Lake house fun!

Over the weekend we went to Monticello, Indiana to go to Colleen's lake house.  This is the 3rd time I've been to the house and every time always ends up being a great one.  This weekend was no exception. 

First off, Colleen's lake house is super cute so I thought I'd include some pictures of the house and the view.  

Also in attendance were Farley, Kamm, Stacey, Lynn & Todd, Kylie & Randy, Cameron, Flynn, Titus & Trey, and Neal.  The day was complete with corn hole, boat rides, 3-legged races, tons of delicious food, and Dunkaroos which was a new game showed to us by Cameron.  Only the brave ones played this game.  

I bet you guys thought Colleen was joking about the potato sack races, but here are the sacks to prove it. 

I don't think I can write about all the fun so here are just a couple more pictures.  This is definitely an event that needs to occur more often.

My Life is One Giant Sleepover

Exciting things have been happening!! Kamm, Farley, and I moved into our LOVELY new apartment!! I'm super excited for all the fun things to come.

Our apartment is in a prime location, has 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and a patio that we hope by the end of today looks better then it did when we moved in. I'm hoping to discover that I have a green thumb and plant some flowers.

Saturday morning, a friend of mine from work helped me load all my big items into his truck and move them into my apartment. The rest of the day was spent driving back and forth from one place or another trying to get all our things into the place. It was a LONG day but a productive one and at the very least at the end of the day, all of us had places to sleep. My mom came over to help me and it was definitely nice having some assistance.

Sunday, I went off on a little furniture finding excursion. For some reason there is absolutely no storage in my bathroom. So, I went out and bought one of those over the toilet storage things as well as some baskets to put my stuff in. Add one bathmat and some over the door hooks and you have yourself a functional bathroom.

My other addition to the bathroom was a towel rack. The directions said to drill a hole in the wall which is fine and dandy if you actually own a drill...I don't. But, I don't come from a family of engineers for nothing. I hammered in the tip of my screwdriver and that worked too!! So of course I had to include a picture of my towel rack as well.

The area in my room needing the most help in my closet. For one, I have a lot of stuff. Two, I used to fit into 3 small closets and now I must fit into one decent sized ones. So there was a lot of reorganization to be done. But I am pretty pleased with the finished product!!

 A high note is that my bed is fully assembled and functional which is good b/c for the last few nights I barely managed to crawl into it due to exhaustion.

In the midst of all this unpacking, I also managed to go grocery shopping. Colleen gave me an egg salad recipe and I tried it. Now, I don't think I am a huge fan of egg salad but I didn't hate this so I took that as a good sign and now I'm posting it for others to try. I especially think if you like egg salad, you'll like this recipe. And the best part is...no mayonnaise!!

3 tablespoons plain yogurt

1.5 teaspoons curry powder

2 pinches of salt

combine those in a bowl

add

5 hard boiled eggs (6-7 because if you only use the whites as Colleen recommends)

toast 1/4 cup of pecans

chop up 1/2-1/4 of an onion

chop up 1/2 of an apple

chop up a bunch of fresh chives

mix it all together and eat your bread of choice

Enjoy!!

This weekend we're going up to Monticello for some lake house fun! I'm sure there will be lots of pictures and good times to share!

Time is flying...

Well, I can't believe how fast time has gone by. I'm so behind on updating this thing! Here is an update on some things that I have done.

I went to a Loon's game. They lost.

I went back to Indiana but this time with a truck full of all my stuff. Damla and J.B. came down. Unfortunately it was too dark to actually do anything but they finally got to see where I live! We woke up really early in the morning and packed up the truck with the help of Tyler and my roommates Zack and Steve. By 9 am were were all set and we made the trek down to Indiana.

The drive was pretty uneventful which was a plus. When we got to Indiana we unloaded everything in the truck into the garage where it will stay until I sign a lease with the girls in Indiana. Then we showered and I headed off to show Tyler all the glory that is Indy. I showed him my new office location at Dow AgroSciences because I think it's a pretty cool looking
building.
Then we headed off to see good old Carmel High School. Then we headed down to Broad Ripple where he got to see the strip. We ate dinner at Bazbeaux's with some friends and then hit up Chumley's for a little more friendly conversation.

The next morning we got up to go look at a potential housing option. It was cute but not my favorite. After that we headed home for some Mother's Day brunch! It was only supposed to be some close family but we never close our door and ended up having quite a group of people! But as always, the more the merrier. And of course we never ran out of food thanks to Mommy's amazing ability to prepare mass quantities of food and make it all see so effortless.

After some brunch and story telling Tyler and I headed out once again to go look at a potential apartment to live in. I liked this place SO much better. So hopefully by the end of next week I'll officially have a new home...but I won't be moving again until June.

Here are a few more pictures from one of my last nights in Midland...for a couple months at least! 

I have since started LIVING in Indiana. My mom has taken to calling herself my roommate which I find pretty funny. I'm her roommate who has to call home if I'm going to be late for dinner. :)

Trey and Titus are Married!!

What a wonderful weekend!

Friday night I went over to a friends house for a BBQ which is possibly my favorite thing about warm weather finally being here. That and not having to wear coats or socks. The food was delicious and the company was amusing as always. I got to play on the Wii for a little bit and confirm that I am only good at Wii bowling.

I had to leave early on Friday night so I could get some sleep and get up early on Saturday to drive down to Indiana for...Trey and Titus's wedding!! The ceremony was lovely and pleasantly short. Then we headed downtown for the reception at the Marvis Arts and Event Center. I'd never been there before but it's really cute! The floors are all hard wood and the room just has a very warm cozy feel to it. And you could see a train go by every once in a while through the window which was so appropriate for a room full of Boilermakers! :)

The night was filled with delicious food, killer dance moves, and lots of laughter. As much as I don't like the 5 hour drive home (especially when I forget a book on tape to listen to), it's always worth it when I get there. And it's always so nice to see my friends who don't live near me!


As if 6 hours of dancing wasn't enough, we headed out to Broad Ripple to continue the fun after the wedding. We managed to stay out for a few more hours before I didn't think having cute shoes on was worth the pain in my feet anymore and we headed back to our respectful beds/couches/floors. Sunday we were supposed to have an appointment to look at a house to potentially rent but that fell through so I had lunch with my parents and then packed up and headed back to Michigan. Hopefully we'll find a place to live soon!
I managed to pack up 3 boxes of kitchen good when I got home last night so progress is being made on that front. The truck will be here on Saturday and hopefully by that time, I'll be all set to go. I can't believe that my moving day is almost here! Clearly time has been flying by but hopefully there will be lots more fun times to come this summer!

How could I forget to mention...

...RIVERDANCE!!

It was awesome and if the farewell tour comes near you, I highly recommend going to see it. Tyler might have a different opinion. I mean, sure we were the youngest people there by about 50 years but that's beside the point. I am still amazed by the talent that those people have. How do they move their feet so fast!? And I will always love synchronized dancing. I think the best part of Slumdog Millionaire was the random dancing scene during the credits at the end. Sure it had nothing to do with the movie but you can't go wrong with a sweet dance number at the end of any movie.

Rain Rain Go Away

Today is the first full sunny day in a while...but I'm stuck inside so I figured I might as well write another post.

The weekend was really fun. Friday night Tyler and I and a few of his friends drove down to Detroit to see Flight of the Conchords. They're a band...I guess, who have a TV show on HBO. It's pretty random but funny at the same time. I do have to say that even though I'm not a die hard fan, even I still had a good time. And I learned that Detroit is not as scary as they say. Or at least not where were were. When the show let out there were tons of people in the streets and in the bars along the streets. We stopped for a quick drink at one of them just to let the traffic die down a bit before we headed back north. Then we continued the night back in Midland with Apples to Apples (which I won!) until it was time for bed.
Saturday was 80 degrees...but rainy too. The roommates and I decided to grill out for dinner and I pretty much just let my day revolve around that. Steve and I drove around town to run some errands. Then we got out the corn holes and brushed up on our skills. I'm going to need to practice a lot this summer. It's going to be tough!! :) I still need to sand and paint them too...but that's not as fun as just playing. Maybe that will be next winter's project.

Saturday night we went and saw Demetri Martin at Central Michigan University. SOOOO funny! I definitely like his guitar stuff better then his random lists he does on the piano. And his standup is good too but he's no Jerry Seinfeld. But over all, I give him two thumbs up and I would go and see him again.

Sunday was a lazy day but I finally saw Step Brothers. I'm only slightly behind the times now. When I first moved to Michigan I kept getting all these magazine subscriptions but I don't really read magazines. Being just like my dad, I saved them in the hopes that one day I would get around to reading them. Well that day is here my friends. I've been catching up on old gossip for the last week now. The thing is, I don't know if any of the stuff is still true. Is Jessica Simpson still with Tony Romo? Are Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson finally over for good? I guess I can't really question the babies being born. That really did happen. But I find it all quite confusing. Especially since I'm not reading the magazines in any particular order. Oh goodness, it's hard living such a stressful life. :)

Well, that pretty much updates you on my life. I'm headed down to Indy this weekend for the lovely Miss Jennifer Titus's wedding! I've never not had a good time at a wedding so we know that's going to be fun! And at some point I'm going to continue packing up all my stuff...unless someone volunteers to do it for me! Anyone??

All my love and please let it finally warm up to 70 and stay for a while,
Emel

Warm weather makes people do really fun things

Well time is just flying by in Midland! I only have about 3 weeks left here and I'm excited for all the fun things coming up! But I haven't been doing a good job of documenting what's been happening!!

Last weekend Tyler and I went to a wedding in Sterling Heights, Michigan. I didn't really know anyone at the wedding but I love weddings and excuse to wear a dress. We drove down Friday morning and did a little shopping at the Lakeside Mall that is in that area. Surprisingly I didn't buy anything! But apparently there are lots of good malls just two hours from Midland. We only walked around for a short time and then grabbed a quick lunch and headed to the hotel to change. Unfortunately, we weren't quick enough because we missed the ceremony. Whoops! The good news is that we made it to the reception and that's really the best part anyway, right?

The wedding was surprisingly fun! I mean, you can only expect so much when you only know your date. We sat next to a really nice couple at our table and Tyler knew some other fun characters. And there was TONS of directional dance songs (i.e. Cha cha Slide, Cupid Shuffle, YMCA, etc). I'd give the experience two thumbs up.

Saturday was a beautiful day! I spent most of it outside with my roommates playing frisbee, corn hole (which still needs to be painted but gets the job done) and just playing. We decided to grill out which is always an enjoyable experience. Then it was time to get ready for the evening which was my going away party! I made Caipirinahs which is a drink made from a Brazilian liquor called Cashasa. I don't know if I made them right b/c I don't remember what they're supposed to taste like but they tasted like magaritas.

After playing at the house for a while we headed to Bay City. We went straight to Westtown and danced it up for the rest of the night. I had such a good time and am really going to miss all the friends I made up here. Luckily I still have a few more weeks to spend with them and I won't be too far to visit!
Wendesday was Earth Day so Tyler and I went to go see Earth. For every ticket that was bought, Disney planted a tree so we like to think we did a good thing. And it's actually a really good movie. I would highly recommend seeing it. And if you can see it on an IMAX screen, even better. We didn't get to experience that but we would have if we could.


So that's it! Lots more fun things to come!