#yousgirlsgoeast

Sometimes I can't believe I get to have my family as my family. The previous post to this one delved a little bit deeper into why it's such a big influence and source of joy in my life. Two of the best things about my family are named Karley and Liz. When cousins are your best friends, that means you get to keep them for life! We decided around Christmastime that this summer called for a cousins road trip. I conveniently also wanted to visit my brothers out on the east coast, and boom! plans were made. Rudi and Stephanie are in suburban New York, living in New Jersey, while Alex and Heidi are in suburban D.C., living in Alexandria, Virginia. We had such a good time seeing family, sightseeing, and soaking up a week of no work or obligation.

Want to know what I've discovered? Donuts are my favorite (although this has been a life long love affair, not a recent discovery), the east coat has incredible history, and I miss my family.

Brian and I are the closest to my parents of all my siblings at a 2-hour car ride away. Although don't feel too sorry for them, since it's become almost impossible to keep up with their travels and schedule anyway :) There is, though, a part of my heart that breaks in this process of adulthood carrying on, the process of people I love following their dreams. I'm all about people forging their own paths and seeking the Lord's call, no matter what....in theory. And then it takes people I love very, very far away from me and then I am tested in this faith of mine. I am reminded that God has each of us right where that needs to be, whether that's 2 hours, 2 days, or 2 weeks worth of travel away. Even my two partners in crime, travel buddies extraordinaire, Karley and Liz are looking like they aren't on the same geographic path as me. That's hard for me to take, but it's okay. I love them to pieces.

Here are a few pictures of our adventure out east this summer. (Have I mentioned how sweet it is to be a teacher during the summer? It is so sweet.)

 

You Be (Road)Trippin'

I just returned home from a really great weekend reunion with Spain friends in...drumroll please...the great state of...Kentucky! Yes, Kentucky. I've only ever driven through it, but now after spending a solid two days with some of its finest residents, I can now say that it is a wonderful place. I'll be posting who I actually got to see while I was there later on this week, but first I want to talk about the process of getting there. That's right, the road trip. I drove the six hours each way on my own, and I must say I enjoyed it quite a bit. The trip went straight south all the way through the great state of Indiana, through Louisville as I entered Kentucky, and then on to my destination in Lexington. This is a special part of the country we call home, let me tell you. Here's a few distinctive features of a great road trip to Kentucky.

First, I started the day on a breakfast date with my mom. Granted, not all road trips can begin this way, but I highly recommend it. She coincidentally was meeting her sisters in the city for lunch, so she came a few hours earlier to see me first. It was wonderful. We ate at a place called Sweet Maple Cafe in University Village (the neighborhood just north of mine) and it was deeeeelish.

The next key to a great road trip is the food. Every road trip needs road trip candy. I had my quintessential nerds and gum (I'm a chain chewer). Plus, you GOTS to make a stop at an unhealthy restaurant. This time, I chose Culver's. Culver's, Chik Fil-A, and Sonic round out my trifecta of best road-trip-lunch-stops, and this one was just south of Indianapolis. Not only was it a great excuse for consuming lots of barbeque sauce, it was a great opportunity to people watch. I have to say that I saw one pervading theme: poorly fitting denim. It was everywhere. People of Indiana, get yourselves to a GAP store IMMEDIATELY.

Finally, the best part of a road trip is, of course, the radio. This drive had lots of great ads for things that people in Indiana are interested in, like fishing boats and GED completion courses. One thing I loved about this particular drive through the Midwest was that just about every other station I scanned to was a country music station. This is something that brings me back to my roots as a hick Wisconsinite as well as summers in Indiana visiting Karley and her friends. There was a lot of Blake, a lot of George, and a lot of Tim. Not to mention the classic rock stations that I don't have in Chicago. It was nice to hear Tom Petty again. When I wasn't listening to some good homestyle music, I perused the pop stations. I think I heard The Lumineers' Ho! Hey! more times than I can express. (You all need to chill on that song. It's great, but give it a rest.) After that, I did what every roadtripper does: indulge in the guilty pleasure music. You know what that means. Justin Bieber. Ha! Oh yikes. I'm a little ashamed to admit that instead of switching the station when the song below came on the radio, I turned the volume up just slightly. It couldn't be helped.

You know you all love it too.

And now you have all the ingredients for a great trip to Kentucky. Plan your weekend soon!

Roadie

Emily and me, after being stateside again for about a year :) 

This weekend was a crazy whirlwind. I went out downtown Chicago with the Milwaukee corps people (they will be teaching in the fall in Milwaukee, but are in Chicago for the summer school Institute teaching) on Friday night (supes fun), then drove up to Sheboygan County on Saturday for a meetup with friends and for Nina's bachelorette party later that evening. Before that I got lunch with my good friends Ryan and Nicole to hear about their crazy and awesome adventures in their first year of teaching. They both moved to Pittsburgh last summer and have successfully completed a whole year of teaching middle school (Ryan) and second grade (Nicole). They definitely have lots of wisdom to impart to a new teacher living in a new city! I ate my weight in chips and salsa during this lunch and loved every minute of catching up. Then I went to Sheboygan for Kristina's bachelorette party before her wedding in two weeks. I've known Kristina since we were 4 and 5 (we've actually been at the same school from Preschool until college graduation!) and bonded over having really big boxes of crayons that everyone wanted to borrow from Remember when popularity hinged on how big your box of crayons was? Mmmm. The good old days. 

On the way back on Sunday I got a HUGE treat. I got to meet up with a great friend from my time in SPAIN! Miss Emily Rottman happened to be in Milwaukee the same day that I was driving back to Chicago. We met up at Bayshore, my favorite mall, and caught up for an hour over frozen yogurt. There were lots of exciting details, laughter, and reminiscing. Spain people just speak to my heart. She is, obviously, being her amazing beautiful self in Santa Barbara and conquering the world with her new cool job. I'm starting to think another trip to California is in order...

This is what a group of TFA-ers looks like when you tell them
that instead of leaving at 6:30 in the morning, their bus will
from now on be leaving at 7:00 in the morning. A half hour
makes a WORLD of difference, people. Still smiling about this.  

On the road again. Wisconsin highways look
so different from crowded Chicago expressways. 

The DELISH blackberry jello shots that Nina's sister made for
her bachelorette party. They were so good. The top layer is
somehow incorporating sweetened condensed milk, so
obviously I was in full support of this appetizer. 

Kristina opening some of her goodies :) So great to
be able to be there for her in the days before her wedding! 

Latest Excursions

With the end-of-year frenzy, I've been a tad neglectful of my blog just because, well, LIFE IS NUTS! I have some very exciting news that I get to go public with next week (AAHHH :D) so stay tuned for that goodness. I've still been wearing some cool outfits that I love, but alas, cannot post pictures to tell the blogosphere about them because my point-and-shoot camera is broken. Oh well. Good thing my mother has an old one that she doesn't use anymore, so I'll be picking that up next week. More outfits will be documented thereafter. In the near future I have a dear friend's wedding, more roadtrips, and lots of good times coming up. Life is moving so quickly that it's starting to make my head spin. I think I like the pace for now. It's fun. Here's an update (pictures are mostly stolen from friends) about where I've been these days.

Karley, Karyn and I drove out to Iowa to visit THE beautiful Liz
VanDrunen and other friends. Worth the 9 hour drive, fa SHO!

My car's coolant light was flashing on the ride home. It turns out
to be just a testy light, but I felt like an expert checking out the hood.

Stunnas.

Out for lunch with Nicole and Sam, two of my Wisconsin
favorites. I can't express to you how much they make me laugh! 

A huge group of our friends over at la casa de Mel (my sasstastic
roomie) for Sunday lunch and backyard festivities.  

Five of us went out to Naperville for the night last Saturday!

As you can see, spring means being out and about, which I love. Makes me wanna haul all these fun people back to Sevilla with me! 

Mishmash

The elements of this post won't have much to do with each other besides the fact that they occurred in my presence in the last week. First things first, last weekend was the birthday of two of my favorite people in the whole world! Karley and Liz, my cousins, both turned 22. Karyn, Karley, and I made the trek to NW Iowa for a visit to the Dordt College area to celebrate this huge worldwide event. Remy was a dream to drive the whole way. (Well, Karyn and Karley may not agree with me; the lack of cruise control is a feature I don't notice anymore. I just love that car so stinkin' much. I accept him as he is. And I also am overlooking a warning light episode that caused us to pull over and pop the hood like real live professionals.) On our way, there was a sign in the sky that it was going to be a good weekend. (Okay maybe it's not a sign but whatever. I liked it. And I had a fabulous weekend. So I'm saying it was a sign.)

The next video is going to knock your socks off. Last week Wednesday our Concert Choir at Trinity (of which I am a member...why they let me in, I'm not sure) got to join in with three other choirs for one amazing concert. Rehoboth, a high school from an Indian reservation in New Mexico, Elim, a school for disabled students, and Roseland, a Chicago Christian school, all came to our chapel for a combined performance. It was SO SWEET. I honestly think that I got a taste of what heaven is going to look and sound like from that night. Here's a video of the Roseland kids singing their hearts out. 

In addition to road trips and concerts, my mother and I discussed how I spend my money. Oops. To clarify, I did in fact work last summer to make more than what warrants a $36 tax return, I just made it working for the nannying black market. If I tell you any more, I'd have to kill you.

And, to top it all off, an extremely important event happened last week. I WORE LIPSTICK. I know, I know. There were the naysayers. There were those who thought it couldn't be done. There were even those who expressed skepticism (and rightly so) that I possessed the grace and coordination to maintain lipstick on my lips without smearing it all over my face like some sort of sad Heath-Ledger-as-the-Joker impersonation. But, lo and behold, I accomplished this historical task. My quest to turn into Zooey Deschanel is starting to look attainable. Write it down folks, remember where you are right now...this is the most significant piece of news you'll receive in a long time.

Not showing teeth because I'm not confident that
there isn't lipstick on those too. 

Rocky Mountain High

Well folks, we're here! On Saturday night at 11:00, seven of us piled ourselves and our possessions into two cars and made the 16-hour trek to Denver, Colorado for our spring break trip. My shift of driving took place from 4:30-8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, and thank goodness for Rihanna because she is the only reason I stayed awake. My friends Matt, Caleb, Mel, Lauren, Susan, Karley, and I drove to meet Jon (Susan's fiancé and our friend) at his latest home in the mountains. This morning we got our first taste of the great outdoors with a 6 mile hike at White Range Park in the mountains. Even though snow is on the ground in lots of these pictures (taken with the new camera!), the temperature was a beautiful 70 degrees, the air was fresh, the sarcasm was flying, the laughter endless, and we had a fabulous time. Friends, it doesn't get better than days like today!

You Got Me (Road)Trippin'

This weekend was wonderful. Nope, didn't head into the city for a cosmopolitan adventure. Quite the contrary. My friend Dave (you met him already) who is from Spain and goes to college in St. Louis, took a bus from St. Louis to Chicago on Friday. I picked him up after my classes and we began the four-hour drive through the beautiful and interesting state of Indiana (I am being sarcastic here) down I-65 to finally reach Taylor University. An oasis of fun times in a desert of brown cornfields, gas stations, and power lines. We visited our friends Joey, Libby, Dietrich, and Ashley from our semester in Spain last spring. Man am I ever a sucker for these little get togethers!

Grammar side note. Have trouble remembering the spelling difference between dessert (the delicious food) and desert (the place where a cactus grows)? Just remember: You always want more dessert to eat. Therefore, use the DOUBLE S in that word and leave the SINGLE S for the word describing the Sahara. 

ANYWAY. Back to travel updates. Besides these people being fun because of the memories we made in Spain, they are a fun time in America also. People can be a good time no matter where they are in the world. Who knew?!

Dave, Dietrich, Ashley, myself, Libby, and Joey. After Friday Night Live. 

We started the weekend watching Dietrich (the one in the Bulls jersey above) in his college's Friday Night Live skit show. It was hilarious! We then drove around for some slushies and shenanigans. We finished the night breaking Taylor's visiting hours as we all stayed up late and reminisced about our adventures and funny stories a year ago. 

Saturday was jam packed. After sleeping in (it was GLORIOUS to wake up at 11:00!) and getting lunch, we talked at the local coffee shop (super trendy and cute). Then we went grocery shopping for dinner plans, which involved us making Tortilla de Patatas (one of our favorite Spanish foods) for ourselves and lots of their friends from Taylor. It consists of a lot of eggs, potatoes, and olive oil, just for a quick review. That was followed by attending Taylor's school play, which was really well done. After that, we hung out and talked some more before finally going to bed at 1:30. I thought I was done with my memory making at that point, but alas, while we were brushing our teeth, Ashley caught the Zooey bug from me and told me on a whim to cut her some blunt, straight across bangs. So, there in Taylor's bathroom, I used a Wal-Mart scissors to chop some bangs onto my very trusting friend. So sophisticated.

Ashley and I at Payne's coffee shop. Just like old times in our favorite café!
Oh and PS I cut my hair off last week. That happened too.  

Tortilla de Patatas and garlic bread in the works. 

Our finished product!

This weekend reinforced to me the importance of not only those big life-changing experiences, but the people who are by your side while they happen. At dinner on Saturday the new people I met at Taylor seemed to keep asking the question: What was the best part of your semester abroad? I would scroll through my mental rolodex of beautiful buildings, the fresh air on my walk to school, my backpack packed for my weekend flights to new countries, and the language and culture that I grew to know and love over four months. But I kept saying the same answer every time I got that question: It was the people I met! No matter the oceans, country roads, and state borders that separate me from all these people from Sevilla, I will always hold them dear to my heart. 

Ahhh. Great weekend.