of birthdays and boxes

As 99.9% of you know, today is the 50th birthday of the Peace Corps. Hooray! It is also the 139th birthday of Yellowstone and Justin Bieber's 17th. That's what my Facebook news feed tells me anyway. And International Pancake Day so I was all over free pancakes at IHOP today. mmmm pancakes. Anywho, I'm less concerned with those, more concerned with the fact that tomorrow also marks three months until staging! So on the chance people haven't become a fan of absolutely every page PC related and have news feeds blowing up with videos, articles, and stories like me, here are a few videos commemorating the 50 years of Peace Corps!

In other news, Mongolia preparations are starting to get serious. Our Facebook group (here and here for any new invitee) is starting to talk packing and buying things. And having horses and/or camels as pets, but that's neither here nor there. Yesterday I got TWO packages full of goodies. An Eagle Creek towel that's super absorbent and quick drying, a dress, and the most wonderful backpack ever. I'm not much of a hiker so I didn't see the point of investing in one of those intense packs, but I did get a bigger backpack with those chest buckles to distribute weight. I put Leonard (my laptop. yes I named him. this is how I refer to him, don't hate) in his own special pocket and it's like he wasn't there at all. Magic. I was all excited and my sister looked at me like a crazy person, but it's fine. It's blue and pretty and it doesn't match my purple luggage but I love it anyway. It has a whistle as part of one of the buckles and and and I'll stop my love story to my backpack now.

Through the Snapshots blog, I discovered there are actually THREE people in Newark departing over the summer. We're doing coffee again this weekend. I love making Peace Corps friends :)