Visiting Justin

A few years ago my big brother, Justin, moved to Lubbock to attend school at TTU. Since he moved out my family and I haven't been able to go visit him very often. Lubbock is quite a few hours away from where we live, so packing everyone up into a rental car is quite the undertaking; but, this past Friday we finally made the trip. We rented the car, booked the hotel, and after what felt like centuries of driving we arrived at his apartment.

We spent the next five days playing video games, board games, and going out to eat. One of the board games that we spent much of our time playing was Wits & Wagers, which was tons of fun. It's a trivia board game, but not the type that makes you feel stupid. It's more the type that makes you laugh, due to how random all of the questions are. 99% of the time no one knows what the answer is, therefore it's not a big deal if you don't know the answer (Expect for that one question that asked how many boxing matches Muhammad Ali had won, to which I replied 2000. I don't know much at all about boxing, but apparently 2000 is absurdly high.)

Overall, the trip was tons of fun. It reminded me a lot of when we were all still little, living at home, and made me quite miss those days. Back when everything was so much simpler, and we spent everyday together. I may have thought my siblings were a bit annoying back then, but now that we're all growing up, and starting to pave our own lives I wish I could go back; but, alas time travel is not a thing yet. I guess the best I can do for now is hope that as we grow older we don't grow apart.

-Melissa P. Cooper

Captionless Instagram Photos

I love Instagram. I love taking pictures. I love sharing pictures. The only thing that I don't love is coming up with captions for my pictures. This is mostly because I suck at it. I mean, really suck at it. I've actually captioned a few photos 'I don't know what to caption this'.

Due to the fact that I suck so bad at coming up with captions I usually end up not posting lots of pictures, so today I have decided to start a series called 'Captionless Instagram Photos' where every few weeks I'll post all of the pictures that didn't quite make the cut to be posted on Instagram due to my inability to be clever.

I hope you enjoyed looking through those pictures. If you want to follow me on Instagram and see the photos that do make the cut then click here. See you next time!

-Melissa P. Cooper

Last Summer: New York City

This is the very last installment in my 'Last Summer' post series, which makes me a bit sad. It's been so fun reliving all of the fun times I had on these trips. But, today's post is quite an exciting one, because I'm going to be telling you about the time I went to New York City!

It all started at the beginning of last year. Keds (the shoe company) announced that they were going to be hosting an essay competition- If you won you would receive a grant to fly out to NYC, and attend the first ever Keds Brave Life Summit. I enter competitions like this all of the time, and usually nothing ever happens, but I figured why not give this a try. So, I sat down and typed up a quick essay about a time in my life when I was 'brave', which was hard. It's strange trying to write about how awesome you think you are, but with a little help from my mom I had it finished in just a few hours.

I spent the next few months constantly refreshing my email, but nothing ever came. I began to think that I hadn't been chosen, which wasn't very surprising; but, just as my hope began to die out I received an email with the subject line: News- Your Brave Life Summit Application. At first I didn't want to open it. What if it was a rejection email? After much consideration though, I decided to open it, and the first thing I read was 'Big news- You have been selected...' I didn't believe it. I read it at least five times all the way through before it really began to sink in. Then, once I realized that this was really happening, and it wasn't some sort of cruel practical joke I ran to tell my mom and dad. I was so happy! I don't think I've ever been as happy as I was in that moment.

Then just two months later my mom and I were boarding a plane to head to NEW YORK CITY. We landed on a Thursday, and left on a Monday, so we had the entire weekend to explore. Neither I nor my mom had ever been to New York City, so we kind of made everything up as we went along (which I would say made it even more fun).

The pizza was just as delicious as I hoped it'd be.

The 9/11 Museum

The Statue of Liberty looked much smaller than I was expecting.

The view from our hotel room.

My very first Broadway musical!

One of my favorite places we visited- The NY Public Library.

The first day we didn't do much due to the fact that it took ages to leave the airport and find our hotel, but that was definitely not the case for the following four days. Each day we left the hotel around sunrise, and came back well past sunset. We wanted to be sure that we saw as much as we could see while we were there (which we definitely did). We saw... The Statue of Liberty, Grand Central Station, Central Park, The New York Public Library, Times Square, The 9/11 Museum, and much much more. I won't go on too much about all of these places because this post is already so long, but there are a few things I want to say. First of all, Central Park was so much bigger than I thought it was! We could have spent days getting lost in there. This was also where my mom surprised me with tickets to Wicked, so it will forever be one of my favorite places, even if I never see it again. The Statue of Liberty looked much smaller than in the movies, but was still amazing to see. And lastly, the 9/11 Museum is definitely something you should make the time to go see if you ever find yourself in New York.

I made so many wonderful memories on this trip, and the fact that my mom was able to come with made it even more special. This is a trip that I will definitely always always always remember.

-Melissa P. Cooper