The Wedding

Backtracking. Still not caught up, but of course I will have a New Year's Resolution to be a better

blogger or something like that so that I will get caught up soon.....

Anyways I never got to mention how great the wedding was. (Part 3 of my 3 part journey to Boston, AND the actual reason for my journey to Boston)

I met up with the ol' college friends on Friday Night and we were all together until our departures to various cities on Sunday afternoon :(

It was so great to see all my bestest friends in the world. We caught up and had a blast at the hotel and the wedding/reception.

Below.... (Katie Pryor and Kate) Kate and I were paired as roommates our freshman year in College. It was possibly the most perfect fit EVER. She now lives in Baltimoreish area and is a nurse.

The best perk of arriving late to a wedding is that you get to see the bride before everyone else..... Caitlyn :)
The ceremony was absolutely beautiful. I wish Teddy and Caitlyn a blessed and happy marriage.

I FINALLY met Becca's daughter Leah. She is a blast. (Becca is another UDer originally from Wisconsin. She just moved to Texas!)

AND it was the second time I have gotten to see the Reedys this year. Last time I saw them was when I visited them at their current place of residence on the UD campus in Rome, Italy.

Our table... At the very end you can see the Lively family and part of Kathleen's family. Which I really dont know if i remember her new last name...... opps.Katie Pryor with Alissa's eldest two. Hehe sooo cute. This little lady ruled the dance floor.

Boston

Last weekend my dear college friend Nathaniel Smith II aka Teddy celebrated his wedding out in Boston. I took advantage of the trip out there and planned a three part journey.

PART 1: Aunt Maggie's retreat house.......

I stopped in Canton for a few days to see the Rubenackers and my Grammy. It had been over a year since I had seen them and everyone is doing just as well. I slept probably 12 hours each night and spent about 12 hours in front of a toasty fireplace each day (this is why I refer to it as the retreat house). Anyone who sleeps in Aunt Maggie's guest room literally melts into the bed. Anyways I had a blast with Joey and Anna. Joey beat me aproximately 11 times in Uno and taught me how to make paper ninja stars. He also provided dinner entertainment with his holiday dance show. Her's a pretty funny guy.

I got to celebrate Anna's 14th Birthday with them and went to her basketball game. They got a little bit outscored, BUT I am proud to say that MY cousin is the best one on her team. (AND Thats not at all biased ;)) She also beat me at UNO.

Part 2: Ed Hardy's Climbing Gym...

This was the shortest part of the trip. I went to see Ed Hardy's Gym in Worcester MASS. Ed and I both went to UD and unlike me, he is actually putting his business degree to use. He built an awesome climbing gym, which (to me) is famous because it was the site of a very popular gym climbing video. It's very impressive. AND Golly Ed and his brother are really smart. :)

OH and he's in the process of building a second gym.

The Romanator

Last weekend. I was blessed with a short notice visit from Anne, Anthony and ROMAN.

I can't say enough about little Roman. He's a bucket of sunshine with too much personality for his own good. I love watching the little ones grow into their personalities. All three are so different and last weekend was the weekend of the ROMANATOR.

He is such a BOY. He shouts, throws things, marches around and loves his trucks. He's very social and loves to laugh with the grown-ups. When he gets really excited he gets happy happy happy feet.... to the point that i saw him fall over. :)

On the other hand he randomly busts out his sweet side. He gives hugs, bends down and talks to you in a gentle little jibberish voice, and walks around on his tippy-toes.

Anyways, the reason for the trip was that my rockstar brother-in-law (who lives in Philly) is somehow playing for the Chicago Riot and, being the great negotiator he is, cut a deal to have Anne and Roman fly in with him for his game in Milwaukee.

I can't really think of anything special that we did during the weekend besides watch Roman and hang around. We went to the game. (Anthony scored 2 goals!!!!! at least according to my blog) Other than that it was coziness, eating, and fires in the fireplace.

I love my sister and all of them, it was great to see them and I am crossing my fingers that Ant can work out another deal like that soon!Roman and Amaya can finally share and play together. It was so adorable they were running and giggling and chasing eachother! :) And below is my only picture with my sister........

Gobble Gobble

This year was a small Thanksgiving, which means more for everyone. We had the turkey, mashed potatoes, veggies and"butt buns" as Mark calls them. We had a great stuffing this year, bought to us by Sara. I love Thanksgiving food.

In accordance with the Collins sweet tooth the pies took precedence over everything... we had 7 different pies: Pumpkin, pecan, apple, sugar-free apple, cherry, french silk and Lemon Meringue. (this amounted to .78 pies/person)

I made my first ever pecan pie, and a lemon meringue pie. I know the lemon meringue is not exactly in season but i reallly wanted to try to make one. It turned out great and was super fun and easy.

Amaya and Sara.......My brother Jim in his essence:

(He eventually put on some jeans and joined everyone at the table......)

Adam and Maria had thier own thanksgiving, but eventually came by with Henry. I wasnt home, but I still wanna give a shout-out to him.......

cute cute cute

Since I've been back

One thing is clearly evident: I've been doing a pretty bad job of keeping up/continuing my blog. I have to fit it into my new routine here I guess, which is something that is also forming.

Okay so a quick update to catch you up before I delve into my next adventures....

I got a car, not just any car, a car that is probably too good for me. A 2011 Ford Focus.....However, using my wit, I have managed to justify every package and upgrade that I added to it, including my moonroof, light up cup holders, and heated seats. Obviously the heated seats were easiest to justify as Wisconsin is quickly living up to its fame for being cold (of course we all remember Jack Dawson's reference to the cold Wisconsin winters in the movie Titanic).

That was step 1 to my transition back home. I am also working for my mom at her stores, working a games kiosk (board games) at the mall during the holidays and exploring Milwaukee. For kicks, I'll also add the eating too much factoid. Trading the Mediterranean diet and public transportation for Burgers and a sporty little coup is taking its toll on me.

My thoughts on being home? It's been a weird quick transition. Things are still settling in and especially with the onset of dark cold winter, I miss Spain quite a bit. However, the perks of being here are my friends and family and I would not trade that for anything. Besides, I have heated seats now. Come February I plan to get my resume together and am toying with the idea of searching for a 'real job', but anyone who knows me, knows that anything can happen in the next few months....... or days.

Farewell Trip

I'm a little behind, but this is my catch-up week. My last trip in Spain was to Malta. Malta is a small island country just south of Sicily. Its supposedly one of the most Catholic nations in the world. It was a very important British port in History as such its native language is English, but the cool thing is that it also has Italian and Arab influences. A typical Maltian (or whatever you call someone from Malta) looks like a Japanese anime character......

Overlooking the port:

These are what the buses of Malta look like. They have a lot of character (aka are ancient) and also breakdown, but Malta is famous for them.
Pictures from the Medina (old city center):

Port:

Javi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just some random park.....

Morocco

So Javi and I decided to leave Spain for a bit. We went to Morocco, without a plan, guide and very little knowledge of the culture. We were both lost and a little confused, but had a great time. We mostly got around with Spanish. The rest was pointing and hand gestures. We learned a couple words, well Javi did. The only word I remember is ¨Chockadan¨ (or something like that) which means Thank-you.Okay, so at ANY hour of any day, this is what it looked like outside all the cafes. Notice. All the men lined up facing the street. Only men. At first I felt kinda wierd even walking by them, but after a day you get used to things just being plain different. I guess the men there just dont work?????This is the market in the Medina. Medina is the name they use in Arabic for the center of the city. or the city. or something like that.Prayer time.... And yes, they do call out three times a day for prayer (Like in the Movie Sex in the City 2) Oh but the thing is that not everyone is like this. I did see someone prayer in the middle of a store, but a lot of the people dont wear special clothes or get down and pray in the middle of anywhere.This is possibly the most touristic thing i have EVER done, but hey it was fun. This was my camel ride in the dessert..... basically what the kids do at the zoo, but cooler because it was in Morocco and I had to barter the price to ride it.Us and Liela the camelThis is how the dude gets up and down. pretty rough ride.Okay one of the most confusing things about the culture was that when you talk about the price the people always want to barter and are super mean to you, but then they are also SUPER nice. This guy was funny.I love the little kids that come around trying to sell you gum and kleenex. This little guy was so cute, but didnt want his picture taken so started making all sorts of crazy faces. We laughed with him for a while and gave him some candy. Apparently gummy worms are a universal delight.I suppose that this sign says ¨stop¨ in sanskrit.Okay if you look really closely you can see that the woman is wearing sunglasses. The all out uniformed women have to wear their glasses and sunglasses on the outside of the outfit. You cant see any part of them or thier face. nothing.Family...A lot of the old men dress like this with the hood up and everything....This is the tower where the man is supposed to shout for prayer three times a day. However, thannks to technology there is just a giant speaker up there and you dont actually get to see dude climb up there and shout.So these are typical pastries there. What you can´t see is that this window is filled with bees crawling all over them. mmmmmmm.Not really sure what to do with this menu. At least i can read the prices of everything.TypicalWe finally got a picture together in the airport as we were leaving.

On this trip I actually finished a book. Eat Love Pray. I like it, but it definately intensified my desire to go to India or Nepal or somewhere like that....... the world is too big.