camping: Day 4 at Южный Буг

By the 4^th day of camping, my hair was absolutely beyond disgusting. We were not supposed to wash our hair in the river because it would pollute it…however, I’m pretty sure some of the high school age girls on the trip washed their hair. They told me that I could but not to let the director see me do it. HA. I wasn’t about to be the American girl who gets in trouble because she has to wash her hair. So, I French braided my hair in two braids in my tent and put on my baseball hat. I helped make borsht on the fourth day of the camping trip…which also happened to be the 4^th of July! I didn’t even realize it until that evening when the director congratulated me on America’s independence. I explained that there would be TONS of fireworks going off all over the United States that night.

We’re going to take a little pause and I’ll tell you a funny thing about fireworks here in Ukraine. People shoot off fireworks ALL THE TIME here in Ukraine. It happened in Oster and it happens here in Kirovograd. I don’t understand it…and I’ve asked locals why they do it. No one seems to have an answer. I will never forget the first time I heard fireworks in Ukraine though. It was probably within the first month of me being in Ukraine. I was doing homework in my bedroom at my host family’s house. Both of my host parents were working that day, so it was my host sister, Christy, and I at home. It was at least 9:30 or 10 pm. Cats had been fighting outside (this is a normal occurrence here as well…when they have a fight right outside your window, it truly sounds like a baby is screaming) and the neighborhood dogs were going nuts. It was a typical night. And then, I heard 3 bangs. My first thought was gunshots. I don’t know whether it was the new element of living in a foreign city, because my host parents were gone, or what, but I thought gunshots. My heart was RACING. I stood up in my bedroom and wondered what in the world I should do. I grabbed my Ukrainian cell phone and called my cluster mate Jamie, who probably thought I was nuts. I kept wondering why my host sister wasn’t doing anything. Freaking out. Calling the cops. What do you do in a situation like this in Ukraine? Jamie picked up and I explained what I thought was happening…and then more of the sounds occurred. I went out to the laundry room and saw the source of the noises: fireworks. Jamie could actually see them from his room too all the way across town. They were literally on the next street over from me…which would explain why they were SO LOUD. Since then, I have probably heard fireworks at least 20+ times and I can assure you that now I simply look out my window and see if I see anything lighting up the sky. Just another day in Ukraine... :)

So, on this fourth of July, we went to a rocket museum!

It happened to be about a 45 minute windy bus ride away, which made me incredibly nauseous by the time we got there. One of the buses that brought us camping turned around and went back to k-grad the first day of the trip and would come pick us back up on the last day of the trip. So we had to split the group in two and go to the museum in two shifts. I chose the latter shift when it would be a little bit cooler. Let me explain something to you about Lydia and museums. I find museums interesting, as long as I can go at my pace through them…which is usually fast. However, when everything is in Russian (or Ukrainian…which I really can’t read), I can go through a museum at record pace.

We had a tour guide who kept asking if the American girl was understanding everything. A few of the older girls who could translate well would tell me parts about different rockets and where they were from, etc., but overall, I was pretty lost. They had a ton of neat artifacts to look at which is what I spent the majority of my time doing. And then…we actually got to go look at where some rockets were launched (I think…). I will post some of the pics from the museum below...I would be making stuff up if I told you what I thought things were, so just use your imagination!

The best part about going on the fieldtrip to the rocket museum was getting to stop at the ATB (supermarket!) on the way home. I was able to buy a big 6 liter bottle of water which one of the boys carried for me. With it being the 4^th day of the trip and only 3 days left, the kids gawked at the fact that I could drink that much water. I assured them that I could and actually spaced it out so that I had 2 liters each day. You don’t realize how much you miss having water accessible all the time until you no longer have it readily available. I also bought 2 bottles of drinkable yogurt that I downed on the ride back to the site. My body was craving fruit and healthy food of any kind and the yogurt did just the trick. I also got some cereal that resembles corn flakes that I eat as a snack here in Ukraine. Mmm…and that’s the end of day 4!

The sun coming through the clouds at the end of the day :)

camping: Day 3 at Южный Буг

On my third day of my camping trip at Южный Буг, I spent much of the day reading in my tent. Let’s just say (again), thank goodness I have a Kindle. For all of the bad things I ever said about an electronic book, I hereby take every one of those words back. You see, when it rains on a camping trip, you have one of three options for where to go. 1) in your tent, 2) in the “kitchen” area of the campsite where a tarp was put up to cover the food and the campfires, or 3) outside in the rain. This wasn’t just a little April shower though…it was a torrential downpour on and off all day long. It was PERFECT reading and napping weather, and that is just what I did. After having been sick the night before, it was like the rain was God’s little way of saying, “Why don’t you rest today, Lydia?” I finished Harry Potter #2 today and started on HP #3, reading over half of it. I didn’t stay in my tent the entire day though. Don’t worry, I wasn’t that girl.

I did learn a few other things that I would bring on a camping trip if I were to go again. Everybody has these pieces of foam that go around their waste with a piece of elastic. I have NEVER seen these in the states…has anybody else? You actually buy it this way and some of the kids have their pieces decorated. The idea is that you can sit on the ground or on a tree stump and not get your pants dirty, because then when you get inside of your tent you get your bed dirty. Pretty ingenious. I would definitely invest in a small collapsible stool also. My but got tired of leaning on rocks and uncomfortable pieces of tree!

The girl on the left is wearing one of the camping pads around her waist...

and you can see another one of the camping pads (yellow) being sat on in the middle of the pic!

I will also present to you the lovely bathroom I got to use all week long. It was down this little hill seen above…

I was always incredibly nervous somebody was going to walk down the hill. They need a bell at the top of the hill or something like that.

And that is the end of my third day of camping! The third day of camping was also my brother's birthday...so happy late birthday Jeremy :)

i have been mia...

hola...from the wonderful world of my kindle.

its late on friday night and how did i spend my friday evening you ask? trying to make chocolate chip cookies in my toaster oven. lets just say...thank goodness somebody invented break and bake cookies. you dont realize how much you take for grantd until you move to another country. for instnace...shopping for the ingredients took me at least an hour. i had to have somebody help me findbaking powder which actuly comes in a little packet similar to something you might see flower seeds for sale in in the states. dont worry... i have pictures of the entire process. that will be a blog post in and of itself.

ive been missing from the blogging world because i went on a lttle vacation down to odessa with some fellow pcvs for a couple of days. it was wonderful to explore that city...and i actuly got to eat a burrito at a mexican restaurant that wasnt half bad. i cleaned my plate. pictues of that too.

i was supposed to get internet yesterday but the guys couldnt get on theroof of my apartment builing. have to ask my neighbor if they have a key. thatshould be an interesting conversation. the guys ll come back on monday to hopefully hook up the internet... and then i leave wednesday for my three week long summer camp. yippee!

on another note..im still reading harry potter number five. it is so far my least fave of the books. im over halfway one on the almosteight hundred page book...and i definitely want to finish it and move on.

one last note. here in ukraine...females have to keep up with their looks. girls change their nail polish color at least once or twice a week...if not more. im now trying to give myself a weekly mani and pedi to keep up with the women here. a pedi is most definitely needed because you walk everywhere and the roads are not always paved. maybe by th end of my two years here ill actually be able to paint the nails on my non dominanhand without having it look like a second grader did it!

i also plan on mastering cookies here. in a toaster oven. no ifs ands or buts about it. the end!

Attention, attention!

If you missed it, I now have an address here in Kirovograd that you can actually send me things from the UNITED STATES :) Yippee! However, I am going to a summer camp for 3 weeks at the end of July and I don't know what the Post Office here is like for "holding" packages. My po box can hold a big manilla sized envelope though, so items that size (ie, not boxes) should be fine for 3 weeks. If you are wanting to send a package, please let me know so that I will be on the lookout for it! I'm also curious how long the entire process takes.

Don't forget, if you send me a letter...I will send you a personal one too :)

Getting mail while here in Ukraine is the most exciting thing ever. Any PCV, regardless of where they live will tell you that! Happy writing :)

My address is listed under the "content" section of the blog...click here if you want to go there directly!

CAMPING: Day 2

While I was camping, I turned off every source of electronic equipment I had with me for that week. There was no way to charge the items I had (my Ukrainian cell phone, my iphone, my old ipod, and my kindle) so I simply left them off if I wasn’t using them. I did make sure before I left that they were each charged to their full capacity. Duh. My Ukrainian cell phone didn’t work very well in the area that we were located so I would turn it on once a day to see if I could get a signal.

A typical day of our camping trip consisted of the following: wake up at 8 am, breakfast at 9 am, lunch at 1 or 2 pm, dinner at 8 pm, and then once it got dark (at 10 pm) we had campfire time. Every day different groups of people had meal prep and clean-up…and I usually just helped out whenever they’d let me. I wasn’t “assigned” a group, and as I said before, it was like torture to convince them I wanted to help! On day 2 of my camping extravaganza, I walked to the magazihn that was 3-4 km away in the next village over. On the way back, the boys that I was walking with remembered that they were in charge of dinner that night. The boys contribution in the "kitchen" is to gather fire wood, get the fires going, keep them going, and take the (very heavy) pots on and off of the fire.

The river was not too far down the way from our tents, maybe a 3 minute walk. We went on group swims in between breakfast and lunch and then lunch and dinner. The water could be downright chilly if it wasn’t sunny…cold enough that I didn’t always get in. On Saturday, the second day of our camping trip, I went on an afternoon walk with some of the kids to the magazihn (store) located about 3-4 kilometers away. It was in the next village over, so we got to pass some neat things along the way. I bought some cookies, juice, and a bottle of water at the magazihn and started heading back. That evening after dinner, I was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed…so I told the director that I needed some sleep and skipped out on the campfire time. I crawled into my tent and realized at that point that my lower lip began to feel funny…as did the rest of my body. I was itching all over, but luckily had my med kit with me which had some anti-itch cream in it (my counterpart had instructed me to bring my PC med kit which I definitely would not have even thought about otherwise...I was very happy she reminded me to say the least). My bottom lip was SUPER swollen twenty minutes later and I had no clue what I was allergic to that was making me break out in hives on my thighs and stomach. It was so bizarre. I took some advil and drank some water hoping that it would pass…and stayed awake long enough to make sure my lip was done swelling. I slept like a rock that night and woke up the next morning with a less swollen lip and still no clue what the heck made me break out in hives. Once I got up and moving that day, everything seemed fine and I was back to normal.

one side of my tent

And the other side of my tent! More to come... :)

CAMPING: Day 1 at Южный Буг

Well, it’s official. I survived my trip to Южный Буг (pronounced Yewj-knee boog)! There were definitely times that I wanted to be home, but overall it was an experience that I know I wouldn't be able to have anywhere else in Ukraine. It really put things into perspective for the first time how alone I am when I am with a group of Ukrainians. This is not their fault, nor is it my fault; it is simply due to the fact that I have limited Russian and they have limited English...and sometimes those paths simply do not overlap. The entire reason for me going on the camping trip was to speak English with the kids.

The trip started with a nice, long four hour bus ride on which I knew nobody. But first, I need to tell you about my adventure to get to the building where I work...where I needed to be by 7:50 am on Friday, July 1st. I am very lucky with the placement of my apartment because there is a bus stop maybe 2-3 minutes from my front door. There are marshrutkas that stop every 1-3 minutes at this stop that all go to the center of town and then onto their respective routes. I can take any one of these buses to get to the center, but then it's another 7-8 minute walk to my work. However, there is one bus that comes by every 5-10 minutes (still haven't nailed down that number yet) that takes me almost directly to the building where I work. Since I had a lot of stuff to carry (water, suitcases, purse), I was hoping to catch marshrutka number 134 that would take me directly to my building. I went outside at 7:20 am to make sure that I'd be able to catch a bus and make it to the building early. Wrong. I stood there until 7:40 am...and then had to call my boss in a panic because I realized I was not only going to be late, but that I would also be having to haul my stuff on the 7-8 minute walk. Awesome. I ended up getting to my building at 8ish and we didn't end up leaving until 8:45, so it was all fine and dandy in the end. Now, back to the four hour bus ride...

We stopped twice to have potty breaks on the side of the road, much like we did when we were on choir tour in Eastern Europe 7 years ago. Girls on the left, boys on the right. I didn't drink water the entire way there, not wanting to have to go to the bathroom in the middle of a forrest. Ya know, I never got a final number how many people were on the trip. We had 2 buses, but they were not full-size 50 seaters. I think we were somewhere in the range of 40-45 people on the trip. Upon arriving at Южный Буг, which is actually the name of the river that we camped by, we began unloading pounds and pounds (or maybe I should say kilograms and kilograms because I am in Europe now!) of camping gear and food.

This was the first time (of many) on the trip where I would simply have NO clue what to do in order to help out…nor did they want the “American girl,” as I was dubbed, to help. I was their guest, and they wanted me to enjoy my experience. More about being a guest in Ukraine later.

We unloaded the two buses and were up on top of the valley. This was the view we had at that moment.

I was wondering where we would do our actual camping…and that was when we started grabbing our stuff to haul down the mountain. A five-minute walk down a path took me to our future campsite. A small brook babbled along the path…and made me decide that I would love to have a river like that by my house someday. There is simply nothing like going to sleep with the sound of moving water close by. In addition to my suitcase that I had packed (with air mattress, sheet, blanket, and pillows…all of which I was VERY glad I brought), I was also handed a sleeping bag, sleeping pad, tent, and a piece of tarp to go under my tent. I have always been a person to make more than one trip rather than hurting my hands carrying way too much. And it was good exercise. I left my big suitcase to bring down last, and the lady in charge of the whole trip (Natalia Constantinivna) informed me that one of the boys would bring it down for me. Awesome! This was the first glimpse of just how polite boys are in Ukraine…more about that later.

We arrived at the bottom where we would be sleeping…and I again, had absolutely no clue what to do. I put my stuff down and wondered if I should start putting up my tent, but I didn’t want to take somebody else’s spot if they had already claimed it. I walked around and tried to find the source of the water that I heard, but was instructed by the kids not to go down to the river yet. That would be later. Finally, my suitcase was brought down by Edward (who the kids joked about the Twilight movies then…) who had also taken it upon himself to put my tent up for me.

Here’s where Lydia wished she would have had a few pointers before she set up camp.

1) Don’t put your tent in the sun if at all possible. Come afternoon, it will be like a sauna.

2) Go ahead and splurge for a tent that you can stand up in. By the end of day 7, you will be tired of wiggling into your clothes while laying down on your air mattress.

I can’t complain though because I was graciously given my own tent to sleep in, which I was very thankful for. And I would learn those lessons later on during the trip…not on the first day.

I don’t even remember what else happened the first day. I helped setup lunch, which was бутерброц (sandwiches) that different moms had made and sent along with kids. I also gathered that kids were supposed to bring a loaf of bread, a head of cabbage, and maybe some tomatoes and cucumbers; they collected all of these items before we left Kirovograd though. If my memory serves me right, I also helped peel potatoes and carrots for dinner. That was where the first group of girls befriended me and I actually heard some English for the first time. Very, very exciting.

During my 3+ month span of being in Ukraine, I have used my Kindle on and off. There are times when I am super busy and don’t have time to read, but there are also times when I am super bored and might read 3 books in one week. Let’s just say that I was very glad I fully charged my Kindle before we left because I may or may not have read 2.5 Harry Potter books. {Sidenote: our campsite did not have electricity, or bathrooms. More about the bathroom later.} Since the new HP movie is coming out soon, I decided a few weeks ago to start reading the books over from the beginning. I never actually read past book 4 when I was reading these books years ago, though I cheated and have seen all of the movies, so I know what happens.

Well, that gives you a sneak peak of what my camping trip was like :) I will be sending out some parts of the story that are better not to be shared on the public blog, so if you would like to be included in those excerpts, send me your name and e-mail address and I will add you to the list :) toodles!

My Not-So-Typical-By-American-Standards Saturday...

My Saturday was filled with things that I would have laughed at doing a few years ago…but actually, found pleasure (and great reward) in doing them today. There are a lot of things that I do on a daily basis here in Ukraine that surprise me by how much I actually like doing them. One of those things is washing dishes. (My parents are probably reading that sentence gawking at the fact that I like to do dishes now). My host family taught me that as soon as you were done with your dishes, you (hand) wash them. This was my teaching growing up as well…except the dishes went straight to the dishwasher after you rinsed the items first. Either that or I would leave them for my dad to make them “magically disappear” as we called it in the Frost household (in other words, Pops put them in the dishwasher for us). One of the reasons I have to wash my dishes here as soon as I’m done with them is because I simply don’t have enough of them to let them pile up in my {tiny, but cute} sink. I just purchased a coffee cup that is big enough to hold an actual cup’s worth of coffee (the 3 coffee mugs that came with my apartment are like espresso mugs…ie, tiny). That means that if I let it sit there overnight in my sink, I would have to wash it the next morning before I wanted my coffee or tea. It makes much more sense to do the dishes right away. Period. I basically have 3 of everything in my kitchen…spoons, forks, cups, plates, and bowls. I’m on the hunt for butter knives…because I’m tired of using my one sharp knife to spread butter. That and it’s pretty sharp. And I have to wash it about 5 times a day (spreading butter, cutting an apple, etc.). So, there’s one of my routines that I thoroughly enjoy.

What else did I do on my not-so-typical-by-American-standards Saturday? I did my first ever load of laundry by hand. And let me tell you, I can see why some great soul invented the washing machine. I started with sheets, which was probably not the smartest thing. But first, I had to rig my drying line up on my balcony. I’ve avoided doing this because there are a bajillion spider webs on my balcony and it kinda freaks me to think about clean clothes being out there with bugs. {FOR THE RECORD: I have done laundry since I’ve been in Ukraine. I simply was blessed to have a host family that had a washing machine and my counterpart here in K-grad has let me do laundry at her house as well. I promise, I don’t smell.} However, I have nowhere else to dry them and that is what the balcony is for here in Ukraine. Well, and in my case, that’s where my refrigerator is too. So, I rounded up a few nails from one of the extra bedrooms in my apartment that I don’t use, found a hammer, and got to work. Made me miss my tool bag that’s in my closet at my parent’s house. As it was, I only had enough plastic line for 2 lengths of the balcony, so I will have to purchase some more of that soon! Then, I got to work being a domesticated Peace Corps Volunteer. I washed a single flat sheet and two pillowcases and that was all that would fit on the line…and at that point, my back was aching from being hunched over the bathtub. I still feel like the sheet has soap in it by the way. But, I felt VERY accomplished having washed my laundry by hand.

To finish up my not-so-typical-by-American-standards Saturday, I decided I wanted to make something for dinner. From scratch. I’m by no means Julia Childs, and I wish that I had my mom’s cooking skills in the kitchen…but I’ve simply never been interested in it. I hope that changes over the next 2 years. {I can make a mean taco salad though…and fajitas as well.} Peace Corps gives you a little cookbook called “Babushkas kitchen” or something like that…that has traditional Ukrainian dishes and other dishes that PCVs have made during their two-year-stint here in Ukraine. As I flipped through it, I found homemade flour tortillas. Ding ding ding! I had been debating about making my host mom’s recipe for amalya (fried pancakes), but didn’t really want all of the grease that goes along with the most yummy thing ever. So, tortillas it was. I even felt ambitious as I went to the grocery store to see what their farsh (ground meat) looked like. But I decided I couldn’t cross that bridge tonight. Perhaps another day. I did find what looked like canned kidney beans, so I bought a can of those. {Sidenote: they don’t have green beans in a can here. They have corn, peas, pineapple, beans, olives, etc…but no green beans.} Then, I came home to start making them. I failed to realize two things: 1) I don’t have a mixing bowl. 2) I don’t have a rolling pin. That’s when you get crafty being a PCV. I have a skillet that I would need to brown the tortillas in and I have a small silver pan that was going to have to suffice for my mixing bowl. Now all I needed was a rolling pin. I tried rolling them by hand and squishing them out into a big circle…fail. I then found my can of glade room freshener and put it in one of my gallon size (clean) Ziploc bags. Worked like a charm. The first tortilla I put in the skillet burned. Had the fire on my electric hot plate up way too hot. It scorched my pan…which meant I had to wait for it to cool down and then scrub off the charred tortilla. {Another sidenote: I have yet to find a candle that smells good to leave burning. My kitchen smells like burned tortilla still as I sit and type this.} Round 2 of tortilla cooking went well…I got 4 or 5 tortillas pretty perfectly cooked. Then I noticed the cord of the electric hot plate looking weird. It has been taped and re-taped many times from what looks like someone getting the cord on the actual hot plate. I quickly unplugged it and sure enough…one of the two prongs looks melted. I had one tortilla left that I had to throw away because I wasn’t going to risk burning down my kitchen for a single tortilla. I’ve had my eye on a toaster oven (keep in mind I don’t have a stove or an oven) that has two hot burners on top of it…and I think I will be purchasing it soon.

I am feeling ambitious now that my laundry is done drying…and I think I may tackle the second sheet and maybe a few other shirts that need laundering. Oh, how my life has changed being a PCV…I spent my Saturday being a domesticated 50’s housewife. I wouldn’t change it for anything though J

i survived :)

dearest blogging world...

i am back and home safe and sound from my week long camping extraveganza!! i am on the kindle now...so i will save the details for an actual blog post...but let me tell you a few things.

1. i didnt wash my hair for six days. i think thats a record.

2. i read books three AND four of the harry potter series while camping. all that i have to say is thank goodness somebody invented the kindle :)

3. i slept for ten hours last night and took a two hour nap today. and idont feel guilty for any of it.

4. my body was craving fruit of any kind...so i got apples, grapes, and watermelon today at the store...which meant i had to buy tupperware to store things in!

5 i had meat for the first time in two weeks tonight. i also had the best sandwich yet upon being here in ukraine. that would be because i found caesar salad dressing at the grocery store :)

6. gonna go ahead and post this so i can read more of hp number five and get to sleep. hope to venture to a wifi zone tomorrow :)

night night

Happy Birthday big brother!

My brother turns the big 3-5 on July 3rd, when I will be camping in the middle of nowhere! Since I didn't know if I would take my Kindle or not, I am posting this a bit early :)

Happy happy birthday Jeremy :)

I hope that you have a great birthday celebrating with everybody up in New Hampshire!

Frost Family on my birthday a few Christmas' ago...

Jeremy and our neighbor, Imogene, in Alabama. I think Jeremy was in high school in this picture...

And Jeremy and Imogene 2 years ago when we went to Bama for Christmas...

When Jeremy was in elementary school at University Place, his class planted a tree. Every year my parents took a picture of him in front of this tree...as both he and the tree grew. He's in high school maybe in this pic...

And here he is at Christmas 2 years ago. We hope this tree is still standing after the horrible tornado went through Tuscaloosa...

Happy birthday big brother :)

Way-Back-Wednesday #7: Hayley's getting married!

Since I have a somewhat stable internet availability here in K-grad (which will hopefully only get better upon my being able to get internet in my apartment!), I am actually able to do a Way-Back-Wednesday post...

One of the things that I knew I would be missing when I signed up for the PC was different friends weddings over the next two years. I'm at an age right now where EVERYONE is getting engaged and married...and I'm over 5000 miles away in Ukraine. Without further ado...today's blog post:

One of the first people I met in the Interior Design program at OU, Miss Hayley Holman, is becoming a Mrs. this weekend! I'm not sure when we met or knew we would become friends, but it was definitely sometime during our first year of college.

Jenna (who is ALSO married now, and I already missed her wedding on May 15. SO sad!), Lydia, Hayley, and Beth

Hayley transferred to the Art Institute of Dallas to finish her Interior Design degree after our sophomore year at OU. I was sad to see her go, but she was incredibly good about coming back up to Norman after that, especially for OU games :) I always got a phone call from her, even if it was just for a quick hug and hello as she drove through town.

one of Hayley's weekends in Norman

Lydia, Hayley, Beth (who is ALSO engaged now, don't know when she's getting married but I'm sure it will be sometime while I'm still overseas...), and Jenna

OU/Texas 2007 I think...

We ran into each other at OU/Texas a few years ago waiting to get on the dart! Too funny.

One of my favorite memories of Hayley was going to VEGAS with her for the very first time. Her cousin was getting married and I got the chance to tag along. That was the first destination wedding I had ever been to and let me tell you, it was a LOT of fun. The couple got married at the Marriott Resort on the edge of town with the beautiful mountains in the background. The bachelor and bachelorette parties were on Thursday night of the long weekend, the rehearsal dinner was on Friday, and the wedding was on Saturday! It was absolutely lovely.

When Hayley called me in Januay to ask me what I was doing this summer... I knew something was up. I was about to leave on a trip to ski in New Hampshire...and would actually find out days later that I was accepted into the PC. But sweet Hayley knew how my summers were usually packed full of mission trips with the church and she wanted to make sure I save the date for HER WEDDING :)

Hayley, Lydia, and Beth...Christmas maybe 2006?!

Happy Wedding Weekend Hayles :) love you dearly and can't wait to hear all about your new adventures as a wifey! Sorry I am not there to stand by your side as a bridesmaid, but I'm there in spirit :) love you!

P.S. Also scheduled for this weekend is a bachelorette party for Miss Rachel Fenn who is getting married soon as well :) hope y'all have a WONDERFUL weekend at the lake!!!

P.P.S. happy birthday matthew robert schlegel :)