Stateside: Louisiana

After Hilton Head, I headed back to Louisiana for a couple days, where I was super psyched to get to hang out with Sarah and Jonathan, two of my closest friends from high school that I hadn't seen in AGES!

Note that I am almost 5 feet 9 inches tall, even though between them I look like a miniature me.


It was SO good to get to hang out with them again, and it made me sad that it's not something that can happen more often. We had a great time. They came out to my dad's house, and we went for a walk in the woods before eating a delicious lentil dinner that Tina prepared for us.
Afterwards, we went out bowling, which none of us had done in ages.


I bowl!



Sarah bowls!

When we first got there, we ran into my cousin Courtney and her two kids Brady and Victoria. I hadn't seen any of them in ages, and it was especially random that we ran into them at the bowling alley since they also hadn't been bowling in ages. It was really cool to see them, though, and to get to spend a bit of time with them, as they ended up bowling in the lane right next to ours.


Brady and Victoria


At one point in time in the night, Jonathan and I decided that everything we said needed to be sung.


Jonathan looking like a super star singer!

We had a great time laughing and singing and bowling.

The next day, I was going to celebrate my birthday with my Mom at the Japanese restaurant in town, and we decided to invite Sarah and Jonathan along. It reminded me of old times, celebrating high school birthdays with the fam and Sarah and Jonathan. It makes me smile just to think about it.


Me looking larger than Sarah and Jonathan this time!

I got some great gifts from Mom and Kristen - some fantastic clothes(including this incredibly awesome dragon shirt) and shoes that I LOVE from Mom, and some fantastic clothes (including an "I love vegan cupcakes" t-shirt) and fun things from Kristen. Afterwards, Kristen, Mom, and I went shopping for jeans, as Mom also wanted to get me some new jeans for my birthday. I found some great ones at American Eagle, and we had super fun shopping.

(here is where I want to put a "thank you mom for a fantastic birthday" picture, but unfortunately, as you can probably tell from these pictures, my camera was having some issues and sort of went out of commission for a little bit. That picture therefore was not taken on my camera. Kristen or Mom, if you have one that you want to send my way, that would be awesome!)