I'm wearing a zoo!

This summer, my family spent a week at a lovely beach in Maine for our summer vacation (that's right- no camping this year). It was a week or so before my birthday, so while we were there I bought myself a birthday gift: a (knockoff) Pandora bracelet, and a lobster charm (I was in Maine). I named him Rex.

For our anniversary in October, Jonathan gave me an owl charm. He loves owls, especially the metal one in the original Clash of the Titans, Bubo. Apparently he liked having an easy gift choice, because for Christmas, he gave me a rotund giraffe (Pudge).

And now I'm wearing a zoo.

He also surprised me by asking if I'd go spend a few days with him and his family in New York once the semester ends. On Friday. Pictures will follow :)

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

First off, sorry I've been doing these longer, once a week posts. I hope it's ok, because I kind of enjoy them and will probably continue them next semester. Although, once this week is over, it will be winter break, so posting will probably be a little strange then. So what's been happening in the week leading up to finals?

Tuesday
Apparently, I need to be a meaner friend and not share my delicious cookies with everyone. Remember how many there were on Saturday?


This is how many I had left on Tuesday. In case it was ever questionable, let me declare: I bake cookies like a boss.

Wednesday
Lisa turned 21! Sadly, I wasn't able to spend much time celebrating with her, since I had my first exam at 8am Thursday morning. But I was able to go to the first bar with her, the much loved Barley and Hops.


Lisa's free birthday drink? A Barley and Hops special which they refer to as "The Three Wise Men." Fun.

Thursday
First exam! Geology lab at 8am! That was totally enjoyable. I especially enjoy getting up early to walk to class in the freezing cold. At least it wasn't an evening class- check this out:


I took this from my window around dinner time. By the next morning, the school was emailing everyone warning them that the snow and cold we'd been getting would likely be turning into blizzard conditions that weekend. (Spoiler: it totally did.)

Friday
I left my dorm... 3 times (?) on Friday to go to class and eat. I tried to combine as many of those events as possible, since the snow was not about to let up. To avoid cabin fever, I found a sweet Christmas station on Pandora (Swingin' Christmas, ftw!), got some studying in, and let Jonathan make me ridiculous pictures.


It did combine some of my favorite things- adorable koalas and geeky references to MTG.

Saturday
I try to avoid taking the bus places as often as possible. I can't read a bus schedule to save my life (hey, public transportation is definitely not something I'm used to). Plus, they're kind of gross. But Saturday, I rode the bus to Appleton with Jon, Ben, and Zach so we could hit the mall and finish up our Christmas shopping. None of which I can post pictures of, of course.


We ended up having a ton of extra time while we waited for the bus, though, so we stopped in at the nearest sports bar (it was basically the only place open in downtown Neenah), where the boys split this absolutely huge thing of nachos. I couldn't decide if it looked delicious or frightening.

Sunday
The school was right about the blizzard- it hit late Saturday afternoon and went all night.


Talk about a winter wonderland. We went from having a few little patches of snow to several inches in just a few hours. It's finally starting to feel like winter in Wisconsin!

Monday
My window is frozen shut!


Not that I'll likely be opening it again anytime soon, but still. My window is full of snow and ice. That's probably not a good thing, right?

Movies and birthdays and music, oh my!

Hey guys! As mentioned at in my last post, I've been spending a lot of time reading lately, so once again, I'm behind on my updates. First off, here's the picture I forgot to take on Tuesday:


Yes my friends, that is a port-o-potty way up on that scaffolding. I'll just let you decide what to think of that one.

Thursday
Thursdays are good days for me, because the only class I have is geology lab from 8am-10am. That leaves me a lot of free time before USRH assembly at 4:30. Last Thursday, I didn't have a whole lot to do, either. So I spent quite a bit of time youtubing my favorite Disney songs, which I've collected here for you.

From Beauty and the Beast, my favorite Disney movie ever:
-Be Our Guest
-Gaston
-Tale as Old as Time

From the Little Mermaid, which I don't actually like very much:
-Under the Sea
-Kiss the Girl

From Aladdin, a close second to Beauty and the Beast:
-Friend Like Me
-Prince Ali
-A Whole New World

Most of these aren't my favorites just because the music is good (I REALLY don't like the Little Mermaid), but because I still find them to be incredibly visually entertaining. And really, who doesn't love Be Our Guest?

Friday
One of my good friends from high school, Jacey, turned 22 this Friday! To celebrate, we got dinner at Red Robbin, where they sang, gave her a balloon, and brought her a sundae.


You have no idea how excited she was to have a balloon. Then, after dinner, we went to see RED (trailer here), which opened on Friday and was absolutely awesome.

Saturday
Being the first day of the weekend, nobody got any homework done. Mostly I played Magic with the guys. Although I did spend a surprising amount of time watching Red vs. Blue, an internet show based off of Halo. My friend Courtney has the first 5 seasons on DVD, and loaned them to myself and Jonathan.


I'll be the first to admit, this is probably over my usual limit as far as being a geek goes. Especially since I'm all but video game handicapped, and know next to nothing about Halo. However, having given it a chance, I think it's a pretty fun show. It's quite funny, although sometime Jon will start laughing and then have to explain to me that they were making a reference to the game's storyline.

Sunday
Since I didn't do any real work on Saturday, Sunday was pretty busy for me. I really only left the dorm to eat.


This was my proof that I actually ventured outside at all, instead of squirreling away in my room.

Monday
My little pink flower plant is alive! I had to pull off a lot of leaves that were pretty much dead, and now it's actually put out a couple of flowers!


When I last posted about them, it was suggested that this one might be a begonia. If this helps to confirm/deny that theory, I've also noticed that the flowers tend to be open like that during the day, and then kind of clam up on themselves at night.

Today
Care package from home! The most exciting possible thing to get in the mail. Even if I did know it was coming, since Mom had to call to get my address. It had a lot of useful things, like a nail file and a small pack of tissues (which both went immediately into my backpack), and a nice spray hand sanitizer (which went into my purse, since my backpack is already equipped with hand sanitizer), and Flintstones vitamins. It also had some fun stuff, like halloween candy and these guys:


Halloween-themed silly bandz and a glowy, color-changing ghost. Clearly, my mom knows what's important. I'm pretty sure that the ghost and zombie bands even glow in the dark!

Ok, so this turned out to be a really long post. I'm going to try really hard to be more on the ball from now on. Sorry guys :(

Family Stuff

This morning, Dad ran in the Madison Mini-Marathon (13.1 miles- half a marathon). To celebrate, we got lunch at the Great Dane. Quite delicious. Then, we went to my grandparent's, to celebrate my Grandpa Jim's 75th birthday. They made an excellent dinner for everyone, and most of Mom's family came, along with Grandpa's sister and her husband. It was really nice to see everyone- there was a lot of sitting around and talking.


Unless you were W. Then there was running around and falling over and dancing with pink flip flops and all kinds of other ridiculousness. Here he is dancing around near the stairs and being a goof in general. What a cutie!

Orchids

For her birthday, my Aunt Mary gave my mom and orchid plant. I think it's absolutely lovely, but then again orchids are some of my favorites.


According to it's tag, it's a type of phalaenopsis.

More Firefly

We had a lot of fun hanging out at Barnes and Noble yesterday, but today we decided to try a different cafe- the Firefly (which is also where I met Phil the other day). Remember the fun mugs?


Brenna and i both got hot chocolate, and Sophie tried a mixed berry smoothie, which was a big hit.

In other, more exciting news, today also happens to be my mom's birthday! (She's turning 37 again.) Happy birthday Mom!

I heart nook

Just to clarify, I LOVE my Nook! It's absolutely wonderful. I mention this again because some of my relatives gave me Barnes and Noble gift cards (some of the best gifts ever, btw) for my birthday, so I downloaded some books yesterday. Also, I bought a cover for it, and it's cool!


There are 46 quotes on the cover (front and back). Right now, I can name the source of 22 of them. Eventually, of course, I hope to be able to name all of them :)

Day 6

Brenna's birthday! She turned 14, and we spent the 4th or 5th year in a row by celebrating with breakfast at Paul Bunyan's.


She has the pins to prove it, too. Happy birthday B :)

Bonus Birthday Video

As a long weekend bonus, I put together some of the video I took of W playing with my Dad :)



I took the clips on my usual camera, then edited it in iMovie. I wasn't sure how long I could record for, so it's a little short. I do like the idea of putting more clips up though, so I'll look into it a little more.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Memorial Day Weekend

Since today is Memorial Day, there was no school, and I had a lovely three day weekend. Better news: four more days until I'm off for summer. So here's how the weekend went:

Friday
I have been looking and looking for the bunny pictures from before, but I think they just disappeared or something. So in lieu of bunnies, I found one bunny on Friday:


Sadly, this picture isn't nearly as good as the last one :(

Saturday
Saturday was my cousin W's second birthday party. The theme was Sesame Street (or, as W calls is, "Sunny Day"), which called for a fabulous Elmo cake:


W could barely keep his hands off of it while we waited for the cake to be cut:



Sunday
Sunday we hung out at home. The plan had been to go to State Street, but since it was 90ish degrees, we decided that staying inside was a better idea. It gave Jon some time to investigate the inside of his computer (it's been overheating recently). Taking it apart:


What I found interesting:


Computers nom too!