year in review! part2

july:

this summer was an awkward summer because i did not work or take summer school. i taught sunday school and was casted as the lead role in my family's hit drama series entitled "two-divorced-families-living-under-one-roof-with-two-teenage-girls." i spent the summer traveling back & forth playing big brother.
the best idea of the year was to recruit a brigade of women (&jeff) to drive cross-country to SCOTTSDALE, AZ to pick up my brother & fiance from culinary school.

15 y/o diva (stepsis) + 16 y/o sis(fullofangst)
18 y/o girl cousin + 47 y/o neurotic mother
+       21 y/o male college student + small SUV

RECIPE FOR CHAOS

highlights:

• my mother mastering the art of chain smoking in the backseat in the middle of the night. (yes, we drove the entire way)


• my sister & i bonding over our circumstance that we were in. driving in the middle of the southwest at 3am listening to taylor swift while our crew slept through the night. i feel like i know what it feels like to be a teenage girl after listening to "fearless" with my sister for the night. lots of emotions.


• i drove the graveyard shift of midnight-8am and kept everyone alive.


• i convinced my soon-to-be-step-sister that 1) rat tails were cool & 2) to let me braid a rat-tail. if you know me at all, i love rat tails. especially braided ones.

august:

one of my dear friends-that-i-didnt-really-know-was-one-of-my-best-friends-at-the-time andy married one of my dear-friends-that-i-didnt-know-we-were-actually-friend-emilys-dear-friend linds. then they moved to korea & blogged about it.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="(photo by bethany michaela)"][/caption]

addison had a brilliant idea. the idea was to get a grand group of guys to go galavant and gather good times in the woods. well, numbers dwindled and dedication flopped. so my trusty ex-best-friend-patrick and i set sail for what is practically canada with addison as our leader.

[caption id="attachment_181" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="we unfortunately had to "camp" out at a "family camp" because the transmission broke just outside of minnesota"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_182" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="at this point, i had already set down a tarp to play scrabble and read harry potter."][/caption]

we even stopped by the pyrotechnics guild international show in mason city while hitching a ride with a man who said he was a college professor & wrote books on speed reading & liked college students. we're college students and i liked the idea of speed reading, so we went.



we made it to canada, kind of. addison & i didn't bring out passports while patrick made a vow to never leave the united states of uhmerka.



we camped, we sang, we smoked cloves, we hiked, we read. we survived the storm of the century in which i didn't know i could pray for 4 hours for my life. patrick lost most of his food. i brought clif bars and sealed food in nasty wrappers. i crocheted a fishing net, that was really a lacrosse stick. addison whittled spears. patrick read...a lot. we left with our heads down because we packed a tent from the 70's that only held 2 and our "shanty" didn't quite make it through the night. rained out and slightly irate, we left our little getaway.

september:

i moved into a beautiful new east campus home (haha) named 516 with 4 dudes. ok, this actually happened in august, but september was a slow month. here is a never before seen 516 family photo circa tall john.

[caption id="attachment_184" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="sounds about right"][/caption]

october:

i went to my first, hopefully not last, NASCAR race with my mothers-current-boyfriend-or-fiance-yet-she-wears-a-wedding-band-and-engagement-ring-that-he-bought-her-but-my-mom-keeps-saying-not-yet.

after 2 long months or so of training for this wretched half-marathon, i did it.
i also decided that i was not going to wear shorts because after training on the MKT, i noticed that all of the hardcore runners just wore tights and a shirt. therefore, game time, no shorts was the only option. dress for the job you want, yanno.

i finished at 1:47. not bad for my first time half-marathon.

[caption id="attachment_187" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="i also noticed that all of the hardcore runners were drinking beer after their race. "drink like you have the job you want.""][/caption]

november:

i started a small cottage business. crocheting little headbands for hip girls to wear. then my wrist started to hurt, so i stopped. fail.

december:

i passed spanish 3 and officially completed all the spanish required by the university of missouri-columbia for a bachelor of arts in blah blah blah.

the 4th ANNUAL YANKEE SWAP rang in the holiday season with my high school friends & company. ed hardy hats, 5foot tall pencils, 10 commandments bible games, sarah palin autobiography hollowed out enclosed with a condom labeled "stimulus package" with a photo of obama on the casing+ pack of marlboro lights+ bottle of jim beam, recycled gifts from last year, a stolen sorority lamp from kappa alpha theta, and many others.