed up to Toledo for a family member's birthday and stopped at some tiny shop called Retag It on the way. This is where I bought a black DSi and Pokemon Edition DS lite together for $135. They also came with some Naruto game and an Action Replay, which I intend to sell, and a Nerf armor on the DS lite. I would have pictures, but as soon as I got home, my older brother took off with my Pokemon DS (as well as Dragon Age), so maybe later.

We made it to Toledo, and celebrated the birthday of an elderly relative that's dying of cancer. We hid inside and surprised her, and she was crying when she saw all the family had come from so far away for her birthday. My grandma said that this was probably the last time we would ever see her, so we stayed all day to be with her one last time.

Afterwards, we headed up to Tecumseh, Michigan and stayed at my favorite cousin's place for the night. Last time I was there was 10 years ago, but I knew the place well. We only got to stay the night though, as we got up early in the morning to head to the reunion and left directly from there. The reunion was good. I saw a lot of the family I knew from the reunions in Florida, and then a lot that I didn't know. Some of my family were as mean as I when they were younger, so listening to their stories was entertaining.

After the reunion, we headed to Kokomo, Indiana to vist some family that couldn't make it. Not sure how they're related to me, but it's a husband and his wife, and I remembered visiting them 10 years ago on my last trip to Michigan. The man has to be the sweetest and most caring guy I know, taking care of his wife who was crippled by polio.

Her mind is intact, but she's paralyzed for the most part and can't speak. She can just barely move one hand to type what she wants to say on the speech machine she has. He does everything for her without complaints, and it was really nice to see people who care about each other so much. He's an incredible cook, and we had a nice, formal dinner with them.

After dinner, my grandma, aunt, and uncle stayed and talked with them for a bit, so I wandered around outside for a while with the adorable old dog that lived there. When I went back inside, their cat was on the stairs, trying to ambush people. We left not much later, and headed towards Kentucky.

A lot of Indiana was corn fields. The sunset was really nice, but my uncle's not the type to stop to let me take pictures, so I just filmed through the dirty window for a moment. You can hear my grandma and aunt in the video. Think they were trying to figure out how to spell some store's name they were putting in the Garmin.

We went through Louisville at night, and it was nice. Got to Elizabethtown, Kentucky and stayed there for the night. Got up early Monday morning and headed home. I had stayed up all night, so I slept most of the way and woke up in Tennessee, just before getting to Lookout Mountain. I enjoyed the scenery from there and saw a lot of deer along the way. We finally made it home around 2 yesterday afternoon. I've been laaaaazy since then.