life as a Losey: A book and some off-roading

So I meant to post this last week, so bare with me. These adventures took place two weekends ago.

Saturday morning Young House Love was in Cincinnati for their book tour. I was beyond excited to meet them and get their book before it hit the store. I convinced Greg to tag along with me (mainly to be the photographer and so I wasn't that awkward girl by herself). The event started at 10 am and I made sure to arrive early to beat the crowd. We were there by 9:45 and there was already at least 20 people in front of me. I was so giddy and excited seeing them in person, I didn't even know what I was going to say. When I got up to the table, everything went smoothly. I got a picture with them and Sherry told me I was cute. Then I signed their guest book, made small talk and was told 'Erin' was the most popular reader name.

It was awesome. I thought I was in a dream. We ended up staying for their author talk that went from 11:00-12:00. We sat in the front row and the room was packed, standing room only. It was so surreal to listen to them speak and see them. I snapped a few pictures, asked them if they liked Skyline and it was time to leave. They made an announcement that almost all their books were sold out and they would be signing book plates to place in a book once the orders came in. I was so thankful I got there early!

Now, to completely change topics... Sunday was spent here:

We took a trip to Badlands Off-Road Park in Indiana to celebrate Greg's birthday. This place was intense. It is over 800 acres with a variety of terrains: dirt, mud, gravel, sand, grass, forest, etc. We got lost multiple times and are convinced we didn't even drive around half of it. We spent the first half exploring and were dodging 4-wheelers and dirt bikes half the time. We finally found our way over to the 'truck/jeep' only section and it was a huge adrenaline rush. We were climbing rocks, driving through puddles two feet deep, and squeezing through trees that were inches away from our Jeep.

We began exploring the trails and were checking the depths of puddles with a stick, worried we would get stuck. We seemed to be the only one on the trails and I was so afraid we would be lost or stuck until someone found us. We made our way to a clearing where we found other Jeeps. We started following two others, and they said they would look out for us. It was crazy the things we were climbing through and over. The other two Jeeps had tires that were a little bigger than ours so were able to do almost everything. One time we got stuck on a rock, but it only took us tying a tow strap to another Jeep and them popping us off. We were thankful to find them because we were climbing things we would never have done by ourselves.