Weekend with Nicole: Part One

A few weeks ago I had a super fun weekend at Nicole’s! She is one of my host mom’s daughters and she’s absolutely wonderful.

I overdid the silliness

We started off at Papa’s to celebrate his birthday. Lexa, Luke, Emma and I drove there together, a fun little road trip as it takes an hour and a half to get up there. Emma and I were in the backseat taking silly pictures while Lexa and Luke were sitting in front. We stopped at Sonic to get a smoothie to drink, which was a first for me!

My gift for Papa

We were the last ones to arrive, of course being fashionably late. After we had dinner it was time to give all of the presents everyone got Papa. I was feeling a bit unsure about mine, after all I didn’t really know him well so who wouldn’t?

Luckily, he loved it and my plaque is now part of his living room decorations.

As Rosemary, my host mom (I am not sure if I mentioned her name before) was going to go to Texas for the weekend; I was going home with Nicole and her husband John.

Nicole scared me for life whilst driving home, her driving is horrible and I was happy as never before when we where at their house, safely.

(I put in that part to make John happy, Nicole’s driving is perfectly fine! Or at least when I am in the car :p)

The two of them are so sweet, they have a daughter Lauren, she is amazing, who went away for college and they me sleep in her bed. Pretty much the best bed ever!

We watched a movie with Adam Sandler before going to bed. Because the bed wasn’t made yet, Nicole and I did that together and honestly next time I go to Target I am buying the sheets she has! Heavenly. And that makes me feel old, wanting to have things like sheets. What happened to wanting Barbie dolls?

I woke up the next morning at about half past ten, after telling them I’d be awake at nine the day before… Who was I kidding? But to be fair, I was planning on setting my alarm at nine so that we would have a full day of fun! But the bed was so nice and I couldn’t wake up when my alarm went off so I slept through it.

Dessert at lunch

When I did wake up, I felt a bit guilty. I mean, they asked what time I would wake up for a reason. Surely it was so that they would be awake too but I made them get up whilst I wouldn’t be awake for another ninety minutes. I use minutes because it makes it seem shorter than saying an hour and a half, right?

Fortunately, the couple just joked about it and then Nicole and I left John at the house to go have breakfast, I know… Lunch, at the Aviary!

We got in the car and drove to a couple of places where they had a Starbucks. My mum was in London with my brother, sister and my dad and asked me to see if we had certain cups in America. She wanted to buy them in London but they might have been cheaper here. I think we drove to about three different ones but sadly, we couldn’t find them.

Following, we drove downtown to go eat!

Amazing interior

The Aviary is a neat little placed with lovely decorations and very tasty food! Nicole and Lauren go here quite often so they know what’s good and that was everything!

I went for the Caesar salad, obviously, and afterwards Nicole and I shared the Salted Caramel crepe.

It was delicious and I kept taking pictures of the interior. It was so cute! Definitely a place I would want to take my mum if she is able to come visit me at the end of the year.

My purchase

Moving on, we walked around for a little bit and ended up in a small store with all sorts of little knick-knacks. There wasn’t anything I actually needed but I found a pretty gift bag that says ‘Dreamer’ with an owl on it. I bought that because I thought it fit me quite well. After all, I am a girl with big dreams and everyone knows that owls a
re seen as intelligent. I hope that some of his intelligence rubs off on me!

We visited a couple more other local stores, all filled with Halloween stuff! Excuse me; I thought Halloween was on the 31^st of October?

Ready for the game

And then the great Target came around! A-ma-zing. I love it.

We spent a good amount of time in there and I came out with a good amount of stuff. Including a Cardinals shirt. Comes in handy since all the exchange students are going to Saint Louis for the weekend and we’re going to be watching a game as well!

We were done shopping for the day and continued our super fun day by going to the bull riding that was taking place.

We arrived there at 5.30 pm because that’s when the doors would open and thirty minutes later the show would start. So we both took a seat and we were there early so we watched the guy on the tractor driving circles in the ring for a while.

It was six o’clock but the show wasn’t starting yet. So they were a little late? No big deal. Soon enough it was twenty minutes later and Nicole and I started wondering why it was taking so long. So I stood up and asked the first people that I saw what time the show was supposed to start: eight pm.

Waiting with the beautiful Nicole

The show would start two hours later than we thought it would. We got there two and a half hours early. The people who were there really must have thought we were die hard bull riding fans, just like they were. Not so much.

We laughed so hard, thinking we were there for so long before the show even started and we surely didn’t end up staying there to watch the show for the same amount of time.

It was definitely something I haven’t seen before, only on telly. I don’t agree with using bulls as an object to entertain other people by getting them all heated up and trying to ride them but it certainly is some show.

Games for kids during the break

We were seated underneath one of those huge lights, the same they have at football games. The light attracts bugs and other flying organisms that like to sit on my skin to either suck my blood or freak the hell out of me. This resulted into me screaming and embarrassing myself and Nicole when there was a huge ‘thing’ on my leg. I almost cried: I was so scared that it would do something. We left. It was a nice show, just not nice enough to have flying creatures bugging you for the time you are there. Or longer, what if they are in your hair or clothing and you don’t notice? Just saying.

All together I am super glad Nicole took me their, it was a typical American experience. It was nice to see it together, both of us for the first time!

We went back to the house and back to John who we had abandoned for the day. We brought him some food and watched some more telly. We all went to bed not long after. Back to the amazing sheets <3

Much love,

Naomi