rumspringa (break)

great place had it's first party of the semester on friday. the theme was Rumspringa. dress code was anything on the spectrum from amish to sexy. there were plaid shirts and long skirts and suspenders and bras and short shorts on boys. my friend jon even shaved his beard amish-style for the occasion. we danced to 'amish paradise' one thousand times. it was wonderful.

at one point during the party, i opened the door to the backyard and was hit with a huge wave of complete and total love. i looked out and saw all these people that i absolutely adore and in that moment i felt such strong love for everyone standing there that i wanted to simultaneously melt and cry and smile until my cheeks exploded from the expansion. it was another strong realization of how grateful i am for everyone in my life. those realizations always seem to come at the best times too- times when i feel frustrated or stressed or anxious about plans and the future - KABLOOM! i am reminded of how wonderful my support system is. i hope you feel like this too sometimes. and if you don't, you should come meet my friends. they're all the best.

georgia wedding

do you know how long it takes to get from philly to athens, georgia? i'll tell you. too long for a weekend trip. and yet, that's exactly what we did last weekend for my cousin's brendan's wedding. mikeyaz went along for the adventure and was introduced to my entire extended family. which is pretty extended (my mom is one of 8; there are 23 cousins total on that side.) i absolutely didn't prepare him for it and throughout the course of the weekend, he was put in several headlocks by my uncle dennis, forced to drink in excess by various cousins, was nicknamed mike o'malley which was later shortened to mom, and was mooned by my aunt. and he handled it all like a champ.

the wedding itself was beautiful- very woodsy and rustic. none of the bridal party wore shoes and we all ate tacos for dinner. it was nice and low-key and i got to spend time with my family dancing and drinking and swapping stories. absolutely wonderful weekend. until the end. when our van broke down and we had get towed five hours back to harrisburg in the backseat of a deaf man named jack's truck. but we won't focus on that part.

randoms from the homestead and real life

recently, trips home have come to been several guaranteed activies. i will inevitably eat at neato burritto, hit up the salvation army circuit for therapeutic treasure hunting, and drink wine while story swapping with my parents. convenitely, this routine also happens to be a combination of all my favorite past times. as an added bonus, i also got to reunite with the lovely jen and audrey (the cute little thing in the top picture, who is actually not so little anymore and is freaking me out. looking at her is like seeing time in a tangible way. scary. but also adorable.)

and to keep the good-time train rolling? came back to philly and boyfriend mikeyaz rolled into to town. and stayed for a week. it was wonderful. and busy- it happened to coincide with my first week of classes. but we did manage to sneak in a trip to honey's sit'n'eat and gorge ourselves on some delicious homestyle cookin'. shrimp po'boy sandwich for my man, and a raisin and pecan chicken salad sammie for muh self. oh! and friend pickles with homemade ranch to start us off. bliss bliss bliss.

in general, life is pretty bliss. really chaotic and consistently over-scheduled, but generally blissful and full of wonderful people and experiences. i hope yours is the same way.

EDIT: i totally forgot to address that picture of my dad in the middle. and you know what? i still think i'm not going to. i'll just leave that there for you to ponder.