1,153 miles

As of Sunday night I am now back at home in Colorado for the summer. Last week my dear, fake sister, Ms. Amanda Tate, flew out to Chicago and made the drive back with me. We left Chi-town on Friday and after a few added stops we rolled into Denver Sunday night...1,153 miles later! (Here's a picture of Tate with Soph and my Mom so that you know who the heck I'm talking about)


Friday night we stopped in St Louis and stayed with Tate's parents and I got the tour of all the hot Kirkwood spots including Ted Drews (yummy custard!) and every school that Amanda went to growing up. Saturday we continued the trip and made our way to Lawrence KS where we stopped and visited a bunch of Amanda's friends from college. I had this sudden jealousy while walking around the campus of KU with her of the fact that they went to this huge University with an awesome campus and good sports teams. So here's a picture of me pretending to graduate (they all walk through this tower thing on their way down to the stadium...I think you get it).


After catching the second service at her old church on Lawrence we started out for the last leg of our journey to Denver. This last day was the longest and the most boring by far (no offense Tate, well a little offense...). So to pass the time we made our way through the atlas figuring out how many states each of us has been in and how many states we have slept in (there is a big difference!) Here's the final count...Amanda has been in 27 states, and has slept in 24 states...Angie has been in 41 states and has slept in 31 states.

We also made a list of things that we want to accomplish this summer. Here's the list so far...
* Go to Pike's Peak
* Go to Rocky Mountian National Park
* Go to a "Film on the Rocks" (that's a movie at red rocks)
* Go to Wyoming (that would raise Tate's state count)
* Hike to St. Mary's Glacier and sled down it
* Eat at Tuk Tuk
* Go to El Salvador (Tate will be the only one to accomplish this one)
* Go camping
* Go sledding at the alpine slide at heritage square
So that's the list, maybe we are being ambitious but it could be fun. Any suggestions of things we should add to the list?

I have the rest of this week as "vacation" and then I start babysitting on Monday and then who knows what after that. I'm just happy that it is summer!

Done and Done

On friday I took my last final for the semester and it felt great. I am now %50 percent done with my degree which also feels really great. I celebrated on friday by going to the Cubs vs. White Sox game with good friend Jen Zerby. Sitting there watching the game I realized that I had no homework and yes that felt really great as well. As you can tell, this weekend has felt great as I have relaxed and let myself unwind a bit after this semester. Now I just have to wait and see if I passed everything...haha (nervous laughter). Along thos lines, the funniest part of this week was memorizing acrostics to remember which judges and kings are which books of the Bible. For instance the one for 2 Samuel was "MJBAAZ" which I remembered by thinking that Mary J Blige was in the book of 2 Samuel (get it...MJB, Mary J Blige)...lets just say it was time for the semester to be over.

Tonight I went out with Luke and Chrissy Palmerlee, Jeff G, and Kyle and Alicia Quackenbush to celebrate Jeff G's graduation from Seminary and Alicia Quackenbush's graduation from Nursing school. It was fun to hang out with them and to give Jeff his box of cards from everyone. And did I mention that I don't have any homework?...:)

So I am babysitting mon, tue, wed of this week and then heading back to Colorado on Friday. Tate (my favorite fake sister!) is flying out here on thursday to help me drive back home (after a few stops to visit come peeps along the way). The plan for the summer is to be at home in Colorado and babysit for 2 different families and not do homework...

See Ya...

All of the undergrads are done with finals and moving out tomorrow. It all makes me just a little sad because... a) I'm super jealous and want to be done with my finals (fyi...I only have 2 papers, a presentation, 2 finals, and a theological reflection module to go!), b) it reminds me of moving out of anderson and my lund apartment and of graduating and all those weird transitions, and c) it means that we had our last small group tonight. This is one of the best small groups that I've ever been involved with and this group has been one of the best parts of my year for sure! So they are moving out and heading off to their summer adventures but we will be back in the fall (except Laura, who is heading to Italy!) and I can't wait for another year with them.

Jenna, Erica, Laura, Anne, Marissa, and Stefanie

All of us at Christmas

See ya ladies...