Hi everybody!
This past weekend was filled with different aspects of the Muncie and Ball State experiences! A group of my friends and I went out to eat at Puerto Vallartas, an authentic Mexican restaurant with multiple locations in Muncie. It is one of my favorite places to eat because the environment is always relaxed, and there is often a Mariachi Band that plays for your dining pleasure. 
Basically, anything you can order there is yummy… I especially love the burritos and enchiladas. Allie ordered a burrito that was pretty much the size of her face!
Allie and her GINORMOUS burrito!! :)
After dinner we headed to the Minnetrista Gardens, which is a place in Muncie that makes you feel like you are anywhere but of Indiana. In the spring and summertime, the forests and gardens are teeming with new life, and the walking pathways give you a great view of the flowers and all the pretty colors! Among the forests and gardens are the old estates of the Ball Brothers, beautiful homes that add to the majestic appearance of the area. Minnetrista is located right on the White River as well, so the presence of the water adds yet another entity to the already beautiful site! This weekend, Minnetrista was all decked out for their annual Luminaria, where Christmas lights, activities, and showcases prompt the citizens of Muncie and the students at Ball State to get into the Christmas spirit!
Under the lights at the Luminaria! :)
Caroling at Minnetrista!
At the entrance, there are crafts for children and a walk-through display of different trees decorated by members of the community. Local vendors sell their wares as Christmas gifts, and hot cocoa and cider are available to warm one’s tummy. The gardens and forest at Minntrista are strung with Christmas lights and filled with decorative displays like reindeer and other Christmas symbols. There is a shiny, glowing train that carries younger passengers and their parents around the grounds, with Christmas songs playing all along the way. My friends and I sang Christmas songs as we walked about and looked at all the lights! Select houses of the Ball Brothers were chosen and dressed in grand design to be showcased at the Luminaria, and walking through those houses made me miss my own decorated home. They were so beautifully ornamented that it was like a fairytale house!
This definitely got us all in the Christmas spirit!
Minnetrista is also a museum that hosts multiple exhibits for children to come and discover. It was open and free throughout the Luminaria, so my friends and I decided to check out the dinosaur exhibit. It was super cool! We felt like little kids on their elementary school field trip as we put on a dino puppet show, went through the dino maze, climbed the rock wall, and sat on the triceratops! There was a pit of brown circle, stuff pillows that we all thought was dinosaur poop, but a little boy informed us that they were actually dinosaur eggs… good thing we are going to college so we can learn all these important life lessons!
Having fun in the dinosaur exhibit at Minnetrista! :)
Our last major event for the evening was going to Late Nite on campus. Late Nite is an event that happens every Saturday from 9 p.m. until 1 a.m. Sunday. Free food, games, and prizes… what more could any college student ask for? Each Late Nite has a theme that all the activities and games are based upon, and this weekend the theme was, “Late Nite Mustache You A Question.” We all dressed up with mustaches and took pictures in a photobooth like the ones at the mall I always saw but never tried.
Because I am no longer living on campus, I do not have a meal plan, so I am supposed to be cooking all of my own food. Funny thing is, I am no cook, and I have a hard time finding opportunities to sleep, much less cook myself a meal. For this reason, free food that actually covers at least two food groups (unlike Ramen Noodles) is something to go crazy for. Late Nite always has free food, and my friends and I enjoyed nachos and cheese, chili, hot dogs, Pringles, cookies and milk, and cotton candy. Seriously, college students have iron stomachs. There will come a day when I won’t be able to eat foods like this and feel okay afterwards, but we went straight to the dance floor to bust some moves after that! We also played board games like Hungry Hungry Hippos and Operation to relive the glory days! We won free t-shirts for playing Dance Dance Revolution, and I won a free stuffed owl for spinning a wheel! Not sure what I will do with a stuffed owl, but he is pretty cute!
Argh! We have a question we mustache you… :)
Hanging out at Late Nite! :)
The rest of my weekend was filled with work, giving tours, and instructing a Zumbathon where we raised money for a child in our community who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common form of childhood cancer. We ended up raising over 300 dollars in just a few hours from college students who emptied out their loose change from their pockets, wallets, and backpacks. It is sometimes difficult to raise money on a college campus where most students are trying to stay out of debt and pay their bills while going to school, but I was impressed with the genuine amount of caring and compassion shown by Ball State students who filed into Ball Gym to get sweaty with us for a good cause!
One of my 4-year-olds at the preschool where I work was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia a year ago, and now her cancer is supposed to be in remission. Her steroids and chemo keep her immune system pretty low, and she is often sick. For this reason, it was a very real cause for me to fight and raise funds for. I am also teaching a Zumbathon in the spring for International Justice Mission (IJM), which is an organization I participate in, so this was great preparation for that event later on this year. All in all, it was a great weekend, and I am ready to buckle down and finish this semester!
