Week 13: dinner for 12 and plant life

My family and friends of the family get together pretty often at my mom's house. Sometimes, at grandma's or at someone else's house. But, for the first time we all got together at our place! Last night I had the pleasure to cook for everyone and have them over. I made lasagna, garlic bread and for dessert I made tuxedo hug cookies (the are brownie cookies with a hug in the middle, very yummy). I have always enjoyed cooking for people, so it was really nice to have everyone come over to our place for once.
Also, we have a little addition to our home now, we got a plant. I have wanted a hanging basket plant for a while so after a couple places we found one I liked. It's a Boston Fern, and I named him Fred.

Other updates:
We got our bowling wiigue shirts in this week.
I am bidding on GPS on ebay, so I can introduce Justin to Geocaching.
And as I am typing this, Justin and my father in law are working on the grill.

Thanks for reading!

Larissa :)

Week 12: Putting together a grill

Last year for Christmas Justin and I asked for a grill. Up to this past week it had been sitting in the box it came in out in our little storage unit behind the house. This past Thursday I decided to put it together. I am pretty good at putting things together so I figured it wouldn't take me too long to do this. After opening the box I started to think otherwise. As you can see there were a lot more parts to this grill than I would have imagined.
I started to work on it and soon realized this was going to take a lot more time than I expected. But, I didn't let that bring me down. We were having friends over for bowling wiigue (as we had to reschedule last week) so I decided we should grill that night. After what seemed like all morning, almost 3 hours, I completed the grill!
So, after work Justin and I went out to buy a gas tank, ground beef, corn, fries, etc for a yummy cook out. Unfortunately, the grill would not light. We tried the automatic starter, matches, we could not get it to work. We haven't figured out yet what is wrong with it, but at least I was able to put it together. As soon as we get it working I'll update the blog about it.

Thanks for reading!

Larissa :)

Week 11: Geocaching

I had hear about Geocaching from April, who had done it as her last new experience last year. Michelle had also wanted to try it, so Big-Break was a great place to do it at. Several of the UNC-G cru guys are really into geo caching so we decided to do a group geocache on our free night.
If you have no idea what Geocaching is check out the official website.
I didn't really know what to expect. I was told it was like a treassure hunt for grown-ups with GPS systems. There was a cache near the resort we were in, walking distance from where we were staying, so that's where we started. It was a medium size cache and it was an easy skill level.
After finding this cache, a smaller group of us decided to keep going and find more caches. I had no idea I would enjoy geocaching. And, I was very surprised to find out I am good at it. We did all the searching at night and with 2 flash lights it made it a little diffucult, but still fun none the less. I have never been good at sports, so it was fun to keep up with the guys for once. In total over 2 days we found 7 caches, 5 of which I found! The guys were pretty impressed and said I am a natural. Some of them took a while to find them, but I think that's part of what makes it fun. In total we found 2 micro, 1 medium and 4 smalls.
Unfortunally, to geocache you need a hand held GPS, and they are kind of pricy. I am hoping to find one I can borrow so Justin and I can try it out in Durham. Hopefully I'll find one to borrow and in the future we can invest on a GPS.
I don't know when my next geocaching experience will be, but I am looking forward to it!

Thanks for reading!

Larissa :)

Week 10: Road trip to Panama City Beach

This past week I got to help out with Big-Break 09, Crusade's spring break in Panama City Beach.
Michelle usually drives her car but, as she has to drive to Colorado this summer we took my car, Sally. This was Sally's first road trip outside of NC. It was a long almost 12 hour trip with stops for gas and food, but it was a good road trip. We left HPU around 1 and arrived afternoon. We took Justin's parents' GPS system. We named her Barbara. She made our trip really easy. I had directions and maps for all the cars but didn't need to use them. I had never used a GPS, and really enjoyed getting to play with it. I am looking forward to having one someday.
The week long trip was pretty great. Big-Break is a week long conference, we have meetings in the morning, outreach in the afternoon, evening meeting, group time, lots of fun activities, etc.
We had the chance to talk to a bunch of students out of the beach, use different tools like the amazing soularium, kgp, and survies. And as with every Cru conference, get to learn more about God and ourselves.
During the trip I also got to have a new experience, which I'll write about in my next blog.

Thanks for reading!

Larissa :)

Week 9: Bowling Wiigue & housewarming

Justin and I have always enjoyed our Wii, my favorite game is bowling, even though I am not good at it. We really enjoy getting to play when friends come over so after some talk about it we have started a Bowling Wiigue. Justin, Chris and I starting this week will get together on Tuesday night (because it's domino's 2-1 pizza day) for pizza and wii bowling! We don't have team shirts yet, but we are trying to decide if we should all get the same bowling shirts or if we should each get a different bowling shirt to show our personality. Whenever we decide on shirts I'll post pictures. So, if you are ever in Durham on a Tuesday night feel free to join us!

Also this week, I got to make my first house warming cake. 2 sets of friends of the family have moved recently so they have a house warming party last night. This was my first co-ed housewarming party, actually I believe it was my first house warming party ever. Either way, it was fun and I always enjoy getting to make cakes!


Thanks for reading :)