Mollywood

Well summer vaction has been going strong for about a month now and holy cats have I been busy. I got done with my last final on Wednesday and I started work that next Monday. I passed my CNA test and got the job at the Nursing home in Ortonville and it has been going well.

I am also helping out with fine arts again, when I am not working. The theme this year is Around the world! All the plays are different folk tales from around the world and the songs we picked are from different areas as well. The opening song is a remix of It’s a Small World, which is the worst song in the world, but it was too perfect to not use.

If you don’t know this already, my dad, Bryce and I are all going to run in the Twin Cities Marathon together in October, so dad and I have been training and what not. I ran a little over eight miles today and other than the blisters on my feet, it was ok. Next week I will be running 11, so hopefully I am healed by then.

Happy Birthday! and yes it is today!

Since I was the only one of her siblings that wished you a happy birthday in person, I feel the need to offically state that yes I am your favorite!

Have a happy day of your birth! Thanks for not dying yet.

With only a few days left of my winter break, I figured it was time for an update. Winter break offically started on December 19th. I had my finals the whole week before that, but it was a surprisingly unstressful week. The only test I really stressed about that my bio exam. It wasn’t comprehensive which made it a lot less stressful, but I was still a little stressed about it. I did well on all of my exams which was a real relief. On the 19th, my last final was over by 8 am so I packed up and did some christmas shopping in Sioux Falls before Tyler and Jon met me. We ate some lunch, ran some errands and then we headed to Dear Mountain so Tyler could try and teach Jon and I how to snowboard. It was a pretty long teaching, slow learners you know, but it was really fun.

The next big event was Christmas eve and Christmas day. My family and I spent Christmas eve at Grandma Rausch’s house like always. It was a night full of songs, great food, and wonderful family time. Then the Val Rausch’s headed home and opened the rest of the presents. (Bryce and Linds were there in voice and spirit.) The next morning everyone went to church and got ready to make our annual trip to Sioux Falls. Instead of going with the rest of my family, I drove over to Corona, SD and had Christmas dinner with Tyler’s family. From there Tyler drove to Sioux Falls and we carried on with the Miles side usual festivities.

The day after Christmas is usually a shopping day, but this year was a little different. Tyler and I spent it driving to Spearfish. His family’s tradition is going skiing/snowboarding (thus the lessons) the day after Christmas. It was really fun. We were out there for four days. The first and last were spent on the road. The second day was snowboarding from nine to 3ish. We also visited the Ugly Horse in Deadwood and ate some taste pizza there. The rest of the night was very quite, full of lots of z’s. The next morning, day 3, was like a usual Sunday morning for me, church then brunch you know. We spent the rest of the day in Deadwood being tourist and watching Tyler’s cousin, Ben, lose his money on slot machines. We were in the number 10 saloon to see the 4th quarter of the Vikings game. They won by a point and qualified for the playoffs!

For New Year’s eve I went over to Tyler’s house and we watched Eagle eye. In my opinion, it was a really great movie. Brenna had a bunch of girls spending the night, so when I got there the house was still pretty active.

The rest of vaction was spent doing a variety of different activeties. I went sledding and snowmobiling with Tyler. I did house work for Dad. I also spend a lot of time with nothing to do. Now I am spending my final days packing and getting ready to go back to school. Hopefully the plan is to get almost everything ready to go today, tomorrow go to Pierre and see Dad get sworn in, and then on Wednesday head to school. Because of the snow, my family and I might not be able to make it to the swearing in,sad!

*tear* Goodbye 2008. *cheers* Hello unknown 2009. Bring it on.

I may sound like a broken record with the whole “sorry I haven’t posted in a while” phrase, but I am going to say it again. Hey guys, sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I have been at school for a while now and holy cow a lot has happened. I moved in on Labor Day weekend with the help of my mother and Annie. We had a lot of help which was nice since I am on the fourth floor.

I met my roommate and she was really nice, but guess what? She dropped out of school, so I am roommate less, and it is lonely. I got back from our first long weekend and she was gone, she had texted me saying she was leaving and I haven’t seen her since. My room looked so empty and sad without her there. In order to fill the empty part of her room, I put my extra blanket and pillow on her bed and my friend Hannah and I mad a fort out of her bed. Hannah and I also went to Walmart and got some nerf guns, and we fill our spare time with shooting innocent people who pass by in the hall.

The good thing about  my roommate leaving is that she only brought the TV, so I didn’t have to freak out when she left with all of her stuff. But I have no TV, which isn’t all bad because I have been able to get up to speed on all the eposides of Lost. Hey Miles, your a very lost thanksgiving Newbleep, makes perfect sence now, haha. So that is what else I do in my spare time.

I have also gotten some girls together for a 3 on 3 intermeral team, which should be fun. Our first game is on Thursday at 7 and 730 and I am nervous/excited. I haven’t shot a basketball since this summer so, um, it will be interesting. Oh and I am not the shortest girl on the team!! I found a girl on my floor shorter than me! It’s a miracle.

Lastly, I have had midterms which was stressful beyond belief, but I survived. I got above 100% on my math exam which is awesome and I got almost a b on my bio lab test, and the others I don’t know yet so I will just asume I got A’s, which is probably far (not far far but far) from the truth. I am 99% positive that I passed all of them and 90% sure that I at least got a B on them. I studied more than I have ever studied, which isn’t saying a whole lot, but it’s still a fact. So that is my college life so far. Now that I don’t have a TV, i might even post more, but I wouldn’t set your life around it, Bryce, haha because you might be disappointed. I will try my hardest though.

As you all should know, i graduated in May. What you may not know is I am registered up and such. It is pretty sweet! I am taking 17 credits and taking not really weird classes except maybe one called speech, haha no just kidding it is called spirituality. Not sure what is going to be about but long story short im taking it. Mom got her burban so I get the van for college. i guess i don’t mind it. At least it is better than the car. Oh I finished 11th for my class that was pretty sweet! what else what else? Tyler and I are still going out and still happy. I golfed today and shot a 57. not the best but not to bad i guess. i beat brenna at least. Bryce i don’t know if you know this but you come home next week. Am i picking you up? that would be sweet! um so yea i have five thank you’s to write still and then those are done. Katy and Patches are still alive as well. haha so you should be pretty caught up now, hurray!

So Jet really likes beer. He kinda reminds me of Bryce in this way. Hogan likes it, but not as much. He kinda reminds me of Miles. Here is a funny video displaying their impression!

Impressions on YouTube

Im not really writing because I have a sweet story or anything. I’m Just writing. Wouldn’t it be funny if I just rambled on and on? You know, not getting anywhere, just talking! Haha, well I won’t do that. (this time) I was also thinking that it would be sweet if I pulled a Charles Dickens and started writing a book, but one chapter would appear at a time. You know what I’m talking about, right? Well if did do that, you guys would never find out what happened past the first chapter.

So here is what I was thinking, I would just talk about the weather. No, I am just kidding. What I really am going to talk about is my future plans. Some of you may already know my future plans, but I still am going to tell you.

I am planning on graduating May 18th from Milbank High School. I interviewed for a new job. It is a summer internship at the Big Stone County 4-H office. I only have to work like 20-35 hours a week and it pays eight to nine dollars an hour. I had a phone interview on Good Thursday and haven’t heard anything back yet, but I should be hearing soon-ish. Other than that my summer plans are much different from last year. I will be working at Bill’s and Mac Daddy’s still and helping with the summer arts program in June. I plan to spend as much of my free time as possible on the lake. It should be fun.

I will graduate on May 18th and next fall I will be at USD. I am excited, but also really nervous. I have little fears that I know probably won’t come true, but they are always present in my mind.  I will be close to Sioux Falls and to Micaela. So if i make no friends at school, I can always road trip to another college. haha no Im sure my room mate and I will at least hit it off.

I feel I am ready for college, only because I am in desperate need for a change. My grades haven’t been worse than they usually are, but they aren’t as good as they could be. I am kinda losing my focus and I think it is mainly because I am getting bored with the same old same old routine. I am a lot like Bryce. I always want to be doing something, and not the same thing all the time. I like variety. High School only offers variety in the middle of the year when there is a semester change. Other than that, it gets pretty boring. I really can’t wait till next year!

So I have been having the worse couple of days ever. Last night was my last basketball game! It was regions and if we won it, we won our ticket to state. We played Sioux Valley and at half time we were up by ten. We had a lead of 17 earlier in the game but slacked off by half time. Coach tried to motivate us in the locker room and not let us get discouraged. Whether it was Allie Osborne throwing a crappy pass that was easily picked off by a Sioux Valley player or the girls in just not playing basketball, it was a hard game to watch. I was getting so upset watching my team mates slack off and playing like we were ahead. They weren’t even trying. Of course coach didn’t do anything because he sucks! He couldn’t get in our heads and get our confidence up and when Allie throw the ball away three possessions in a row or other stupid mistakes he wouldn’t take them out of the game. I haven’t taken coaching classes, but im not stupid. Common sense would tell you that if a player isn’t playing well, you take them out and find someone who can play, that is why you have 14 girls sitting on the bench. Duh! Now losing wouldn’t have been as bad, except, I didn’t even get to play. It was my last game EVER and I only touched a basketball during warm-ups. I am really taking it hard!

So if this wasn’t bad enough, we got our play parts today. I am the only girl who tried out who didn’t complain about the play we were doing or the play we did in the fall. How do I get rewarded? I am Fruma-Sarah, whoever the heck that is. How are the complain about everything on earth that doesn’t go their way rewarded? THEY GET THE EEFING LEADS!!! Why does everyone hate me? What did I do to deserve all of this crap? Am I really that horrible of a person that God thinks its funny to do this too me? I hate it!!

ok i am working on a post and i will finish it as soon as i get a chance to breath, so bare with me people! haha

As some and or most of you know, I am in Pierre for two weeks being a page for my father. I had my first day today and holy cow!! The page adviser office, our headquarters, is on the third floor of the capital building. We are all assigned six to seven Represenatives which we much introduce ourselves too. The three questions we have to ask them are as follows: Are you a paper person or are you wireless? Do you use your calendar book and/or bill books? Do you want your mail delivered to you? Yea my first thought when I was told I have to ask those were, and I quote, what the eef?! haha It’s not as confusing as you think. The first question we ask is just seeing if they need a paper copy of each of the bills or if they’ll just use the internet to look at them. The second question goes with the first. If they are paper people we usually put the bills in their calendar books and their bill books. The last one is self explainitory, do they want me to put their mail on their desk or will they get it themselves.

I have met with 4 of my 6 Reps today. One of them is dad/Rep Rausch, and all he wants me to do is get his mail. Pretty easy. The next one I have met is Rep. Jerke. He is a BIG paper person. Which so far, he is my only one. So that doesn’t make things hard at all. It just gives me something to do. Another one I have is a really young guy; Rep Noveustom? (spelt that wrong, opps) he is also all wireless and wants me to get his mail, again pretty easy. The last guy I talked to is all wireless and will get his own mail, so I don’t have to do anything with him. That is really nice. What about my two other Reps? well Rep Davis wasn’t even there today so I couldn’t really talk to him. Rep Gaillspie? was never in her desk. So first thing tomorrow I will have to track them down and find out the scope.

Why was my first day so bad? Well as I stated before we were on the third floor and Rep Jerke was a paper person. What does this mean to me? Well he hands me this list of all the bills he wants a hard copy of. The hard copies are stored in the basement. A little rule you don’t know about, we can’t use the elevator. So i go down the three sets of huge marble stairs for get these bills. This would not have been as stressful if i wasn’t already on a mission. You see, there was a new shipment of bills in the basement. The pages job is to distribute these all over the building. A fellow page and I got assigned to the house. It was a big job too. We both had seven sets of bills (which had about 50 pages in each) and we had to carry these up from the basement to the third floor. On top of this, the last set I had didn’t have all of the bills that were needed. So i have to run all the way to the basement and tell our advisor. She then told me to go up and double check all of the copies i put in and make sure I didn’t double up on anything. So I run up from the basement to the third floor and check all the seven books again. Nope no double copies, not my opps. So I run down to the basement and tell Val (our advisor) that there were no doubles. So she gives me the bills i don’t have and i go up to the third floor and finish the bill filing.

After that I was allowed to go to lunch. Then dad texted me and told me to come up to room 412. I was eating in the cafe in the basement. Room 412 is on the fourth floor. So I finish eating quick and go up there. Here the Republican caucus was meeting. This meeting is closed to pubilc and everyone not in the legislator, but my dad still got me in. It was pretty sweet and I got there toward the end of the meeting. At the end dad formally introduced me to all the Republicans and it was embarrassing but so cool all at the same time.

After that there was caucus. Here everyone but the Reps were sworn in. They voted on the Speaker and all the people like that. The pages were also sworn in. From 12 until an hour after session stopped I was on phone duty. There were a lot more calls than expected and it made me super nervous. We were done with our day before four. It was a longish good day. It was a fun day, although it was stressful at times.

After we got done, some of my page friends and I made plans to relax for a while and then go out to eat. We had a grand old time, fooling around at Micky D’s. Then we were going to go to the movies but there was only one and it wasn’t that good so we rented one and met back at one of the host houses to watch it.

haha oh on the way to Micky D’s my friend, Bethany, got a flat tire and Dad and Rep Boomgarden changed it for us. haha it was really a site to see. But that was my first day in Pierre, and I’ll try to keep you posted.

So last week I forgot to post, so this week I will post twice. No people just settle down, stay calm, I know this one is a shocker but you have to stay calm.

On Friday, the Milbank girl’s basketball team played the Ortonville Trojans. The game started off on the right foot, for Ortonville. Milbank made stupid mistake after stupid mistake. I was getting so frustrated sitting on the bench and watch my teammates screw up. Sami Nygard was getting schooled by girls that have never (nor will they ever) schooled me. Coach would yell something like “Can’t anyone box out?” I’m thinking, coach the only girl that boxes out in practice or anytime is sitting right next to you! Then he would say something like “Can’t anyone get a rebound?” Then I’m like, coach I get over half of the rebounds in practice, I can do it. But does he put me in, nope! I sit and get cold, when I was shooting well all week and warm-ups went pretty well. (except for when people would yell out me name and stuff!)

It makes me so mad! There are some girls on the team that will make mistake after mistake and coach will hardly yell at her, and here I am, sitting on the bench, having a perfect game! (its pretty hard to mess up when you never get on the court!)

Don’t feel too sorry for me though, I did get to play. With 48 seconds left in the game, coach subbed me in for Sami. Yippy.

I just don’t get it, coach tells the girls who don’t get to play a lot that he wishes he could play us more, but he is the one who has that ability. I have worked so hard this summer and coach even wrote about how I have improved in the paper. But he won’t recognize! All coach ever talks about is how if you have heart and if you are coachable, skill will come and won’t matter as much, but 3/5th of his starting lineup hate basketball and are just waiting for another girl to quite. There is one girl that coach will tell her to slow down or stop making the skip pass and she’ll go out and do it four more times! Then there is me, coach tells me to change something and I fix it the next time I do it, and I continue to work on it. I also have more heart for basketball than those three girls combined! So why is coach such a lier. He’s not stupid, so why is he acting dumb? It’s my senior year, and I do not suck bad enough to ride the bench!

Last Friday Night, Brenna, Mom, Dad, and I went to Milbank to watch a Williams and Ree concert. Annie and her parents also went so we all got to sit together. They are the funniest people I have ever heard before. They were so quick on their feet.

Annie, Brenna and I weren’t too sure about how good they were going to be because all we knew about them was that they were old, they started out in South Dakota, and the mom and dad thought they were funny.

Going in, we weren’t too sure. But mom and dad were right, AGAIN!! That’s like two times in a row they haven’t let me down! haha I’m just playin’. No but seriously, they were amazing. Mom and Dad got a couple of their DVD’s and everyone should watch them. If you haven’t seen Williams and Ree, what’s wrong with you?

haha So how is everybody?

The first week of basketball is over. Holy cow!! Here is my week.

Monday

We didn’t have practice but there was a mandatory open gym for all the non-volleyball players. That is about half the team. Coach made a list of things we had to do and it took a good hour to finish all of that. By the end of open gym, my legs were dead.

Tuesday

This was the first day of real practice and boy did he work us. I had a huge blister by the middle of practice and my inhaler was out so the three ladders we had to do sucked big time. But all in all practice wasn’t too bad.

Wednesday

Day two of practice and easier than the first. We ran plays most the time so it was a lot of standing and listening. We did a lot of running toward the end of practice but for a cross country star (haha yeah right!) it was nothing.

Thursday was had off because of thanksgiving. Hurray!

Friday

We had practice in the afternoon. This gave me plenty of time to get a refill for my inhaler so I was breathing easy by practice time. We did an awful lot of running. Coach was also very crabby which made things ten times worse. We ended up doing sprints for a good ten minutes. (This may or may not be an exaggeration)

Saturday

We had two practices today because we had Monday and Thursday off. They were both hard practices with lots and lots of conditioning. I try and keep a positive attitude about condition but that’s easier said then done. After the first practice of the day, we got jerseys. Guess who got a varsity jersey? No, not Brenna. I DID!! I got number 22 just like Coco Cofield. I’ll dunk it just for him too, haha in my dreams!

Sunday was had off as well, but dad had me up at six to go hunting before church. We saw two deer but no shots were fired.

I am pretty happy that Coach didn’t cut me, but im not out of hot water yet. I may have a jersey but Coach is riding me pretty hard. I always do really well when he isn’t watching, but as soon as he looks I choke and he yells. I can’t help it, knowing he wants to cut me makes me nervous. Cross my fingers that my hard work pays off this year. We have pictures tomorrow, so if i get cut after that I’ll still be in the program, haha!

Hope you guys had a fine weekend!

As promised to Miles, I am going to post weekly. I am not as ambitious as Bryce and Miles about the whole posting everyday thing. I think baby steps are good.

What’s up with me? Well thanks for asking! Cross Country is over and if you didn’t know the girls and boys team qualified for state and I was good enough to go as an alternate. Hurray! Basketball is less than a week away, kinda nervous but chances of me sitting the varsity bench are alright.

School is…school. I am weeks behind in sleep so that makes getting up for school miserable. On top of things, I’m sick now. What the luck. Hopefully I will be all healed up and healthy by next week, not only for basketball but for giving blood on the 21nd.

Um…what else? Sports, school, um oh yeah the rest of my life.  Well Annie and I went from seeing each other everyday, to seeing each other once a week at that! I am single again and have been for a couple months, so no real boys news. Life with the fam hasn’t changed at all. Heather and I are hanging out a lot. For FFA, our ag communications proposal is really good so im excited for state.

Other than that nothing really to report. Milbank volleyball team is playing the the State tourny right now so Sat. Night, Im going to sioux falls for watch that. Other than that, im not doing anything!

Day 3 (July 24)

Today was Shelley’s Birthday and we jumped on her bed as a “wake up it’s your birthday” thing. Today was the big day! We were going to the Science Museum and the art museum, but most of all we were going to see Wicked on this day….and that’s all that mattered.

We went to the Science Museum first. It had Susie or Bessie, whatever the name of that dinosaur is. That was pretty cool. They had a mummy in the Egyptian section which was really neat. They also had a nature walk with different kinds of animals in their environments and in different seasons. Annie thought it was gross, but I thought it was fine.

We then went to the art Museum which reminded me of the Louvre, but smaller and not as old. I guess if you think about it the only part that was even close to the Louvre was the fact that both contained paintings. Oh well. The art was beautiful and we got to see the most wonderful artwork. That stuff is always fun, at first. But once you see every painting like six times the funness kinda gets worn out.
By the time we were done at the museum, it was lunch time. We had to see the Buckingham Fountain before we could eat though. We walked the four blocks to the fountain, took a couple pictures, and then found a trolley. Elaine was worn out so she rode the trolley back to the hotel, Shelley, Annie and I went back to the magnificent mile to find the restaurant where the waiters were purposely rude to you.

It was really close to the Hard Rock Cafe. Its name:Ed Debevic’s; its style: 50’s dinner; its service: rude. It was the most fun I’ve ever had at a restaurant. We walk in and the host is coloring on a menu. He looks up at us and says: “Three, see that table over there? We shook our heads in agreement. “Take these and go sit down.” Our waitress comes and sits right next to us and asks us if we are ready. We say no. She tells us to hurry up and that she doesn’t have all day. So Shelley and I get some root beer floats and Annie got a strawberry shake. We get our stuff and it’s messy and spilling everywhere. But oh was ist filling! We ate and it was super good food. They gave us some hats to wear and every time the host walked by he would knock off my hat.

After we ate we went back to the hotel and started getting ready because it was about 4:30 when we got done with lunch. So we got all pretty and had to be ready and down in the lobby by 6 because the show started at 7:30!

We went down and walked to our theater, which was amazing! We were pretty earlier so was had to wait outside for a while. Our theater happened to be right next to the best popcorn place in all of Chicago. So of course we HAD to get some popcorn.

We only had to wait for about 20 minutes, and then the doors opened. Annie and I ran right to the souvenir and spent a lot of money! hahaha. After we splurged and we’re satisfied, we found our seats and waited.

It was the longest wait of my life, but when the lights dimmed and the music started it was well worth it. It was so amazing! Omg!! It was the most entertaining!

After the wonderful show, Elaine, Shelley, Annie, Micaela, Lauren, Christine, Colleen, Christine’s mom, Lonnie, and I decided to take another walk down the magnificent mile. Everyone but Annie, Shelley and I crapped out at a subway. The three of us continued on signing and just having a grand old time in the city. We were going to go clubbing but Annie is 18, so we exnayed that idea. About an hour later we returned to the hotel and started to wind down. Tomorrow was our last day in the wonderful city. *tear*

Day 4 (July 25)

Shelley had gotten Annie, Elaine, and I tickets to Behind the Emerald Curtain. What is that you ask? Well we all got to go back to the theater of magic  and see the set, costumes and wigs up close! We got to meet and get autographs from two of the cast members and there was also a question and answer portion. It was soo cool. We got to sit in the 1st row and see the set so close. It was another dream come true.

The show lasted a little longer than anticipated and we ended up missing our train. We only had to wait like a half an hour longer for the next one. That’s when we started our departure.

We got off the train and we were met by Jenny. She drove us to her apartment and we started the long journey home from there. Because we missed our train, we were unable to see house on the rock, again. It was pretty sad but I guess that’s just one more excuse to go back! hehe. It was such a long and a sad drive home. It was fun though. Annie and I even got to drive. It was grand. We got home at like 1 am and I was greeted but no one because Mom and Dad were in Philly and Brenna was at camp. It was me and the psycho dogs. It was the most amazing birthday trip ever.

How am I going to top that next year?

As a thank you gift to Annie and I for our participation in the fine arts program all 7 years and directing this year, Elaine and Shelley took us to Chicago to see Wicked!! It was amazing! We left on Sunday, July 22 and got back Wednesday, July 25. Here’s what happened:

Day 1 (July 22)

I woke up on my birthday to find that my mother was sick. She was so sick she decided to skip out on church (this is a very rare occurrence, by the way) I loaded all my luggage into my car. After all of that was done and more, Brenna and I headed off to do the “Church” thing; cleanse our soul and to sing songs of praise.

After church, Shelley, Elaine and Annie were waiting for me. Annie sprinted over to me and gave me a happy birthday hug. After i transfered all of the stuff from my car to Shelley’s, I got Brenna a hug goodbye and she drove my car home and we took off for Chicago.

It was the longest car ride I have ever been on. It would have been a good hour less if Minnesota had speed limits at 65 instead of the slow speed of 55.

The car ride consisted mainly of reading, singing to Wicked and sleeping. We did stop at a gas station in Benson just so I could buy my first lottery ticket. It was a real good one, a real good loser that is. (surprise surprise!) We took a hour or so detour to see the House on the Rock in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, it was closed before we got there and we weren’t able to see the inside. It looked pretty cool from what i could see staring in through the window. We ate at the Olive Garden where they sang happy birthday to me. We got to Julie’s House in the suburbs of Chicago at about 11 o’clock. It was a kinda boring but super fun birthday. I got calls from Bryce and Jeremy. Other than Brenna’s birthday wish that was all I got on my birthday. (I guess Miles, Dad and Mom tried but none called *tear*) Annie and I tried to sleep but we were just too excited. Shelley out a damper on that by hitting us with her pillow and telling us to quite down, hehe.

Day 2 (July 23)

We got up at about 9 o’clock and started getting ready to catch our train. It was on this day that we realized that Shelley doesn’t like to see what Annie and I our panties and tank tops. So for the rest of the trip we made sure Shelley saw what we wore everyday!! We got ready and ran to meet our train. It was a double-decker train.

We had about an hour ride on the train. We got off and took the many escalators up to the ground leave. We were greeted by the beautiful skyline of the city! It was pretty much amazing! We crossed the street and took the Free Trolley to our hotel. We went in and checked in our luggage and went to explore!

It was about 1 o’clock so we decided to wonder and find a place to eat. We decided to walk about five blocks from our hotel to the Hard Rock Cafe. We had our meal and it was wonderful. We were about finished when Annie shouts out at our waitress that it’s my birthday. I quickly replied with, “Oh no, my birthday was yesterday!” Our waitress then said that it was close enough to my birthday that I get a free sundae. I then shout out, “Well it’s Shelley’s birthday too!” Shelley is all like “No mine is not for a couple more days.” Again the waitress was like free sundae for you! A little bit later she comes back with two sundaes that have a little candle in them. I put up my arms to get mine (because I LOVE ice cream) and she pulls away and says, “Come with me!” I look at Shelley and Shelley looks at me. We get up and follow our waitress up about 25 stairs onto this stage. Then she pulls out two chairs to the end on the stage and tells up to stand on them. I’m like, “does everyone know about Bryce’s tradition of standing on top of a chair to tell a story?” So we get up there and I start racking my brain for good stories and the waitress hands us our sundaes and lights the candles. She then shouts out, “ATTENTION HARD ROCK CAFE! I’VE GOT TWO BIRTHDAYS UP HERE! MOLLY IS TURNING 18 AND SHELLEY IS TURNING 26! ON THE COUNT OF THREE LETS GIVE THEM A HARD ROCK ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ ONE! TWO! THREEEEEE!” Then everyone shouted a “happy birthday” cheer at us. It was awesome.

After we did some shopping in the Hard Rock Cafe Gift Shop, we caught the free trolley to Navy Pier. We got a ride on the huge ferris wheel and took tons of pictures of Lake Michigan and the skyline. We got off and saw the stain glass museum and walked to the end of the pier for more picture moments. We then walked all the way back and caught the trolley again.

We headed back to our hotel to get settled into our room. We stayed at the Hyatt Hotel, which is a four star hotel, and it was amazing. It had a concierge and everything. Shelley let Annie and I bother him a couple of times. It was great fun!

We went up to our room and Annie and I tested out our bed. We were on the 18th floor and no one below complained about us making too much noise, so that was good. A bell boy brought all of our bags to our room and then we started getting ready to see the city at night.

It took Annie and I a couple hours to get ready, but once we were ready nothing could stop us. We explored the Magnificent Mile which was conveniently just a block over from our hotel. We went in to Aldo where we accessorized! Then we found a T.G.I Fridays and decided to eat there. Annie again told the waiter that it was my birthday and I told him it was also Shelley’s. A little bit later, a whole bunch of waiters and waitresses came out with two sundaes and starting singing the birthday song to us. It was great!!

After we finished our meal, we saw some people getting rides in horse drawn carriages. We decided that would be a perfect thing to do. So we took a half an hour tour. We got to see the expensive side of the city, like Oprah’s apartment. It was pretty amazing!

After that we went to the John Hancock building. We rode up the elevator to the 94th floor. We saw the beautiful city at night. I never wanted to leave! I (heart) Chicago. Oh that reminds me, I bought a little I (heart) Chicago bear in the gift shop on the 94th floor. It was the cutest bear ever!

We walked back to the hotel after that and called it a night. No, we didn’t go clubbing. I really wanted to and I was totally legal but we passed. I don’t think the windy city is ready for my dance moves.

To be continued…

I have been writing my chicago post so just be patient. It is really long and is taking forever so bear with me. Plus school started to i have very little free time. How is everyone?

So Bryce and Linds finally tied the knot. I know, I know! Hard to believe after dating for about 20 years (little exaggeration) they finally did it. It was a blast. I was honored to be a braids maid, and had a great experience. I got to go to the bachelorette party in St. Cloud. (Great time) I got my hair done, my nails done, and got a beautiful new dress! Oh it was just a blast…..you guys should get married more often!!! hehe just kidding! Good thing I only have to wait 7 more months for another great party!! Holli, Miles, you next!