Stars and Sunflowers

It's kind of amazing what things excite the girls. We drove them home at night after an event on campus and as we crunched down our gravel driveway, they gave loud exclamations of awe from the back seat. I thought they had seen something moving outside, like deer. Nope. It was the stars. 

"Wow! So many!" 

They asked to get out of the car so they could enjoy looking at them a little longer.

This past week's planned fun activities featured a few more campus events than last: 

MSU block party. We arrived on campus to pick them up (at their request) and discovered they weren't on campus. They'd walked to the block of restaurants down the street because they wanted a snack. We had eaten a light supper because the posters advertised free food at the block party. The free food was a cookie. 😒 The girls weren't quite ready when we arrived, so G and I strolled the square and ended up in Insomnia Cookies to sample their wares. Very tasty! Better than Crumble Cookies in our opinion. 

Thursday we had a nice dinner with some dear friends of ours and then the girls went to an MSU volleyball game. They thought the players' excitement and butt tapping was funny, and they reenacted some of that energy for me after they got home. 😆

Friday night we stopped at a thrift store (something Yua wanted to do since she's heard of thrift shops in America). We visited the garden center and then went to bull riding in Arlington. It was G and the girls' first time ever! 

I've been to many bull riding events, and this one was top notch! Great bulls and a lot of 'em, decent announcer/clown, good weather, good atmosphere. There were maybe 30 rides? And of those, probably 5-6 made it all eight seconds. Two got halfway there before being bucked off. A few bulls didn't want to go back in the alley after their ride, which was equally fun to watch the cowboys and clowns work to get them back in.

Saturday morning we dropped them off at MSU to get on a bus with their class to go to the Mall of America. They were super excited about that trip. When they got home, they said they didn't have enough time there. No surprise there! Their favorite stop was the Minnesota store. They are so proud of their MN T-shirts! Not sure where, but Hohomi found earrings that say "HoHo". She got them because they are like her name. 😜

While the girls were at MOA, G and I also drove up to the Cities. Our trip was to celebrate G's godson's birthday. We made it in time to see a parade! LOTS of candy... Perfect to give little bits of American candy to the girls to try. 

They arrived back in Mankato in time for supper. We did a quick leftover meal and brought them back in time for the second half of the MSU football game. We sent them off with lots of blankets and the bags of candy. 

MSU won the game in a last second field goal! After the game, the college showed Inside Out 2 on the field and the girls stayed for that too. Late night!

Sunday was their last day of church. It was Sunday school kickoff, so I ran around doing that before/after the service. G took them home while the rest of us stayed for bible study. They wanted to work on homework, but were so tired they fell asleep and didn't wake up until after 1:00! 

We got them up to watch the second half of the Vikings game. Vikings won! The girls noticed that every sporting event they've gone to in America, their team has won. "Goddesses of Victory!" they call themselves. 😂

After a second nap, we took them to a sunflower field G found out about from someone who had stopped at the garden center. The girls LOVED it, absolutely stunned by the amount of flowers. 

We took many pictures.

The goofy goat farm is only a few miles up the road, so we stopped there too and fed the goats stale tortilla chips. Yua got trapped by a huge goat. 

To end our last Sunday, we took a pontoon ride and had pizza on the boat (graciously hosted by G's aunt and uncle). The girls didn't eat as much as I expected... They said they were getting seasick! Their appetites perked up back on land. We went inside for root beer floats for dessert. Surprisingly, the girls didn't want floats! "Too sweet!" they said. But they did want plain ice cream and chocolate syrup on top. 😉