Research is not my thing

I'm sitting in a coffee shop, researching information for my upcoming lit review assignments. I strongly dislike it (hate is a strong word but is probably more of the right term).  I think I'm going to drop out of grad school and become a photographer. Haha...

Well, I got distracted (imagine that) and these are a few of my favorite pics that I have taken..

 Steven on North Shore in Hawaii

 Kapolei in Oahu

 Steven and Niah and Kamara from this spring

 Steven and Skip 

 Balloon Festival in Macomb

So yeah, I hope you enjoy them. They aren't the best, but I like them! 

Road Trip for Simon and Amy's reception

So, one of my best friends from college, Simon, got married 2 weeks ago in Indiana. He married an amazing girl named Amy from Indiana. I've only been around her a few times because she does live so far away, but from what I've seen, she's quite perfect for Si. They had a wedding there, so there was a second reception back home for us in Illinois.  It was in Fairbury (close-ish to Bloomington), and Steven and I drove close to 3 hours to get there from Colchester. The road trip was completely worth it though.

Simon came up to say hi to me by dancing in his usual way and asking me if I missed him yelling at me all the time. It was quite humorous. I lived with Simon our junior year at Western with another friend we called Moo. Si and I went to ICC together, had a bunch of classes together, and we also were teammates on the Carcass evaluation team there. So we had a lot of traveling time together under our belts whether it was driving to practice at U of I every week or driving or flying to Texas or Kansas for another competition that we were bound to lose, we were together a lot. You learn a lot about people in an ICC van. :) 

This is part of the Carcass Eval team

Si, me, Andrew, Amanda, and Moo is missing

So, when Si and I lived together, he liked to randomly dance a lot, and he constantly yelled "Mom!" (which was my horrible carcass evaluation team nickname) or he liked to call me Leprechaun a lot because of my red-headed ways.  He's always entertaining and is a great friend.

Si and me at Hairbangers Ball junior year

I haven't seen Simon since before graduation this spring, partially because I was in Hawai'i, other reasons are distance, time, school, work, etc.  We also both don't really care to talk on the phone much, so we're bad at calling. Another friend of ours who came was Rachel and her fiance Jeremy. Rachel is still at Western finishing up her Ag. Ed. degree, but I don't get to see her much either because she commutes and we're both crazy busy. Grad school gets jealous if I try to have a social life.

Grad school is a homewrecker... just to let you know.

It was beyond great seeing my friends again. Rachel and I just sat around catching up on life's latest adventures. I got to talk to Simon a few times, catching up a little, but he had other family and friends to talk to too.  When I went to tell him bye, I got about 5 hugs, we kept telling each other how we missed seeing each other, this made me sad. On the ride home, I kept thinking how I missed my people, and that I'm horrible at keeping in touch. With this weekend, I realized that I need to work on keeping up with my friends because I suck at it. I get caught up in the everyday crap.

Anyways, the moral of the story is keep in contact with good friends.

Me, Si, and Rachel at the reception.

It was a long drive, well ride, because Steven was awesome and drove the entire time, but it was entirely worth it.  :)

Halloween!

So we had a costume party this past Saturday for Halloween. It was fun, other than having an irritating beginning with the sewing machine.

Here are some of the costumes from the night.

                                                             Our Crayon Box people

                                                    Steven and I were posing for prom pictures

                                   this is Sonny and Mallory as the Blue Man Group... it was terrifying

                                               This is Henry, he had the best costume ever!
                                                    He was Bender (or Binder) from Futurama

                                                              Steve was the tired crayon

This is Cole, Henry's brother. I'm not sure what his official title was, 

but I do know that he was wearing a kilt...

All in all, we had a good time. 

And just to let you know, I severly over-cooked my ravioli while finishing this post.

the end.

I failed sewing 101 with Satin's sewing machine

Halloween, the one legitimate time of year when I can dress up as a crayon. It should have been easy.

This was my plan of attack:
1. buy fabric, thread, elastic, black paint, and ribbon.
2. borrow mom's sewing machine.
3. on the day of halloween (b/c that was the first day that I wasn't busy) turn on sewing machine
4. thread the sewing machine
5. sew three straight lines of:
     a. elastic at the top of the dress
     b. sew elastic at the waste of the dress
     c. sew up the back of the dress
6. Paint the word "Crayola" on the front and also paint squiggly lines to make it cohesive to the look of the oh so beloved crayola crayons

Easy enough right?
Well, I bought the fabric, and borrowed the sewing machine....

 It took me over an hour to get the bobbin to thread....

Then I fought the machine for over 3 hours to get the tension right....

                                                              I almost threw mom's sewing machine, but I knew she wouldn't like that.

So, here's what went down. I unplugged satin's sewing machine and just painted the outfits for the crayon box. The boys' shirts were easy, paint, dry, go. Sam and I ended up just tying the fabric around us, tying the loose edges together with polka dot ribbon.... it worked out in the end.



 These are the outfits drying.

The results will be posted soon.

p.s. I'm never sewing again with satin's sewing machine. I will pay hundreds of dollars for pre-made crappy costumes in the future instead.

Traveling Back Home

 So Emily and I finally went home to see our family this past weekend, It was great, as always. These are a few pictures from the weekend. Please stop right here and go to the picture above this writing. Make sure to look at it nice and close. Please read my fathers shirt. Please also note that his daughters did not buy it for him (not that he doesn't deserve it) but we're pretty sure mom bought it and thought it was hilarious.

Anyways, this weekend was fun. Em and I met Katie and Celena for lunch at Panara and it was delicious.  Celena and I then went to paint pottery at Fired Up in Peoria Heights. If you've never painted pottery before, I highly suggest that you go. Its really fun and relaxing. If you ever have a few free hours in Peoria and a little extra cash for the day, GO! They have a decent sized selection of raw pottery, you pick it out, paint whatever the hell you want on it, the fire it, and its yours forever!  Its really fun!

 This is dad fake loving Emily, as usual. Everyone knows I'm the only one he really likes, except for Katie, but everyone loves Katie.

 Gypsy bonding time.

Emily and my pup Roxy playing on the kitchen floor.


 This is what happens when I start digging through old clothes in the laundry room, Emily made me promise not to post them on facebook.... she never said anything about my blog.

I told her she would be the coolest kid on campus if she wore that and that she would make new friends. She almost believed me.


All in all, it was a good weekend visit at home :)

Night Lights

So, we had a small gathering last weekend. It was fun to relax after work and actually get to see my friends and roommates... I don't see them much anymore thanks to work, homework, reading, well grad school in general.

As the night started to wind down, most everyone went across the road to sit on big straw bales and look at the stars, it was gorgeous out. Steven and I attempted to take some night pictures. We're both still learning how to use my camera, I don't get to break it out much anymore.

Here's some of what we took...

 I just thought that they turned out kinda interesting.  :)

Harvest!

So, last night I avoided homework and I decided to hop in a tractor with Steven instead. Good decision. :)
I thoroughly enjoy harvest time because of the smells, the chill air, the beauty, and Steven entertaining me while we're sitting in a tractor. 

 Steven enjoys harvest too... it gives him a sense of power if you will.

 Steve's cousin Matt was checking the bin, I think he was up there just to get away  from Steve... he can be a lot to handle sometimes. Matt always seems to be either laughing at Steve or just simply shaking his head at him for good reason.

 John Deere advertisement?

 Steve was getting antsy and started throwing corn at Matt, but the great thing was that Matt was safely behind glass in a tractor just laughing and again shaking his head.

 The view from the auger wagon as we ended the night.

That evening was well worth skipping out on homework, study sessions, laundry, dishes, and whatever else I needed to do.  Well, well worth it.