Fall Favorites and College Visit - Kathleen

OMG I saw Thor: Ragnarok on Friday and it was amazing!!!

Hola my lovely readers!

Fall is in full swing now and I'm definitely feeling the cold! Coats are a necessity now in most of Illinois and I absolutely love it. I pulled my leather boots out and I'm wearing sweaters pretty much all the time now and it's soooo cozy!

As you may know, I visited Benedictine College last weekend. It was amazing, to say the least. We left at 6 AM on Friday morning, which was excruciating because I had to get up at 5 AM. I was going to try and drive all the way to the college in Atchison, Kansas which is about 5 hours away. We met lots of students and took a tour of the campus. I got to meet with the chairman of the Journalism/Mass Communications major I'm interested in, and he really helped me feel better about what I want to major in. The girl who took me to the building was so sweet; she offered to show me her freshman dorm! It was so cute and cozy, and both her and her roommate had their own walk-in-closet. My closet isn't that big, so I could literally bring my whole wardrobe! Later on, I met with my confirmation sponsor over lunch and she took me to see her art studio on campus. I attached some pictures below.

The older half of campus.

Atchison is a tiny town in Kansas, this is about 10 minutes out of downtown.

Earlier, I was talking about how cold it is here. Because of that, I'm going to do my fall favorites now instead of later because fall is very quickly turning into winter. I only have two things so it should be super quick!

First thing is the Biore Pore Unclogging Scrub. It "targets what clogs pores and clears away impurities leaving you with a healthy-looking complexion and noticeably softer, smoother skin after just one use." This does exactly what it says it does. I swear, this has saved my skin. During the summer, my skin is clearer. This could be because of a few reasons: I am working out more, spending more time outside, and less stressing out because of school. During the school year, my skin is usually much more spotty. Right now, my skin is just as clear as it is during the summer. I feel 100% confident going somewhere without makeup. I HIGHLY recommend this.

Last is the Makeup Revolution Flawless 3 Resurrection palette. Oh ma goodness. This palette has the prettiest nude colors. I think my favorite shades are Castle, Sublime, and New Dawn. The colors are very pigmented and there is soo little fall out. For $15, it's an amazing palette.

Thank you so much for reading! Comment down below any of your college plans or what you want to major in!

Kathleen

twodorkswithablog.blogspot.com

The Great American Eclipse - Kathleen

Hey guys!!!

So I hope you can tell what this post is going to be about. If you don't, I will tell you.

On August 21st, 2017 at 1:21 P.M. Central Standard Time, in Carbondale, Illinois, the moon covered the sun and blocked out 100% of its surface. The exact point of  the shadow reached earth and traveled over the United States of America. The 70 mile wide shadow traveled a path through Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Southern Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Caroline before ending at the Eastern most tip of Africa.

I was lucky enough to travel to Camp Ondessonk to view the Eclipse. Camp Ondessonk, a Catholic summer camp, is south of Carbondale, Illinois. Camp Ondessonk was directly on the line of totality which meant that we had 2 minutes and 39.7 seconds of totality.

First contact was at 10:45 am so we were out in the field with the astronomers at 10:30. It was incredible to be able to look directly at the sun through our glasses. At about 10 minutes to totality (1:11pm) the shadows became very sharp. Everything looked like a picture with the contrast turned up. Thunder clouds were illuminated on the horizon. It was incredible to see the orange sunset and then the thunderclouds.

This is essentially what it looked like minus the ship and the sun (or lack thereof, heehee) was bigger.

At 2 minutes until totality the light disappeared. In 30 seconds it went from mid-day light to about 8 pm dusk/twilight.

Then totality hit.

My words will be nothing compared to the real thing.

The first thing you see is the diamond ring. This is the last little bit of the sun's light escaping the moon's coverage. It actually looks like a massive diamond ring. Then you see Bailey's Beads. This is actually the last bit of the sun shining through the valley's and craters of the moon. Then the shadow of the moon races over you and 140,000 mph. It's so fast that if you don't have the right elevation and space you won't see it. All I noticed was that the dark sky, got even darker drastically. Then it all happened backwards. And it got brighter.

It's amazing how life changing two minutes and thirty-nine point seven seconds without the sun can be. All the night life came out, the horses went inside.

The next eclipse is in 2024. You HAVE GOT to find a way to get to this eclipse. Camp Ondessonk will be doing another session. My words mean nothing, that picture means nothing until you see it. You can google all the pictures you want to, watch all the documentaries on Netflix, and listen to all the stories, but you have GOT to have your own experience. And when you do, don't take a picture to post on Instagram. I know how many comments it will get and the likes, but it doesn't matter. Will you have seen it and taken it in?

Have an amazing Labor Day!!

Kathleen

twodorkswithablog.blogspot.com

Camp Ondessonk

Dog Photography -Emma

Hello everyone! I've been taking a lot of photos of my puppy, Sadie, lately and thought I would share them with you all! I know these are not anywhere near professional, but in the next few months I really want to get a DSLR camera and start taking professional photos of my pets! I think it would be so much fun and I'd be able to take my hobby to a whole new level.

I'm pretty sure this is my favorite photo ever taken of Sadie. I took it on Sadie's

first official hiking trip when my family and I went camping at Rend Lake for the weekend.

She's rocking the red bandana and looks super adventurous (and cuddly).

Don't you just wanna boop her nose? I know you want to.

I took this last Saturday at the farmers market. She had such a good time, and got tons

of attention. She's also modeling a bandana that I made for my Etsy shop, FureverFriendsCo.

This one was also taken while camping at Rend Lake. It was one of Sadie's

first sunsets. It's a low quality picture but I still think it's beautiful.

Sadie was all smiles because it's FRIDAY! 

(she actually just reallyyy wanted the treat I was holding up)

I bought her this new dinosaur toy the other day and let's just say she's absolutely 

IN LOVE with this dinosaur. It's her new best friend. She carries it around with her everywhere, sleeps with it, it's the cutest thing ever. Ugh. 

Lastly, a photo documenting the start of her first fall. So far she's loving chasing (and eating)

all the leaves falling off the trees.

That's it! I hope you all liked seeing all these photos! I guess you could say I'm a littleeeee obsessed with my dog. But that's okay, I have no shame. If you'd like to see more of Sadie, you can check out her Instagram account, @sadieonthemove. 

I'm planning some new back to school and fall related posts for these next few weeks, so look out for those!

Talk to ya'll later!

-Emma

What's in My Travel Backpack & Steuby Pictures - Kathleen

It's been awhile... yikes...

I can't believe how irresponsible I am with this blog... I know I know, I keep saying that I'm gonna post more and get back too it, but lets face facts: I haven't. I've been taking drivers ed every morning at 8 am, and staying up late at swim meets, and traveling. (More on that later 😛) Now that isn't to say that I couldn't have written a post way before I left or before I got super busy because I could have. So. I'm taking responsibility for that and making up for it. I'm sorry.

So speaking of travel, I have a little list for you! This is what I travel with in my backpack!!

So this is my backpack...

I got this for Christmas in 2016. I don't know where Mom got it from. The one I originally wanted was from PINK but that one was pricey for a backpack. This one looks just like it and I love it!!! It has three little pockets in the front. The two on the side are smaller and perfect for chargers, lotions, or snacks. The bucket pocket is sort of rectangular and not as much of a cube as you might think. It has a small pocket on the inside that is perfect for your wallet.

The buttons are all made like this which, I think, makes it a lot easier to open and close the pockets. The buttons are also nice buttons. It won't be easy for someone to open your bag or pickpocket.

Let's move on to what I bring IN the bag.

Electronics

I can fit my laptop, tablet, and phone in this bag all at once. However, this bag wasn't made to protect a laptop. I also usually don't need to take my laptop with me very often. I usually just pack my tablet and phone here because that's all I will really need. I also make sure to pack my chargers. My phone charger used to work on my tablet, so that made it easier when packing, but I got a new phone and the chargers are just a little bit different. So now I have to pack both... what a first world problem! 😄

Hygiene

I always bring hand lotion, hand sanitizer, tissues, and chap stick in my backpack. If I think that I might have some anxiety wherever I'm going, I will bring a pack of gum as well. If you want a post on this (anxiety hacks/tricks) comment below and I will share my limited knowledge.

If I am going on a longer trip, sometimes I will bring a paper face mask to do or something like that.

Stuff to Do

Being a blogger, I have a notebook for ideas. That usually goes everywhere with me. I also usually bring a book or two for down time.

So this is really what I packed in my backpack for Steubenville, which I have pictures to show you! I'm not going to really explain most of them. You will be able to tell what/when they are based on what Emma told you.

Saturday night by the gym... getting ready for small groups

The sunrise Saturday morning

Waiting for Saturday morning session to start.

Saturday morning talk #1

Saturday afternoon talk #1

Vocation call (Priests)

Thank you so much for reading this post! I love you guys so much! I hope you enjoyed the pictures! Tell me in the comments if you want the Anxiety Tips/Tricks post! Thank you!

Kathleen

twodorkswithablog.blogspot.com

Steubenville 2017 -Emma

So this weekend was life changing...

Hey awesome readers! It's Emma here, and this past weekend (July 14-16) I attended the Steubenville conferences in Springfield Missouri for the first time.

Kathleen graciously gave me rights to do the Stuebenville blog post since it was my first year going.. so thank you Kathleen!

I also have Kathleen to thank for encouraging me to go. She helped me along the way and I was super thankful for that because this past weekend turned out to be not just one of the greatest faith experiences of my life, but also one of the all time greatest.

This post is going to be pretty long if you couldn't already tell, because I'm excited and want to RANT! Okay? Okay.

So if you have never heard of Steubenville Conferences before you're probably like.. what the heck is this girl on about? You can check out their website here: https://steubenvilleconferences.com/youth/

The conference Kathleen and I went to was at Missouri State University in Springfield Missouri. It was about a 4 hour drive from where we are from, so it was a pretty long car ride (for me at least).

Now I'm gonna get vloggy.


Friday:

I got up bright and early at 5 AM to drop off Sadie at my boyfriends house for the weekend, I'm still very thankful he watched her for me. She can be quite the pain but she's adorable.

We all met at The Shrine at 9:00 AM to carpool. I was in a group with a lot of great people who I got to become close friends with over the weekend which was awesome.

We arrived around 4:00PM on Friday and by then I was exhausted. Or so I thought.

The moment we walked in on Friday night after rushing around from dinner I was already in love. My energy came right back immediately. When we first walked in I had that "Woah, what did I just walk into" moment. Everyone was having so much fun, dancing, singing, the music was amazing, it was like being at an awesome rock concert for Jesus.

After praise and worship and talks from different leader came adoration. Now I'm going to be honest with y'all. I'd never actually been to an adoration where I felt something. I always got distracted and couldn't completely focus. But this was different than any other adoration I had ever been to before.

I don't exactly know how to put it into words, but you could feel Christ's presence in the room, and everything was so quiet and still. Like everything just fell into place, and I just thought in my mind, "Wow, how could anyone not believe in God when you can feel his presence so strongly?"

It was amazing. I wish everyone could experience the feeling.

After that, around 11:30 PM, we had small groups. I wasn't a big fan. Probably because I'm shy, a bit reserved, and I'm not usually open to sharing my feelings with complete strangers.

Saturday:

Bright and early at 6:30, we were ready to start the day. Here's a photo of Kathleen and I getting hype for day 2 at the hotel.

On Saturday we had mass in the morning, which was amazing. They went through all the steps of the mass beforehand just talking about what everything meant for people who weren't Catholic. Even though I am Catholic, I found it interesting and useful to hear a refresher on what everything was for. 

Saturday was filled with workshops, singing, and bonding with friends. It was so much fun. One of my favorite workshops I went to was about Social Media. If you know me, you know I'm extremley addicted to social media and usually spend 40% of my day on my phone (not good, I know).

One of the things I remembered from the social media workshop that I wanted to share with you all is this little tip on making yourself a more positive person:

I challenge you all to unfollow every person who posts negative things from Snapchat/Instagram/Twitter (literally all social media sites you use), and for every person you unfollow, follow someone who will be a positive influence. 

I've already started doing this and it helps a TON! Seriously, please do it! You'll be so happy you did. 

We also went to a workshop just for girls and that was awesome too. Katie, the woman who was leading the talk, was absolutely amazing. She told us all this really amazing story about her writing to her future husband when she was in high school, and later found out that he came to God the same day she wrote the letter. No joke. You can check out her talk here if you'd like. 

Saturday night we had another night of adoration, this time even better than the first. I won't go into a ton of detail, but it was honestly just amazing. I don't really have any other words to describe it. I felt like I became even closer to my friends and Christ. 

You can also watch the whole Saturday night live stream here, including our awesome singing and dancing to Livin' on a Prayer and Let it Go. Yes, I'm serious. 

Sunday:

Sunday was sadly the last day. We started off the day with Sunday morning Mass, and more talks from leaders. Pretty much wrapping everything up.

At the end, they asked everyone to stand who would be interested in someday becoming a priest or nun if God was to call them to do that, and it was pretty moving. So many more people than I thought would stood up. Looking around, it made the Catholic church's future look very bright. 

Then it was time to leave.. and I guess that's all to say...

Overall, I had an AMAZING  weekend. It was moving, life changing, and brought me so much closer to my friends. The things I learned this weekend will help me make big life changes to help me become a better person and a better follower of Christ. I cannot thank everyone enough for the encouragement.

Thanks for reading through all of this! Hopefully there will be another post about 2018 Steubenville from either Kathleen or I next year!

-Emma

Springfield Trip -Emma

Hello everyone! I'm back with a new post!

Yeah, a REAL POST!

This weekend, my mom and I took a little trip to Springfield IL. It was the perfect way to celebrate president's day (yes, I know that's tomorrow and I'm a bit early), but yeah.

I had a great time while we were there and obviously took a TON of pictures. But I'll be sharing a small amount of those with you all and talking about them.

The first thing we did when we got to Springfield was visit Lincoln's home. I thought
this was super cool and it was really special to be somewhere Lincoln once lived. 

Here is Lincoln's famous writing desk. 

Me outside the house.

After that, we went to lunch and then to Lincoln's

tomb. It was WAY bigger than I thought it would be, and the

architecture inside was amazing.

Here is a photo of where he is buried. Across from him (behind me when

I took this photo) his wife and children are buried. 

Me needing as much luck as I can get...

Here's a selfie of my mom and I inside the

capitol building waiting for the tour to start. 

The picture couldn't really capture how amazing the architecture 

here was, but this is the House of Representatives. Fun fact: 

Legally Blonde 2 was filmed here! I thought that was pretty cool, 

because I'm a big fan of those movies.

Here is the Senate. Another fun fact: Barack Obama started his

political career in this very room!

Last but not least, here's me outside trying to be a 

model! LOL.

That's it! I hope you all enjoyed all the photos and thanks for reading!

Have a great 3 day weekend :)

-Emma

MODG Unofficial Dance - Kathleen

Hey guys!

So I should be back for a good long time now. I was gone for awhile at a funeral, and then again for a trip to DC. But y'all know that. So I'm gonna talk about school.

Pretty much the only reason why I have a little bit of time for this blog is because of the way my school works. Most of you already know, but I'm homeschooled. I actually love answering questions about my schooling, its super fun. So maybe I can help you wonderers out and give you a bit of info.

Lots of people do homeschooling different ways. Some people take online classes, some people do classes with a homeschooling group, some parents set up their own curriculum. My parents decided to sign us up for an online school called Mother of Divine Grace. It is a catholic school based out of Santa Paula, California. They have lots of different classes. I am taking Ancient History, Latin, Natural History, (I'll explain later if you really want me too) Sacraments and Apologetics, Biology, and Algebra 2. (I did Geometry last year) Our classes meet once a week for an hour. (Latin is 45 minutes twice a week) All of these classes are with teachers from around the U.S. and sometimes around the world. Basically, my mom doesn't teach any of my classes. Yeah.

So we meet once a week and then we have a list of things to get done before the next class. I only have classes Monday - Wednesday though. So Thursday and Friday's are pretty short, chill days. Besides school, I'm in a choir, I play a little golf, swim on a team during the summer, and am involved in our youth group and homeschooling group. So yeah, I'm very social. Honestly, when people think about homeschoolers and how they "aren't social" they couldn't be farther from wrong. Just because we don't make dirty jokes 24/7 doesn't mean we can't have a good conversation. It really depends on who you are and how your parents raised you. I have never been shy or afraid to talk. (Besides like, the little bits of social anxiety, but I feel like everyone has that) In our homeschooling group, we have the jocks, the nerds, the popular kids, and the quiet kids. We had an Indian family for about 3 years but then they moved. (Shoutout to Jolie! Sorry I didn't include everything about you guys, the list is too long) So yeah, we have a huge variety. We get to know people.

So a part of this MODG (Mother of Divine Grace) thing is that every year, the night before the March for Life (which if you don't agree with, I don't care we can still be friends) they put on a dance. It is for high-schoolers enrolled in MODG but this was my first year going. (I'm a sophomore) IT WAS SO FUN!

We mad ourselves pretty (not that we aren't already) and drove the hour long line into the dance. I think we all got our dresses at David's Bridal. Besides Jolie. I don't know where you got yours.

We had a super cool view from the windows in our "ballroom." I had Parmesan Crusted Chicken with rice and some vegetables. And for dessert, we had the THICKEST, RICHEST chocolate cake you ever tasted. I think it was like fudge cake. I could only eat like half of it...

So the dancing started. We had several huddles of boys going on, and a giant circle of screaming girls at one point. It was so much fun.

Jolie and Caroline also found my phone and took a selfie... So kind of them...

So we had a really long night, I think we actually went to bed at like 2 am... We had so much fun, and burned so many calories. It was great. But I have to go to bed now, because it is late... (It's only 9:20 pm...) So yeah.

Thank you so much for reading!!! Comment down below with posts you want me to do in February, I have a few Valentines Décor DIYs I might show you. I don't know which blog I will do it on yet though so I will keep you posted.

Also, say Happy Birthday to Emma! Her birthday was on the 2nd and she is in Florida so tell her on Instagram!! I don't really know how all that works (I really need to get one) but I'm sure you can comment somehow... yeah.

Kathleen

internationalbffs.blogspot.com

twodorkswithablog.blogspot.com

#2 Holiday in the Park- Emma

Hello all! Long time no talk! Today I am doing my first blogmas post and I am SUPER EXCITED! There are going to be so many great posts coming up this month and I can't wait for you all to see them!

This past weekend I went to Holiday in the Park at Six Flags St. Louis. It was soooo much fun. This was the first year for Holiday in the Park and we went on opening day, so that was pretty cool. My mom and I went with my aunt, uncle, 2 cousins, and my aunt's sister and her son. So we had a pretty big group.

There was this gorgeous Christmas tree where you first walk into
the park. There were also carolers that sounded absolutely amazing!

Once it got dark out, everything lit up. It was so amazing.
They had Christmas music playing to really set the mood.

Here is the other Christmas tree they had set up by
the Mr. Freeze roller coaster and the ferris wheel.

Here's my cousins and I taking a photo in this photo-op thing. 

I'm the blonde by the creepy Santa. We went on so many

roller coasters so I was super hyped up. 

I thought this photo looked super artsy xD. It was so pretty

in person. 

My mom, uncle, cousin, and I decided to take a selfie before
we got on the Metropolis ride. (It's one of my favorites)

Even the ferris wheel was lit up. It was super pretty.
I just don't want to think of how they got the lights on there..
yikes.

While we were there we also went to a show about the true meaning of Christmas (meaning the birth of Jesus) and they had live animals! A camel walked past me that was probably twice my height, it was huge! 

Those are all the photos I have! :( If you live in the St. Louis area, I highly recommend going to Holiday in the Park sometime this December. It really gets you in the Christmas spirit. 

I hope you all enjoyed this post! See you all in two days! :)

-Emma