BEDA 27: North Dakota Moose Lodge.

Bloooooooog post time.

My post is late tonight on account of my parents kidnapping me, taking me to a biker bar, promising I'd be home by 10 -- and not actually getting back to our hotel until about 1 am. I kept insisting "but guys, I have a blog post to write", but eventually I just gave in, drank my three drinks, and succumbed to the wild North Dakota lifestyle. It's hilarious to picture my parents being the crazy people they were in their twenties, because their old friends I meet here from "way back when" are just... old. But, obviously, it's been about thirty years since their glory days, so I have to suspend disbelief and use my imagination when I picture how things were then.

Today has been a great day. I woke up relatively early and got ready in my grandma's shower (which was literally a trickle of water) and before I knew it, my cousin Mandy had shown up with her new baby Chance. You guys know how much I love babies, so I'm sure you can only imagine what a joy it was to have a baby in front of me I was allowed to play with and not just gawk at from afar. Chance is absolutely adorable (he's 6 months old and such a happy, energetic baby) and I spent the better part of the next few hours holding him and tickling him and dangling toys above him and gushing over him.

My parents keep talking to me. I don't think they fully grasp what "I need to write a blog post" actually means. This post is going to be even later than I thought.

My parents showed up a bit later and we all visited awhile, but everyone was getting hungry. After Mandy left with Chance, we went out for lunch with my grandma at this place called Pizza Ranch. It was a buffet style place, and all the food was pretty standard except the Taco Pizza (which was amazing) and this dessert pizza (called Cactus.. something) that was so freaking good I couldn't even believe it.

After lunch we dropped off Grandma and headed to our hotel to check in. We dropped off our stuff then headed over to my Uncle Gary and Aunt Mel's house to hang out for the evening. My other aunt and uncle Lilia and Rod were there too, which was really nice - I really had no idea which relatives I'd be seeing on this trip but so far I've really lucked out. I spent a huge portion of our time there talking with Lilia... we've always bonded so much because we're both readers (she's the one who forced me to read Harry Potter, bless her) and it was so nice to catch up. We talked about everything before everyone else finally came and joined us on the porch and we all started drinking. Not to say my family is super wild or anything, but they like to have fun, and often that includes alcohol. I had this drink that was bright green and when my mom asked me how it tasted, I told her it tasted "like bright green". I didn't know how else to explain it.

After more general family times, and supper, and my parents embarrassingly insisting I show my relatives a few of my YouTube videos, it was around 9 pm. My parents, Gary, and one of my mom's best friends named Lynn still wanted to party, so they convinced me to come out to this bar called the North Dakota Moose Lodge. That brings me back to the beginning of this post, and the biker bar, and being very behind in today's BEDA post.

One of my favorite parts about meeting my parents old friends here in Bismarck is that I was six months old when we moved away from North Dakota. So many of them really haven't seen me since I was that old. Six months to twenty-three years is a pretty freaking big jump, so when I meet them they tell me things like the quintessential "I haven't see you since you were this big!"

One guy we met tonight brought up the fact that when I was a baby, I raced against his own daughter in the "Huggies Diaper Derby". He and my dad argued over whose daughter won (my dad insists it was me) but the real gem from this conversation was that while other parents were waving little baby toys at their kids to get them to crawl faster, my parents were waggling a pickle at me. Because I loved pickles. My baby contender is now apparently married. Time flies, guys.

My mom is currently talking to me from across the hotel room (we have a room with a little wall divider between their King bed and my pull out couch) about our natural disaster plan. I have literally no idea what prompted this. I keep saying "uh huh", and "yeah?" and while this is a fantastic idea in the broad scheme of things, I'm not certain right this second (at 1:14 AM after an evening at the Moose Lodge) is the right time to talk about this.

Perhaps I will suggest we debrief tomorrow morning. If I remember. Remind me to refresh with my mom about our natural disaster plan tomorrow, guys. Thanks.

Flights taken: 21