T minus 13 days

Wow, I am terrible at blogging consistently.  I'll have to rectify that.
So, life has continued to move extremely fast.  Quick narrative:
I spent May 29-30 in St. Paul at my friend Madeline's house with some friends from college; it was a very enjoyable weekend, we had a lot of fun!  We even spent a considerable amount of time at the Mall of America, including Nickelodeon Universe.  I don't have tons of pictures to choose from...

    Later that week, I spent time with some friends back home.  We went to a favorite local haunt called John Dough's Pizza, and took a walk down to the park where there was a car show and musicians playing, though the main draw was the fireworks that shot off after dusk.  Wish I had a photo of that haha.  I'll miss the Fourth of July fireworks this year, I'll probably be in the air or in China.  Sad.

Anyway, so that following Sunday the 5th, John and I helped Nathan move into his new apartment in Maple Grove, MN.  He moved there for his brand new job after graduation, so we helped him with a few things.  It's a nice area, nice big apartment, roommate seems like a nice guy (he is an SJU grad also, though from a few years before).  We also went out to eat at a place called Cowboy Jack's in Plymouth, which turned out to be part of a chain Nathan and I would frequent in the coming weeks.

June 10 I went to Nathan's sister's graduation party.  She's been like a sister to me, so it was nice to see her again. :)

Sunday June 12 my college friends and I went up to my roommate Justin's cabin for some relaxation on the dock and in the boat.  Good times were had by all!

 I still have not figured out how to stack photos in here, so...deal with it.  Anywho, we had a wonderful weekend (Sunday-Monday), and after that I headed to the Twin Cities to spend time with my brother and sister, do some shopping, and hang out with Nathan at his new residence.  The week was well spent, I stayed at Savannah and Matt's Monday through Thursday.  Tuesday I attended a leadership conference with my friend Isaac, who was attending on behalf of our common friend Kamau who was supposed to accept a leadership award.  There were a lot of wonderful speakers, and even a nice lunch!  The rest of my week was spent visiting with my siblings and friends, and shopping for China!










Also during this week (while I was away from home) my passport finally came!  I had all my paperwork gathered up beforehand so that in case it came while I was gone my mother could send out my passport to the Chinese Embassy in Chicago to get my Visa, which she did.  Hopefully the Visa and Passport will come back by the end of this week!

The weekend of June 18th was Father's Day, and also my brother Matt was up for a wedding.  We also had my grandparents over for dinner on Sunday, it was nice to see them again!  I hope dad had a nice day :)  We took some family photos that day, we'll see how they turn out!  Mom also arranged our diploma frames on the wall (she is so proud to have us all through college, although my diploma hasn't come yet).  And Mom also had us hang some Chinese characters in the bathroom, which mean Love, Happiness, Tranquility and Harmony. Also, Saturday night John and I went visiting to our friend Lori!  We had a fun time reminiscing and playing music that night.  John and I ever have our own special chairs in Lori's house.

On June 21st I headed once again to the cities to run some errands, including picking up some luggage from my sister that I forgot to grab (essential for those pesky trans-pacific flights).  On the way down I ran into some extremely heavy flash-rains, which even caused flooding in St. Cloud.  When I got down to the cities I visited with my brother and sister a bit, grabbed the luggage, then went out to supper with Savannah and Nathan at El Lorro, which was very nice.  Then we went and bought a pinata for my going away party.  'Hello Kitty' seemed appropriate.  Whenever you go into a Chinese restaurant in the US, look around.  You are very likely to see some sort of cat like figure, which the owners (the owners of Chinese restaurants around my hometown tend to be Hmong or Vietnamese and first generation in the US) will describe as 'Hello Kitty'.  I also spent the evening with Nathan, we went to the bar and then crashed at his new apartment.  Also, my sister's dog Winter Moon Von Santa Pants made an appearance.  I forgot to mention that he sheds a ton right now due to losing his winter coat, and everything I owned when I stayed there for a week was covered in dog hair.  Also, the bar Nathan and I went to was called Mad Jack's, and we went there two weeks in a row and had the same waitress.  And she remembered us, so maybe Nathan will become a local there!

Seriously, it is way difficult to arrange pictures on this blog.  But, after returning home, I'm now in the final stages of prepping for China and having a going away party!  So, in light of that, I've moved my staging area from upstairs (where I was taking care of paperwork, etc.) to the basement, which I've almost completely cleaned of any trace that I have ever lived here.  Sad. :(  But, I'm practicing packing, seeing how much I can actually bring, and making sure anything I want to leave here is appropriately stored.

A majority of the stuff I am leaving behind seems to be music based.  And I'm okay with that, haha.  Well, that's about all for now.  Just waiting for the Visa and Passport to come back, then I can purchase my airline ticket.  Tomorrow at 11am I'm headed to St. Cloud with some friends to attend the Lemonade Concert & Art Fair at SCSU which should be great fun!

Stay safe, talk to you soon!