double digits.

22, or as caroline likes to say "double digits"...which i've been in the double digits for 12 years. so really she means double numbers. pretty much this birthday rocked. the roomies (shout out to les, jess, paige and jenna) planned a great dance party in less than 24 hours. we had a DJ (who is sponsored by rockstar, hence all the rockstar pics), great food (including peanut butter m&ms, they know my weaknesses), and most importantly great people. my friends are rockstars. it was a great way to bring in my twenty-second year of living.

 i've been told that 20 is a decade of change and it's so true. this year i'll be experiencing a BIG change - the real world. i'm still in denial and although i'm gettin more excited for life post-college, it's still scary.

cedar point.

cedar point, america's rollercoast. another item officially checked off my bucket list (soon to follow). we left wheaton saturday night at 5 and set out for sandusky, ohio (i still haven't figured out why anyone would choose such a place for the world's greatest theme park). we had planned to stay at a friend's lake cottage at lakeside, ohio. essentially this is a large christian camp community on lake erie which explains for some of the oddities we encountered. at 11:30pm we pull into the community to find the gate closed...with a pad lock and chain, not even an automatic lock. which means that every night and morning someone has to open the gate. the fact that no one can get in or out by this gate is also kinda creepy. so we drove around looking for another way to get in....3 closed gates later and 1 phone call to the gate keeper, we found the 1 open gate. when we get to our friend's cottage we were in for another treat. don't get me wrong, we are definitely grateful to have had a free place to stay the night, but it was definitely an experience. this cottage came straight from the 70s accompanied with various patterns of shag carpet and an oiling painting of Jesus. classy. the park didn't open the next day until noon so we got to sleep in and rest up for our big day. on our way out of lakeside we stopped at the local cafe and got coffee, hot chocolate and breakfast. just like the rest of the community, the cafe was adorned with interesting artwork and statues of greek gods...? then it was time for cedar point! after about 3 u-turns we were finally there! unfortunately it rain for the first 3 hours but that didn't dampen our spirits except for the fact that most of the roller coasters were closed due to the rain and high speed winds. after warming up on the smaller roller coasters, the good ones finally opened. right as we got on the  millennium force it started drizzling which is not a good combination with a roller coaster that goes 93 mph. regardless, it was awesome. i literally didn't stop laughing/screaming the whole time. i have been wanting to ride it for about 10 years when a family friend from michigan told me stories about the greatness of this ride. around 4 it completely stopped raining and it actually turned out to be a nice day. we rode more awesome rides including the world's tallest and fastest - top thrill dragster. basically this is just a giant horseshoe that last 16.8 seconds. in less than 4 seconds you go from 0 to 120 mph. the scariest part was the sudden take off and i didn't even have time to be scared because it was so fast. coming down the horseshoe my voice went out because we were going so fast. when we got off we were all so stunned and couldn't stop marveling over how great the ride was. 9 hours later we went on the last roller coaster which was perfect timing because i was starting to feel slightly dizzy. i can't think of a better place to have spent my last wheaton fall break.

our back up plan if cedar point was closed

yayyy!

wicked twister

top thrill dragster

homecoming.

this past weekend was full of homecoming festivities - football game, powderpuff, and lots of families with little kids. it was so crazy seeing friends who graduated this past may and thinking that they are alumni. that's going to be me next year! it was so fun seeing all the past wheaties. paige and i upheld our french market tradition. every year on homecoming saturday we don't have volleyball and paige and i always go to the french  market early in the morning. we took pictures at the exact same tree as we did freshman year...so bittersweet. afterwards we went to egg'lectic for brunch with the ladies then the homecoming football game. it was so hot (as always, chicago has that one random week in october where it' in the 80s) but a great game to watch. then last night the boys in the chateau had a frat-themed party. ive never seen so many sperrys and visors...frat boy wannabees. all us girls decided that we definitely have to come back next year for homecoming and make a time capsule for 5 year predictions.

the tree.

seniority rules.

i had my final volleyball date night last night. i would have to say it was probably the best one. for some reason, i was put in charge of basically everything...planning the scavenger hunt, sneakily asking one of the player's family to host us for dinner, assigning each class food items to bring and making sure everyone had fun. thankfully it was a success, or so i've been told. i assigned us seniors to baked goods, mainly because it gave me an excuse to bake for 30 people. i made trail mix from the october southern living which included golden grahams, peanuts, pretzels and peanut/plain m&ms with a brown sugar, butter and corn syrup coating. hands down amazing. i also made moT's famous banana nut bread. i was happy to see that all but 2 got eaten, or taken home (ahem, Nick Novosad). the night began with a photo scavenger hunt which us seniors dominated. then we went back to meghan grant's house for pizza, snacks and a bonfire. it was the perfect night for a bonfire and the evening went smoothly!

twinsies.

last night our house hosted the first dance party of the school year. it was a huge success and we've already had requests for another one. we cleared out our basement and opened up part of the laundry room, which turned into the VIP dance room, and set the DJ set up shop down there. surprisingly, the basement held quite a few people, especially since everyone stuck to paige's "one tile per person rule". to spice things up a bit, we made it a themed party - twins. our house made tees that said "she's my twin <--->" (an obvious last minute decision), the other girl's house dressed up as cheerleaders, and the default for most of the guys were matching jerseys. being wheaton and all, we were a little concerned that we would get noise complaints from the neighbors, even though our landlord who lives in our backyard hosts parties all the time. when the tiki torches are lit, we know its party time. but we made the night free of any calls or visits from cranky neighbors. an overall success.

hecklers.

yesterday a few friends and myself road tripped to platteville, wisconsin to watch the football team play uw-plateville. a town literally in the middle of corn fields. there aren't even highways to get you to this place, all back roads. which definitely makes for the best kind of road trip. a three hour drive quickly turned into a 4 hour drive because as women we have to stop every half hour for a restroom/coffee break or a photo opp in some quaint town along the way. jess, obsessed with her new-found love of instagram, took pictures of every possible person/place/thing on the trip. my personal fave was the picture morgan took of the rest of us at the wisconsin border sign from literally 100 yards away. good thing the zoom quality is so clear.it was definitely worth the trip. it turned out to be a great game and as predicted a huge thunder storm hit platteville as wheaton defeated the pioneers 23-14 (for all of you non-wheatoners, that was my attempt at a really lame joke to use our mascot as figuratively as possible). i felt like a proud parent watching one of my sons out there playin. i found myself cheerin and jumpin out of my seat like it was second nature.

Wheaton Happenings

so much has already happened in the 3 weeks that i have been here. first, i absolutely love my classes (i had to get the nerdy comment out of the way). i only have 3 classes so i am cruising through so far. all of my profs are amazing and the classes are so interesting. i guess that means i was meant to be an education major..? volleyball has been awesome like always. i like being the oldest on the team..even though i still dont feel old enough. i pull the "seniority" card a lot - van rides, beds in hotel rooms, etc. i love all of the new players (as well as the returners). we just got back from hotlanta where we owned. we accomplished one of our goals of beating a national ranked team! it was awesome. i got to see my parents and nicole and maw maw and paw paw (we missed you breezy!)...teresa made tons of food like always - her famous banana nut bread and this new trail mix from southern living. like every volleyball team i have been on, we can eat just about anything and we have appetites larger than a football team. good thing we wear spandex, huh? needless to say we ate good all weekend long. i love both of our new assistant coaches...coach hindeman and coach smith...commonly referred to as hiney and ash but only when we are celebrating. i bought myself the new southern living magazine for the airplane...definitely worth the $5. i only have one more year to bring the south to wheaton.