Pizza Throwdown

Pizza is always a good thing.

 So a pizza cook-off must also be a good thing.

On Saturday night, some of my friends gathered together to bake, taste, and judge several pizzas. 

The competition was fierce...

...fun...

 ...and occasionally, fiery! 

 There were five teams who competed, some in pairs 

and some individually, in four categories including 

taste

appearance

creativity

and

sex appeal

{interpret that category as you will}

The crab rangoon pizza B and his roommate made won the most creative  award.

It was very interesting, to say the least.
Still very good, but an unusual taste for pizza.

Sure made me hungry for crab rangoons though!

 Savannah and her boyfriend Tim took top honors with their pie, 

a delicious mix of chicken mixed with some sauce I can't remember, bacon bits, and plenty of cheese.

As for the winner of the appearance and sex appeal categories, this cool pie took both honors.

Blueberries

mandarin oranges

grapes

strawberries

and kiwis

on a sugar crust 

with cream cheese frosting

Not too bad for a solo team huh? 

I'd never made a fruit pizza before, but I sure had fun arranging the fruit 

{and eating all the extra fruit I bought that I didn't use}

As for the rest of the pizzas

it didn't take long for everyone to dig in...

...trying each of the five pizzas until....

 ...most of the pizzas were gone. 

And as I heard later, there weren't any leftovers.

Just a bunch of college students in food coma's. 

Perhaps Matt's Mom says it best.

"Don't you guys party like normal college students?"

And proudly, we can say no.
 

I Don't Want This Weekend to End

This weekend was one of the best I've had since being at college.

Seriously though, any weekend that involves

Ice Skating

All State Speech Festival

Visits at Work

Bar Hopping with Parents

Shopping Trips 

Brunch Dates and

Afternoon Walks

is bound to be an awesome weekend. 

 

 First, a bragging moment.

Our speech team got 5 All State Speech Nominations.

FIVE

When I was in high school, we were lucky to take three events districts

But thanks to an amazing coach, a new assistant coach

additional help from speeech alums {Emily} 

 the team finished incredibly strong. 

Three of the nominations were performing,

so early Saturday morning {TWO} buses headed to Ames.

All three performances were excellent

and brought back awesome memories from my speeech days.

In addition to the SPEEECHIES coming to Ames, my parents came on Saturday to attend a Men's Basketball game with some other couples, and then spent the night at my house so we could all spend some time together on Sunday before they headed home. 

Saturday night, Mom, Dad, B and I all headed out to Outlaws,

my favorite country/western bar.

Mom and Dad have been there before, but never stayed too too late. 

It was a fairly quiet evening when we got there,

and we were all having a great time just talking and listening to music. 

Then, my neighbor boys showed up 

(old picture of some of the neighbor boys for reader who haven't heard of them before...)

 They immediately welcomed my parents, and started talking to them.

Before we knew it, it was 12:30!

Mom and Dad called it quits a little before one,

but still got a chance to do a little dancing before they left

{kicking myself for not taking a camera}

I'm so blessed to have parents who are so comfortable hanging out with their college daughter in an incredibly college setting. 

They rock. Period. 

Plus, they take you to breakfast in the morning after church, 

where the three of you 

laugh about prior Perkins visits

joke about Ginny 

catch up on life happenings

drink coffee {Mom and I}

and eat too much {all of us}

Needless to say, Sunday night was a little sad. 

It's hard to let go of such a great weekend

even if you've got 75 7th graders to look forward to on Monday. 

{Cheers for a four day week - hello 3 day weekend, you've been a long time coming!} 

No Falls Friday

In college, the word Free is a most welcome sight

Free Food

Free Movies

Free Fun

etc...

Friday night was an {almost} free activity

With two cans of food, you could get skates and skate for 2 hours! 

Practically Free, right?

Plus, it was earlier in the evening that most 'free' skating events.

So B and I, along with some of our friends headed off to the rink 

for some fun on the ice.

 And I'm proud to report there weren't any falls....

 Well not too Manne.

{Extra points to those readers who get it}

But there was certainly a lot of laughter

funny faces

interpretive dancing 

creative skating moves

 One of my friends even timed his monthly trip back to Ames

so that he could come ice skating with us. 

So glad he could make it back 

{especially after our last attempt at free skating failed}

Not a bad way to start off the weekend.

I'm off to see my SPEEECHIES perform at the Iowa All State Speech Festival. 

5 All State Acts, 3 Performing, 2 Non.

One proud SPEEECHIE Alum here. 

Weekend Snapshots

 A weekend home is always a welcome trip - even if it's really short. 

Here's a few photos from the weekend - 

 My Stephie - love her to death!

Weekend's not complete without photos of the pup -chasing cats or trying to get in the house!

 Lazy Saturday afternoons

Cookies with Mom!  

 and board games after dinner

We're talking intense gaming here people

See those expressions? 

{But no one can beat team Chloe/Erin!}

It may have been one of the shortest weekends home

But it was certainly one of my most enjoyable. 

It was packed full of fun with family and friends

Dinner at the AMAZING Tappa's Steak House 

{celebrated 30 years in business too!}

A night on the town with one of my besties and our friends

A wonderful coffee date with my parents on Saturday morning

Dinner and games with B's family on Saturday night

Coming back to Ames was bittersweet.

But now I can look forward to next weekend

when this amazing duo comes to Ames! 

Too bad the one in the middle won't be coming with....

Enjoy the week 

{and snow, if you've gotten some too!}

Late Nights and Laughter

Yesterday was a fabulous day.

It was Friday.

And it started out with a BEAUTIFUL sunrise.

So of course, the rest of the day was bound to be beautiful.

Right? Yes, I thought so too. 

 Casual Day at school {love jeans!}

Fried Chicken and mashed potatoes before the Ides of March

{deliciousness. especially in cast iron}

Funny and magical entertainment at the MU

 And FREE SUBWAY sandwiches! 

No one was excited for them though. 

Nope, no one

I've been looking forward to the weekend since about Tuesday. 

Not that the week was bad or anything. 

Don't get me wrong there. 

I was just ready for free time.

Space. 

Sleeping in.

Laughter. 

Lazy hours.

Free Reading.

Relaxation.

Fun.

And Friday Night certainly delivered. Between the delicious meal, the free movie at Carver, 

the late night entertainment at the Memorial Union {hello magicians and comedy troupe - thanks for making me laugh harder than I have in months), and free food, I considered the night to be very successful, and the perfect way to kick off the weekend.

Tonight's looking even better too.

Stay tuned for pictures from the 

LADY ANTEBELLUM CONCERT! 

{This girl is not excited, mind you}

Weekend Whirls

As I’ve thought about writing another post, I’ve been wrestling with myself: do I write for an audience or do I write for me? If I write for an audience, I would try to structure my posts around something, an idea, information relevant to people besides me, etc.

However, I don’t have an official audience. I’m just writing to anyone who MIGHT come across my blog but since this is only the second entry, it’s unlikely anyone will find it. And actually, that’s ok with me. I’m not even ready to share the link with my family, who would probably enjoy reading trivial things about my day, college classes, weekend plans, and funny pictures.

So I’ve decided. I’m writing for me. Maybe that will change in the future, maybe I’ll always write for me.

This past weekend was a blast. My family came up on Saturday morning, which was great since I had Friday afternoon/evening to work on homework. I was very successful during my 3½ hour study session at Panera, completely TWO take home tests, and writing 3 longer Facebook messages to friends who live away. Then, I came home, had supper, and caught up on my reading for another class. To top it off, I made cookies, watched most of Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel with my bestie Hannah AND wrote two letters to two of my guys overseas. Talk about a productive evening! Too bad the rest of the weekend wasn’t so productive, even though it was lots of fun!

After staying up too late on Friday night/Saturday morning to watch the neighbors dance to Spice Girls (Greve) and sing depressing country songs (Seieroe and Gosler) I spent the day with the family: brunch at Perkins, BBall at Hilton (ISU WINS!), supper at Legends tower, and Harry Potter 7! My parents headed back to their hotel room, while Emily decided to camp out on the couch for the night, in order to play DD for my roommate Meaghan, our neighbors Seieroe, Greve, Laura, and me later on. We all had a lot of fun, first swing dancing at the Country Bar Outlaws, then taking in a new atmosphere ( at least new to me) at Paddy’s.

Sunday morning, I went to church with the parents, and after a quick grocery shopping/project shopping trip with Emily, we all met at Hickory Park for a late lunch. Needless to say, it was a great weekend, even though I am still tired today. However, I got all my homework done, stayed awake in class AND had my first day of practicum at Gilbert High School. Add in a nap this afternoon before my HCC office hours, and an episode of Chuck, and my Monday is almost gone. I figured I should update though, share my news, and generally take a moment to just breathe.

Tomorrow is the first day of March. I feel like I should take advantage of that and start a new habit or something…. Guess that’s something I should consider doing during work tomorrow!