Day Eight: A Walk Down Memory Lane and Lots and Lots of Books

As promised, today was much more eventful than yesterday. Because we are quite awesome, as you all know. We got up at about 7:20 and took mom and Jonathan to work so we could have the car. Then we drove back home to eat and finish getting ready.

We hit downtown at about 10 and walked around for a good while, popping in and out of little shops and checking out the cool (overpriced) things they had. We strayed away from downtown and found an Auburn University school-spirit store, Tiger Rags. I bought an Auburn shirt, of course. They had cute little baby shoes, which Hilary enjoyed quite a bit.

After that, I took Hilary down to my old junior high and showed her around campus, telling her where my old classes were and who my teachers were and where I met some of my friends. It was really fun to suddenly remember all those things from the year that I spent here. I hope I didn't bore her to death with all my random stories. Around the back of the school is this courtyard-type-lookin-thing (picture below), and if you stand in the middle and talked, you could hear yourself echo... But it wasn't really and echo, it was more like you were talking into your own ears... Yeah, I can't describe it, but Hilary and I found it quite fascinating.

After relaxing there for a bit, we headed back downtown and went to the famous Toomer's Drug store. Also known as Toomer's Corner. Toomer's lemonade is THE best lemonade in the world, hands down. They literally squeeze the lemons right in front of you and you can watch them make it from scratch and it is amazingly delicious! Hilary bought one and I got one for me and one for my mom. So then we walked over to the library where she works, and we were both shocked by the extremely cold air conditioning. I think I liked it more than Hilary. We delivered my mommy her lemonade, which she appreciated, and met some of her co-workers. And then we were off again!

There is this really sketchy shop behind a restaurant called "Da Gallery", and I've been in there before with a couple of my old friends, and I wanted to show Hilary it just because it was really weird... But when we got back there, it was a lot shadier than I remembered, so we just kinda stared at it for a minute and walked away. And that's all.

We weren't really hungry for lunch, but it was around two and we figured we should eat a little something before dinner, but we didn't want to fill ourselves. So we made the fantastically brilliant choice to go to the cute little frozen yogurt shop down the road. We shared 10 ounces of pure delight. A wonderful lunch, in my opinion. I think we sat in the little shop for an hour, just talking, munching on froyo and watching bits and pieces of The Office and Friends that happened to be playing on the TV there.

After much debate, and after Hilary tried to convince me that it wasn't that far to walk home, which made me laugh and complain, Hilary and I went back into the chilly library and wandered through seemingly endless bookshelves of thousands of reference books on every subject and person you could imagine. We didn't really have a mission, so I just took lots of random pictures.

We made it back to mom's office and waited a bit for her to get finished with work. So we chilled out in a conference room and Hilary drew a pretty spiffy picture of her friend and I just doodled as we listened to music. Not to much later, Jonathan picked us up and we were on our way home from a long day! Hilary and I took our leftover chili upstairs and watched two movies: The Tourist and Casino Royale, both of which neither of us had seen before. They were both pretty good, but Hilary and I were a little bummed that nothing in The Tourist blew up... Oh well.

And now the day has ended, and my nose is quite pink... Another adventure tomorrow! Thanks for reading!

--Sarah

Samford Hall at Auburn University

Day Seven: A Whole Lot of Nothing and Some Taco Salad

Guess what! We did absolutely nothing today! I know, that's probably exactly what you wanted to read about today, about the endless hours wasted by stalking our friends on Facebook. We're becoming professionals at it, really.

Well, we woke up at 12:30 this afternoon, after going to sleep at about 2:30. After that we had some brunch which consisted of a bagel and a peach. Then we wasted our time on the computer, not really achieving anything at all. We finally got out of the house when we left with Jonathan to pick up mom from work, but that was only like 20 minutes.

Then, after much whining on my part, Hilary managed to drag me out of the house and we took a walk for a half hour down the road. We had some much needed girl-talk. One would thing that after being with each other 24/7 for the past week, we would run out of things to talk about, but that really isn't the case. Not yet anyway.

After that, we came home and ate some delicious taco salad with Jonathan's homemade chili. YUMM. I really think it's the best chili in the world. I could eat it all the time. We played more Phase 10, believe it or not, and talked some more, believe it or not. Then we made our way upstairs to the computers for our usual routine. And now here we are.

Not much fun to read about, I bet. We actually have good plans for tomorrow, so stick around. Thanks for reading!

--Sarah

Day Six: Jumping Out of Planes and a Giant Smoothie

Now, before any of you freak out... NO, we did not jump out a plane today, don't worry. Hilary and I got up early this morning and Jonathan took us over to Fort Benning in Georgia. And we felt all cool and stuff because we were on military property. Our initial mission was to renew my ID card, but there was a line of 237394875 people and we had to make an appointment. So we decided to just forget about it and do it at a different base at a different time. Then we went to the Base Exchange which is kind of like a little mall sort of thing. I bought some new shoes and Hilary bought herself some pretty sweet Aviator sunglasses. 8)

After some intense grocery shopping, Jonathan gave us a little tour and we watched soldiers jump out of towers and stuff. Then we made our way over to the drop zone so we could watch soldiers jump out of airplanes! Unfortunately, they were way behind schedule, so we had to wait like an hour. Luckily, Hilary brought her laptop and we watched "Rat Race" while we waited. Finally, the planes showed up one by one and we got to see little specks with parachutes jump out of gigantic planes (pictures below). It was pretty cool!

We finally made it back several hours later, picked up mom from work and headed home. Hilary and I didn't stay long, however. We were soon off to Hickory Dickory park, which is by FAR, the coolest park I have ever been to (pictures below). Hilary and I played on the swings, played hide-and-go-seek-tag with some random kids while their mothers laughed and cheered them on. And of course, we planked. Now, if you don't know what planking is, don't worry, it's not bad. It's actually quite pointless, like most things teenagers do. It's where you lay down on something, like a bench, or a railing, or anything, and lay stick-straight, like a board (pictures below). Hilary is a planking pro.

Exhausted from the park, we drove over to Smoothie King, who has the most delicious smoothies in the world. AND, they have all that good stuff that makes it good for you. Hilary and I got 40 ounces of this tropical stuff. Papaya, mango, and something else that I don't remember, but it was quite delicious and we devoured it in no time.

When we returned home, we all joined together and watched "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"... Apparently that is one of those movies that I can only see once, because I didn't find it as amusing as I did the first time. But Hilary says she could watch that movie over and over. And now I'm blogging at one in the morning, again.

See, I told you today's entry would be more exciting than yesterdays! Thanks for reading!

--Sarah

PLANKING!

Day Five: Peach Ice Cream and How to Successfully Cure Hiccups

The day started out as a normal day, starting at 11:30 this morning. Bright and early! We had some leftover enchiladas for lunch, played some more Phase 10, which seems to be occurring a lot lately, and made some peach ice cream. For some strange reason, we didn't think to take pictures. But let me tell you, it was good! And we even got to use mom's super cool ice cream maker!

So, really the whole day kind of wasted away doing silly nonsense and messing around in the kitchen and on the computers. When dinner time rolled around, we had BBQ sandwiches and Brunswick stew, which is quite yummy, by the way.

And now, a lesson on how to successfully cure the hiccups. First, take a bit of water into your mouth. Then, tilt your head back. After that, plug your ears. Swallow. Return to normal position. And ta-da! Your hiccups should be gone, according to my mother. However, when Hilary had tried to cure her hiccups this evening, it seems she didn't follow the directions exactly as told. She took a big gulp of flavored water, tilted her head back, plugged her ears, and swallowed. But apparently she didn't swallow it all, because some of it attempted to sneak down into her lungs. So after choking a bit on her drink, and spewing some on my arm and her clothing, Hilary recovered. And her hiccups were cured! Though whether it was from my mother's theory or simply because she scared them out of her system, we're not entirely sure.

After that, Hilary and I played a thrilling game of Life. She won with 6 children and a whole lot of money. I lived a sad life, really. I kept having to pay people for random things. Anyway, afterwards, we watched the interestingly silly musical movie, Mama Mia, which Hilary had never seen. But, telling from the quiet giggling next to me, I think she enjoyed it. And no, Pierce Brosnon, you cannot sing.

So, a slightly uneventful day. I promise tomorrow's will be more interesting. Thanks for reading!

--Sarah

Day Four: Senile Tendencies and Kitchen Catastrophes

Today wasn't too exciting over all, but a few funny things happened. If you can imagine that...

At 8:30 this morning, Hilary and I left to go the the "young single adult" branch for church. Because it was summer time, there were about 30 people there, if that. During the first hour, we were both struggling to keep our eyes open, to be honest. Luckily, things picked up during sunday school with the quite animated teacher, Joe. But the funny story occured at the beginning of sunday school. Joe asked Hilary and I to stand up and introduce ourselves. So, I stood up and said, "Hi, I'm Hilary." It was only when I looked down at the REAL Hilary that I realized that I was actually Sarah. Whoops. So everyone got a good laugh, Hilary made fun of me, blah blah blah. It was pretty amusing.

After three hours of church, we came home, ate some lunch, played a riveting game of Phase 10, and not much else happened. Eventually, dinner time rolled around, which brings us to another story.

The preparations of my mom's delicious chicken enchiladas began as normal. Sauteed some onions and peppers, made the sauce, grated the cheese. Somehow, on my way through the kitchen, I managed to hit the pan of sauteed onions, sending them flying to the floor. Luckily, they weren;t hot and only half of them were ruined. IN MY DEFENSE: my dear mother had set the pan on the stove with the handle pointing OUT. Poor kitchen safety, in my opinion... I love you, mom! :D

That was soon forgotten, and we ate dinner, which was delicious, by the way! Not to brag, but my mother makes the best chicken enchiladas in the world. Another intense game of Phase 10 was played between Hilary, my mom and I, and me and my mad skills won.

A couple days ago, Hilary and I went through my mom's/Jonathan's movie collection and picked out all the movies we want to watch while we're here in Alabama. They totalled to 36 movies. So tonight, Hilary's choice was "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"... And odd movie, to say the least. I mean, yeah, I had a feeling it would be weird, but... Wow. It was still good though. And I understand a couple more movie references now.

So, it was another short day, not much done. But still a good one. Thanks for reading!

--Sarah

Day Three: Rain, Kittens, and the Boy Who Lived Again

The day really began after Hilary and I ventured out in the late morning heat for a late morning walk. We headed out at about 11:30 for what was first thought as usual exercise. Soon, it began misting... Then drizzling... Then raining... Then pouring. And in no time, the fronts of our clothes were soaked to the skin, although our backsides were completely dry. But a little rain never hurt anyone besides the Wicked Witch of the West, and although I've had my doubts, Hilary isn't her and neither am I. So, an hour later, we arrived home, wet but content. Turns out July Alabama heat and the rain makes perfect walking/jogging weather.

After a bit of lunch, the whole household was out and on our way to the movie theater to see none other than Harry Potter. Yes, in fact, Hilary and I DID see it just yesterday. What's your point? You just can't get enough of Harry Potter, it's as simple as that. Although, I'm glad we had seen it the night before, because the little girl next to me was snoring my ear off. At least she was adorable.

Not much happened after that. We had pancakes and bacon for dinner, Hilary and I played a little Phase 10, we played with the kittens and took lots of pictures with them and here we are now. Although it's not two in the morning, because we have to be up in eight hours for church.

A simple, short post for a simple, short day. Thanks for reading!

--Sarah

Day Two: Sir Poops-a-Lot and the Boy Who Lived

Are you intrigued yet? Because you should be.

Today was quite an interesting day, I will admit. After sleeping in a bit, Hilary, Mom and I were off to Phenix City to pick up two little kittens who have yet to be named. Well, I must amend that statement... Mom and I were there to get the kittens, Hilary was there to see the cutest little baby girl, Naomi. And she was quite adorable. I'll spare you from most of the details, but after a little struggling and the releasing of their breakfast, the kittens were taken out of the Huggies diaper box and Hilary and I held them while mom drove to the vet. Unfortunately, Hilary ended up with the leaky cat who then proceeded to release his breakfast on her from the end of his body. If it makes Hilary feel any better, he shared some with me too. And so we have Sir Poops-a-Lot, and we're done talking about that now.

The appointment at the vet's office went fairly well. They don't have kitty luekemia, which is always a plus. And they are being treated for other bad kitty stuff, so they should be nice and healthy in no time! When we got home, mom even built them a little apartment and they are currently snoozing away, happy little kittens.

After Hilary and I made a delicious green salad and cooked up some freezer pizzas (we're classy), we proceeded upstairs and watched the new(ish) Star Trek movie, which Hilary had never seen before. But did she like it?! And I quote, "It was like an invasion of my brain. Flippin' amazing. Hot guy. Done." I think it would be safe to assume that she enjoyed it, no?

And, now... The moment you've all been waiting for.....

WE SAW HARRY POTTER. And I know, you're probably thinking: "Why didn't you see the midnight showing?!" My dear friends, it appears that Auburn, Alabama likes Harry Potter more than we thought. Our busy schedules before our flight prevented us from purchasing tickets via Fandango, and by the time we got here, all the tickets had sold out. But, life goes on, thankfully, because we just got out of the theater an hour ago!

I can't... I can't even explain how intensely awesome the movie was. GUH, it was just amazing. We both enjoyed it thoroughly. Neville Longbottom? He's a beast. Just saying. Not to mention, we'll be seeing it again tomorrow with Mom and Jonathan.

Well, that's all for now. It's 2:50 AM. Luckily we get to sleep in tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

--Sarah

And here's some more photos from the movie theater.