Man-happenin'

As we all prepare for this weekend on a rainy Friday, I'm going to take a second and tell you about our trip to good ol' Manhattan a couple weekends ago.

It was Mom's weekend for my brother's fraternity.  And like with Dad's weekend, the rest of us tagged along to join in on the fun.  Hell, I was even signed up to attend the Mom's brunch and auction.  I was a little weirded out and wondered what everyone was going to think, but it actually turned out great and many of the mom's told me they thought about bringing their daughters.  Look at that, I think I may have just started a new trend for Beta's Mom's weekend.  Ryan probably hates me.

So back to the auction, we bid on a bunch of  things but only ended up walking out with a vase full of candy and a cute apron with matching hot pad.  However, we did manage to bump up the bids on lots of the items.  But come on, isn't that sort of the point of an auction - raise the bids because the money goes to the boys!  Ryan had a hard time understanding this :)  Which takes me back to the apron, this is how we ended up with it.  My crazy mom was running around putting her name on things and apparently no one else wanted to out bid her on the apron.  At least it's cute!  And guess who ended up taking both items home? ME.  Go figure.

After the brunch and auction, we met up with my dad and Matt.  Much to my surprise, they had made a trip to the mall.  God only knows how Matt talked my dad into this because it's no secret that my father utterly despises shopping.  I'm guessing they were bored and my dad couldn't say no.  His strong dislike for shopping is pretty funny considering how much the rest of us enjoy it.  Poor dad gets drug around everywhere, sniff, sniff.  However, since the rest of us hadn't been there yet, my dad got a second trip to the mall :) 

Anyways, the rest of the trip consisted of a dinner at Four Olives, bowling at the Union, more shopping, breakfast at Bob's Diner and a first for all of us....a trip up to the Manhattan hill.

For as many times as I've visited Manhattan, and heck, I lived there for 5 years, I have never been up to the hill with the Manhattan sign.  Kind of like the Hollywood sign, only it says Manhattan :) Anywho, it was a little adventure since none of us had a clue as to how to get up there.  No worries, Manhattan isn't that big and the street system is just a big grid.  Not too difficult to navigate yourself anywhere in this town.

If you haven't been up there either, then you should take the time.  Nothing absolutely amazing, but it's a beautiful look out over all of Manhattan and the Flint Hills.  It's also basically a little park with some walkways.  Check it out!

I even found a little Chi O love...awww

We ended our weekend with a stop at Orange Leaf.  That's right.  The Little Apple is big-time now with an Orange Leaf, Olive Garden, Bed Bath & Beyond, Longhorn Steakhouse and a Dick's Sporting Goods is opening soon.  Geesh, the biggest and best new store we got was a Target, and it wasn't even a Super.

Mmmmm! Yummy! (they were out of the cool spoons)

Pretty mommy

As always, we had a great time! I love getting to spend time with Ryan since we don't see him all that often.  Crazy to think the guy is almost done with his Junior year.  You're almost a Senior Ryan!!