The Last 10 Days or So

Ok, I have been conflicting stories from people about the length of my blog. So I will start writing shorter blogs and if you want more details or more in depth info or a long version, just email me and I'll get back to ya!

So I left off waaayy back! I had a great 4 day weekend (thanks to Martin Luther King Day along with my usual Friday off). Saturday was fun with a game night at my friend's house, there were about 10 of us and we played Catch Phrase and Cranium, it was a great time for all of us to be together and just relax. Sunday was interesting because I had the opportunity to talk to Corey's parents and he got the same opportunity to talk to mine and we set up a time to meet his parents for the following week. His parents seemed like nice people and I was eager to meet them! Monday (no school), I hung out with Corey and then along with Dan too during the evening after he got off work. We had a great time playing Scrabble, I do not think I have really played that game before but it was fun!

Tuesday was a crazy day because my classes were following Monday's schedule so that took a moment to get used to, my Monday schedule is way more relaxed then my Tuesday's schedule so it was almost nice to have Mon-Wed-Thurs week of classes. It was definitely a tough week at school with several midterms and term papers along with a various mix of other lovely homework.

Friday was my friend's birthday (Melissa). A bunch of us threw together a surprise party for her and it was my job to bring her. I had struggles in getting Melissa to go to dinner with me which was understandable because she wanted to hang with more people but it worked and she was surprised! After dinner, 4 of us headed off to the movies to see 27 Dresses which was a great chick flick!

Saturday was kind of a big day for me as I was meeting Corey's parents. We met them at this nice little pizzeria on Federal Hill. They are really nice and funny people that are easy to get along with. It was a pleasant and humorous afternoon and I definitely enjoyed meeting them! After that, I headed to Carrie's house to hang out since both our guys were out at this wrestling event. I love hanging out with Carrie! I can be my complete crazy self around her!

Life has been crazy and jam packed and full of adventure and I'm trying to take it all one day at a time! So farewell until the next post!

1st Weekend Back In RI!

I had a great and smooth day of flying, just long and tiring however. I was so happy to see a familiar face at the Providence Airport waiting to pick me up. Melissa, my amazing friend and sister in Christ, picked me up and took me to her apartment where we hung out and had a great night together!

Corey, my guy, picked me up on Friday to take me back to my dorm. Its been a tad bit hard getting back into the swing of things but I'm managing good and my pain from the sledding accident is getting better everyday. Friday night, I hung out with Melissa, had a great dinner together then we ran around downtown Providence exploring things. It was so much fun learning new things. Then I capped off my night by seeing the movie Alvin & The Chipmunks which was a really cute movie!

On Saturday, I worked on catching up on my sleep. Then I went with a group of friends from my hall, West Hall to go get my roommate, Allison, from the airport. The airline left her luggage behind at JFK airport so we reluctantly went home without it. Allison and I ordered pizza and grabbed another friend to play a board game together. It was great catching up with friends again!

On Sunday, I went to church and grabbed lunch with friends. Melissa dropped Allison and I off at our dorm where I worked on organizing and unpacking some more along with doing some homework. Then I went with Melissa to go pick up our other friend Carrie from the airport. While we were at the airport, instead of doing short term parking, we were sitting in the terminal where you are required to actively load passengers. Melissa left me with the car to go find Carrie. The cop monitoring things came over and was like move the car! I said I cannot it is my friends. Melissa was not answering her phone. The cop said you have 2 minutes to move it then he went to the front of the car and got the license plate and make/model of the car. As soon as he did that, I hopped into Melissa's car and took off. I finally got ahold of her and was like um, I have your car and I'm making a loop, be back shortly. It was quite funny to say the least. Afterwards, the three of us grabbed dinner together and had a great time catching up!

I'm going to call it a night for now! School is starting again tomorrow and I have to get back into the grind! I hope everyone had a Happy New Year!!

My Weekend!

I had a great weekend this weekend and I hope everyone else did too! I'm coming back to Idaho on December 20th!!!!

On Friday night, I went out to dinner and then to a hockey game with my 2 guy friends, Dan and Corey. They are really funny guys that are part of my church group. The hockey game was great, it was Providence Bruins vs. Chicago Wolves and a few fights broke out on the ice!

On Saturday, I went out to lunch with some girls from church and then we went over to one of their houses and hung out for a while. It was so nice just to be with friends and relax!

On Sunday, I went to church and then out to lunch with some friends from church. Then one of my other friends treated me to a special jungle acrobat show at the Providence Performing Arts Center.

Overall, it was a great relaxing weekend! However, this week is going to be a long and busy one!

My Amazing Weekend!

This past Friday, I met up with my collegiate church group known as CSF (Christian Student Fellowship) at 2pm. I was very excited, we were going away for the weekend to Vermont for an event called Fusion where other collegiate church groups were meeting for the weekend.

I arrive and two of my friends/group members approach me and ask if I can drive a car with a clutch and if I was comfortable doing so. I replied yes and was handed a set of car keys. Apparently, we had an extra car but no one was able to drive it because it was a clutch.

The drive up to Vermont was so beautiful with all the fall leaves on the trees, God's handiwork is so amazing. It was not too terribly long of a drive, about 4 1/2 hours or so.

The conference was happening in Burlington,Vermont which is practically on the border of Vermont and New York. We had 4 church sessions which were pretty amazing. We stayed in the Fairfield Inn which was a nice hotel that suprised us all when they provided us with an extra room for free (you just can't expect 4 guys to be willing to share a room with 2 beds).

There were the pastor, his wife, and their 2 kids, then their were 4 guys and 6 girls. Out of the whole group, there were only 2 freshman and me and the other freshman got along really well and I see a bright future friendship with her.

Some activities that we did:
First Night:
Bonfire after church with smores. The bonfire was so hot that we practically burned our eyebrows off trying to roast the marshmellows.

Saturday Afternoon:
Exploring downtown Burlington which happened to be called Church Street. Church Street is a mixture of 4 city blocks filled with shops and then also a 2 floor indoor mall with anchor store such as Macy's.

The drive home was amusing for me because I started to understand east coast driving and all its craziness. For instance, I was going about 20-25mph over the speed limit and I blew past several cops, at least one of them that I know of were clocking, I was shocked when the cops did not pull me over. I was following some other group from church and I was keeping up with traffic and yes I was being blown off the roads at times as well for when I dropped my speed way down.

Then to top off the weekend, 4 of us got together and had Sunday dinner together. Such a great ending!

This weekend was absolutely amazing and I thought that it was a really great way to start the week out!

What an Amazing Weekend!!!!!

Wow! This weekend was the best one yet in Rhode Island!

This weekend was wonderful! Plus I did not have school on Monday so that made it all the better! Friday, I got picked up by a girl from church named Melissa along with a few other girls and we all headed to Melissa's apartment. We made dinner (Yeah! It was like 11 bucks for dinner fixings for 7 people and leftovers!) and watched a couple of movies and hung out. It was a lot of fun. Half of us sleptover at Melissa's apartment, including me.

I did not get home until mid afternoon on Saturday and the whole thing was a blast. Then on Saturday night around 7pm about 10 of us got together from church and went to Waterfire (waterfire.org for more info). This Saturday was a special one for breast cancer awareness so there were a lot of other events going on and the capital building was changed to pink lights so it was pink instead of the usual light which was cool. It was hard to keep us all together with all those people but we managed and we had a lot of fun just hanging out.

On Sunday, I went to church (Grace Harbor Community Church) and the message was good. Afterwards, around 10 of us got together and carpooled to Woonsocket, Rhode Island to go to this Autumnfest which was basically like a little town fair. After that, we went to Melissa's apartment and watched a couple of movies.

I love my new church friends. They are so nice to be around and its comforting to be around some girls that have the love of God just pouring out of them and they are so supportive of me.

Then on Monday, I did not have school. I ate breakfast with my friend Nicolette from Boston who is fun to be with. Then I walked to the train station to greet Courtney, my friend from New Jersey. After I got home with Courtney, I worked on a couple of things and then went and met Betsy, my friend from New Jersey. Once Betsy got settled in, we, meaning Courtney, Betsy, and me all hung out in Courtney's room. We had "snack time" then "nap time" Nap time was hilarious, all three of us crammed into a twin bed and took a nap. While we were napping, Courtney's roommate and some friends came walking in and stared at us. We all popped out of the covers one by one and by the time I popped out, they were like oh my gosh there's another one!

Yes, my weekend was great and I cannot wait for the next one since my parents are coming!

My Weekend, Church, & Friends

This weekend by far has probably been the most dramatic, interesting weekend of my life. I am not going to go into detail too much on it but there were some extreme moments going on.

I found a great new friend named Betsy, she means a lot to me and I've only known her for a week. She is going to bring a lot of excitement to my life with her great sense of humor. We've practically hung out everyday except for the one day I was gone at the Patriots game. She is from New Jersey and is studying Hotel Management as well. We help each other out in all sorts and ways and she lives on the 3rd floor which isn't too far away.

I also made some church friends. On Friday night, I went out with my church group, Tuesday Night Truth aka TNT, and we went out to dinner and just socialized together and got to know each other. Through that, I got to know some TNT people better and one of them showed me where church was on the way home from dinner.

Since my usual Sunday workings at the Patriots game was cancelled due to lack of drivers, I went to church. It was wonderful although very small and you could definetely feel a sense of unity in this church family. After church, a huge part of the church went to lunch at the mall. I got to eat lunch with the Pastor and his family and got to know them better. I think I can finally say that they will always be there for me and will be a great support system for me!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

My New Life!!!

Hey Everyone!!!

I was having some internet difficulties so I took a trip to starbucks and got onto to the internet so that way I could update ya'll!!! (Yeah my roommate is from Tennessee).

So flights/trip out on Friday was pretty uneventful, just long and tiring day. Do have to say that I wouldn't particulary want to fly into Newark, New Jersey again. However, my flight from Newark to Providence was the best for a few reasons. It was funny in the way I spent an hour on the runway and it only took us 30 minutes to fly to Providence. The flight was the best because of all the crazy people around me. That was a ton of fun! I arrived in Providence with a personal driver to greet me. He took me to my hotel, helped me get my stuff inside and waited to make sure I had reservations.

Now my hotel was pretty sweet. I'll be posting pics here of it soon. It was probably one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed in. I was lucky to find it since it is so close to my dorms, I only had to walk 2 blocks to move my stuff in.

Saturday morning, I moved my stuff into my dorm. My roommate was scheduled to arrive on Sunday so I delayed in unpacking my stuff so that way if she wanted to move things around it wouldn't be a hassle. I had orientation all day on Saturday and I met a girl from India. If I happen to find her again somewhere on campus, I think we will be good friends. She is also studying hotel management. I made a few other friends throughout the course of the day as well. I went to a hypnotist show which was extremely funny.

Sunday, I ran into 2 friends from my April visit to the school and we went running around for awhile. Then I helped 2 people move in but they were so cranky and had so much stuff I let them be after a while. My roommate arrived at lunchtime and I went and met her. Have to say she is a really quiet person but I think we will work out fine. I had 2 more hours of orientation left so I made plans to meet up with my roommate later. We met back up and spent a couple hours rearranging the room until it was just right. Later that night, I went to a comedy show with two of my friends, David & Dom (short for Dominique) and after the show, there was a huge celebration celebrating the start of the school's new year.

Monday, I had a hospitality welcome meeting and then there was the convocation ceremony which was interesting yet a little drawn out in my opinion. Afterwards, I went shopping to Wal-Mart. I was suprised to see a Wal-Mart made of brick and was slightly dismayed with the store and mass quantities of people and the really empty shelves from all the back to schoolers. I bought some must haves and decided to wait on the others. Good thing I did because I had just the perfect amount of stuff to carry and messed up the bus system and it took me almost 2 hours to find a bus to take me home. I could have walked home in that amount of time but uncertainity of the safety of neighborhoods held me back. Although, the bus stop I did end up choosing was a little iffy since it was this huge high rise building with low rent housing and no AC so everyone was out on the front lawn in chairs just sitting there, so that was kind of awkard to see so many people just sitting there and doing nothing. After a quick dinner, I went to check out some of the clubs that JWU has to offer. All the clubs and greek life set up booths out on the court yard between my dorm hall, the school library, and another dorm all. This court yard is called the Gaebe commons and is a huge place for partying ;)

After checking out the clubs, I went shopping at the Providence Place Mall, more particulary, I wanted to go the Bed Bath & Beyond to get a new comfy dorm chair with a gift card that someone gave me (thanks by the way!). I ended up buying the chair, a mini ironing board, a surge protector power strip, and 24 hangers which was a mistake because I had a mile to walk. Well it doesn't help either when you walk the wrong way and get lost in a unfamiliar city and you have all this stuff to carry and its getting darker and darker by the minute and all these security cars are coming out of the woodwork. After several moments of wandering I finally walked in JWU territory where all the light poles have JWU signs and JWU buses were running around. Much relieved I hiked on home.

At home, in my concrete box, I was having internet issues so I took the journey to Starbucks which leads me into my next blog. I somehow find adventure everywhere I go.

Recent Weekend Adventures!

Hey All!

This weekend was wonderful and it blows into the final week! It is now the final countdown for sure!

On Friday evening, my family and I did a father-daughter catering dinner at Calvary Chapel Boise. The catering went splendidly!

My family and I awoke at 6am to create 63 box lunches for another catering. After being busy bees, Dad and I went off to do some last minute shopping for my goodbye party. The party started at 2pm and was wonderful. Many family and friends showed up and thanks to everyone that did! I will miss all of you guys!!! To keep the festivities going, some of my friends and I headed off to the movies to catch one last movie together! We saw Rush Hour 3 which was funny.

On Sunday, my family and I went to the movies to see the Nanny Diaries, it was not so much a comedy but rather an insight into the lives of uppity people back east. Afterwards, we headed off for a lunch/dinner (Lunnar) at Texas Roadhouse. I would have to say that I do not recomend getting a caesar salad but the ribs were good! My caesar salad had some sand in it and made me chip my tooth :( I didn't let that bring down my day and my family headed off for a nice afternoon stroll at Kathryn Albertsons park. We then drove around town and looked at some of the old houses that we have lived in throughout my life, and guess what, my original house was for sell again! I guess I must have jinxed that house ;)

I'm happy that I get to spend time with my parents before I head off to Rhode Island. I'm going to be spending my final week getting packed up and saying goodbye to everyone! So if you want to hang out or see me, let me know and email me at blumenla@gmail.com. Sorry this blog was so long, I'll try to make them shorter ;)