The World is Beautiful..

Hey y'all!!! I'm approaching my last week here in Charlotte, North Carolina and I'm trying to get in as much as I can! So I looked up some things around town that were free and I found something close by to where I live: The University of North Carolina Charlotte Botanical Gardens. I had no idea that I lived so close to such beautiful gardens and from the feel of it, I don't think a lot of people do! It was super empty but the gardens are really beautiful and great for a nice hike!

I live right on the outskirts of UNCC and so it was literally right around the corner for me! It feels like a secret garden since it is so empty and its kind of hard to find. Its also outside of the city parts of Charlotte so its a great destination if you live around University City (the area around UNCC).

The botanical gardens consist of two area: Susie Harwood Gardens and the Van Landingham Glen. It also has a really cute little greenhouse right across from the entrance to the gardens.

The Van Landingham Glen is a great walk through a small version of the Carolina Woodlands. There is beautiful, giant trees and gorgeous ferns and plants all along the path! The area has quaint bridges and streams that made me feel totally relaxed! It was such a beautiful area..here are some of plants and trees that I got pictures of on my walk!

I loved this creeping vine and the different colors it was turning!! 

Trees here are SO tall!!

Such a cute babbling brooks!!

Here is a little cardinal that I caught!! 

The Harwood Garden was also really cool! It was filled with pretty flowers and trees as well, but it also had interesting sculptures and beautiful mosaics! Check them out!

I like to think this is for fairies!!

 I loved this flower!!

This statue translates to "welcome to the garden" according to a sign nearby.

Another strange but interesting sculpture!

I loved walking around outside and just being at one with nature! Living in an apartment is rough because I don't have a backyard I can go outside and hang out in like back home! The only downside to North Carolina is the humidity!! Its so hot and sticky to walk around outside and after awhile, one needs air conditioner!! As much as I love it here, I could live without humidity!

The next portion of my outing at the gardens was the greenhouse! It was equally as humid in those but just as cool! I love greenhouses because you can plant beautiful things off season!! Here are some of my favorite things I found!!

 This room was filled with prehistoric plants (hence the dinosaur)!

This was called a "pigtail anthurium"...I thought it was cute!!

"Living Stone" plants

"Tarantula Cactus"

This tree's leaves were huge!!

"Fox Face Plant" 

"Boob Tube"...honestly I just thought this plant looked funny and had a funny name!

There was a whole room FULL of orchids!! I loved them all!!

 The plants above and below are "pitcher plants" which I think are totally cool!!

These were HUGE..that is a piece of paper next to it that shows how large the pitcher plants are!

I had so much fun wandering among the beauty of nature!! If you are ever in the northeast side of Charlotte by the UNCC campus, check out the gardens! You can check out their website here. It is worth a visit!!

Kenzy

DISCOVER Discovery Place!!

Hello world!! I have been busy living life here in Charlotte, NC! I am loving all the adventures I am experiencing and all the new people I have been meeting!! This past weekend I had family come into Charlotte and visit me! My second cousin (my father's cousin) and her husband came in from an hour outside of Charlotte to take me out to lunch and to a local science museum! I hadn't seen them since I visited Washington D.C. about eight years ago, so it was wonderful to catch up with them!

We went out to eat at a restaurant and then headed into uptown Charlotte to explore the Discovery Park! I had heard about this science museum before but hadn't visited it yet so I was super excited! While it is technically geared towards children and family fun, I am a nerdy kid at heart so I loved it!!! On the first floor there were tons of building activities where one could build anything they wasted out of wooden blocks! I made a small castle that I named Casa de Mackenzy and it was fabulous! There were tons of cool hands-on and interactive activities teaching kids about force, physics, and movement! It was amazing and so much fun!!! As you walk along the first floor you are just overwhelmed by all the fun going on in one room!

My family, Nancy and Bob checking out cool physics exhibits!

The next area of the museum was dedicated to frogs. Yes...frogs. While I am not the biggest frog person, some of them were kinda cute (others disgustingly large and slimy). Check out some of the cuter ones!

A cuter frog! Except you know..poisonous (Poison Dart Frog)! 

This one is called a Tomato Frog! Maybe because it looks like a tomato!

The next exhibit was all about Alien Worlds and Androids...and it was totally interesting! It had some really cool information on space and robots and cool nerdy stuff that I find awesome. Especially when they have a FULL SIZE REPLICA of IRON MAN!!!!!!

I LOVE HIM.

After the aliens and android fun, there was a whole room full of reptiles and hand-on interactive fun!!

I'm holding a starfish!!!!!

Bob with cool dragon like iguana thing...it was so cute!!

The museum also had a really cool little rainforest! If anybody has been to the zoo in Omaha, they will know that the Lied Jungle (America's largest indoor rainforest) is really amazing!! Well Discovery Place had a mini one that was still really neat! They also had a small aquarium that housed some really interesting and beautiful fish!

I found Nemo and Marlin!!!

After exploring the museum, Nancy and Bob took me out for ice cream! I had such a great time with them and really enjoyed getting to hang out with family!!!

Wednesday FunDay!!

So living here in Charlotte has been awesome so far! I am really enjoying getting to know the city and experiencing everything it has to offer! Since I am only here until August 1st, I gotta do a lot in a little time! And since I am fresh out of college and working an unpaid internship, these experiences need to be affordable..but still fun!

Last week my boss told me about an exhibit at the Mint Museum in Uptown (thats what Charlottians call downtown Charlotte). On Wednesdays, the Mint Museum offers free Wednesday admission to their exhibits! Plus you can purchase wine for a small cost to take with you as you peruse the exhibits and you get one free refill! There are currently five exhibits on display at the museum and all of the are pretty awesome!

The newest exhibit is by far the coolest in my personal opinion....Women of Vision: National Geographic Photographers on Assignment. This exhibit is full of beautiful photos that some awesome female photographers have taken throughout the years for National Geographic! Now some of my friends and family may already know this about me but for those who don't...I'm a HUGE National Geographic fan. Like so much of a fan that when I was in Spain, I bought one just so I could look at the pictures even though I couldn't understand the stories.

This exhibit is full of really touching and poignant pictures with amazing stories behind them. In this exhibit, they give a background on the photojournalist, how pictures get picked for the magazine, plus some photos that didn't make it to print. It was so cool reading about the people in the photos from the journalist's perspective! National Geographic has also made a documentary on these 11 women and how they came to work for National Geographic! Here are some photos from the exhibit...

Photographer: Stephanie Sinclair

http://wovexhibition.org/photographers/stephanie-sinclair

Photographer: Maggie Steber

http://wovexhibition.org/photographers/maggie-steber

These women have been on crazy adventures and have seen tremendous things while on their assignments. I have so much respect for them and for their immense talent! If you get a chance to see this exhibit, I highly recommend it! While on Wednesdays all the exhibits are free, this one does have an extra charge (I don't know why it costs money but I think its because it is a traveling exhibit or maybe because it is new?). However, the rest of the exhibits are still free and there are some other really neat things in there! If you want to check out the museum site, you can do that right here!

Enjoy!!

Mackenzy 

For the Rich of Heart and Poor of Wallet

I love North Carolina so far! Charlotte is one of the coolest cities I've been to and I've been to quite a lot of cities!!! It has a wonderful small town feel in a big city!! I've met some really cool people and am making new friends everyday! It has been interesting moving to a city where I don't know anybody at all!  When I moved to Granada, Spain for study abroad, I knew my roommate through Facebook and Skype! It was nice having someone to talk to immediately when I got to a foreign country. But here in Charlotte, I came here knowing nobody and it was interesting! I have become fairly involved in a church here and its been awesome to get to know people around my own age!

I have been so very fortunate to have wonderfully supportive parents who are helping me out during my stay here in Charlotte. They are helping me with my rent because my internship is unpaid! However, I am in charge of funding my groceries and gas and any other necesseities that I need! Its a great way for me to try and support myself and learn the way of "adults".

I am not a very good cook. Let me clear that up a little more: I am the queen of microwavable meals and Ramen noodles! So I was checkin out Pinterest the other day (and by checkin out Pinterest I mean I spent like 4 hours looking up different pins) and came across a recipe that I thought I would share: Cheesy Ramen Noodles! I had seen the recipe before but I've always been scared to stray from my usual Chicken Ramen! But I decided to try something new and I LOVED IT!!!!! So here I was with cheesy chicken ramen noodles and thought I need to share this with the world! Everybody needs to know that adding a slice of cheese to your Ramen makes everything better in this world.

So here is the recipe I found with some modifications that I made after two attempts!

What You Need:
1 package of Chicken Ramen Noodles
1 slice of sliced cheese (Kraft works good but really any slice of cheese works)
2 cups of water

Directions:
1. Boil your water in a small pot!
2. Break up the noodles in their package.
3. Once water comes to a boil stir in the noodles and wait a few minutes until the noodles soften and look delicious!
4. Then add chicken seasoning and stir!
5. Dump out a majority of the water in the pot leaving about 1 inch of water in the pot.
6. Take your slice of cheese and break it into smaller pieces and add to the noodles!
7. Stir until all is melted and ENJOY!

I loved this so much and can't wait to try it again! If you ever feel the need for Ramen noodles, try adding one simple slice of cheese and watch your world get changed!!!! :)
Mackenzy

Crafty Me Take 2!

Hello again!!! So yesterday I showed y'all my latest craft with my $3 Goodwill buy ( a brass candle stand) and how I transformed it into a fun and funky bracelet stand!

I put this finished product on my Facebook and got lots of comments asking about it...my lovely uncle thought it was a birdbath!! So when it finally dried, I arranged some of my many bracelets on it to show how awesome it looks! Check it out!!

Here it is in relation to a Rudy's cup!!

I might be biased but I think it looks pretty darn cool!!! It took about 5 hours to dry because I put the paint on thick to cover up any brass showing through. But once it was done, all my bracelets fit perfectly on it!

Another Wal-Mart purchase I made yesterday was an earring display! It was $9 and I found it in the arts and crafts section! It was originally black, but again I used the rest of my pink paint to drastically transform it!

I think it looks really cool with my new bracelet holder and with my earrings and rings on it! I've never really had anything to display jewelry on! I think that since I'm starting a "big girl job" I should start accessorizing better and so I think this is a great start! I will keep y'all updated on my new life here! Till then God Bless and Gig Em'!

Mackenzy

Crafty Me!

So since the last time I posted, I accepted an internship position this summer! I don't know much about it yet except that I think it is going to be a wonderful opportunity that will hopefully open doors for me! The only downside so far is that it required me to leave Texas! I am now located in Charlotte, North Carolina and so far so good!! I had been to North Carolina twice before (Asheville and Raleigh) but never to Charlotte! And to my astonishment...its a large city!! I was under the impression that it was just a large town (kinda like where I grew up) so driving into the city and seeing skyscrapers around me was quite shocking!!! I am living close to the UNCC (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) campus which makes me feel like I am back in College Station and close to my beloved Texas A&M University!

It is so strange to be in a town where the three people I've met so far have 1) never been to Texas or 2) haven't even heard of Texas A&M! They didn't even know who Johnny Football was (kinda to my relief and hopefully a blow to his large ego). Everybody just seems more interested and flabbergasted that I picked up and drove 20+ hours to get here and packed so sparsely! I actually didn't pack all that much so my room looks a bit empty but I have all I need to live for the next seven weeks!

So to brighten my room up a bit, I decided to go to the local Goodwill (a favorite store of mine), WalMart, and Target to find cheap and little things to make my room homelier!  My first stop was at Goodwill where I found a small brass candle holder (at least that's what I think it is). It wasn't very shiny but it was heavy and durable! I discovered while unpacking my room yesterday that I didn't have anything to display my jewelry! So I decided to buy the $3 brass thing and paint it and turn it into a small bracelet stand! Check it out!!

I felt like that splash of color was exactly what I needed and I can't wait for it to dry and start using it!!! Because it was a brass stand, I was worried that plain acrylic paint would be very thorough in covering the surfaces while still showing the small details like the small lines along the edges! So I thought that good ol' wall paint would be the best paint for the job! So I went to WalMart next and purchased a Better Homes and Garden paint sample for $2! This is a great way to buy paint but not have a ton left over!! It also comes with a small brush inside for easy painting (and I didn't have to purchase a brush)!

If I buy anything else that I think can be painted, I'll use the leftover paint I have and color it up!!! So all in all, this simple craft ended up costing me $5 for a sturdy and colorful bracelet stand!!! Who knows..maybe I could use it for other things later!! 

I'll keep you updated on my new life in Charlotte and with other crafty things that might happen!! But till then God bless and Gig Em'!!

Kenzy

New Adventures!!

Hello everybody!!! So this blog was originally for my life abroad...obviously that went so well that I never had time to write!!!! I left ya'll hanging in Ireland!! Well I made it back to the U.S. of A. and am in my senior year of college (OMIGOSH). I didn't know what to do with this blog when I got back so I just kinda left it lonely as a tab at the top of my browser page. Then recently I thought to my self "Self, your adventures didn't stop when you got home!" Indeed, the biggest adventure of my life is approaching at a speed of TERRIFYING and EXCITING: the "real world".

So I've decided that I am going to re-start this blog because my life is also full of little adventures as well! I'll keep you updated on new things in my life as well as personal reviews of movies I've recently seen, books I've read, jobs I've applied for, and other little adventures in between! I have been so blessed with opportunity and passion, and I can't wait to start sharing that with everyone....AGAIN! So keep comin' back here and I will try to as well!!! Until the next time..Gig Em' and God Bless!
Mackenzy