Tailgating with Laur's Family

I had the chance to go tailgate with Laura's family this afternoon before the game. There was plenty of food to go around, beanbag toss to be played, laughs to be shared and hugs to be exchanged. I'm so thankful to have such an incredible friend like Laura that we mutually claim each other as sisters, and for her family to be so welcoming! I can't imagine my life without her!

Dancin' through Downtown Bryan

Once a month there is this event in Downtown Bryan called First Friday. On the first Friday of every month all of the shops and restaurants stay open late, there are a bunch of free concerts and a movie in the park; essentially, it is just a night to hang out and walk around Bryan.

We have been wanting to go for a while, but it never seems to work out. But it finally did last night! Rachel, Myriam, Jen, Katie and I all headed out to Bryan and got to eat at a super cute organic restaurant. I was kinda nervous about the food, but some of the girls had been there before and assured the rest of us it was good. I ordered a pizza and it was DELICIOUS!

After supper we hit up the local ice-cream parlor and enjoyed some ice-cream as we enjoyed walking through town. Downtown Bryan reminds me SO much of Postville. It's super small with several "Wishing Well"-type stores. Absolutely precious! We hit up the movie in the park where Paranorman was playing, and then went to one of the free concerts.

There were a couple people dressed up in Halloween costumes. One man was wearing a Ghillie Suit and we saw him several times walking through the streets. One time he jumped out and scared a group of girls when we were on the other side of the sidewalk. When we were leaving though I forgot that we were walking right by where he was scaring people. He scared me SO bad. I think my friends officially realized why you don't want to scare me unless you are willing to endure major hearing loss resulting in my screams!

Needless to say, such a fun girls night out!

And My Hatred for Halloween Continues.

Halloween: a time full of darkness and gloom where people pretend to be things they aren't, and where scaring people until they pee their pants is perfectly acceptable.

Now, does that sound all that exciting? NO. Thankfully, Katie, Myriam and Jen share the same dispassions for Halloween so after practice tonight we had our own "anti-halloween" party!

Myriam and I headed to Layne's to grab supper to go. Jen and Katie made a Blue Baker run, and then we all met at Katie's house. Katie made homemade cookie dough (no, we didn't need the dough to be baked into cookies) and we settled in for a movie night. Tonight's movie choice was "The Killers", which was only agreed upon after they promised me it wasn't a scary movie. We half watched the movie and half did homework, until about 11:20 when a loud "KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK" came banging on Katie's door. I freaked. Katie's peep hole doesn't work, and so we had no way of figuring out who it was. We were in a suspenseful part of the movie, and me, HATING all things scary, ran into the back room of Katie's apartment. Jen was a bit more proactive and grabbed the kitchen knives. Myriam hid under a blanket, and Katie attempted to figure out who it was. After a couple of minutes we decided they were just drunk trick-or-treaters who were lost, and went back to our movie.

I think my night sounds like a lot more enjoyable version of Halloween!

Homemade Hot Chocolate

I've always been very picky with hot chocolate. That prepackaged stuff just doesn't ever make the cut! Grandma Zieman always makes this REALLY good homemade hot chocolate and it is so good that nothing else can ever match the tastiness of her recipe.

Well, I brought that recipe with me to College Station this year, and let me just say, my house is ADDICTED! This recipe makes a lot; I only have a mixing bowl big enough for half of the recipe. Well, between me and my roommates we have gone through the recipe THREE times! I always have at least a cup a day: generally I have a huge mug in the morning as I'm getting ready and then a cup as I'm getting ready for bed. Maddie and Rach but love it, and have even begun to put the mix in their coffee in the morning.

There's just something about homemade hot chocolate. Maybe I love it so much because it reminds me of Christmas with my entire family. Maybe it's because it just makes you feel all warm and good inside. Maybe just because it is hot and tasty. I don't know what it is, but I'm addicted!

It's Fall Y'all!

I needed a creative outlet today, so my blog got a makeover! It's FALL Y'ALL!

An Evening with one of my Best (and Longest) Friends

It’s no secret that Kevin and I are great friends. I have known him my entire life, and we have always been close. We pick on each other constantly and are so comfortable around one another that we frequently are called “brother and sister” or “the old married couple”. We laugh it off all the time, we don’t care what everybody says, we just enjoy each other’s company.

We frequently are able to go out to dinner together on Sunday nights. Tonight he came and picked me up (although he was at the wrong building in my complex so it took us a while to find each other). Neither one of us cared where we went for dinner, so we did the usual “let’s just pick a direction and drive until we see something”. I spotted Chipotle, and that’s where we ended up.

Since I found the restaurant, it was his turn to pray. We always trade off who picks and who prays, it’s been our thing ever since high school.

After talking about everything under the sun and enjoying tacos & burritos, we headed to Sonic and continued conversing. There isn’t anything that I can’t talk about with Kevin. I think tonight we discussed family, camp, ultimate frisbee, engineering, education, water polo, projects, papers, weekends, roommates, relationships, friends, summer, the fact that we are making adult decisions that effect our entire lives… Literally, we can talk about anything and we can talk for hours without a problem.

This semester hasn’t been an easy one. But it’s friendships like this that have prospered and flourished this semester that are constant and beautiful reminders of the goodness of our Father.

One of the Days I'll Remember

Individual days in college run together. Studying, classes, practices... Everything blurs together.

Today will be a day that will stand out about junior year.

The day my best friends and I spelled out "HOWDY" at the football game. The day we got to take best friend pictures and giggled more than imaginable. The day we tried so hard to stay in a line so that our HOWDY was spelled correctly...

Today was one of the days I'll remember.