My mom drove back up to Columbus with me and my sister for the 4th of July weekend. She wanted to go to my Grandmother's grave on July 9th because that would've been her 93rd birthday. So things are definitely going to be a little different this July without my grandmother. Her brithday always kicked off the celebrating since my sister's birthday is exactly a week after, then my cousin's and lastly my mom's- all 7 days apart. But we made the most of the time and got some flowers and paid our respects at the gravesite. What a difference a year makes! Just last year, we took out my Grandmother to her favorite Red Lobster and now there's one less person at the table. My mom held up pretty well though, and we all got through her birthday.

For the next celebration, I headed right back down to Atlanta for my sister's birthday. Even though I was just at home last weekend, she begged me to come back for her 23rd as if that was some kind of landmark age, but you only turn it once, and she calls it her "Michael Jordan Birthday" (because he was #23).
So once again, I had to work my travels around my work schedule, but decided to leave first thing Sunday morning so that there would no breaking news story that was going to make me miss my flight!

But I did go on a lot of interesting stories this week, from Park safety, Stolen cars on campus to Shigellosis (which is like extreme Diarrhea). Saturday was fun because I got to interview some people on the Bush Legacy Tour. I thought this would be a bus promoting Bush's presidency while they're goal was the total opposite. The bus is a traveling museum of mini-exhibits with bad highlights of Bush's presidency. They said that since the president has made such a mess of things, they wanted to showcase his legacy now, instead of putting all the facts together years later. They parked right in front of the NBC station for us to see and will be making stops all around the country before the November elections. Here's their site: bushlegacytour.com
I also got to do my 1st real stand-up (when a reporter is in front of a building or displaying something) on camera at the Franklin County Fair. It was fun even though it smelled like horse maneur the whole time. But the angle of my story was to see if more people were going to the fair this summer because of high gas prices. I did a 3-part stand-up where I started off at a gas station saying,"If gas prices are putting a damper on your summer vacation plans.." and then I was at the Fair entrance and said "Why don't you come to the Franklin County Fair.." and then I said, "And ride a horse," while I was actually on a little pony. So it was a very detailed stand-up that looked really nice when it was all put together.

So I was at home in Georgia from Sunday till Wednesday since that day was my sister's actual birthday. And I flew back on Thursday morning just in time to make it back to my internship. We mainly went out to eat everyday and to the movies and mall because my sister just had to get a new birthday dress and her nails and hair done for her big day. I knew Wednesday, July 16 was going to be a day that never ended since we were up all morning and then headed to Fox Sports Grill at Atlantic Station for the dinner with 10 of her friends and concluded with going to this place called Noir (means "black" in French) where we saw Atlanta girl group, Cherish and some of the guys from MTV's "G's to Gent's." So we definitely did not get back home until around 2:00am when I had to be at the Airport promptly at 5:30am. The things I do for family! But we enjoyed ourselves and she did have a happy birthday, which is the main point.

But it was pretty hard to stay up at my internship that day. I had went in the employee lounge area for a bit and tried to nap for half an hour until someone came in, and I had to act like I was searching for my contact lens. After I got off there, I forgot that I had promised my friend Bever-Leigh that I would stop by for our weekly get-together dinner. So I was running on fumes that day and was too glad to finally go to sleep!

My sister, Bianca and I out celebrating her 23rd Birthday