Walter comes home from England!

Walter arrived home in the mail yesterday, finally, after his long overseas journey! He came back with so many stories, and so many wonderful souvineers! Thanks so much EssHaych!

Here's Walter and Bobby, my new eggbert (he's so cute!), with the aodrable place guard guy, an essex map puzzle pin (which is going on my school bag!) and a huge plethora of postcards! And some southend candy! Nom =] Oh, and check out that little scarf she made Walter! Love it!
She even got me craft supplies for painting and sewing! I love the brightly coloured thread-- I've never seen any that cool! Amazing find! I can't wait to use those!
Walter posing with his cute scrapbook, AND a cd with more pictures!! And she made me my own scarf with my favourite colours! Perfect for Minnesota winters! I love homemade scarves, so this excited me beyond belief.
Brouchures, maps, tickets, you name it... she saved all this amazing stuff from their summer for me! It's hard to show it all in here, it really doesn't do it justice. But there's their plane tickets to Cyprus and back to England, a London train map, and so much other stuff!

Groyp shot with yet more wonderful presnets! Check out those panda socks! I already wore them haha I had to take them off to take the picture. There's some adorable frog and turtle candles too.. I didn't even tell her I collect candles! Unbelievable, I feel so spoiled! Thanks so much to EssHaych! Walter had a great summer, and I had so much fun with Eddie and she was a fantastic partner! I hope to do the next little visitor swap too!

Road Trip to Indianola, Iowa

Two weeks ago, we road tripped to Indianola, which is just outside Des Moines, with Ellie and Yoojin from MCAD art camp, to visit my roommate from there, Maddy. It was a four hour drive, but Eddie had fun looking out the window at the soy bean and corn fields. Also, there were huge stretches of windmills for wind power, which were really cool and pretty surreal looking. We stopped at a rest stop that was a barn, which made Eddie really excited. He'd never seen a stereotypical big red barn in real life before, I guess! When we finally got there, he was really happy to see Maddy again! We went to the amusement park called Adventureland... it was very small and cute. Eddie had a lot of fun going on some crazy rides like this one that went really fast in a circle... he got really dizzy though! After that he went on some calmer rides, then tried funnel cake. He got powdered sugar all over his face, it was really funny! It soon washed off though because it started pouring! We were drenched, and took cover on an inside ride called the Underground Railroad. It was a little train, going through a pretend mine with really ancient anamatronic miners. It was partly funny, but I think Eddie was a little creeped out by them! Luckily, it stopped raining after that, and we were able to go on some more rides before leaving. Once again he passed on the big roller-coaster-I don't blame him, I wouldn't have let him if he had wanted to! After we left Adventureland we went to the big mall in Des Moines, Jordan Creek Mall. When we went back to Indianola, we saw a mailman on a tractor, driving down a residential street. Eddie found that hilarious!

Blink-182 Concert

This was a few weeks ago, but I'm just now blogging because I didn't have my camera for a while!

During the day of the Blink-182, Fall Out Boy, and Panic! at the Disco concert, Eddie was so excited he kept bouncing around, not wanting to do anything but wait. I, however, insisted we watch some movies to make the time pass more quickly. We got there about an hour and a half early, but it wasn't as early as we thought because I thought the doors opened at 6:30, but it was really 5:30. The lines were going way out the doors... it was a madhouse! On our way in we passed Blink-182's tour bus and got some pictures with it. Even though we weren't very early, Eddie, Patrick, and I trooped up near the front of the general admission section, claiming some very close spots. We had to wait through a very mediocre warm-up band we'd never heard of, but finally the bands we were there to see came on! I couldn't get many pictures of Eddie watching the concerts because it was dark with flashing lights, making a good picture impossible. But trust me, he was having a great time! He sang along to Fall Out Boy, and danced very hard to Panic! Although those bands are some of the biggest in the US, and very good, what everyone was reallllly there to see was of course, Blink-182. It was so great when they finally came onto the stage... it was unreal! Eddie was particularly entertained by animations of a sassy rabbit that were shown on the screens behind the stage. The music was amazing live and we didn't want it to ever end. When they left the stage, Eddie looked so disappointed that it was over, but was delighted when the curtains rose again for an encore. And this was no ordinary encore. Travis, the drummer, was doing a crazy-intense solo...on a moving platform! He was harnessed in, drumming as he moved around high above the stage! It was a memorable end to an epic night!