Mini Adventure - Kansas

So! This has been a pretty big week!

I was officially accepted as an exchange student at University College Dublin. I guess that's a good thing, because I've kind of been planning on that.

Official!

I also got information on applying for on-campus housing and creating my online UCD account. Whoo!

In addition to this exciting fall information, I received confirmation for my internship housing this summer. Again, whoo for having a place to sleep!

I leave for my internship on Sunday, making this extra good news. I still have a bunch of paperwork to fill out (USDA = government = paperworrrk), and I need to pack, and I guess I should print out some directions?

Human GPS. No directions necessary.

There was a birthday (Joanna's) and a trip to her place for a campout/bonfire!

This was totally enough wood. We definitely didn't

have to send the guys out to find a dead tree after dusk.

We tried to make campfire cones. Delicious, right? We saw them on Pinterest - the key word is "saw." By not clicking on the link and reading the instructions, we missed the part that said to cook them "near campfire or on grill". It went like this:

JO: How should we cook them?

ME: Just kind of...throw 'em on the fire. In the middle. Then push them out with a stick.

JO: How long do we leave them in there?

ME: I dunno...two minutes or so?

JO: That one's on fire.

They were kinda charcoal-y. But some people like charcoal! So, I'll go with "success."

Happy birthday! Sorry about the campfire cones!

Eric's birthday was going on, too, so we had a fancy-pants dinner at a restaurant that gave us ANDES MINTS after the meal. Not regular mints, people! Chocolate ones! I didn't take pictures of those, though.

Finally, I dragged took my mother on an adventure on Wednesday. We drove to Manhattan, KS (~2 hours) and had a lovely time! I did not bring a camera.

We went to lunch at Aroy Thai. (No pictures.)

We went to a post office and helped a frantic guy mail a package. (No pictures.)

We walked through the K-State campus with Keleigh and saw lots of FFA conference kids. (No pictures.)

We went to the K-State Botanical Gardens and sniffed flowers. (Keleigh took pictures!)

Lovely ladies! (Keleigh's phone is better than my camera, anyway.)

We visited friends and delivered Mom's Avon orders and walked through Aggieville. (Shut up! You don't need pictures!)

We drove to Topeka and met my boyfriend's family for dinner. (No...whatever.)

After a very pleasant dinner, we left Paisano's Ristorante to see green skies and rain falling sideways. Mom and I sprinted to the car in the horizontal downpour and stared at each other. "Home?" "Home."

We drove about a block before it became too dark and rainy to see.

MOM: I'm gonna pull over and wait for a few minutes.

ME: Okay! Here are a few places to turn into.

MOM: Daylight Donuts! Let's stop here!

ME: ...I think the donut place is over there. This is a cemetery.

We sat in the car and waited for the storm to lift. Instead, it began to hail.

MOM: I'm going to drive back a little more to get some tree coverage and avoid the hail.

ME: ...okay...

*a few minutes later*

MOM: We're almost out of gas.

To recap: We are sitting in our car. During a thunderstorm/hailstorm/tornado-y thing. In a cemetery. The BACK of a cemetery. And we are low on gas.

This is what it looked like:

Yes, my phone takes pictures. Yes, I could've taken
pictures all day. SHUT UP! They're fuzzy.

After a while, we left the cemetery and started driving home. The weather wasn't really better, but we live in KANSAS, darn it! We survived.

It looked like this:

Or something.

And then we came home to this:

(She is alive and SO WARM.)

SUCH a lovely week. I could get used to this not-working, not-studying, power-puttering kind of life. But then I'd get fat and bored and start pressure washing the house or something.