Meet Me In St. Louis

So about 15ish of us W-ton yg people spent Saturday and Sunday in St. Louis. I had a pretty good time... I was feeling like I was babysitting towards the end but... overall a great trip. :)

We met up with Matthew S. and Natedog, it was good to see them again. Our first stop was at the Third Degree Glass Factory- we got to see a demonstration of glass blowing... it was super cool um, hot. :) They had some nifty stuff for sale- and the bathroom sinks/ faucets were amazing! All made out of colorful blown glass.

We had a picnic at Forrest Park for lunch. It was rather warm at that point. And I had it on good authority, *cough* Matt, that guys could a whole gondola. So I brought 12. We only ate 6. O well, we didn't run out. After lunch we went to the Zoo. Which I love. My favorites are the giraffes. I like to watch the hippos too, but giraffes are just cool.

So since we were quite warm (it was 90ish and muggy) we spent the rest of the afternoon at the Science Center. Which I also loved. :D And it was air conditioned. I would have spent more time there but everyone else was ready to go for supper. We ate at Fitz's and drank some amazing root beer.

For evening festivities we all headed to Nathan's house for singing and ping pong. I am bad at ping pong, but it's still fun to play. Us girls spent the night at a hotel... so since I was the only one over 21 (eeesh) I got to chauffeur them in the 15 passenger van we rented... and I was the only one old enough to check in. So I'm signing stuff for the rooms and they have a line for the make and model of the vehicle we're driving.. um.. um... so I put down Ford (I'm not that dumb) but I had no idea what model I was driving so I just wrote "van". Haha.. I bet they laughed about that at the desk after I left. I was just glad they didn't ask for the license plate, I would have had to have somebody go out and check. :D

We managed to all get ready for church on time and made it back to Nathan's before the guys were ready. Yay for us. St. Louis church was full- lots of Champaign people there randomly! It was good to see them. After church we changed at Nathan's and left for home. We had to make a bathroom stop in Delavan and tried to take a shortcut home through T-town... bad idea, the turkey fest was in full swing. whoops. so much for saving time. I'm pretty worn out now...

Blessings.

i lied

I went shopping in Bloomington last night... and then Gab made me feel guilty about never hanging out with her, so I went to Gridley to hang out after their Bible School. It was good to see Katrina and the other Gridley girls again.

It was starting to storm when I was leaving... Gab came with Nic and Bob so she rode with me as far as my house. Which was good because we drove through some torrential rains and bright lightning and I don't like driving in storms. Although I did have a um...lovely, cushy new steering wheel cover to hold on to for dear life.

social butterfly

So Thursday I played volleyball, Friday was Bible Study at Amber's, Saturday was the CIS, and Sunday was church...

I'm not sure what got into me.

I read a book on Monday. And I'll probably be anti-social tonight too.

bug bites and lightning bug jewelry

I'm afraid I'm going to have a lot of the former..... Matt and I went to Bob and Susan's and played volleyball tonight. Good times.

Sprout and I caught a lightning bug and removed its light... I gave her a ring... and then she rejected me and smeared it on my hand.

On the way home Matt decided to be adventurous and take a poorly maintained gravel road... *sigh* and I just got my suspension fixed...

Such a pretty night.

Rockville

Happy Decoration Day! I spent most of it in airports and on planes. But... I did finish three books. :) And my ears didn't pop, which was amazing.

It was a really good weekend, I really kind of enjoyed it. I was having second thoughts about going Friday afternoon... Matt and I flew out by ourselves because we didn't get tickets until I knew that I didn't have to work- and then I switched jobs so it didn't matter anyway. I set off the metal detectors and got the full pat down again. Seriously, every single time I fly! And they opened our bags and searched them in Peoria. They must be really bored.

We spent a lot of time outside, which was really nice. Took a walk to a reservoir... one of the girls I stayed with drove a carload up a dirt path to the top of Soapstone 'mountain' to see the view... sang a lot and ate a lot. Met a lot of new fun people. Tried to blend... good times.

The midwest definitely feels very different than New England. I felt like I should be reading Thoreau or Emerson or something. They don't have any straight roads. I was really turned around all weekend. O well. :)

So our flight options were pretty limited and we left pretty early this morning... ugh. This time I took all of my pins out after we got dropped off and I didn't set off the detector and I didn't get poked and prodded and it was great. Matt of course got subjected to a random shoe check. I think they were bored too, it was pretty quiet at the airport this morning.

I'm really tired now and I'm not too excited to get up and go to work tomorrow. But I might get to play with making glue sticks. woot.
Blessings.

Did you hear

about the two antennas that got married?? The wedding wasn't much, but the reception was great! *grin*

Last Saturday night the w-ton yg had a grandparents supper. Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Pearline (my third grandma) were all busy.... so Shelly and I invited our great uncle Bill and his wife Lucille. They're pretty great. And I like his jokes a lot. We had a blast. This is a really funny picture- Lu is the only one who looks halfway normal. She's pretty up on technology... this was taken with her digital camera and she emailed it to me this afternoon.


So why did the parrot wear a raincoat? He wanted to be poly-unsaturated!!! Good stuff.

ducks

So I really like my new job. And the people that I work with. They have a large supply of rubber duckies from that Oriental Trading catalog.... including scientist ducks. They sometimes get hid in people's offices when they're gone, or for birthdays, or promotions. Which I love. :D

i love the smell of doughnuts in the morning

so today the yg served lunch at church... and it was a huge wedding... and it was mother's day. lunch went remarkably well. people have a lot more patience with inexperience and mass chaos on days like today i think. but we had plenty of help in the kitchen all day, didn't run out of food, and hopefully we didn't leave it in too much of a shambles.

there were so many people there... they set up 250 chairs and there were still people standing in the back. eeesh. and next Sunday is another wedding.

this afternoon i was curled up reading a book and jakey casually mentioned that i had gotten a text message but i shouldn't worry because, "i took care of it." um.... so i ran and got my phone.... he definitely replied "chuck norris" to amber's text. i laughed a lot.

rita and karen are in town. which means lots of family dinners at which there is too much food and four or five unrelated conversations all going on at once.

blessings.

random poetry night

so it's been awhile... tonight we read Robert Burns.

good stuff.

the lilacs are blooming. :D

... pretty sunday

I've had a quiet weekend, which is nice once in a while. :)

The sunburn I got two weeks ago decided to start peeling.

It was so nice out today I just had to lay out on the porch with a book. (I have got to get rid of these crazy NC tan lines...)

Gab invited me to morton's hymn sing. Then we went to Dairy Queen. Good times.

Steak and Potatoes

So I invited myself to the Shaker for supper last night. (hey, my days as a Shaker sister are fast slipping away and all the rights and privileges thereof.... not that there are any, but still) Mark cooked some great sirloins, I definitely picked the right night to come.

After supper was singing at the nursing home. There were only ten of us but the residents were very appreciative and we actually sounded pretty good. I liked it a lot. Matt and I went to custard cup afterward even though it was a little too cold for ice cream. I got a chocolate snowstorm with peanut butter.... yum... that stuff is amazing. We hung out at the shake for a while afterwards... good times. Crazy that he's almost done.

I stopped at Hessel house on my way back home. I was good to see those girls too. It's been almost a week and a half since I've seen them...too long. :)

Work is going pretty well. The first week is always kinda slow... but yeah... I like it. Tomorrow I get to play with the GC all day.

Blessings.

ivy covered walls

It's been a pretty busy weekend. Friday was my last day at PDC. It wasn't too sad. I didn't have anything to do really, so didn't go back after lunch. Some of the people I worked with took me out to Old Chicago for pizza. Which I love. Friday night we had the yg at our house.

Someday when I'm rich and famous and have a house, remind me not to plant ivy. We had some by the front steps and it was really overgrown. We would find it growing inside the house- in the basement lights, and in the stove vent. It was also getting up under the siding... so Shelly and I tore it out on Saturday. It didn't really want to come so that was fun. There are also a lot of scary bugs down by the foundation.

I made Jakey show me how to drive the loader tractor so we could haul the ivy away. There were a few scary moments... he didn't tell me that I wasn't supposed to use the brakes. And he was barely hanging on the fender at the time. um... yeah. But I figured it out finally, and managed to back it into the shed without destroying anything.

Dad and I moved my two ash trees from one side of the garden to the other. I hope they make it, they were free and it will be pretty sad if they die.

It was invite a guest weekend so that's what I did most of today. I start at the Ag Lab tomorrow. woot.

La Manana Gloriosa

that spanish cd that I helped sing on came in the mail today. it's pretty cool. I may have listened to it a few times already.

Kendra B. and I met with some older single sisters tonight to talk about yg stuff... good times... they're a lot of fun, and they have all kinds of good ideas. I lack energy though...

Blessings.

Cary, NC

So the north Carolina trip was wonderful. :) It was really good to get away for a few days with some quality people.
We left Thursday from champaign... around 4:30ish I think. The trip out went pretty fast, I drove some. West Virginia is a creepy state at night... it reminded me of this horror movie that I watched in high school about cannibalistic hillbillies in the WV woods. And we stopped at this out of the way gas station that was kind of scary looking.... it was fun to joke about all weekend.

It was 6am NC time when we got to our very nice hotel (hooray for the Cat discount!)... Bob came and got the guys and us girls crashed for a few hours. Then we all went to Cat and were properly welcomed and got name tags and hats... Bob had some Cat equipment set up and we got to play with them for a few hours... seriously, so much fun.


We spent the rest of the afternoon/ evening at Bob's apartment- went to the grocery store and got frozen pizzas for supper and stuff for lunch and supper on Saturday. There's a lake by the apartment complex so we went for a walk and played on the playground. Most of us went to the airport to pick up Nic and then we just sat around and threw things for a while.
I shared a hotel room with Sarah and Susan- such a good time. :) Saturday morning we met up with the guys and drove to the beach. The weather was amazing- and there weren't very many people out. Played football for a while (I ran back and forth...just not my thing), made sandwiches for lunch, went for a walk in the surf, played volleyball without a net... and got sunburnt even though I used sunscreen. O well. Amber had to get wet of course, but I'm not sure why I had to. I was minding my own business retrieving the volleyball and I was forcibly dragged into the Atlantic against my will. Ok, so I'll admit to not putting up a fight because the water was amazing and I kind of wanted to go in anyway. Plus, Amber and Bob both got wet again so that made it worth it. :)


On the way back to Cary us soggy people rode in the back seat of Bob's car while Nic and Rogan drove. (Rogan was shifting and Sass was working the clutch for a while...) Good times and good conversation. After we all cleaned up Matt and Nic grilled burgers for supper... went down by the lake and chilled...talked about starting a church in Cary... us girls were sitting on a bench and some teenage kids wandered over. They were carrying around a 24 pack and had definitely been drinking, and they wanted to introduce themselves. It was pretty funny really... Amber asked them straight out how old they were... and one of the kids tried to light a cigarette in his shirt which led to my favorite Sarah quote ever- "Stop, drop, and roll." I don't think I have ever been hit on by 17ish yearolds before. And the guys didn't even come to our rescue... eeesh. At least we had Kaleigh to protect us. :)

Matt's birthday was Saturday, he got a large box full of peeps and a tractor. There was ice cream thanks to Sarah and Susan and we spent the rest of the evening in random conversation and comfortable silence and passing the aloe around.


Sunday morning we left from the hotel (after waiting for the guys and watching the Pope in NY) and had an uneventful trip home. I drove about half way through some very beautiful country, WV isn't nearly as scary in the daylight. I was sad when we got back... it really was a great weekend.

I have more pictures on facebook.

So what did you do this weekend?

.... the fellowship truly was sweet....

Just Can't Wait

to get on the road again!

I'm leaving for Cary, NC tomorrow(today i guess) after work with some super fun chicas and some guys. Woohoo! I'm excited.

Fairbury was great fun... I donated 10 inches of hair to locks of love.... And I spent the evening in Champaign with a few washington yg people. It was great... I love shaker singings. and U of I people.

It's past my bedtime. Goodnight.

and Rain

This week was the start of the crazy busy spring season at work. Everything is mostly unfrozen now, so we're getting all kinds of samples because all of our clients have to test for EPA compliance. And for some reason they all have to do it right now. Eeesh. I had to stop for Dr. Pepper pretty much every day after work.

Last weekend was really great. Congerville was such a fun time. I forget how many people I know over there, and it was really good to catch up. It was soo nice out so after church Audrey and I went on a long walk through the woods and managed to get slightly muddy.

um... not much else is new....life's pretty boring.... I'm almost done with Kendra's musical costume. I quit my job and I'm starting at the Ag Lab in a few weeks. I think I might go to Fairbury for testimonies/baptisms this weekend.

Blessings.

Sunshine

I like spring a lot. I planted some lily of the valley today. And hauled a lot of wheel barrow loads of winter debris from the yard.

A band of marauding Indians attacked me and set my wheel barrow on fire, but they ran off and left me my scalp so... I let them do it a few more times. :)

Clayton and I went shopping tonight. He doused himself with cologne at Hollister and now my car smells like SoCal.

I invited myself to Congerville tomorrow since I haven't been there in years. Should be good.

Blessings.

uiyg

so college weekend and nerd night (which i missed) reminded me of this list that some of the U of I girls came up with last year. good memories. :D

Top 10 things to Love about the U of I YG:

10. Your throwing arm improves
9.5 You learn how to duck
9. Jeremy’s announcements
8.5 Bubble Tea
8. We aren’t good at small talk, but we just don’t care
7.5 Studying together is a young group activity
7. Water fights in the house
6.626 x 10-34 We analyze quantum physics after singings
6.5 Polar Pop parties
6.022 Mole Day!
6. Four part harmony: 1 soprano, 1 alto, and a whole lot of Bass
5.5 Trivial Pursuit
5. Rubber band wars
4.75 Blake’s taffy
4.5 It’s wise to own a squirt gun
4. Twenty Questions
3.5 Sand Volleyball
3.14 Pi(e) Day!
3. There are many situations where a mask is appropriate
2.5 Four words: Big Quad, Little Chalk
2.25 Snowball fights in the house
2. Champaign Sunday school kids
1.5 We’re on a first name basis with the late-night Perkins’ staff
1. The coolest brethren and sisteren ever!

CW

I had an excellent weekend in Champaign. I think it's more fun to be an alumna at these things. I'm told it was the 40th anniversary of CW... started by U of I...which is cool. Anyway, I love it how much U of I pride always comes out when we host stuff. Blue and orange napkins, decorations, programs, pens, blue shirts and orange ties, the "greetings my name is:" name tags. It makes me smile a lot.

All the current U of I girls had to lead discussions groups so I got to hang out with Kaleigh, and Callie, and Kim, and Nic in the kitchen and help get food ready for supper. When I say 'help' I mean make lemonade and fill water glasses and get in the way. And I didn't have to be very social...

We sang in the architecture building afterwards- that was pretty cool. And got to see more of Ern than I wanted to. :) O well. I did get to talk to Dona and some other cool girls that I never ever see anymore.

I stayed at Hessel house, always a pleasure! I miss those girls mucho. But I might see them tomorrow. and go to NC with them- yay!

observing both sides of a prank war is good stuff.

blessings.