Weekend Adventures: Livy Comes to Visit!

Last week on Thursday was the first time I saw my best friend since back in February for her 21st birthday, and now it was her turn to pay me a visit. This was the first time Livy had ever come to visit me, let alone be her first visit to the Midwest.

Of course, it was cold and rainy during her visit, even though we had beautiful weather a few days prior to her arrival. Nonetheless, we still had a great time and a weekend full of adventures!

All ready for the Run or Dye 5K!!!

Like I said, Livy flew in Thursday morning and yes, we squealed in excitement like a couple of high school girls seeing puppies for the first time when we were reunited. After we were done hugging and jumping around, we drove to the Sports Authority in Roseville, Minnesota to register for the Run or Dye 5K which we were running in that Saturday. After picking up our runner numbers and Run or Dye swag, I brought Livy back to campus for a quick tour, and then she got to tag along with me to my last class of the day. Unfortunately for Livy, I had to finish a huge paper that day, so after dinner we hung out in my room and tried (so very very hard) to be productive. 

Livy was SUPER excited to see the huge mall!

But first...let me take a selfie! ...Sorry, I had to...

Friday held more excitement for the both of us. Livy tagged along with me to my marketing and my business writing class - both extremely exciting, as you can imagine...*slight sarcasm here*). After which we had to leave campus for a family occasion of mine, but thankfully we were able to make a stop at the Mall of America for a little bit - Livy's first time! We didn't do too much shopping, but I needed to pick a few things up for a banquet I was attending Sunday night.

Dinner at Crave at the Mall of America was amazing, as usual!
(pictured above: Happy Hour's Vegetarian Sushi)

One of the stores definitely worth mentioning is Lush! Now, I had been to Lush a few times before, and knew that they sold soaps and bath bombs, but I thought that was it. I had never really thought to get a better idea of what Lush's life story was, and what the company was all about. So, while walking by the store entrance, and smelling the amazing scents from inside, I grabbed Livy's hand and we ran in to Lush! We were immediately greeted by one of the sales associates (whose name I will not mention for privacy purposes, but let's call her *Amber), and she was literally amazing. Another sales associate helped out Livy, while *Amber helped me out. *Amber asked me what brought me into the store, and I explained that while I had been to Lush before, that I didn't really know that much about the company and wanted to know more about it. I also informed her that I was looking for a face mask. *Amber escorted me to the face mask section of the store and told me all about Lush's values and morals as a company, and what they wished to achieve, in addition to telling me all about the various masks they sold and what each of the masks did.

Ingrid. Why can't I be as amazing and glorious as you??

Livy and I ended up walking out of Lush with a whole new perspective of the company, and purchases that we couldn't wait to try out when we got home for a spa night!

Also while we were at the mall, Ingrid Michaelson made a special appearance, and gave a small concert in the rotunda. This was super cool to me, since she is one of my favorite artists, and I never expected to see her that day, let alone hear her sing live! Not surprisingly, she was amazing live, and it was so cool to see her interact with the audience and engage with them.

Saturday was the day of color. It started pretty early (compared to my typical Saturday) at 6 a.m., as Livy and I needed to be at Harriet Island by 8:30 a.m. for the Run or Dye! We were both extremely excited, and were ready to run (okay let's be serious, jog/walk) a 5K while getting vibrantly colored dye thrown at us. In order to display our excitement (and craziness), we got ourselves decked out in knee high socks, fishnet rave gloves (which we won while dancing in the line waiting for the 5K to start from the two SUPER cute guys hosting the 

event), our Run or Dye shirts, and of course

our DIY tutu skirts (click for tutorial)!

Before...

...After!!

Heading into the blue mist!!

The adventure couldn't be complete
without a few colorful handstands :)

Trying to get most of the dye out
before driving home!

The run was crazy fun, and we've already started looking for other 5K's to run in! The nice thing about fun runs like the Run or Dye, or the Color Run, is that they don't require any training - you can go at your own pace! Which was super nice because of course I didn't train for the run... Haha!




After our early morning adventure, we had to clean up because I had a few summer job interviews that evening in Rochester, Minnesota. After we finished in Rochester, we went back to my parents' house and hung out, made a bunch of food, and tried out our face masks! It was definitely nice to relax after a couple of incredibly stressful weeks!







Sunday was supposed to be another day of fun, but unfortunately the rainy weather canceled all of our outdoor plans. We were going to pay a visit to the Minnesota Zoo (one of my most favorite places in the whole world!), but since it was so icky outside, we decided to hang out around the house and bake incredibly vibrant, pink macaroons! Check out my blog post on how we made the macaroons here! :)

Love these ladies!

My two favorite coworkers!

Livy and I had to be back to campus that afternoon, since I had to get ready for a banquet hosted by my university's Department of Residence Life. The banquet was to honor and thank us student and professional staff members for our dedication and hard work to the department, university, and impact on the student body. I am a Resident Assistant on my campus for those who don't know, and I advise a wing of freshman female students.









It's been an awesome year, filled with fun memories and proud moments, and I'm honestly going to miss them all next year! I will be returning as a second year Resident Assistant, but this time I will have twice as many residents - something that intimidates me, but I look forward to the challenge!

You could say that we're a sassy bunch... ;)

  I had a lot of fun at the banquet, and it was really fun to get dressed up and see the rest of my awesome coworkers all decked out and having fun!


After the banquet I went back to my room to see how Livy was doing (since she wasn't able to attend the banquet), and we ended up being invited out to dinner at Applebee's by a few of my friends.

It was a fun way to end the weekend, and I was extremely sad to see Livy leave. I can't wait to see her again soon, and hopefully next time she comes to visit our friend Megan can join her!!

Until next time guys,

Thanks for reading!!

xoxo AnnaMarie

Flashback to Belize

All this recent warm weather got me thinking of my recent study abroad trip to Belize. Belize was absolutely amazing, and I miss everything about it - the warm weather, the beautiful scenery, the warm friendly people, all the history the adventure... The list goes on and on!

I decided to post a few photos that I took while on the trip, while they are nothing like the real deal in person, they are amazing reminders of how awesome the trip was! I will never forget the two weeks we spent in Belize, and all the amazing people I got to meet and get to know while we were down there!

 

Five Easy Ways to Enjoy Your Campus When The Weather Gets Warm

Winter seems to drag on for eternity here in the Midwest. Now that Mother Nature has finally decided to grace us with warmer weather, students have finally been able to spend out of the dorms and instead in the outdoors! Thankfully, there are a lot of different ways to enjoy the warm weather on almost any campus. Here are just a few ways you can enjoy your campus outdoors!

1.  Go on an adventure!

Grab a friend and go explore! Thankfully, my campus has walking trails, woods, a river with waterfalls nearby, an amphitheater, and horse (and cow) farms on or near campus that students can walk to and enjoy! The Falls (which our town was named after) are absolutely beautiful, and are an iconic part of River Falls. Find out where you haven’t been on campus, even if it’s the science building, a random corner of campus, or even another residence hall, go find a new place!

2.  Eat outside!

Whether it’s a snack or a meal, eat it outside! Grab a blanket, good book, some water and something yummy and go eat outside! On the east side of my campus there’s a long stretch of grass where a lot of students hang out and eat lunch outside for a change of cafeteria scenery. We also have a bunch of picnic tables that students will eat lunch at.

3.  Go for a run!

Get out and get some exercise! Now that the weather has finally warmed up, long gone should be the days of running in the gym! In the past few days I’ve been going on walks/runs with friends and enjoying the beautiful scenery and company. It’s been amazing to get out of my room and spend time back outside! I recently went on a nice long walk/jog with a friend to the horse lab farm on campus. I’ve been missing my horses in the past few weeks, so it was really nice to go visit the horses on campus!

4.  Take your studies to the outdoors!

The nice thing about living on the East side of my campus, is that the big stretch of grass is the go-to outdoor study spot. I love grabbing a blanket or two, maybe a pillow, some snacks, a water bottle, and my books, and hanging out outside for a few hours! To minimize distractions, seek out a quiet spot by some trees, or find a spot along a walking path on the backside of campus!

5.  Sports anyone?

Get some friends together (or make new ones!) and play some sports! Our campus has volleyball nets, basketball hoops, intramural fields, soccer fields, softball/baseball diamonds, and the list goes on! In the residence halls on our campus, students can rent sports equipment and games to play outside. Basketball, football and frisbee golf (frolfing) are the most popular, but you can play just about anything you like!

Take a study break and enjoy the warm weather! We’ve been denied sunshine for just about seven months now, enjoy it while it lasts! Some professors (with a little encouragement) will even have class outside if you ask them.

Even if it’s just taking a different route to class

than your normal one, find something different

to do to enjoy the outdoors!

Put down the television remote, get off your phone and enjoy nature, you won’t regret it!

The 5 Types of Guys You Meet on Tinder

So I recently downloaded the Tinder app on my phone as a joke, and my friend and I were creeping it up big time. Here is what we learned from our experience on the new dating/matchup app:

Desperate Dave

This guy seems normal at first, maybe even pretty generic and cute. But as the convo goes on, he gets especially clingy. When you don’t message back within 5 seconds, he sends follow-up messages of “hey”, “where’d ya go?”, “??”, “DON’T LEAVE ME”.

NEXT PLEASE.

Comical Corey

Corey is pretty funny, or so he thinks. He overuses LOL to the max, has at least two smiley faces for every 5 messages, and his opening line consists of something along the lines of “I won’t tell our kids how we met if you won’t…”. These guys think they are hysterical, when in reality they are usually just not attractive enough to attract anyone’s attention otherwise.

No thanks.

Already-Know-You-Adam

Adam is the guy that you have 20-some odd friends in common with, and of course you accidentally “like” him. He will then proceed to tell you how he knows pretty much everything about you, or you both will just awkwardly ignore each other. Or you find your friend’s boyfriend, and then it gets awkward.

Hard-To-Get-Harry

Harry. Harry Harry Harry.

This dude is the most elusive of the bunch. You guys are a match, you message him, and he takes two to three days to reply back. Pretty much nine times out of ten he has a girlfriend who is unaware of his existence in the Tinder universe, and is looking for an ego boost by seeing how many girls will match him based on his party pictures.

Grammatically Incorrect Greg

This is one of my personal pet peeves - people who don’t understand how to use spellcheck or don't know their grammar. Their, there, they’re are all used interchangeably, too and to - wait, there’s a difference? Please go back to middle school and figure your stuff out, because I can’t deal with you right now. I actually once had a guy who was messaging me an actual lovely conversation about our weekend, who said “2Mar” instead of saying “tomorrow”.

Please. Just... Don’t.

I give up.

What are some types of guys you've met on Tinder? Share your embarrassing moments below in the comments!