I’m back home from the whirlwind Kansas trip where one of my best friends, Ellen, got married. As a bonus I got to see a few extra friends and introduce David to many people. Most of it is a blur, but here are some thoughts regarding the weekend. To see the rest of the pictures and more of the story, go HERE.
The rehearsal dinner had all you can eat barbecue. I’m usually not so much a fan of barbecue, but the side dishes were so good that I stuffed myself.
We got to visit my best friend Becca, who is 8 months pregnant. She and her husband just bought a fixer-upper house. Here we are in front of it.
The wedding was outside, and it was a THOUSAND degrees. I think I sweated more than at any soccer game I’ve played in. Also, the bridesmaids wore the shoes from hell. They were pure evil, despite their cute appearance.
David was so supportive to come all the way to Kansas with me, missing his own cousin’s wedding to go to a place where he knew no one. I love him.
Got to hang out some with these cool girls, Julie and Valerie, friends from Tabor College.
The obligatory bride and groom picture. Ellen was beautiful, and I took her veil from her literally the minute after she removed it later that day. It will be my “something borrowed” at my own wedding!
My good friend Julie let David and I stay at her house while we were there. She and I are a lot alike, and whenever I see her I lament the fact that we live two states away.
We left town around 4 p.m. on Saturday, and since David had to be back by noon on Sunday we just drove through the night. We got home around 2:30 a.m. having been awake since 5 a.m., but we made it!
Final thoughts: I’m jealous that Ellen is married already and I can’t wait to be myself! David and I had some good quality time together this weekend despite the craziness, and I can’t wait to spend my life with him. I have some amazing friends and I hated to say goodbye to them, but I will be seeing them in less than two months!
My second day included a Capitol tour, visiting the Library of Congress where I got a library card (supposedly for “research purposes only and NOT to be used as souvenirs…I figure I might come back and do research, right?), viewing the Supreme Court building, botanical gardens, a whirlwind tour of the Holocaust Museum, and a final visit to the Washington Monument. I did all that in four hours, and then my feet wanted to kill me.
I’m visiting my good friend Ellen in Washington, D.C. this weekend. I’m a little jet setter lately! I’m ready to be settled in at home again, but it won’t happen next week. But anyway, we’ll get to that at a later date.
Day one of my visit, Friday, was spent with Ellen at work, and then lounging at her apartment eating cookies, talking, and watching Scrubs.
Day two involved sleeping in, watching more Scrubs, going to a wedding, and hauling out to Annapolis to see Over the Rhine in concert, which was, by the way, amazing.
Day three (today) we went to church and then walked the heck out of DC. What we saw: Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, National History Treasures, Archives (Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights), Washington Monument, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Ford’s Theatre, the house where Lincoln died, and went to the top of the Old Post Office to see a view of the city.
I think we walked about 10 miles, and my foot hurts! Here are the pictures from my trip so far. Tomorrow I’m taking the Capitol tour and visiting the Library of Congress, so more pictures will be added after that.
I went to Kansas for my college’s homecoming this past weekend. For those of you who didn’t go to a small school, homecoming is more like a reunion than anything because I pretty much know everyone who comes. I still have 4-5 really good friends who live in Kansas, so I’ve made it a tradition to go to homecoming every year to see them.
I stayed with my best friend Becca and her husband Micah while I was there. I had signed up to run the homecoming 5K by myself, but when I was packing I couldn’t find my iPod. That was annoying because running by myself without music isn’t that great. So on Saturday morning I asked Becca, “You wouldn’t happen to have an iPod, would you?” Knowing Becca’s technology deficiency I figured there was no chance. But she said, “Yes! That is one thing we do have!”
Then Micah dug an iPod shuffle out of a box and handed it to me. He said, “I think there’s only one Josh Groban song on it, though, and maybe a sermon.” I figured it was better than nothing.
Becca asked him, “Did you win the iPod or something?”
“No, my parents gave it to me for Christmas.”
“Last Christmas?” I asked, not believing that he had it a whole year without putting songs on it.
“No, a few Christmases ago,” he replied. “There’s a reason Becca and I got married!”
***
Driving to Hillsboro from Wichita is a lot of highway with farmland surrounding it. I slept in the car, and woke up when Becca realized that we had missed our turn. So we turned around and as we were backtracking our friend Julie said, “I think the turn’s coming up, there’s a silo that looks familiar.” That’s a phrase I don’t hear in Houston!
The 5K went alright, except that there weren’t that many runners and the cross country team ran and left me in the dust. It was kind of embarrassing. I was probably one of the last ones to finish, and I still ran it in a faster-than-normal time for me. Afterwards I showered and we spent a lot of time wandering around campus. We ate lunch at the “young alumni tailgate party” and then drove to a neighboring town to visit our friend Erica who couldn’t make it to the festivities. All of us fell asleep while there. After a couple of hours we returned to Hillsboro, watched the second half of the football game (we lost), and then ate dinner at Pizza Hut. Hillsboro has exactly 5 places to eat: Pizza Hut, Subway, Sonic, Olde Towne Restaurant, and a new Mexican restaurant. The McDonald’s in town actually went out of business.
During the evening I hung out with one of my college roommates, her husband, and their new baby. We didn’t get back to Wichita until about midnight, and I was so exhausted. We went straight to bed, and then I woke up in the morning and flew home.
It was a quick trip, but definitely worth it. I find that every year I go, there are less people that I really care to see and spend time with. But the ones that I do want to see are very important to me, so the tradition will continue. I like taking little trips like this, but I love coming home. I’m very happy with my life here and the people in it. These are strong ties that I hope I don’t ever have to cut.
Today is the anniversary of the destruction of Pompeii by Mt. Vesuvius. Pompeii has always held a fascination for me. I think it’s the combination of its age, the remnants of daily life that it preserved, and its uniqueness. When I went to Greece it was the Acropolis that had me transfixed. In Russia, the Tolstoy House Museum was my favorite tourist site. Pompeii is a combination of the aspects that each of these offered.
Most of what scholars know of daily life in ancient Roman culture comes from Pompeii. It was a thriving city at the time, and most people probably didn’t even know that Mt. Vesuvius was a volcano. It was also five miles away, so they probably thought they had time to flee if necessary. But by the end of the day the city was covered in more than 20 feet of debris. It was as if time had just stopped. When it was excavated in 1860 archaeologists found holes in the sediment with human remains in them. They poured plaster into these spaces and thus obtained perfect molds of these people at the time of their deaths, down to the expressions on their faces. There was a father and son on the floor of a house, the boy on his back looking up at his father, and they were holding hands. Adults were found trying to protect their children. Families rushed to the sea. Dogs strained at their leashes.
Tomorrow I fly to Kansas to watch my best friend get married. Thanks for your help with the songs, by the way. I took some of your suggestions and others made me smile.
Here is one playlist of sweet love songs that I created, and another which is a little more sensual, a little more spicy. No raunch though.
I know I’m only going out of town for 4 days, but I still feel like I have so much to do before leaving. Such as:
• Shop for shoes to match my bridesmaid dress, a bigger memory card for my camera, and a book
• Mail off a scholarship application
• Put together the wedding gift
• Pack
• Watch a movie and return it
• Play an indoor soccer game
• Work for approximately 6 hours tomorrow
And sorry to cut this short, but I think I am going to leave class early right now to go start on this list!
Yesterday, for the second year, my roommate Carmen participated in the World Championship Pun Competition in Austin, TX. There were two events. The first was called “Punniest of Show” in which the contestants (32 in all) performed a 90-120 second monologue and were rated on a scale of 1-10 by four judges for a maximum of 40 points. I am proud to say that with a score of 39, I now live under the same roof as the second-place winner!
The second event was a tournament in which two punsters went head-to-head. They would receive a topic and go back and forth punning off that topic with only 5 seconds to come up with one. If they took longer than 5 seconds they were out. No word could be punned off of twice, and if they reused a word they got a strike against them and they were out on the third strike.
Carmen faced last year’s second-place winner in the first round. The topic was “Dancing.” A few excerpts:
“My paper isn’t good I got a B, but can I plié?”
“At the big dance your senior year of high school you have to have the right drink. You need promenade.”
In the second round her topic was “The American Presidency.” This one lasted 17 minutes!
“I’ll have to put a Nixon that one.”
“I was editing my web page and I wanted to make sure everything was easily accessible, so I put a Lincoln everything.”
“Have you ever found one of those pits? They come impeaches.”
Moving onto the third round, the topic was “Mystery and Crime Fiction.” More snippets of punny goodness:
“For Halloween I dyed my hair and put it up in a ponytail with a red herring.”
“There was a costume that was used in the play, but I don’t know who donned it.”
Finally, she moved onto the final round, facing off against last year’s first and third-place winners. The category was “Fictional Creatures”:
“I gave her some money because I ogre.”
“If you’re hurting, I don’t care. Bear it.”
“I’m so mad, I’m going to lop off your head! Psych! Lops aren’t very nice.”
Last year’s champion got out on strikes, and Carmen took it to the other guy. But it was soon obvious that he knew many more creatures than she did, as he revealed himself to be a Dungeons & Dragons fan, whereas Carmen is NOT into fantasy or any similar genre. So after a long and hard battle, she conceded and again took second!
Well, it was a quick trip but I’d say it was definitely worth it. I’ll give you a little overview, with some pictures thrown in.
We left at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning. I was sitting in the back seat. I pretty much slept for the first few hours. I meant to only sleep until it got light enough outside to study, but it’s just very hard for me to stay awake in the car. Eventually I got my textbook out and started to read. Then after a short while of that, I began to have a strange sensation that can only be described as car-sickness. I was in denial at first, but when my mom finally insisted that I take the front seat I did not say no. Shotgun was mine for the rest of the weekend! At one point we were listening to some talk radio. Here is a snippet of a conversation that ensued between us:
Dad: I know how to take care of those suicide bombers. It’s an excellent idea, but I don’t think they’ll listen to me. Just have everyone walk around in bathing suits. Then if you see someone with a raincoat on, you pretty much know there’s a bomb in there.
Me: Well not everyone wants to walk around in bathing suits.
Dad: Not everyone wants to be DEAD, either. I’m telling you, it would work.
Mom (piping up from the back seat): In a few years you’d see a dramatic rise in the instances of skin cancer.
Dad: Well you’d just have to teach everyone to use sunscreen. Listen, I KNOW it’s a good idea.
My parents are pretty great.
Right outside of Lubbock there is the Llano Estacado Winery, which is the second-oldest in Texas and supposedly one of the best. We stopped there in order for my mom to pick up some of her favorite wine, and we went ahead and took the tour, along with its complementary taste-testing. I tried a bunch of different kinds, and I can still say with certainty that I CANNOT STAND WINE. I’m not even going to pretend. Anyway, Barry and a few of his friends met us there:
Then we headed to Lin’s Asian Buffet, which also happened to serve Mexican food and steaks. The place was kind of ridiculously over-the-top with its decorations, but in a funny way.
Mom and Barry at the buffet:
Dad and me:
Next stop was to check in at the good ole Rodeway Inn that we always stay at, and then head to Barry’s house. I took some pictures there, but you really don’t want to see them. Most of them I took just to show Boyfriend that his place really isn’t that messy after all. However, I will share a few.
Mom and Dad chillin’ in the living room:
Me on the couch:
Ewok, Barry’s stuffed animal from when he was a kid. I walked into his room, saw him on the bed, and squealed with delight. There are many fond memories of Ewok. I asked Barry if he sleeps with him, and he said, “He’s around.”
We hung out there until it was time to go to the play. Unfortunately, no pictures of the performance because it would have been illegal to take any, and I am a law-abiding citizen. We went straight back to the motel afterwards, and sleep soon overtook us all.
The next morning we met Barry at 9 a.m. for our regular meal at Denny’s. I stuffed my little belly because I had an inkling that we wouldn’t be stopping for food on the way home. Here we are:
The drive home consisted of me, once again, sleeping a lot more than I had planned. It also did involve me studying quite a bit. And I viewed some scenery:
Yeah it’s not really interesting except those windmills in the background are kind of cool in real life. Anyway, the only thing out of the ordinary that happened on the way home was that we stopped to pick up a couple a little older than my parents who were stranded on the side of the road. We ended up taking them home, about a half hour out of our way, but it was really no big deal. They were nice, and they gave us some frozen meat to thank us.
