Slowing Down Time

So, just a warning, this post is going to be about how I had so much fun with one of my best friends this weekend.  It might make you insanely jealous, just so you know.  And it might be slightly sappy because I am in a slightly sappy mood.

Friday I was slightly annoyed with Jake because he wouldn't tell me when he was getting to EL.  I figured he was running late as usual and didn't want to tell me how late he was going to be.  Boy was I wrong.  I got out of work at 3PM and got a text at 3:25 from him asking why I had a doormat.  He hasn't seen my doormat... so I run to the door and he was here :)

After spending a couple (or 3 or 4 or 5...) of hours catching up (Jake commented that I was being as hyper as you, Christine.  I told him it was just because I was soooooo excited!) we decided to go do this "date night special" at FunTyme.  It included 2 pieces of pizza, 2 drinks, nachos, 2 rounds of mini golf, and 20 game tokens for the arcade.  All for $20!  Not bad!  We ate first and the pizza slices were surprisingly good but also very small and we didn't get free refills on our drinks.  The nachos were good though!  Next we moved on to mini golf.  We ended up behind a group of older people who took quite a while, but we were able to chat with them as we went around the course and it was fun.  I made a hole in one!!!! And they all cheered for me.  It was really cute.  I ended up beating Jake by 1 (he claimed he let me win).  Unfortunately, it was too late for us to play the arcade games since they closed at 10, so we got our tokens and decided to come back the following night to play the games.

Saturday was another eventful day.  We got up early, which was impressive considering our 2 AM bedtime, and left to go to Waterloo Recreation Center.  It was about an hour's drive away.  Apparently you are supposed to pay $10 when you renew your license plate to be able to get in for free, but I didn't do that.  They said since my license plate expires in September, though, that I was okay and to just pay when I renew.  We found this hilarious because no one looked at our license almost all day.  At our last stop someone did ask if we had a pass, but we quickly explained how we were supposed to get in for free and he just waved us through.  Didn't even look at our license plate. 

Anyways, we started by going to the beach.  It was pretty small and we decided we wanted to go hiking first anyways.  So we left and started driving towards the hiking spots.  Now, this park was really spread out.  And as we're driving to the hiking spot, I realize the place we used to show horses is IN THE PARK.  Seriously.  So we stop and I showed Jake around the horse show grounds.  It was eerily quiet without a show going on.  Next we ended up getting a little lost.  We had a GPS with us, but decided not to use it because we thought finding our own way was more adventurous.  But the map lied to us.  There definitely WASN'T a hiking trail where they said there would be one.  So we decided to go to the next stop.  On the way, we saw another lake (there was something like 13 lakes in this park.)  We stopped and took pictures (which I would show you, but I lost the cord for my camera and so can't download pictures.)  We then decided to switch driving and as soon as Jake got in the driver's seat, he realized we were almost out of gas.  And we were also in the middle of nowhere.  Oops.  Well since we had to pass the next hiking spot on our way out of the park, we decided to stop anyways.

Upon getting to the hiking trail, we realized there were 2 paths we could take.  We decided to take the path less traveled... But what a bad idea that turned out to be.  We were SWARMED by sweat bees.  For some reason they liked me more than Jake and I had a good 30-40 flying above my head.  I think it might have been my lavender shampoo.  They wouldn't go away so I started running, but the just flew with me.  I ran almost the entire trail and once I got out, they were still there.  Jake caught up (I think he wanted to enjoy the trail, but the bugs were driving me insane.)  He helped kill the bugs flying around my head.  And then decided to go on another, shorter trail.  It lead to a dead end, so we had to turn around and come back.  Some bugs followed me on that trail as well, but not as many. 

By that point we were both hot and sweaty and done with the bugs.  So we headed to the air-conditioned nature center.  They had pretty rocks which we looked at and a cool bee colony.  We searched for the queen bee, but couldn't find her so we moved on to the gift shop.  After thoroughly examining everything in the small gift shop, we moved on to the "live animal room".  We learned about "ant lions" which are these small, tick-like creatures that live in sand and form sand pits.  The sign near them said to catch an ant and throw it into one of the sand pits they formed and observe.  I then saw an unlucky ant running across the table top... Poor ant.  We threw it in and the ant lion gobbled it up.  They also had Monarch butterflies.  Well caterpillars and cocoons.  We learned it takes the caterpillar about 30 minutes to shed it's skin and form the cocoon.  How cool!  They also had eggs, which were super super tiny.  The Cocoons were so pretty we were almost convinced they were fake.  They all had this pretty gold around the green cocoon.  It looked like they were decorated. 

Next, we decided we should probably find some gas for the car.  Plus we were hungry.  So we used the GPS to find the closest gas station, and were able to fill up BEFORE we ran out of gas.  Good thing because the person who saves me when I run out of gas with with me... Then we stopped at Subway and split a pulled pork barbecue sub as well as a meatball sub.  The pulled pork was sooooo good. 

Then back to the beach.  But it was really hot and humid.  And crowded.  And I didn't want to get my hair wet and Jake didn't want to get his shorts wet because we were headed to a party next.  So we didn't stay for long.

We went to my trainer's summer party.  It was fun to see riding friends I hadn't seen in so long.  We also walked around and got to pet all the horses.  Jake really liked the big black mare (girl horse).  Except he couldn't accept it was a girl and kept calling it a "him" lol.  My first dressage trainer was there and she is a sailor and invited us to go sailing at her summer cottage.  We just might have to do that sometime...

Then back home.  We stopped at the arcade to use up the tokens from the previous night.  We had fun playing skee-ball and other assorted arcade games.  By the time we had used up our 20 tokens, we had 97 tickets.  I think we drove the lady at the prize counter crazy because we were there for a good 20 minutes deciding what we wanted.  We ended up with a gray boxing kangaroo pen, 4 sour patch-like candies, a tootsie roll pop for Jake, and a flower ring for me.  We are going to take turns having the kangaroo pen.  I told Jake I'd take a picture of it everyday and send it to him.  Today's picture was the kangaroo holding up a sign saying he missed Jake but it would only be 24 more days until he got to see him.  The note was signed nameless since he doesn't yet have a name.  Hopefully that will be fixed soon.  Unfortunately Jake won't get to see the picture because the cord for my camera is still missing (no, it didn't magically reappear in the past 20 minutes as I've been writing this blog entry.)

Then some shopping to look for a silver necklace chain.  Unfortunately we came back home empty-handed. 

Today we got up semi-early, went to Meijer's (okay, or Meijer... apparently I say it wrong) to get bolt cutters since Jake forgot the combination to his bike lock.  We freed his bike, packed up, and then headed to Jackson to visit his grandparents.  They were absolutely adorable and so, so, so excited to see Jake.  We spent some time talking and enjoying delicious berry smoothies his grandma made us.  His grandparents are such a cute couple- as he puts it, his grandma is very bull-headed and his grandpa is ornery.  They constantly bicker good-naturedly.  His grandpa told me I should transfer to Illinois, lol.  I wish.  He also invited me to go to his Florida condo this winter.  haha.  Again, I wish.  My parents do own a condo in the same complex in Florida, though (how weird is that?!  My grandparents used to live there and my parents inherited it when they passed away.)  Anyways, his grandparents live right off of a lake and have a pontoon boat, so we spent some time chatting and enjoying the water.  Unfortunately, all too soon, it was time to leave.  I got to steer the boat back to the dock and I think got bonus points with his grandpa for not crashing, lol. 

And now I am once again all alone.  And wishing Illinois wasn't so far away.  But I do think I have the best non-boyfriend ever.  Just saying.  Don't get too jealous.  I did warn you.