Weekly post...

Hello folks!

It's the 4th of July weekend and I didn't have to work today! It's nice actually seeing the sunset and stuff. And by stuff I mean, like, fireflies. The quiz answers are all updated, so be sure to check those out if you were curious.

Tonight for the first time ever in my life I made hamburger helper. Daniel helped. It mostly consisted of Daniel browning the meat. Me reading the directions on the box a million times and then turning the stove burners up higher because the food wasn't cooking fast enough. In the end, I used two pots instead of the one the box said I needed and cooked a lot of the meal to the bottom of said pans. I'm eating the leftovers now, and at least it doesn't taste too bad.

I went and saw Wall-e tonight. It was super cute. I enjoyed it. :-) I took Stephen, Philomena and Daniel. Initially Jessica was going to come too, but she had already seen it and wanted to go to a Beetles tribute concert that was going on in the park, so she went to that. We are going to hang out tomorrow, though. After the parade. Probably watch America's Got Talent and then play cribbage or something to that effect.

This past weekend was my roommate, Leah's wedding. Well.... I guess we're not really roommates anymore.... Which is weird to say... But, anyway. I was a bridesmaid and it was a lot of fun. :-) Here is a link to some of the pictures, if you haven't seen them on Facebook already. It's both Margie and Jon's wedding, at the beginning of June, and Leah and Travis's which was at the end. Everything went fairly smoothly which was nice. My only mishap was that I dropped one of the earrings Leah gave me down the drain. :-( I tried everything but taking the drainpipe down with my bare hands to get it. Rachel V. saved the day though. She ran into Wal-Mart on her way into Waverly and picked me up some awesome replacements. (THANK-YOU!)

The wedding was beautiful and the reception was a lot of fun. The wedding party rode around in a limo for a while and then went to the reception. Dinner was good and the dance was great! It was a lot of actual *dance* music, like swing, polka and waltz-like music. I think I sat out for a total of 4 dances. People kept asking me to dance! I danced with a couple of Travis's friends, from both high school and one from graduate school and I danced with some Wartburg people. All around it was a super good time. :-) The ride home was interesting... It's an hour and 15 minute drive, and I was really tired so I had the music up very high. I almost hit a deer and a raccoon, but luckily I didn't. That helped keep me awake as well.

Yesterday I went to Grinnell to attend my siblings farewell concert for their European tour with the group Iowa Ambassadors of Music. I went on this trip in 2004, and Mary and Matthew are going to have a blast! I'm very jealous of them! They are going to England, France, Switzerland, Austria, Lichtenstein, Italy and Germany, all in two weeks. I am *not* jealous of the traveling though... They had to leave on a bus for Chicago at 2:30 am this morning. Yuck. Before the concert I hung out with my friend Devon. It was a good time. :-) We went and got ice cream, and then played Guitar Hero. Which I am massively bad at.... Mostly because I forget to strum and forget that my pinky is the blue key. I also hit myself on the chin with the plastic guitar when I was trying to activate star power. It hurt, but was kind of funny. Driving home last night was boring. I stopped and bought some McDonalds to eat on the 2 1/2 hour drive home and sang really loudly to my favorite Broadway soundtracks.

The "Twilight" series by Stephanie Meyer has become quite popular. Like, ridiculously popular, to the point where it is the *cool* book to read. I totally read it LONG before it was the *cool* book and so did my friends. Silly people jumping on the bandwagon...

My left big toe has limited feeling in it... I've only noticed this recently, and it's weird. It doesn't *hurt* but it's kind of numb. I've trimmed the nail as short as it will go... I don't know if it has anything to do with my shoes or dancing over the weekend or what. I just noticed it on Monday. It's the same toe as this... I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Nerd time: So on Monday I was driving home from gift unwrapping at Leah and Travis's apartment and I saw a pick-up truck pulling a trailer that was holding 3 blue port-a-potties and my brain instantly went LOOK! TARDISes! And then I realized what they really were and laughed at myself and called Rachel V. and told her about it.

Rachel V. burned me a copy of John Barrowman's Reflections from Broadway CD and it is fantastic! :-) I love it! My favorite track being "Dreamers"


Dreamers have mountains they will climb
There are dreamers who don't believe in time
Only dreamers have worlds where they can fly far away.

Certain dreamers have kingdoms they will build,
Filled with treasures and dragons to be killed
Only dreamers have wings with which to fly far away.

Some people dream of being rich,
While others dream of being tall
And there are people who don't dream at all.

Dreamers have shooting stars they chase,
There are others with nightmares they must face.
Sometimes dreamers are forced to leave their dreams far away.

And there are people who don't dream at all.

Sometimes you need to take the time
To find treasures and mountains we can climb.
And maybe we dream to change the way that we feel,
'Cause to dreamers the real world can be unreal.