little life happenings

This post is just going to be a hodge podge of the things I've been doing recently... enjoy!

La Féte de la Musique was a couple of weeks ago. Every solstice (the first day of summer, June 21st) they have a music festival at night in Paris. Every single café, bar, and restaurant opens up their doors and windows and plays music loudly. There are bands everywhere, small and big. People are parading down the streets playing instruments and blasting their Ipod players (Don't you wish people still walked around with boom boxes? I do). Kansas needs to start something like this. Someone get on that.

Next on the list is cupcakes with munchkins. We had a bunch of rainy days in Paris and one I babysat. We usually like to go to the park and play outside but we had to get creative. So, what better to do on a rainy day then bake with a 4 and 5 year old? It wasn't messy at all.

 I went home for a week to see my friends and family. Oh, right.. that's you guys. The only people who read this. It was great to be home and see all of you. Kayla picked me up from the airport and we proceeded to go to Chipotle and order two burritos, tacos, and chips & guacamole. Yes, for just us two. Don't underestimate my smallness when it comes to eating. I went to Shadow Glen that night and it was so good to see everyone. Especially Bradley, I missed you! That night I woke up at 4am (thank you jet lag) and never went back to sleep, tried to go running but realized I didn't have running shoes, so I woke Annie up for entertainment only to end up taking her to her doctors appointment. I did get Smokin' Joes BBQ for lunch with Andrew though so I can't be that mad about that day. Plus, Annie and I got awesome hairwraps from Meredith that make me feel like I'm in the 90's... how could you not love that? That night my mom made me homemade sketti and I spent the night with her at her farm. Her lab just had 9 puppies that could barely walk or open their eyes and I fell in love. I almost slept in the barn with them. I also named each one. We won't get into that. The rest of my time in Kansas I spent at the Lake of the Ozarks at Monica's house. I can honestly say it's one of my favorite places in the world. I'm always happy when I'm there. Thank you Moni for sharing that with me! It was a great couple of days spent with my best friends and I had the absolute hardest time leaving.

But, now I'm back in Paris and I was homesick for about a week or so but decided to stop that nonsense. I've been given such a great opportunity to be here and I'm going to keep taking advantage of that. I was gonna blog about our class dinner and learning how to make falafel but then my internet shut down and erased half of what I was writing so I'm giving up for tonight. I'll leave you with some random pictures that I've taken lately and love.

"We are so often caught up in our destination that we forget to appreciate the journey, especially the goodness of the people we meet on the way. Appreciation is a wonderful feeling, don't overlook it."

"A smiling face is half the meal" -Lavian Proverb

xoxo, al

ps. albakey@tumblr.com - let me know what you think about this new project.