a letter to the ku men's basketball team

Dear team,

I would not mind if you won a certain basketball game in Indianapolis on April 5, 2010. I just thought I'd throw that out there.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

-Megan


*KU is playing (and winning, by the way) an exhibition game tonight. I like college football but I REALLY like college basketball.

i do not live in south carolina...

...but whenever I look at blogs, it says that I am visiting from Charleston. I kept wondering who in South Carolina kept looking at my blog. Now I know. So, if someone is checking your blog from SC, it's just me.

I had a good weekend - skipped out on a YSA dance (which everyone had a blast at) to go to a hockey game but I had fun at that.

Some friends and I took some pictures in our little downtown tonight. I love that we can walk down the middle of Main St. and not worry about cars - well, at least not like I would have to worry about cars on Massachussetts St. I'll post pictures of it eventually for those of you not on Facebook. It was fun.

For now, here's the next "guess where Megan's been" picture:


No, I did not write this...I just found it. :)

photo #2 answer and pumpkin carving

Rock Canyon
Good job Cheryl and Janae? They both guessed Rock Canyon at some point...

The picture was taken in October of '05. Matthew and I went hiking one day but didn't have a lot of time so we went back another weekend. We found more caves than I had seen before, found a rock that looked like Noah's ark, found some alien graffiti, saw some mountain goats and hiked pretty far in the canyon. The first time we went hiking there, we even saw someone we knew from Kansas.

Here's another picture from that hike:



I love Rock Canyon - especially in the Fall. I think that I love everywhere in the Fall, actually.

Pumpkin Carving

Some of my friends came over Saturday night to carve pumpkins. We got kind of a late start so we didn't spend as much time as we probably would have trying to make them look beautiful. It had been seven years since I had carved one and I had always just done the jack-o-lantern faces but decided to use a pattern (or two) this time. I think one of my favorite things from the evening was Chad's baby pumpkin. He said they didn't have big ones at the store. Jason showed up a few minutes later with 2 big pumpkins from the same store. At least Chad didn't have as many "pumpkin guts" to clean out.

something new

Last summer (I think it was in July), my friend Laura started teaching me how to crochet. I didn't get very far last summer...maybe halfway done with a scarf, and it wasn't pretty. My friend Cynthia was over on Friday and was crocheting a blanket and I decided to pull out that half-finished scarf. It took awhile to find it and I had some issues trying to get going again. I kept losing a stitch (or whatever they are called - I don't know any terminology) on each row and then, I started adding an extra one. It was starting to look funny. Cynthia helped me figure out what I was doing wrong and I finished my scarf last night! My technique is still pretty rough and probably nowhere close to right. But, it's finished...

It's not very long, though - and it's really wide. I started another scarf last night and I think it may end up being too short, also. I guess I could always go buy more yarn....

photo #1 answer and photo #2

Good job Erik and Heather! The answer is Naantali, Finland.

After my mission, my dad, Janae and I went to Finland for a week and one day we drove around Turku (where we were staying) and went to Naantali. We didn't spend much time there - my dad stayed in the car while Janae and I went and looked at an old church - I believe it was a convent at one point. According to Wikipedia, Naantali is one of the oldest cities in Finland and the Swedish word for the city means "The Valley of Grace." It only has a population of about 18,000. It's also the location of Moomin World. Unfortunately, we did not see any Moomin characters. It may have been closed since it was in October.

Actually, I was there almost exactly 2 years ago. I think we left the mission home on Oct. 17 so...we probably went to Naantali on the 20th or so. I honestly can't remember. But, I do remember that I got home on Halloween....that date is easy enough to remember.

Here's the 2nd picture:

guessing game (photo #1)

Until something exciting happens in my life, I'm going to start posting pictures of places I've been (I really haven't been very many places) and I'll give people 2 or 3 days to guess where this place is before I write about it. The prize? The enjoyment of knowingthat you guessed right! I love being right so I think that's a great prize. Now, if you happened to visit this place with me, hold off for a new photo to guess - you don't want to take all of the fun out of it for everyone else, do you?

Any guesses?

jogurt

http://y.delfi.ee/norm/102149/4987073_HfmJXZ.jpeg

Estonian dairy products are amazing. Yogurt (jogurt), cheese (juust), milk (piim), and sour cream (hapukoor) - they are so good. I can't explain how delicious all of it was. You'll just have to go there yourself and try it. Especially the baked apple yogurt. Whenever missionaries went to Estonia for a visa trip, they'd bring back apple yogurt (On my visa trip, I traded Latvian stroop waffles for Estonian yogurt with one of the elders). When the zone and district leaders from Estonia went to Latvia for meetings, they'd bring apple yogurt to share. This picture is of my second favorite kind - berry. The cloudberry kind was also one of my favorites.

Baked apple yogurt seems simple enough to make. So I decided to try. I baked (okay, microwaved...I'm impatient) the apples, put a little bit of cinnamon on them, chopped them up and mixed them in some plain yogurt with cinnamon and honey. I also added a little bit of vanilla. It wasn't quite right. Not a total disaster, though. I liked it enough but it wasn't the same. I think I may try vanilla yogurt with apples and cinnammon next time. I don't know how the Estonians do it. America is way behind on dairy.

This picture was taken three weeks ago:



I thought that Labor Day weekend was a little early for leaves to be changing colors but, it was pretty.

we are awesome

My older siblings performed this song at a reunion for my mom's side of the family in 1985. I was just a munchkin so I just watched. We had a family reunion for our dad's side of the family in August and this time they created roles for the 4 youngest.

*The first 40 seconds are just my brother introducing our "talent". You may skip ahead if you'd like.

new apartment :)

First off, I think I'm about done w/my summer garden. I have 2 more tomatoes, and I might get a couple of more squash. We'll see. My watermelon...haha. I got one. It has been about the same size for a month so I finally picked it today and cut it open. Wasn't quite sure what to expect. It was good. It was soooo small, though. I have a picture of me eating it and it's 1/4 of the watermelon. This summer was better than last - maybe next year will be better.

We started moving into our new apartment today. I have most of my stuff moved - just a few random things and then the furniture will be moved tomorrow.

Here are some pictures of the apt(because I know everyone wanted to see every corner of it). My roommate and I have been in a 1 bedroom since January and well, it has been a little crowded. This apt has twice the sq footage. :)

32 down...18 more to go

Here are the states I've been to:


visited 32 states (64%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Looks like there are a few trips I need to take. And, I guess Virginia and Arizona might not count. I was a baby when I went to Arizona and I've just barely been inside the border of Virginia. I'll have to revisit those some day.

Now the countries:


visited 9 states (4%)
Create your own visited map of The World

Some thoughts:
1. I need to travel more.
2. Maps are awesome. Hurray for GIS.
3. Homemade blueberry pancakes + scrambled eggs + orange juice = amazing. Next time, I'll have to remember to buy blueberry yogurt to put on the pancakes (yes, I put yogurt on pancakes - so much tastier than syrup).
4. It's time to put away the clean dishes, the laundry, and to get started on packing. My goal today is to pack my books, movies, and games. It may or may not happen.