spring has sprung

sorry for the long absence. here's some pretty pictures to make up for it.

quicksand

last night julia and i tried something new. we were hanging out with our friend sarah and we went to hang out with some guys that she's friends with. things were going well. we were spending time with new people. then jake called. he came over to hang out, and sooner than we know it, we were hanging out with the same guys again. try as we might, we just gravitate to each other. the adventure of the night was bowling. i hadn't been in a really long time, but it was good fun. we laughed a lot. here are the pictures of our late night bowling adventures.

here's jake (missing from the last post), sarah, and dave (a frat brother of the guys)

bob punched so fast that his arm is seethrough. take that, chuck norris!!

me and sarah and jake

sarah wore some awesome wonder woman boots. turns out her belt doubled as a wonder woman lasso.

alex and sarah. looks like he's about to make a move on her. but no.

me and alex (with dave and bob in the background) trying to figure out the electronics.

this is maybe one of my favorite pictures of julia. ever.

me and jake waiting our turn.

yep, i make this pose before every frame.

alex having a sit-down with julia and sarah.

me and bob. i love that face he's making. it makes me laugh.

fake moustaches are always a good time.

fun with fondant

today i played with fondant for the first time. i'd like to think that it went pretty well. here's the story. last night i went to watch a movie at julia's. i got there the same time as alex, only to have him accuse us of leaving a big note and some jumbo-sized tighty whities with his name on the waistband on his front porch the night before. his roommates were in agreeance that it was julia and i, even though we had pretty good alibies. we do feel special and pretty flattered that they automatically jumped to the conclusion that it was us. but that's not really our M.O. we like to take full credit for the stuff we do for them. so we started the movie, and i got a call from alex with a food challenge. (he denies that it was a challenge, but it totally was) tucker had just come home with some cupcakes decorated like turkey drumsticks, peas and carrots, and potatoes and gravy. so we took the challenge. we kinda went to town on it, but it was so much fun. and let's be honest, they're pretty awesome. and here are the pictures to prove it. (not necessarily in chronological order)

cutting out fondant bones

the mess we made

a look at our mashed potatoes and gravy and peas and carrots cupcakes



julia, master of the peas and carrots

piping details on the tighty whities. this is how we make underwear jokes. none of that "mystery note on the front porch" crap.

in the process

check out those turkeys! we made them out of caramels


personalized cupcakes for the boys

the complete plate. the peas and carrots were made of green m&ms and diced starburst. the mashed potatoes were fondant with caramel gravy and lemon starburst pat of butter. the turkey was made of caramel with fondant bones. finally, the key lime pie (their household favorite) had a caramel crust with buttercream frosting filling.

the guys before the big reveal. left to right we have julia, alex, tucker, and bob. jake was a no-show for the evening. sorry about your luck

tucker and bob digging in

this is tucker flexing for us. i especially love the chubby cheeks. he had just shoved half a cupcake in. yeah, they were good enough that he ate it in just two bites.

I hope you all enjoyed my adventures in fondant decorating. now you can have some faces to go with those names i'm throwing out all of the time. my roommate is always giving me flack for all of the fun stuff that julia and i do for these guys. they really appreciate it, though. and it makes us feel super cool because everyone wants to be friends with these guys. and, and, we have a lot of fun in the mean time. as you can see.

i'm almost there. . .

as i'm staring down the end of march and half-dreading the beginning of april, i'm starting to panic. maybe just a little. but i'm also hopeful that i'll be able to get everything done. this morning when i woke up, i had a brilliant idea pop into my head for my 20-page literature review for my foreign policy class. i'm pretty sure it'll work out great. i have to do a review of all of the stuff we've read for class during the semester. good times. the idea was so great that after taking what turned into a 90-minute spanish test, i still had enough brain power left to write down an entire paragraph outlining the structure of the paper. this is good. i can start on it now. or maybe later after i finish my spanish presentation for next monday and my lecture on russian youth movements on the 14th.

tomorrow i'll be finishing the writing on my master's essay/chapter. this is good. i found the exact references/citiations i was needing (thanks to the quick turnaround time on that book from the interlibrary loan. thank you rice university) so now i only have to write a summary of the model's predictions and how my case study fits the model. not so hard, i don't think. only time will tell.

see what i mean? i'm almost there.

in other unrelated news, i had a really great conversation with tucker about velcro. absolutely fascinating. but we're only just barely friends. our conflicting political views seem to cancel out all other aspects of the friendship and have turned him red in the face more than once. he almost physically removed me from his living room on my last visit. so yeah. velcro. that's safe.

i'm hoping

i just applied for another job. this makes #2 in the great job hunt of 2009. only i think that i actually have a chance with this one (as opposed to the last one where i don't stand a chance). i applied for a job as a seasonal teller at the vanderbilt-roosevelt national historical sites in hyde park, new york! i've decided that i really want this job for a number of reasons.

1. i've been wanting to go work in yellowstone again, but it's not really feasible. this is almost as good.
2. i've decided that getting a job that is definitely just for the summer is a good way to delay the inevitable, ie. deciding on/starting a career.
3. it is a job with the national park service under the department of the interior (government job!), and that could quite easily equate to a foot in the door.
4. aside from the fact that i have no education in fields related to the department of the interior, i think i could really really love working in that field. i love national parks!!
5. the thought of picking up and starting from scratch doesn't sound as daunting in a place like hyde park, ny as in the other places i've been thinking about.
6. the pay is pretty good, even though it's just seasonal.

the way i look at it, they'd be crazy not to pick me. i'm so incredibly qualified for this position. i'm really hoping to hear back soon on this one. fingers crossed!

i'm back!

here's the fun times i had in moab this year

attempting to unbalance the balanced rock

my view every morning while i cooked my oatmeal (that's the colorado river)

our little tent city. yes, those all belong to the group that i camped with.

a pic from canyonlands which would have been much better if it hadn't been overcast yesterday afternoon.

my best self-portrait in a while. this is at the island in the sky end of canyonlands.

it was a little chilly at nights, but when you've got a bit of a sunburn, you become your own radiant heat source. just had to throw that in.

i'm an aunt

and these are my adventures in niece-and-nephew-land.

this is makayla carrying ellie around the livingroom. they did this like 5 times in a row.

ellie trying to learn how to blow bubbles

a super cute pic of laura with kimberly

here we have marlee. she was totally diggin the swing.

i thought for sure one of these boys would end up with a broken head or worse. emery has his arms spread wide to catch evan as he jumped from the arm of the couch. they took turns doing this for 10 minutes or more. and luckily, there were no broken heads (or anything else) at the end of it.