Weekend Stuff {9/18-9/20 and 9/25-9/27}

Oh hey. I missed you guys! This past week flew by and every day I would say, “Gee, I should probably write my Weekend Stuff post” but then I would get busy doing homework, practicing, or wasting time. Woo.

So, here we are a week later. Another week has past, along with another weekend, so to make things a lot easier, I’m going to write about both weekends in one post! Yay!

Last Friday, Glenn and I got home around 4pm and my mom was just starting dinner. I was stoked because she was making a recipe I tagged her in on Facebook. I tag her in a lot of food related articles because we basically have the same taste buds.

Turkey sweet potato soup topped with avocado and cilantro. OH MY GOODNESS. I wish I could eat this at every meal.

Friday night, I went to the first session of a Taekwondo training seminar led by the USA National TKD Coach, Arlene Limas. We worked on conditioning (mainly stretching, footwork, and high interval training). The warm-up and cool-down stretches were definitely my favorite part. There were some muscles that I hadn’t stretched in a looooong time and it felt so good.

Saturday morning, I made some pumpkin protein pancakes along with coffee in a pumpkin mug.

One of them looked like a pumpkin. :D

At 10:30am, the second TKD session began and we worked on training (footwork, kicking, and sparring techniques). We took a break for lunch and I got to come home and drink a latte and eat lunch.

Tuna, sweet potato, avocado, zucchini salsa, and mustard. I also had some grapes that are unpictured.

We came back at 1pm for the last session: sparring. We did a lot more sparring techniques and then actually got to spar, which was really fun.

Coming away from these sessions, I realize I have a long way to go in my TKD career. There are so many techniques I am excited to instigate in my own private training and it has only heightened my motivation to become better.

Saturday night, Glenn got to choose what we had for dinner.

Pork chops, salad, and pasta. I obviously had a sweet potato instead of pasta because I probably only have them once or twice a week at school.

Sunday morning, I made more pumpkin pancakes because I love them so much. The pumpkin mug made a reappearance as well as my coffee pajama pants.

I went to church, got to see some friends, and then came home for lunch. My mom had bought this bag of salmon that had been marinating in herb butter. All you had to do was microwave it for four minutes and BAM it was done. It was delicious.

I had mine with mixed greens, tomato, green pepper, avocado, and sweet potato.

I spent the rest of my afternoon making almond butter because it’s a necessity at school and practicing piano before going to a Ben Rector concert with my friends!

The opening band was Judah and The Lion. I had never heard of them, but they were really good! Their sound was a mix between Mumford and Sons and Relient K…yeah. They seemed like overall great guys and they were outstanding performers (they had choreographed dance moves for most of their songs).

Ben Rector was (of course) amazing! He’s one of the few performers I’ve seen live who sound better live than they do on their album. Yeah, he’s that good. He’s just a super classy guy with a super amazing voice.

Another great aspect of the concert was spending time with friends, especially Becky and Allison because I never know when I’m going to see them when I come home to visit.

Glenn and Katie went to the Twenty-one Pilots concert and didn’t get back until midnight, so we couldn’t go back to school until Monday morning.

Seeing the sunrise is always a plus.

This past weekend, the Chorale made it's way to Washington, D.C. to sing at the Value Voter's Summit gala for the FRC.

We began our trip at 5pm Friday evening and stopped in New Stanton, PA for the night at a Day's Inn. Saturday morning, we got back on the road around 8:30am and headed for D.C.

Selfies and Starbucks were had.

We got to D.C. around 12:30pm and had lunch at Union Station and went to Au Bon Pain.

I got the Napa Chicken wrap and a gala apple.

We walked to the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, and the World War II monument. We didn't have enough time to walk all the way over to the Lincoln Memorial, but we got to see it!

We got ready for the concert and sang at the Gala around 8:30pm. We didn't get back on the road until around 10:30pm and made our way to New Life Wesleyan Church to meet our host home families. We got there around midnight. Man, our host family was amazing! They were so hospitable and generous. I'm always amazed at how welcoming and accomodating everyone is.

Sunday morning, we got to church around 7:45am and sang at the 9am and 11am services, had lunch, and then were back on the road for 12 hours.

Sunday was my 20th birthday, and this is the first birthday that I've spent away from my family. My friends were super amazing and helped make the day feel special for me by singing happy birthday and giving me a birthday back massage (shout out to Rachel!). I'm majorly excited to celebrate with my family this weekend and get my cake, though!

When was the first time you celebrated a birthday away from home?