I'm Proud to be an American, where at least...we eat cookies!!!

For anyone who has done traveling overseas, it is no real shock to you that the majority of the rest of the world has no concept of a "cookie". They think they do, in their hard, insufficient biscuits, but really, they're missing the point. All 34 of us study abroaders have been suffering from massive cookie withdrawals since being in New Zealand. There are biscuits and Cadbury chocolate bars galore but a simple cookie? Nowhere to be found. To solve this unfortunate problem, a few of us decided to get together one night and make cookies. We actually had a little bit of a cookie bake off. I don't think I've ever eaten so many cookies in such a concentrated amount of time. Yikes. I would not recommend it. But, after a nearly three month dry spell, I felt a small cookie binge was warranted.

Above: the whole group. We biked, against a ridiculously strong wind the entire time, out to Cameron and Tyler's place for our bake off. Their homestays were

so excited. :) The dad actually hovered around the kitchen all night and was usually the first one to sample the cookies. It was fun to see them all so excited about this new treat. For the bake off, Stefanie and I decided on making my personal favorite and specialty--no bake cookies. It was also convenient because we didn't have to fight for the oven. Maggie made chocolate chip cookies, Lisa and Ashley whipped out some delicious snickerdoodles, and Cam and Ty astounded us all with the most amazing peanut butter cookies I have ever had and some pretty great chocolate chip ones.

And....here's what happened after we'd all had a few too many. This was a Saturday night, and all through church the next day I was on a ridiculous sugar high. This was unfortunately accompanied by a massive sugar headache. Not extremely pleasant, but dang those cookies were good. :) So rest assured everybody, we are doing our best, making sacrificing and coming together to make sure we don't forget who we are, where we come from, and the important values that our country embraces. Cookies basically sum all of that up.