STSS Spring Adventure 2015 // Day Four: Church with Steph & Home

^ Steph and Mellieee! ^

^ So green. I approve. ^

^ Either we're stuck in traffic or Tommy doesn't want to leave. Both options are valid. ^

Day Four of our SoCal adventure started early. Like, 5:45am early. Which I know isn't that early for some people, but for this particular kidlet, it's definitely not my normal waking time.

The plan was to leave by 6:30am and get to church by 7am in order to help with the special Mother's Day brunch. However, plans were meant to go awry, and luckily for us, apparently everyone else involved with the brunch arrived late as well. O.o Asian churches. Nothing's ever on time.

Helping serve brunch to the many mothers at Steph's church was fantastic. I highly recommend working side by side with people you don't know as a great way to make insta-friends. :P After a morning spent meeting and hanging out with a bunch of Steph's church peeps, I can definitely see why she likes them lots. They were all so amazingly friendly and sweet and welcoming.

Since there were a bunch of moms whose kids were away at school or all grown up, and whose husbands had to work over the weekend {again, Asian churches. There's a lotta doctors. O.o}, Steph's family invited them to join us for a fun lunch out to celebrate the holiday. Before we all piled into cars, Steph dragged me into the photobooth and was like, "Let's take pictures!" "But Steph, we're not mothers..." "So?" "Oh. Okay." As you can see from the above photo, I definitely need to work on my photobooth game. For someone who did theatre the entirety of high school, you'd think I'd remember to cheat to camera by now. D:

Lunch was an adventure. Because it was Mother's Day, everyone who hadn't really planned properly took their mothers out for lunch. Which meant that every single restaurant we tried to go to either had an exorbitant prix fixe menu or had a two hour wait. No bueno. We finally ended up at a Chinese restaurant because they were the only ones who didn't have a ridiculously long wait and had space for a table of thirteen. Thankfully, their food was also pretty decent.

Steph and I had to awkwardly cut out in the middle of lunch since we needed to meet the guys back at her house. {Btw, sliding under the table at a Chinese restaurant in a long drape-y Sunday dress is not advised if you can help it. I was inwardly shuddering {and outwardly nose-wrinkling} at the thought of cleaning that floor with my clothes. Ugh}. We dashed across the strip mall to a new boba place to pick up milk tea for us and the guys, jumped back into the car, and made our way home.

The drinks we picked up were from Teacup in Westminster, and the interior decor there was an excellent shade of green, if I may say so myself {so so many of my things are that color... heh}. Steph really liked her selection, some sort of orange-pink fruit concoction that tasted like a sugar shot to the bloodstream {I said that for the drink from Class 302 on Thursday, too, but this one tasted better and was half the price}. From the speed that Stephen's iced coffee disappeared {with a little assistance from Tommy}, I'm guessing that wasn't too bad either.

Tommy and I started the drive back home around 5pm and didn't get back until 11:45pm-ish. That's longer than the normal four and a half hours it takes us to get from the Bay Area to UCLA, but then again, we started an extra hour south this time, we made two stops, and there was more traffic than both other times {apparently driving north on a Sunday night is a thing lots of people like to do}.

It truly was an excellent weekend. Although any time STSS gets to hang out, it's an excellent weekend. Thanks so much to Evelyn and Mickeyla for letting me stay over and hang out Thursday night and Friday morning, to Steph for having us over Friday {and for me, Saturday} night and hosting oh-so-excellently, and to Tommy for doing lots and lots of driving over a four day time span. {Stephen, you're a cool kid for giving into our peer pressure and showing up Friday night instead of Saturday morning. :P } Also, yay for parentals who are down with me disappearing on them for a weekend. Semi-spontaneous adventures are the bestest and so are you guys! (:

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Earlier parts of STSS Spring Adventure 2015: day one, morning of day two, afternoon of day two, and day three.

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Tasty Garden
9433 Bolsa Avenue, Suite C
Westminster, California 92683

Teacup
9393 Bolsa Avenue, Suite A
Westminster, California 92683

STSS Spring Adventure 2015 // Day Three: Kayaking & Crystal Cove

^ Only group picture we got the entire road trip. We can do better than that, guys! ^

^ Sleepeh Tommeh. ^ 

^ Steph & one of her chickens. ^

 ^ Ruby's Shake Shack. Apologies for the weird lighting; twas staring into the sun... O.o ^

Sleeping in unfamiliar places always has me waking up super early, no matter how late I went to sleep the night before. For instance, I fell asleep at 3am at Steph's and woke up at 6am. Yayyy. O.o

Upside though, that meant I got to watch the rest of the household slowly come alive {no, not like I creepily stood over them until they opened their eyes. -___- Like, it went from being silent to people slowly stirring upstairs and then hearing chattery voices over running water. Morning noises}.

Stephen was the first of us four to decide that getting up was worth it {I'd already brushed my teeth and everything, but was sitting back under the covers because it was warmer there. And I really didn't have anywhere I needed to be, so. Why get up?}. Our morning consisted of bidding adieu to all members of Steph's family except Roxy, waffle and omelette making, exercising the backyard chickens, picking cherry tomatoes off the vine, and a whole lot of just goofing off in the family room. The kind of no schedule hanging out that hadn't happened since last August when we did this same roadtrip and that we missed being able to do since we graduated college.

Around one o'clockish, we realized that if Steph's mom came home and found us all still sitting around and talking in our pajamas, she'd think we were crazy. So we decided to get dressed, clean up the kitchen of breakfast dishes, put all the couch pillows back where they belonged, and figure out our plan for the day.

After a lot of "what do you wanna do?" "I dunno, what do youuu want to do?", kayaking got the majority vote. We piled into the car, greeting the neighbor's very excited English bulldog puppy on the way, and off we went.

The first place we tried told us that all their double kayaks had just left and wouldn't be back for another hour-and-a-half to two hours. They recommended we try their other location further down the street with potentially better luck there. And we did have better luck there because not only did they have two double kayaks for us, but they were willing to offer us the Groupon discount simply from us mentioning the Groupon discount. Like, okay, sure.

The employees there were really friendly {if maybe a tad too friendly at some point? Semi-hitting on a girl when her boyfriend is standing right there miiight not be the best idea, dude... O.o}. They also had stand-up paddleboards, single kayaks, and covered motor boats, in case kayaking with friends isn't your thing.

You WILL get wet while out on the water because, even if you and your partner are the smoothest paddlers of all time, there are these holes at the bottom of the boat that are there to let water out in case it gets in your kayak, but all they really do is let water in every time you hit the wake of a passing motorboat. ))): Boo. I've gone kayaking before and had NEVER gotten as soaked as we were when we stepped out onto the dock at the end. Basically, everything from the waist down was water-logged. ): Our recommendation is to wear shorts, leave your shoes/flip flops on the dock, and bring a change of clothes. Also, if you don't know how to kayak, go ahead and ask the dock attendant BEFORE you push off and attempt to learn on your own. It's so much easier.

Our two hours paddling around the bay were fun, if a little tiring. We opted for going the quieter route where there were less motor boats and the water was calmer. Stephen and Steph made friends with some very pretty swans while Tommy and I found Gru's (from Despicable Me) house {it had a mini Statue of Liberty in its backyard}. Since we left everything either in the car or at the boat rental place, we relied on Tommy's faux FitBit to let us know when it was time to turn back. It was a pretty good plan until we realized that we weren't actually sure how far back the place really was... O.o Did we pass it? Did we not go far enough? WHERE ARE WE, GUYS.

Turns out, we needed to paddle, like, fifty more feet and we were there. Heh.

Steph suggested dinner at Ruby's Shake Shack near Crystal Cove in Newport Beach and the drive there was really pretty. Lots of small shops lining the sidewalks, rolling hills to our left, the ocean to our right. *two thumbs up* We parked up the block at Crystal Heights {a shopping area with a very residential name, no?} since Ruby's parking lot is tiny and always full.

After a lovely stroll along the Pacific Coast Highway on the Crystal Cove Trail, we arrived at this cute, bright yellow, beachy building with a gorgeous wood patio to the side and a ridiculous view of the beach below. We ate our food facing the setting sun at their patio railing and although that basically meant we were squinting the entire time, I think we'd all choose to sit there again. (:

As soon as we finished eating, the unanimous decision was made to head down the long set of wooden stairs to Crystal Cove and hang for a while. I'm not normally a fan of beaches {too many unknown things in the sand, thank you very much}, but this one was clean and nothing was on the beach that wasn't supposed to be on a beach {in other words, no weird trash or sketchy mysterious objects or whathaveyou. Just seaweed and rocks and sand}. I took a lot of pictures while we were there, so I'm thinking I'll make that its own separate post...

Once the sun had set and darkness was falling, we trekked back up the stairs, along the highway, and back to the car, in search of one last thing to do before we went home. With a peek at our "Future Adventure" GoogleDoc {yes, we keep a running list}, we realized we weren't too far from a Creamistry, so off we drove.

The place was busy, though we got there just before a huge line of people formed. Watching them make the orders is a lot of fun, since large clouds of cool-to-the-touch white vapor poof out of the giant mixing bowls, spilling over the counter and slowly dissipating just in time for another cloud to appear from a different station. We tried the lemon meringue flavor and it was pretty good. Another thing crossed off our "Future Adventure" list!

When we got back to Steph's house, the guys left for San Diego and we simply got ready for bed since we'd have to be up early the next morning. There was some watching of Pitch Perfect and Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader in there {her siblings were watching and we were slowly calming down after a long day}, but otherwise, the rest of the night was uneventful and quiet.

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Earlier parts of STSS Spring Adventure 2015: day one, morning of day two, and afternoon of day two.
Later parts of the trip: day four.

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Newport Fun Tours
3101 West Coast Highway #160
Newport Beach, California 92663

Ruby's Shake Shack

7703 East Coast Highway

Newport Beach, California 92657

Creamistry
3972 Barranca Parkway
Irvine, California 92606

STSS Spring Adventure 2015 // Day Two, Pt 2: Hanging Out in Irvine

 ^ One of the MANY pictures we sent Stephen to try to get him to drive down and join the fun. ^

 ^ And this one. Because Steph. :P ^

 ^ These two collaborating in order to beat Stephen at trivia. ^

 ^ Dinnaaaar. ^

Tommy and I left Mickeyla's apartment around 2:30pm with plans to meet Steph at 3:45pm. We didn't get there until 4:40ish. Oh, LA Friday rush hour freeway traffic. How ridiculous you are.

Luckily, Tommy and I are decently used to sitting in the car for long periods of time {road trip from NorCal to LA in August, driving around SF and to/from Monterey in December, NorCal to LA again Thursday, etc}. Poor Steph was wondering when in the world we'd get there though and kept us company for about an hour on the phone. Girl needed sleep since she got up at 5:45am for teacher training day at work, but was fighting it hard. She finally gave in about half an hour before we showed up and took a nap in her car.

The first thing we did when we arrived at the location Steph specified was... get boba. What else? The Class 302 in Irvine allows you to fill your own cup with whatever combination of extras {boba, jelly, pudding, whathaveyou} and flavored/milk tea you'd prefer. Sounds lovely in theory, but since you can't adjust the sweetness level, it's like drinking liquid sugar that goes straight to your bloodstream. Holey moley. O.o

With no other set plans beyond getting boba, Steph, Tommy, and I ended up wandering around the shopping area, strolling into and through Lowe's {where Tommy petted a flameless stovetop and Steph stared mesmerized by a strobe disco light}, and sitting in one of the patio furniture/gazebo things on display inside. You know you're good friends when you don't mind your entertainment being that lowkey.

Once we finally exited Lowe's, we went back to the small seating area outside Class 302 and I absorbed sunlight {coldblooded much?} while Steph and Tommy played a trivia game on her phone against Stephen. Every now and then, Steph would get a call from either siblings or parents to remember to pick up her brother from school later or to ask if she could get her older sisters from church in a few hours. We also tried our hardest to convince Stephen to drive down that night as opposed to in the morning like he originally planned. He finally gave in after a lot of pleading and cajoling on our part. Heh. 

We decided on a game plan of: grab dinner somewhere in the shopping area, then Steph would go get her little brobro from UC Irvine and Tommy and I would find Charlie and Roxy near church. Everyone would meet up back at home and sometime near 11:30 to midnight, Stephen would arrive with Steph's little sister and her friends in tow {they were coming from Westwood}. So that's what happened.

Dinner was Pieology near the Edwards Stadium Cinema movie theater. The line was decently long, but we weren't in any super rush, so we just talked the entire time while we waited. The food was pretty good-- Steph and I split an Alfredo pizza and Tommy... made his own with a whole bunch of random things. I don't even know.

Everyone split up, found their assigned peeps, and drove back to Steph's house. The rest of the night was just as lowkey as the afternoon had been, which was cause for some confusion from Steph's madre since she was like, "But you guys haven't seen each other for ages and you're our guests. Shouldn't you all be doing something more exciting than taking a shower (Steph) and putting together a mini lego set at the kitchen counter (Tommy and me)?" Hee. In all honesty, the best part of seeing the besties is that you can fall back into the same comfortableness that warrants treating them like family and just hanging out together, not doing anything special. It's great. I love it.

Stephen, Mellie, and friends showed up when they said they would. The first thing the sophomore girls did was scoop bowls of ice cream. The first thing we old people did was simply sit near each other and revel in the fact that we were all in the same place again. You know you're getting a bit older when you don't want ice cream at midnight. :P

With five extra people in the house that night and all of the five siblings home as well, the sleeping arrangements took a bit of finagling. It was ultimately decided that Mellie and friends would stay in Steph's room with a giant air mattress, Stephen and Tommy got the floor of the living room, and Steph and I would share the pull out couch in the family room. I really do look forward to spending time with these kidlets and Steph's family. There's never a dull moment and there's always someone around {as an only child, that's a novel idea}. Twas a good day.

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Earlier parts of STSS Spring Adventure 2015: day one and earlier in day two.
Later parts of the trip: day three and day four.

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Class 302
13252 Jamboree Road
Irvine, California 92614

Pieology at the Market Place
13786 Jamboree Road #110
Irvine, California 92602

STSS Spring Adventure 2015 // Day Two, Pt 1: Mornings with Mickeyla

^ Doesn't this look like one of those digital renderings of what the proposed building could look like? Alas, it's real! ^

 ^ Re-Bruinitized! ^

 ^ My mom saw this picture and was like, "HA. Look at your tiny feetsies." Thanks, Mom. ^

^ Oh, Urban Outfitters. I want to like you because this interior is THEBEST, but sadly, your clothes aren't my style. ): ^

^ How could I not like a place whose main color scheme is grey and lime green? Answer is, I can't. ^

^ See us? :D ^

 ^ Heatherwick Studio was the featured artist/design exhibit at the Hammer Museum. They're the ones behind the London Olympic torch. So awesome. ^

I love the couch in Mickeyla and Evelyn's apartment. I've taken many a nap on that couch during undergrad and it fits me perfectly. Like sers. My five foot two-ish inch frame can stretch out on it without feeling squished and fills it enough so that other people don't feel like they have enough room to sit where my feet should be. Hee. It's perfect. I could write odes to that couch. *happy sigh*

Anyways. Mickeyla's first class started at eight in the morning, so we were up early to catch the bus to campus. I actually learned a bunch during that first lecture on "Intro to Non-Carious Tooth Structure Loss" and definitely enjoyed meeting a bunch of her classmates. I hadn't realized how much grad school would sort of feel like high school-- you're with the same people for hours every day and it's a small group, so everyone was joking around before the teacher showed up.

The second lecture we went to... ugh. The teacher was good, the kids were the same, but the material was AUGH. I think out of all the body systems, the nervous system is my least favorite. For a psych major, I dislike learning about the brain's physiology a whole bunch. *sheepish* I still took notes since I'm 93% sure I'll have to learn this during OT school, but I didn't quite enjoy it as much as that first lecture. Thankfully, right after that, we were freeeee and Mickeyla and I went off to go explore campus.

Neither of us was super hungry at this point, so we went to check out the new music building near the Inverted Fountain. While we were in the area, Mickeyla re-Bruinitized herself, albeit nine months late. Since people hadn't been jumping in and out of the fountain yet {UCLA graduates in June, so no one should be touching that water until then}, the fountain was super clear and clean. Gorgeous.

If you're looking for a cool kid, semi-hipster, decently quiet place to study on campus, try the Music Cafe in the EMo building {technically, it's the Evelyn and Mo Ostin Music Center, but M and I decided their couple name was EMo}. After walking in, going "Oooh," and walking back out of the cafe, we decided to try and find a way into the building to see what it looked like. All the doors were securely locked... except one. And we found it. Moohahaha. Sadly, the inside was nothing special. Only the outside had been made pretty. ):

Looking at the time, we thought we should probably get lunch, even if we weren't very hungry. As we made our way out into the wilds of Westwood, we came across a Mexican fruit cart and instantly stopped, looked at each other, and raised an eyebrow. "Yes?" "Why not?" I love that she and I understand each other well enough to see an adventure where most people just keep walking. Having no experience ordering from a fruit cart, we simply asked for a bit of everything, which included: canteloupe, honeydew, orange, cucumber, watermelon, coconut, pineapple, and mango with a lot of lime juice and a good dusting of chili powder. The mango chunks were our favorite and if it's possible for fruit to taste brighter, the lime juice and chili definitely had that effect. Worth a repeat, for sure.

Next, we decided to get food at TLT Westwood before walking home. We just beat the lunch rush as at least twenty people got in line after we ordered. O.o The wait was short though and the people-watching good. Mickeyla tried the Beef Short Rib Sliders and I got the Carnitas Fries. So good.

There's this one card by Emily McDowell that says "There's nobody else I'd rather lie in bed and look at my phone next to," and, ignoring the lying in bed part, I've found that you know you're besties when you're comfortable goofing off on your phone next to one another and don't feel like you have to entertain/seriously converse with the other person all the time. For example, after eating our food back in the apartment, Mickeyla and I sat on the couch and played around with VSCOcam for quite a while.

We had passed by the Hammer Museum on our walk through Westwood and the ickle girlikin mentioned how they had an temporary exhibit I might like on architecture and design. With an hour to kill before Tommy and I were supposed to leave for Irvine to meet up with Steph, Mickeyla and I headed back outside to visit the museum. Even though I'd been at UCLA for four years, I'd never stepped foot inside the Hammer until this day. Admission is free and you get a sticker when you enter that lets the docents know which exhibits you're allowed into {if you ARE a member, you get special access to certain stuff, I think}.

You have to try the circular chairs in the courtyard if you go. I'm not sure if they're a permanent part of the museum or if they're just part of the Heatherwick Studio exhibit, but they're pretty great. M was right, by the way. I did enjoy the pieces on display by Heatherwick {check out their stuff; they're so awesome} and Charles Gaines {his stuff is like paint-by-math (instead of just by numbers)}. Everything had a certain whimsy and inventiveness I really liked.

Also. Museum stores' children's sections are the BEST. If I ever have a small human being, I want to have a book baby shower. Ugh. Too much cute. Too many adorable animals. Too many gorgeous, quirky things. Rawr. Can't handle.

Mickeyla and I ended up getting so distracted by all the things in the kids' section that we had to dash back to the apartment in order for me to be ready when Tommy showed up. I'm so thankful for this girl. I've mentioned it a thousand times before, but she had ridiculous patience living with me those first two years of undergrad and has always had my back. We've known each other for thirteen years now {which is over half our lives} and I'm 111% sure we'll be those crazy old lady besties in the future. Thanks for letting me stay over, Mickeyla, and allowing me to tag along to class with you and always being down to create adventures wherever we go.

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Earlier parts of STSS Spring Adventure 2015: day one.
Later parts of the trip: the rest of day two, day three, and day four.

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TLT Westwood
1116 Westwood Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90024

Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90024

STSS Spring Adventure 2015 // Day One: Road Trips & Cookie Talks

^ My selfie game needs work. As soon as I took this picture, I dropped my phone so far under my seat, we had to move the entire thing all the way back in order for me to retrieve it. D: First world probs. Also, foggy weather apparently turns me into a ghost. Boo. ^

^ The difference between farmland and cow pastures. O.o ^

^ She may kill me for this picture, but I missed her face, so I'll put it here. Those cheeks! ^

When you get a random text that says, "I wanna go to LA," you must immediately reply, "Down. When," and begin mentally figuring out logistics.

I suppose one of the major perks of not being employed/in school at the moment is that I'm free to play when opportunities arise, no matter how last minute. A couple weeks ago, Tommy mentioned that he wanted to go down to SoCal and since I didn't have any plans, I asked if I could tag along. We've done this same weekend road trip thing before, last August, so we had a vague recollection of how to plan this one.

The general schedule was something like:

Thursday: leave NorCal in the morning, get to LA by early afternoon, bother about during the afternoon with whoever is available in Westwood, split up to hang out with separate friends, sleep over at those separate friends' apartments.

Friday: Do whatever in the morning, meet up and drive down to Steph in Orange County in the afternoon, hang out, Stephen shows up later that evening after work, everyone sleep over at Steph's.

Saturday: We leave this entire day free because we never know what we'll all feel like doing that day. We just know STSS Adventures will be had. We did know that the guys would leave that night for San Diego, while I would stay over with Steph another night.

Sunday: I'd go to church with Steph, have lunch con su familia, the guys would drive back up to OC, Stephen drives home to Westwood, Tommy and I head back up to NorCal.

It was an excellent weekend.

Thursday went exactly as planned. Our road trip down to SoCal took the same amount of time as when we went in August, even though we took a break mid-trip this time. The weather was super wonky. It went from foggy when we started out to sunshine to pouring rain to sunshine to dust storm {to the point where the car in front of us would disappear from view and visibility was only a few feet in front of our car D: } to just enough drizzle to get the car dirty and finally back to sunshine. It was ridiculous.

We also hit a tumbleweed. {Technically, it was the tumbleweed's fault. So.}

After spending the afternoon just hanging out in the apartments with very kind GOC seniors, Tommy went to go meet up with friends for dinner and I walked down to Westwood to find Evelyn. She's a good one. Even though she'd just taken an intense law school final and had to study for the next one, she took the time to grab food with me and chatter a bit over dinner once we got back to her apartment. She's awesome. She and I will be making this same NorCal > SoCal > NorCal trip in July for a friend's wedding, so we'll be able to talk more then. For now, I tried to convince her that I could keep myself occupied {perk of being an only child!} and that she should go study without worrying about me. :P

Mickeyla showed up a bit later and we got to catch up on all the things while she made her dinner and I kept her company. I really do think the best thing we did in college to become better friends was to stop living together. *hah* She knows I mean that in the best way possible-- after two years of being roommates, we'd gotten so good at knowing each other's schedules that we never really had anything new to talk about since we pretty much already knew how the other's day went. Nowadays, we can ask and be genuinely interested in the response {as opposed to asking because we're supposed to and getting a short "it was fine" in reply}. She luckily didn't have too much studying to do that night, so we got to sit on the couch, eat cookies, and talk for several hours. Twas wonderful.

Since I had no plans for Friday morning, Mickeyla jokingly asked if I wanted to go to class with her. And after a moment's thought, I was like, "Yeah, why not?" She was like, "It's four hours of lecture..." and I was totally okay with that. You know you're either quite nerdy or really good friends when you're down to wake up early and sit in class all morning when you're visiting from out of town. Heh.

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Later parts of STSS Spring Adventure 2015: morning of day two, afternoon of day two, day three, and day four!

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Gushi
978 Gayley Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90024

Adventuring // Along the San Francisco Waterfront

Saturday morning started out with Steph's first ever ride on Bart and a pretty nice walk from the Embarcadero station to Pier 15. The girl spent most of her time on the train playing Tsum Tsum on her phone and coercing me to attempt a round myself. I was deemed "better than a sixth grader", so you know, life goal met.

Once we made our way to the surface and figured out which direction we wanted to go, we started our trek. And I almost immediately made her detour with me because I saw a couple cable cars just hanging out, a block over, in the middle of the street, begging to be photographed. They were even decked out in holiday gear!

Considering this IS San Francisco in the middle of winter, I think we both expected it to be a little colder on our walk to the Exploratorium. I mean, we were right on the water, it was still pretty early in the morning, and it was the end of December. But it was surprisingly warm, sunny, and comfortable out, which was awesome. Especially considering Steph's idea of NorCal is cold, sunless, and dreary. *eyeballs bestie*

We walked through the art stalls along Market Street on the way to the piers and passed by the mini Farmers Market in front of the Ferry Building. I didn't know tulips were in season in the dead of winter, but they were on sale, so... *shrug*

We reached the Exploratorium pretty quickly, despite our {read: my} constant stopping to take pictures, so Steph and I decided to walk around the outside of the place. If you don't want to pay for admission into the museum, walking along the outside is not a bad idea. Not only are the views fantastic, but there are small exhibits along the railing and large windows into the museum that give you a peek of what's inside.

After making our way down the entire length of the pier, we took an Instagram break {because those are truly a real thing now}, wondered how long it'd take the boys to get there, and watched a seagull take apart a small crab {seriously. it was simultaneously cringe-worthy and fascinating}. When we finally got their call that they were inside getting the tickets, we headed back to meet them.

Not a bad start to an excellent day. (:

Adventuring // Midnight Mini-Golfing

^ The salted caramel ice cream at Knudsen's Ice Creamery. Also, prepare yourself for some blurry night photos below. Heh. ^

This is what happens when you play mini-golf at eleven o'clock at night with only a phone camera. No matter how still you stay, the pictures still come out all blurry. Boo.

However, this was seriously hilarious and super fun. So I'd recommend it for everyone anyways. Especially if you happen to have three friends who have never played mini-golf before and have no idea what they're doing {the boys would probably like me to mention that they have played real golf before (and are assumably decent), but then I would have to retort that mini-golf and regular golf are two veryVERY different games}.

The night started out when I met up with Evelyn and Steph at Knudsen's Ice Creamery for dinner. We all had different sandwiches, but it was unanimously agreed that the fries were the highlight of the meal. E and I contemplated coming back solely for them at a later date. Nom.

For dessert, each of us ordered a flavor of ice cream and split them-- blueberry cheesecake, toffee bar, and, the favorite of the night, salted caramel. Even sharing between the three of us {and with the additional help of Char and Stephen when they arrived a while later}, we couldn't finish all of it. Still. Twas delicious.

After sitting at that table for about three hours {not exaggerating} talking and laughing and teasing Steph and Stephen about each other, Evelyn and Char said it was time for them to go home. Since the rest of us weren't quite ready to call it a night yet {Tommy had arrived at some point after having had dinner with a high school friend}, we hugged them, wished them a safe drive home, and headed over to Golden Tee Golfland for a round of mini-golf.

Now, disclaimer, I've been going here since I was a little kid, so yeah, definitely had a home field advantage. But watching these kids attempt to play was just amazing. Because I got to experience the course through fresh eyes and remember all the other times I've failed and whacked the ball into the bushes/down the wrong hill/onto the next hole like these kids did that night.

It was a night of frozen fingers, frozen toes, and LOTS of laughter. With mini-golf, hitting the ball as hard as you can doesn't necessarily mean it's going to go where you'd like it to go. It's a bit more about precision and skill than power and strength. Add pitch black skies and cold temperatures to an unfamiliar course and you've got a recipe for hilarity.

At one point, we spent five minutes looking for Tommy's golf ball using our phones as flashlights and then Stephen realized Tommy had gotten a hole-in-one. *siiigh*

The poor couple behind us. We took forever at each new hole, but they kept telling us they were fine waiting and kept turning down our offers to let them pass us. I think they were on a date. At the first hole, they waited quietly, a good arms-length from each other. By the seventh hole, they were sitting together on the cold, metal bench and talking comfortably. By the eighteenth hole, they were all giggly and cuddly and huggy. Sooo... yay, upside of us taking so long? Hee.

When we finally completed the entire course, we went inside the arcade area to use the tokens that came with our tickets. It took a while for our fingers to defrost first. Then it was all Skeeball and Harpoon Lagoon {four-person video game thing where you spear fish and every five pounds of fish gives you a ticket}. We ended up with enough tickets for 31 Gummi Hamburgers {620 tickets}. Just what we needed.

Nighttime adventures with these kidlets are always my favorite.