me and lara along the tyler forks river that we hiked along this weekend when i was up north. it's quite a lovely area.  

bucket showers rock!

this past weekend was my family vacation up north at my aunt and uncle's cabin. it was a jolly time, enjoyed by all i believe. my family headed up late thursday night, and i had to wait around till brendon was done with class, so we didn't leave till 6 friday night, then we went to Gander Mountain to get brendon a goose call and peruse through the firearm section...my favorite section by far. i have expensive taste...always picking up the shotguns that cost like $1500. brendon told me he needs to take me gun shopping cause i have such fun, and he also mentioned that if/when i get my hunting license, guys would take me out. not quite sure what he meant by 'out' but it sounded fun regardless. after we finally hit the road again, he was driving while practicing with his new goose call. so i listened to a very loud goose for quite some time. then he tossed it at me and told me to try. hahahaha that was interesting. since it's a 3 hour trip, it was dark and it was rainy, i did my best to keep brendon amused and awake. about 2 hours into the trip i asked him it he was awake enough and he said yes. but that wasn't good enough for me. so i sneakily grabbed the goose call sitting between us and blasted out one long, shocking note...which caused brendon to jump out of his seat and nearly hit the ceiling. i'm evil i know and could have killed us by making him crash, but i laughed horribly hard over his response. so from then on the call was known as a horn when used in reference to me. good times. anyways, it was great to see my family and my aunt, uncle and cousins. we went hiking along lovely little river with some small waterfalls and took family pics. we ate entirely too much. enjoyed the lack of electricity...simplicity is fabulous, especially bucket showers! haha. stayed up late talking to the girls about everything i've missed since july when i saw them last. just lots of good times. i sent brendon back to school sunday afternoon with my family, and i stayed till monday morning, then made the relatively long drive back by myself...back to reality. it was a lovely escape of a weekend though. *sigh* if only life really were that simple. whatever...ok....i'm done. bubye

i really love my roommate. we have so much fun! this was a while ago after we got drenched in a quick dash back to our dorm...the quick dash didn't help keep us dry in the least.  

let me just say that we were having SO much fun taking pictures such as this...  

lauren and i were having way too much fun with a camera and this one cracks us up. i guess we'll call this one 'Lauren eating Melanie' 

so you want excitment, huh?

i have been petitioned for a non-boring post. sorry. no can do allison. i'm just going to post about what has been going on and those things are just not exciting. so first of all, my uncle ben's funeral on friday night was really nice. very musical which was awesome cause he was so musical. two recordings were played of him singing, the last of which was It Is Well With My Soul. i feel it's safe to say that nearly everyone had tears in their eyes from that. saturday was the burial, after which the relatives all piled into my house for food and fellowship. sunday i spent the entire day studying for my history exam...what an unpleasant way to spend time at home. monday morning i resumed the studying at 7am, continued straight till 4pm and the dreaded test...which went better than expected. then i hit the lit book, read 112 pages of that and fell into bed. i was suppose to go bowling with the staff and gov in my hall, but due to miscommunication, ashley and i ended up being the only two who didn't actually make it to the bowling alley. great frustration ensued. and that brings us to today, which was just another day. yesterday i had a lovely moment with my roommate in relation to her tremendous fear of bugs. somehow they keep getting into our window, between the screen and the glass, well lauren didn't want them to have access to the room so she shut the window, but it was nice out and i wanted some fresh air. so i opened the window. then i went to kill the bug that was encroaching on our space and lauren stood there dumbstruck that i would get near it, hands clasped together saying, 'oh my gosh, oh my gosh melanie... no, oh my gosh...' over and over again, much to my amusment. so i move in for the kill...dangerous work you know...finish the deed and dispose of the bug, all while lauren is watching with fear and trepidation showing in her eyes. then, since she was still staying 'oh my gosh' i laughingly went over and gave her a hug, and only managed that cause i cornered her. i do believe that she wasn't about to let me touch her with my bug killing hand had she had an option. so that greatly amused me. she constantly keeps me laughing and makes this room quite an enjoyable place to live. so that's all for now. thoroughly unexciting, but such is the life of me. bubye

a mixture of emotions...

i wanted this post to be the fun, happy one that i had planned, if only i had done this yesterday. i suppose i might as well start with the fun stuff and then move on from there. alright...so last week i was in madison with my cow k-leen at the world dairy expo. what fun..oh what fun. that is truly what i adore doing. i'll be honest, when i went in on saturday and spent that afternoon and sunday alone, just me and my cow, i was bored. but once i started to find people that i knew, things got fun and i didn't want to leave. i got to hang out with my friends from home who go to school in madison and were either showing or working at expo, and i also go to see stephen, the only friend i made on the europe trip this summer. it was great to see him, but i really didn't have any significant amount of time to talk with him. anyways, the show was on tuesday, my cow looked awesome and i had a blast walking on the 'colored shavings' (that's the phrase of expo cause every year the wood shavings that cover the arena are a different color, so walking on the colored shaving is an honor cause of the caliber of the show). my and k-leen were 6th which made me quite a happy girl. tuesday night i went home, wednesday i was back to school, suffered through till friday afternoon and then headed back to madison to catch the last 2 days of the show. it was really nice to hang out with friends and just enjoy the show and the beautiful animals. i really wish i could just have good cows and show forever. i don't mean that literally, a week at a time is more than enough, but i wish i could go to shows often. i could go on and on, but i'll refrain. ok, on to the next, the unpleasant part. my uncle ben who has been suffering from brain cancer passed away this morning. i didn't go to bed till 2:30 last night cause i was working on a paper, and then i got the call from mom at 7:30 this morning. so that was an unpleasant wake up call...and sadly, as soon as the ring penetrated my dreams, i knew what i was about to hear. so i'm sad, but at the same time i'm so happy for him because right now, my uncle is free from the pain and misery of near death and is sitting with Jesus enjoying an eternity of perfection and i'm jealous. there is NOTHING on this earth that is better than what uncle ben has now. as my family likes to say, he graduated into enternal life...which is the greatest thing a man can enjoy. *sigh* so that's what is keeping me going. the funeral is friday at 4, so this weekend that i really really needed for studying for my history exam on monday isn't going to be available for studying, which means that i have a boatload of things dumped into the next few days. speaking of that...why am i still talking? i haven't the time for this...so until next time....bubye

this is me and K-Leen right after the show. isn't she lovely? (to all you who are uninformed on cow beauty...she IS lovely...and i know that because i happen to be knowledgeable about such things...but i'm also entirely biased and love her...) in any case, we make a good pair and looked darn good out in that ring! what fun. i really do love showing.
 

me and K-Leen right before we went in the ring for her class on saturday. i was a happy kid that day cause i've always wanted to show at the World Dairy Expo and i finally got my chance!