Eventful Week

  

You should probably know that my little brother, Joe, and I are really close. We have a 7.5 year age gap so we really don't have much to argue about. Our lives are in completely different places, but we have an enormous amount of respect for each other. He looks up to me, and I look for opportunities on a regular basis to be a good big sister. I send him packages, I usually bring him some sort of gift when I come home, I take an interest in his life, and I regularly tell him what he means to me. When I was little I always wanted an older sibling so when Joe came along, I made a decision to be the older sibling to him that I always wanted. Joe decided that he was going to come visit for a week. Take the big adventure road trip down to West Texas. He brought his best bud Cody. They arrived and I planned out a week's worth of meals. The benefit of teenage boys is that they're relatively cheap to feed. Sam's Club? I think so! There wasn't any fancy cooking around here this week. I did make blue berry muffins one morning because they're Joe's favorite.

 

Matt wanted to take the boys to  hit "range balls" for some male bonding time. I showed up to take the pictures and hit a few with my pink clubs. Up until Matt and I started dating, I had no clue what hitting "range balls" meant. So, I'll go ahead and explain for you in case you grew up like me. Hitting range balls means to go out to an open space (sometimes at a golf course, some times these places are solely dedicated to this hitting of the range balls). Then you buy a bucket of golf balls (rent them, I suppose) for about $5-$7 and you just hit the balls with your golf club over and over until you run out of balls. For people like Matt, this is an opportunity improve your accuracy, direction, distance, and overall skill for the game on long range swings. For people like me, it's an opportunity to merely make contact with the ball and call yourself  "Tiger". As you can see above, I also have no regard for golf "attire." I'd like to make a name for myself in the golf world by playing in dresses and rhinestone sandals with only the driver club. I'll let you know if it works out. This outing was a good time and Matt got to teach the boys a thing or two.

Last week, in case you didn't know, Harry Potter came out. Matt, out of his own accord, bought mid night tickets to the show (shocked me. The man hasn't even watched Harry Potter in his life). So we all participated in a Harry Potter Marathon. This really is a commitment because 1) There's 7 movies! and 2) They are 2.5 hours long! So  needless to say, last week was a lazy week.

Thursday night we watched Part 1 of the final movie. Then we got our snacks and got dressed. I have a Griffyndor t-shirt and Matt has a Slytherin bracelet because I knew he wouldn't want to be too involved...  (Does it look like Matt is trying to get me with fangs to anyone else?? Curious.....)

Joe has a "Muggle" t-shirt and Cody has a shirt that has some dramatic saying on it with all of the characters.

I wasn't sure that I was going to make it through the midnight showing. I'm a girl who appreciates her sleep, but the movie was so entertaining I made it through just fine. They even had Harry Potter 3-D glasses. Too cute! I kept them and I'll be bringing them with me for all future 3-D movies.

Friday night Matt and I went to an engagement party for our friends Brian and Briana. We told the boys to hit the town. Check things out. Go have an adventure. They went to Domino's and got a sno cone. Party Animals.

We had a big day on Saturday. We planned to go to Balmorhea to the natural spring. On the way we stopped at the Odessa Meteor Crater. I gotta tell you. Don't make a special trip to West Texas for the meteor crater. Now we can say we have seen it....

Then we went to the Balmorhea spring. This really is cool. It's out in the middle of nowhere. (Balmorhea Population: 527). The boys look like they're holding hands... but they really aren't that friendly. This spring stays around 75* year round. It was cold! It's about 25 ft deep. There are fish in the spring and a lot of people get certified to scuba in the spring. We all really enjoyed the afternoon here.

Then we headed over to Ft. Davis because we were going to go to the observatory that evening. We had a little time to kill so we kept ourselves busy in town. The boys saw this and NEEDED to go in.

I DO. NOT. LIKE. SNAKES. I think they're interesting to watch on the discovery channel, but for me that's it. I don't need to get up close and personal. For some reason, the boys did. 

Look on the floor by his foot! That's a fake snake which looked like a coiled up very real snake. I nearly had a heart attack. I was done with the snake exhibit after that. I want my $3 back.

We went to the cutest little restaurant in town. This was the sink in the bathroom. Rustic....

The restaurant had and old "ice cream and soda fountain" theme to it, so we all had ice cream. Look at that Sundae. Everything is bigger in Texas....

In case you can't read it, this sign says "Just in case God is looking the other way, I am not and I am taking notes for him. Do not step on birds!!" We never saw any birds..... Strange things in Ft. Davis...

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We traveled up the mountain to the McDonald observatory. We first listened to a presentation on constellations and planets... It was an "all ages" program... We went to a presentation where they showed us their software. This software gives information where you can see the sky from any location (in the case they used the observatory) and then they can tell you what it looks like at any time of day. Say at 1:30 p.m. or 3:30 a.m. If you're an astronomy nerdy nerd, this is right up your alley. They can do this for year 1931 or even year 3031. So my little brother waits until the end of the presentation and walks up the presenter and says "Can you type in December 21, 2012?" He kills me. According to this software, we're all going to be okay. Then Joe follows up with, "In your professional opinion, is Pluto a planet?"

This is Matt and I just before the "star party". You'll have to forgive my appearance... it was a long day of swimming and travel. I didn't have the forethought to bring makeup. Or a brush...

At the star party they pointed out in the sky the constellations which was neat. They had this insane laser pointer that can apparently cause issues to planes. We then went to the huge telescopes and got to see Saturn! This was especially near and dear to my heart as I played the role of Saturn in my 1st AND 3rd grades plays. This was a very interesting outing and for the first time in what seems like eons I was COLD. We got home pretty late from our eventful day, but it was well worth it. Joe and Cody headed home Sunday morning. Matt and I cleaned the house and now every thing is back to normal.

Back to the grind of doing what I want! In reality... I need to get on preparing for school and getting things off of my "to do" list. Wish me luck!

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