the untitled story of my summer vacation

I have to say that this July had to be one of the busiest months in recent memory. Between mine and Ann's theater weekend extravaganza, the Luis Palau festival, the B5 camping trip, and the thousands of miles traveled in the final week, August (a busy month in and of itself with the big move and all) is going to seem tame.

I've been missing from the cyberworld because a) my home internet is acting up again, making it tricky to post on here and b) I've been on the road a lot lately. Two weeks ago, I was in Minneapolis with Charlotte and Beth. We ate in the rainforest, played with some legos, road a roller coaster, and made ourselves at home at IKEA. I was able to visit Angie and have dinner with Tauna, Sam, and my old workfriend, Kristin. I never get tired of the chicken and pineapple fried rice at Chiang-Mai-Thai in Uptown.

From Minneapolis, we traveled west to Alexandria, where we witnessed the wedding of Jonelle and Tim. I always love weddings when I know both of the people and I've been around the couple more or less since the beginning. This was one of those weddings. Two summers ago, I first met Tim at Shakespeare on the Green. He was not dating Jonelle yet, but if I hadn't known better, I would've thought they were long married, enjoying a date night with the kids at the sitters'. That's how easy and relaxed and natural they were together. I predicted that night that they would end up married, and it was exciting to see that prediction come true.

After the wedding, we caravaned up to Grand Forks, North Dakota, with Lisa Bartlett, who had met us at the wedding. It was our first trip to North Dakota, and I have to say that I was impressed. Grand Forks seemed like a nice town. The Bartlett home, a refurbished farmhouse in the country, is beautiful. It was relaxing to fall asleep with the windows open and the insects chirping (do insects chirp?), and fun to sit around the campfire and eat s'mores as the sun went down.

The long trip back to Omaha included a pit stop in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for a Big City Burrito. Apparently this is a legend in Fort Collins, where Charlotte went to school, and it has recently become a franchise. It was tasty goodness. The trip home also meant the finale of Harry Potter. Charlotte, bless her heart, read the entire book to us over the course of our travels. That's how many hours we spent in the car! I miss Harry.

After the end of the book, I unpacked, repacked, went to bed and woke up to the start of another trip, this time for work. My co-workers Anne, Pam, Marty and I went on a four-day trip across greater Nebraska. We were all the way up in Scottsbluff and Chadron, where Nebraska is definitely considered "the west". The landscape was so different from this part of the state. The trip was tiring, but also a lot of fun. I got to see Chimney Rock and Carhenge, see a funny play, and put faces with the names of a lot of people I work with throughout the year.

It was a good trip, but I was glad to be home. I didn't leave my apartment all day on Saturday. My day consisted of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, several hours of Grey's Anatomy, lunch of Spaghetti-O's, a nap, some supper, and a movie. I was in bed again by 10:00. It was awesome.

I wish I could post pictures of all of these shenanigans, but since that would require me re-downloading everything to my work computer, you'll just have to use your imagination.