1:10 pm. Still in bed. This is just what I needed. I'm not sure how I woke up every morning for Highschool at 6:30 , I now have massive amounts of trouble waking up for 9am classes. Curious though, I have this feeling that I'm having more trouble waking up at 8:30 then I did last year. Maybe it's the freezing cold air blowing in at me that makes me want cuddle up into my plethora of green blankets, or the fact that in order to actually get out of bed, I have to find my way down a ladder. Perhaps it is that I do not have a cat jumping on me and licking me until I am forced to get up. In any case, waking up can be somewhat troublesome. Direct quote from Krista "I wish I could just spend my day right here"

This past week... Well, on friday, Krista and I did some deep cleaning of our dorm. Vacuuming is a task that can be challenging here, because the vacuum they provide for us, is a piece of crap. In order for it to pick anything up you have to step on the top of it while pushing it across the floor.

Did I mention how loud the vacuum is? It is thunderous. Krista and I managed to clean the counter, the bathroom, the shower, we even lysol-ed the ladders.

After we cleaned, we realized we would have a lot more room if our ladders did not protrude into our living area! This called for some rearranging! Now, my loft is pushed up against the Kitchen wall, and my armoire is behind me, now parallel to the wall, beside the loft. My side is basically symmetrical to Krista's now, except my bed faces the door and not the window. This way, we can put the ladders behind our lofts and not have them always get in the way, and cause me to break my toes.

After we did this, we inspired two other rooms to rearrange! After rearranging, Krista, Stephanie and I all went to Meijer to pick up some groceries, and much needed toilet paper. You know you're lazy when: 1) When putting a new role of TP on, you simply put the new role by the toilet with out actually attaching it to the wall thing. This happens 4 times in a row. 2) When you don't throw away the little cardboard role things after the TP runs out. They accumulate near and around the toilet. 3) you run out of toilet paper and it is not replenished for a week. After Meijer, we went out to dinner: Taco Bell. Yummm. When we got home, we started decorating our room with a collage of magazine clippings. It really made our walls less bare, and added a little bit of spice to the room. Mid-way through this, my Cousin Brad, and his friend Ben showed up. With them, we hung out with some people from our flooring playing exciting games of BS, and Spoons. We actually used pencils for spoons. Krista sustained an injury. We then watched a Movie and got to bed super late.

In the morning (yesterday) Krista and I had a volley ball tournament. Brad and Ben were actually able to play on a team that needed two people. We lasted three rounds, until we were eliminated, but it was a lot of fun. Krista sustained an injury.

Last night we played a super fun game called quelf. Natalie brought it over, and it consisted of doing silly things to advance you in the game. We had to do things like say "izzle" at the end of every sentance, say "trippy" every time we made eye contact with someone, and stand up at scream "PIZZA PARTY" whenever a phone went off. It was a good time.

Earlier this week... I went to get Ice cream for myself at the soft serve machine for the first time. At first, it was going well, the vanilla goodness was coming out evenly as i held down the lever. I let go of the lever, assuming it would stop the ice cream, this was not the case. The ice cream kept on coming. In a state of panic, I continued to let it pile on my fragile cone. Finally, with the aid of a friend, I was able to stop it. Now having a foot tall pile of ice cream on my cone, I attempted to make it back to my table, the sprinkles would have to wait. Two steps in and the ice cream begins to tilt. I feel like I'm in a disney sing along when the little child loses her ice cream, while Mickey Mouse gives her a brand new one. Reality check. The ice cream falls to the ground in what seemed to be slow motion. I hear laughter, and I walk back to my table with a mere cone. Then Nick was nice enough to go make me an Ice Cream. He even put sprinkles on it. After I had licked all of the sprinkles off, I wanted to go put some more on. Surely, I thought, I am capable of doing this. I go to sprinkle on the sprinkles. They come out way faster then anticipated. I form a mountain of sprinkles on and around my ice cream. Only one side got sprinkled. Apparently, I do not have a future in the ice cream world.

Krista sustains another injury: For some reason, our fridge was really cold, and our waters were freezing. Shocked at this, Krista screams "my water is FROZEN!" She then goes and throws the water bottle at the futon to try and crack the ice. She does this once, see's that it is working, and does it again. The second time, the water bottle bounces back, and hits her in the head.

Friday afteronoon, Stephanie, Tina, Krista and I decided to make tye-dye shirts out on the lawn. They turned out pretty cool!

My friend Joel, wants me to advertise for him :) He is off to Nashville right now, and he just got home from LA. You can go listen to him at www.myspace.com/Joelcrouse

We just made brownies! Giancarlo, Chris, Jessie, Krista, and I! Unfortunately, we did not have a brownie pan, so we are making super thin brownies on a cookie sheet... we will see how they turn out.

So this week. A whole war was started with the boys beneath us. Krista and I managed to get into their room, and smother their mirror in shaving cream.

Leaving a surprised Jesse to clean it up. In rebuttal, when I came in my room last night, Krista was across the hall watching Finding Nemo, there were garbage bags strewn across my bed, my green lightbulb was gone, and my green string lights had been replaced orange ones. Unfortunate for Jesse, he is an awful criminal. First, he left witnesses, and second, he left his shoes here!

Krista and I are not about to go make the easiest five dollars ever. We are cleaning Giancarlo and Chris's dorm :)

Today, I got back from a lovely adventure at the apple orchard. First, a whole load of us piled into Adam's large brown van. We Then continued to the large apple orchard/farmers market/epicenter of produce just minutes from us. Our hopes were quickly dashed when we saw the "closed on sundays" sign:

We then continued east down Lake Michigan Drive, because I was sure there was another apple orchard. After a couple miles of driving, people we beginning to lose hope in me. But just in time, we came up to this slightly smaller, but still legitimate apple orchard. However, this one was also closed. It had large bins of apples, but unfortunately, they were not honey crisp.

Third time's the charm. We finally decided to settle on a farmer's market stand. They did have honey crisp apples, and apple cider, so it was everything we wanted, just without the apple picking experience. Since this place was not a real orchard, they did not provide us with doughnuts, so we had to take a drop by Meijer on the way back to fulfill that need.

Here are some more photos from this event :)

Then, Jesse (the boy that lives beneath me) and I made cocoa krispies. Those would be rice krispies but made with cocoa pebbles. We managed to accidently get some mini-marshmallows lodged down beneath the stove burners.

Earlier this week, we had some fantastic activities here. Our floor had a Soiree (swaray), which consisted of clearing out our great room, having Joe set up his DJ equipment, and getting a strobe light and other fun dance lights. We got a noise complaint a half an hour in, but it was a great time. The morning after our Soiree, our wonderful RA Jenna made us pancakes!

So, I had a strand of lights that were strung around the inside of my loft. I kept burning them out because I would hit my head on the loft, and they would stop working because my head hit them so hard. So, because I had only had about 4 bulbs that worked, I got some green lights at Meijer for a great price. They are christmas lights, but instead of the wire being a dark green to match a pine tree, they are black, since they were in the halloween section.

I have instituted a new rule in my room. It's a ban on swearing. Anyone that says a swear word in my room, owes me a quarter. I have been good at keeping track, and if someone does not comply, Big Will makes sure they pay up.

This is Big Will:

So far, this new law has been very profitable.

Bad news, my feet are in so much pain. It's not the walking that I do everyday, or the breaking in of the new shoes (though that did cause some damage) But I seem to always stub my toes on either the ladder, our door, or anything that my toe could possibly get stuck on. I have a large gash on my big toe, and my pinky toe is incapacitated as well. My feet are a collage of band-aids.

Last night we all watched Monster's Inc. Classic movie. It was a good time. Jake, Krista and I then devoured a bag a pizza rolls within minutes. Jake slept on our futon, and funny story: I was sleeping with my stuffed Eeyore, and "my man" (backstory neeed). During the time we were all asleep, my stuffed animals apparently dropped off of my loft, and like bombs, hit him in the face. This morning, we all went to church. It was a good time, Krista and I really liked it, we are more then likely going to attend there regularly.

Today, I took a much needed nap. While Krista went to play volleyball, I curled up on our futon with a blanket, and slept for three hours straight while light rain came down out the window, providing me with a cool breeze. I slept soundly for three full hours, and then my dad called.

To end my night, Giancarlo made some hot cider for Krista and I. We are sitting here sipping it, and enjoying our time, all procrastinating sleep. Monday will come too soon.

Giancarlo making us cider

Other photos from this week :)

The fun has come to a halt as the homework starts to pile up and the studying must begin. Party time becomes quiet time and instead of making plans, we are making flash cards... Over 60 flash cards perhaps. We have been studying very hard...

Holly and Nick

Adam

Krista and Stephanie

But fun will still ensue. Krista and I just had a sort of meaningless fun, I had stolen a small stress reliever turtle from the boys beneath us, Krista and I then tied dental floss around it's neck, and hung it out of the window so that it dangled right in front of their window. As of the moment that I am writing this, they have just found out that their turtle was dangling to it's doom... yes... that does amuse us.

This weekend I went home and was able to spend nice time with my family, extended and all. We had great times playing sand volley ball and other assortments of games. One of the funnier games, was when we tricked Grant into screaming "moo" quite loudly, I guess you had to be there, but it was super funny. We had our good friend Chris take our family photos, and they turned out quite well. Perhaps a possible Christmas card possibility. But maybe the best part was getting to sleep in my own bed, three nights in a row!

This weekend I went home and was able to spend nice time with my family, extended and all. We had great times playing sand volley ball and other assortments of games. One of the funnier games, was when we tricked Grant into screaming "moo" quite loudly, I guess you had to be there, but it was super funny. We had our good friend Chris take our family photos, and they turned out quite well. Perhaps a possible Christmas card possibility. But maybe the best part was getting to sleep in my own bed, three nights in a row!

Once back at school, we got back into the regular swing of things. I was welcomed by a wonderful package from Grandma Metzger, which had a pitcher, crystal light grapefruit mix, some twizzlers, a protein bar, and a lovely picture of her any my grandpa. If anyone ever wants to send me a package, go ahead :)

Last night was finally the season premiere of glee! Me and Jesse (the boy that lives beneath me) made cookies for the occasion, but we ran into some issues. First, we lost track of how many cups we of flour we had put into the mix, this was after we broke the handle off of our measuring cup. Then, after we figured that all out, we added too much baking soda. The cookies turned out okay, they were soft, warm and chewy, but had somewhat of a bitter aftertaste. We all watched glee in the great room and were quite shocked at some parts, you would know if you watched also.

After Glee, I worked on boat loads of homework, but decided to take a break when Nick came in with chips and dip. After stimulating my taste buds, Nick and I thought it would be a good idea to make Ramen noodles and mix the chicken and

beef flavoring. This was not a good idea, it was a great one. The combination was striking. We will definitely be trying it again.

Nick and I eating our new Ramen Combo

Krista and I are attending cru tonight, which is a campus ministry, we are looking forward to seeing what that is all about.

Enjoy some photos :)