an explanation.

So, I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not, but for the past two weeks, we have had a fort in our family room. And I mean a full blown fort taking up the entire room, complete with a "lounge area" and an ironing board in the center to hold it all up. It was really awesome. More than awesome. It was our claim to fame. People we had never met, let alone ever seen before, came to our apartment to see this fort of fame. We had several movie nights, girl talks (that occasionally included boys), and photo shoots in/involving the fort. It truly became a large part of our life, and we were intensely emotionally attached to this fort.
Cleaning checks are this Tuesday and, therefore, the fort had to come down. Friday, as somewhat of a joke, we decided to have a "taking down the fort ceremony." We decided it would be appropriate if we all wore black out of respect for the comfort and memories the fort provided during difficult times. Then, as we were getting ready, we added a little red here and there. Then the really Red lipstick was brought out and there was no containing us. We largely poofed our hair, I busted out the red heels and cameras. We pretty much lost control, but had a ton of fun doing so. Then, since we had not had dinner, we went to the Malt Shop (all of us but Natalie and Casey Jo, who stayed to let in the visitors) and little did we consider the fact that it would be totally PACKED. We got a few interesting looks and a lot of boys asking us if we were part of a salsa dance team or something. They found our real explanation much cooler than the lame "salsa dance" excuse they had come up with themselves. That was fun. When we got home, there were tons of people there. It must have been close to 20 people there just to see the fort come down. Jacey and Casey Jo had prepared a few words (which were HILARIOUS) and we had the Lord of the Rings sound track playing in the background for some mood music. After the speeches, we threw rose petals on top (we really got into it, I'm telling you, it was awesome) and then took it down. Then we proceeded to take pictures again.
Man. That night was badly needed by me. I had taken 3 tests friday and was completely burnt out. I know most of these pictures are pretty dumb, but it's college, and I figure, I'm not going to be able to be retarded freely forever, right? K, and since I'm in my apartment and the Internet is being slow, I'll post pictures tomorrow on campus.
I got a letter from Mike. He told me he was going to send something in the envelope and that I should be ready for it. When I got home from work on Friday and the letter was sitting there, I was, of course, thoroughly excited. I opened it, but there was nothing but the letter and some shards of plastic in the envelope. Then I noticed there was a 2 inch tear on the opposite end of the envelope. The poor boy had tried to send me a tape (I sent him one in his package) but he didn't realize that you should probably use a bubble envelope for things like that. So, since my letter wouldn't get there by his next p-day (I was planning on waiting so I could write about conference) I wrote him a short email saying it would probably be wise if he would consider the not-so-fragile nature of the US postal system the next time he tried to send me something somewhat-fragile. Also, the tape had a lot on it apparently, because the letter kept saying, "but I talked about that in the tape, so never mind." So hopefully, he can fill me in on everything he said in the tape in his next letter. I know he wanted some addresses, he kind of alluded to that in the letter too... hmm...
Speaking of conference (kind of) how awesome was it!? Oh my gosh. I think that was the most influential conference I've ever sat through (and stayed awake through). I found something applicable to me in every talk I think. Some of the talks just had things that I wanted to talk to mike about, so that was kind of cool in that way too.
Also, Katie Brunson spent the weekend here. That was really fun. I was busy a lot, but she had other friends to visit as well. We went to visit Andrea and Karalee Jo and of course, we soaked that up. It was really nice to be able to hang out with Katie especially since I never see her anymore. Good times. Love her.
K, that should be about everything, and I need to get to bed. I'll probably add more when I get up on campus tomorrow, but we'll see.