It's Been Awhile...

So what exactly has been going on during my blog hiatus?  Um, well for starters, I celebrated a birthday...

My little sisters planned an entire evening of fun for me based off Taylor Swift's song, "22".  To be more exact--

"...It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters (trip to DI to dress up like hipsters--we're still not 100% sure what hipsters wear)
And make fun of our exes (we considered finding the letter 'X' in books and making fun of them... cheesy humor, I know ^_^)
It feels like a perfect night for breakfast at midnight (breakfast at midnight, obviously)
To fall in love with strangers... (um, that's weird)"

 Fun night, huh?  My sisters sure are cuties! :)  My friends also threw a little bash... red velvet cake (yum!), new jersey sheets for my new apartment in Idaho, new lipgloss... Basically I've got amazing friends.  :)

Oh, speaking of friends, check out the fun things they do with me:

We went on a safari!  To the petstore!  We made binoculars out of paper towel tubes and explorer vests out of paper grocery bags.  And yes, we walked around the store for probably a good 45 minutes looking like that!  It was so much fun!  And we saw so many cool animals--snakes, lizards, fish, birds, hamsters, a ginormous cat...  Afterwards we just happened to stumble upon an African safari machine ride that seemed like an appropriate photo background, and to top off the night we went and ate burgers at In-N-Out... animal-style, of course!

In other news, I signed a housing contract in Pocatello for the fall, AND I just finished my federal aid application--yay for student loans!  I AM grateful for the help and it's nice to know I will be able to pay for school, but at the same time, the idea of student loans kind of makes me feel like this:

But you gotta' do what you gotta' do, right? :)  Anyways, in two more weeks I will be up in Idaho full-time, so that's exciting.  I mean, beyond the fact that I get to live with my cousins this summer, I'm really excited to start school in the fall.  Seriously... so excited!  I just started receiving updates from the other students in the program, and everyone comes with such a different and interesting background--some of the students are former Marines, some are electrical engineers, some have volunteered in countries like Tanzinia and Peru--they've all done some seriously cool stuff.  And they're coming from all over the country!  I can't wait to meet them in person this fall!

Anyways, that's what's been going on.

Love,
me.