Treehouses.

I want one.
I want to stay in one.

Specifically Treehouse Point. It's in Washington, which when I'm actually home isn't too far away :)

That is my dream. I will stay here someday.

This is my other option, The Tranquil Resort, but it's in India, which is a little bit more of a stretch, but I can dream!

Cats & Coffee

It was a relatively uneventful day today. I didn't work until the evening, so I just hung around the apartment. Landon came over and we watched a bunch of old episodes of Saturday Night Live. 

On my way to work it started sprinkling, but I had no idea what was in store. It started POURING. So much even the roof started leaking....... it was intense. Leah and Sara came and picked me up so I wouldn't have to run home through the rain.
I made myself a pomegranate blended mocha and treated myself to a little whipped cream. Everything is cuter in a mason jar.

We brought Delores inside because it was so gross out, so I'm currently just sitting here while she determinedly attacks my hands. She's insane.

Sometimes I do things other than eat. Sometimes.

I love that the question "What should we make for dinner?" Turns into a solid hour of me, Leah and Sara all sitting around the dinner table on Pinterest drooling over potential recipes. Yesterday, Memorial day, we finally all three didn't work in the evening, so we decided to make dinner all together. After a day of basically doing nothing (don't get me wrong, relaxing all day is very nice sometimes) I was ready to enjoy the evening.
After looking through millions of pictures of spring rolls and breads we decided on stir fry because we all had a bunch of veggies that needed to be used.

I have cute housemates.

 There was too much delicious for just one frying pan. Our massive pile of veggies overtook the stovetop and filled up two pans. The funny thing is though, between 4 people we devoured basically the whole thing. After looking through the whole fridge we ended up with this winning combo of veggies:
broccoli
zucchini
peppers
mushrooms
onions
brussel sprouts
asparagus
sprouts
We bought a bottle of Thai Peanut Sauce to drizzle on top, and that was perfect. I feel like that will be gone pretty quickly though.

Of course any time I go shopping I end up with things that I didn't originally intend to buy or don't actually need. Someday that's really going to cause me problems. This time it was a pineapple. We decided to make some kickass pineapple coconut milkshakes. Even though we were all stuffed full of stir fry, we managed to find room for these heavenly concoctions.

 Because the massive amounts of food we had already consumed apparently weren't enough for us, we just kept on cooking. I tried my hand at making rolls, and dare I say they turned out quite nicely.

There was quite a bit of butter involved in the process.

Here are my hot buns, straight out of the oven. (I'm sorry, I had to.) I know, they're beautiful.

Meanwhile, Leah decided to make homemade tortilla chips while Sara made black bean salsa. We're going to explode someday.

Like I said, my death by means of exploding stomach is imminent.

Today I worked all afternoon and then Landon came over afterwards and we made cookies. Hopefully once the excitement of having our own kitchen wears off I'll stop getting so fat. We slightly adapted this recipe with peanut butter and milk chocolate chips too. These cookies came out magnificently.

They might be some of the most perfect looking cookies I've ever made as well. After eating a little too much cookie dough I went on a night run with Leah. Today was payday so we ran to the bank to deposit our checks. It was actually perfect, it ended up being like 2.5 miles round trip. Running at night is a little sketchy, but with a buddy and on main street it wasn't bad at all! We're thinking this will definitely happen again.

I'm thoroughly exhausted now that my sugar rush has worn off, its time for bed for me!

Kansans love the outdoors, apparently

Maybe summer just does that to people. I just want to be outside all the time.... but it's too hot!

I'm learning the trade of "laying out". Not something I've done a whole lot of in my lifetime. I have to be careful though, because I have such fair skin. Its good though, because I'm a pansy when it comes to heat and only last so long before I have to come back inside.

Delores likes to come hang out with us too, so that's an added bonus.

I'm starting to read Girl With The Dragon Tattoo too, I'm only a few pages in though. I'm just excited about having time to read this summer.

My friend Megan (who also lives in Newton) had a bunch of friends over for a barbeque last night before she leaves for Baltimore for the summer. She got a nanny job there which seems like a pretty sweet deal. Anyways, since I'm vegetarian, I made myself sweet potato burgers (Megan had some too).

Topped with dijon mustard and avacado, they were amazing.

It was good to get together with everyone.

People love when I take pictures of them eating.... :)

We had homemade ice cream with strawberries and these homemade toffee bars that I ate far too many of. Megan's parents are wonderful human beings.

Date Night

Yesterday ended up just being a really great day. I slept in a decent amount, enough to then go to work at noon. I was supposed to have a 5 hour shift, but we were just so slow that I ended up going home early.
When I got back to the apartment then I introduced Leah to my old friend Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. Neither of us found it too terrible, until today when we realized it kicked our butts and we're both sore from head to toe. After a quick shower we decided that the perfect way to follow up our workout was to lay out in the sun for a little bit, considering Kansas summer is slowly encroaching and soon it might be too hot to even do that. We whipped up some awesome smoothies to top it off.

Needless to say, they were some beautiful smoothies. You really can't go wrong with a pile of fruit and greek yogurt.

And of course, no day is complete without the star of our summer, Delores. It's just impossible to deny such cuteness.

By the time we went outside, the only sun was in the front yard so we were stuck there. We met one of our neighbors, an older woman who decided warn us about the dangers of the sun.

After we were done getting our dose of sun for the day, I had to get ready for my date! Landon and I decided to go on a fancy date, and oh, we did. 

I like to think we clean up alright. I wore the dress I just bought from my housemate, Leah. It has a heart shaped open back, I love it :)

We went to Luca Italian Kitchen in Wichita. I would recommend it. I got Ravioli and Landon got "Pesce Al Cartoccio", or some fancy fish platter, essentially. Landon decided to be extra fancy and got himself a complementing glass of white wine to go with his seafood.

This place was real nice. You could tell because they had a mouthwash dispenser in the bathroom and the lemons came in little mesh seed shields.

We somehow managed to not stuff ourselves ridiculously full (this was difficult, but I got to eat my leftovers today for lunch) and split a dessert as well. 

"Torte D'ananas" is what I believe it was called. It was the one that our waitress recommended, she really seemed to know what she was talking about. It was essentially Tiramisu, but with Pineapple instead of the coffee flavors. It was heavenly. I got a cup of coffee to go along with it.

After spending far too much money, but having a great time, we went back to Landon's house and watched the hangover and made milkshakes. I guess we had to cancel out all that class somehow... :)

Happy Birthday to my amazing mother.

I've never been good at birthdays, I will openly admit that. But I feel extra bad about that when I'm some hundreds of miles away, especially when the birthday girl is my mom. And it is a relatively remarkable birthday milestone. This beautiful woman right here is my mom:

I'm awful with words, which is why I am opting for pictures... (what, math major right here)
I always had thought of myself as such a different person, that I would end up being sooo different from my mom, but as I grow I realize how much she has influenced me, how much I am slowly turning into her, and how much I'm really okay with that. We have our differing opinions, sure, as any humans do, but the things that I've learned and appreciate far out number those differences. This lady here is extraordinary and I treasure all my memories with her and look forward to many, many more.

So, if you are lucky enough to be within spitting distance of her this fine day, please, give her a nice big bear hug and an enthusiastic "Happy Birthday!" from me, and let her know how amazing she is because, for goodness sake she is 50 today! That and she deserves all the lovin'.

I love you, Mom!