Christmas List

This is probably the first year in a while where I actually have things to put on a christmas list. The number one thing would have to be a pair of sorels. I really like this pair in particular (the black ones) because they're not much more expensive than the classic look ones, but are a little different. But they also have them at REI too, so if all else fails REI giftcards would be great :)

Another thing that would be great would be a pair of actual ski socks. I don't have any and the past few years I've just worn two pairs of regular socks, which really isn't the best for colder conditions. So a pair (or multiple) of ski socks would be awesome!

You know those glow-in-the-dark stars that you stick on your ceiling? Some of those would be awesome for our room! I've been craving them, but haven't been able to find them anywhere in Ellensburg... So I suppose that's on the list too!

Still more snow here, it's been snowing off and on all day. Now I'm off to make some christmas cookies!

Pictures

Here's our road in the snow right before we left for the airport!

Ellie on Tara, Sophie in the orange

Gigi and me making pickles before Thanksgiving

Debbie's yummy cinnamon coffee-cake/cinammonroll bread

Me ironing napkins, Nick reading recipes, and Ellie doing something!

Debbie and Nick working on making the stuffing

The table all set up for food

The giant bottle of wine!

 The beautiful turkey!

Girls at the piano

You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.
And that's about it for now! There's a lot more though. It's snowing here right now, and apparently it's not supposed to stop until Friday! :)

I'm going to take pictures of the apartments tomorrow so you all can see what I mean when I say they look like ski condos :)

Thanksgiving

Made it back to Ellensburg yesterday. The pass was not nearly as bad as people were saying, it was mostly just rainy. Saw lots of skiiers though as I passed by Snoqualmie! There's quite a bit of snow here in Ellensburg! Last night Loren and I went on a walk down to campus and it was only 14 degrees. I'll take pictures of the apartments with the snow on them soon. Probably tomorrow since it's supposed to snow more tonight and tomorrow!

Thanksgiving in California was great! I have lots of pictures of that too, but I haven't looked through them all yet so I'm waiting to put them up. I made the mashed taters as usual, Nick made the stuffing as usual, and since Paul wasn't there, Carson barbecued the turkey and it was delicious as usual!

The day before Thanksgiving, we went to see Ellie's horse, Tara. She's all white and looks like a unicorn without the horn.

Twas very fun and nice to see everyone! Pictures to come

Snow in Them Thar Hills!

Alright, so I was planning on going back to school today because I have classes that I need to be in, but the pass is awful. People are sliding and fishtailing and skidding all over the place. It's traction tires required right now, which I don't have anyway so I guess I'm just going to stay home and then leave for Debbie's on Tuesday! I wanted to go back to grab some dresses and things I could wear in California, but unfortunately looks like I'm stuck with what I brought for the weekend. Which is fine I suppose...

Yesterday Kara and I went to the Miley Cyrus concert thing in Bellevue. We waited outside in the cold for 4 and a half hours and then Miley played for about half an hour which was a little disappointing. We were so close to the stage though! So that sort of made up for waiting in the cold... But not entirely.

Then we went and watched Harry Potter again which was AWESOME. I'm glad I got to see it again because there's a lot that I missed the first time around. Now I can't wait for the next movie to come out. Too bad I have to wait until July...

Oh, and it's snowing at mom's house! And in Issaquah!

Lately the car has been doing this thing where all the lights inside of it just randomly go off. Mom thinks it's a fuse problem. Last night I was driving back from Kara's in the dark and all the lights went out inside the car. Luckily I was about a mile away from the Preston Park and Ride so I pulled in there and turned it off and on again and the lights came back on and stayed on. But it's scary because everything's dark and I can't see how fast I'm going or how much gas I have! When I go to get the car looked at eventually I'll be sure to tell them about this little issue too.

Thanksgiving Potluck!

Last night at Nathan's apartment, we all got together and had a potluck to celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends. There were about 10 of us. Tom and Nathan got a 24 pound turkey and made delicious stuffing and vegetables. I brought mashed potatoes (of course!), Kara brought garlic bread, Rose brought sparkling cider. Among the other things brought there were also brownies, gravy, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes. There might be more but I forget. Loren, Alex, and I also brought chairs and plates since Nathan and Tom are short on those things. Anyway, here's some pictures:

There's the turkey with its delicious stuffing inside it! Soooo yummy!

There's the table! It was much longer than that, and by the time we all sat down to eat there was a lot more food on it. I have another better picture, but this website won't let me upload it so that's all you get!

This weekend I'm going home because Miley Cyrus is playing in Bellevue on Saturday and Kara's mom got us tickets! After we see her perform (and hopefully meet her!!!) we're going to walk over to the movie theater to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 FOR THE SECOND TIME since we're going to be seeing it TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT! I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself.

Then we're going home on Sunday, and  then I will go to class Monday and then drive myself back over the mountains because we are flying to Debbie's on Tuesday for Thanksgiving. Busy busy!

I have a test in Philosophy tomorrow. I'm going to take my study guide to study from while waiting in line tonight for Harry Potter :)

Classes

So I got into all the classes I wanted for next quarter!

Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 to 10:40 I have English 247 which I think is multicultural literature.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I have Nutrition 245, which is basic nutrition. Apparently it's fun and easy and REALLY hard to get in to, so I'm excited about that one.
And then every day of the week from 12 to 12:50 I have Math 100B, which is a class I have to take before I can take Math 101. I have to take it because my math SAT scores weren't very good, so before I can take Math 101 to get my basic skills requirements done I have to take this 100B class. It shouldn't be too hard, though, I'm kind of excited about it.

Today in biology we dissected owl pellets. Haven't done that since 4th grade, so that was sorta fun. Kind of boring though. How many times in our lives do we have to dissect the vomit of owls? I think once is enough.

Sign up tomorrow!

Tomorrow at 8 a.m. I will be signing up for classes for next quarter! I'm really excited, but nervous because I'm afraid all the classes I want will be full by the time I get to register. It gives me headaches when I have to rush about to remake a new schedule when the classes I want are full...

In English class today we got our first poems back. I got a check + on mine, which I guess is good. He says he doesn't like giving letter grades to poems, and the check system goes from check - - to check ++, so I guess check + is good, right? I'm editing that snow poem like a crazy person today since in class we peer edited poems and the three people who reviewed mine weren't too thrilled about it. One girl called it "3rd grade" and cliche, which I suppose it sort of is, but still it's always frustrating to hear those sort of things. But everything you write can't be a winner!

So now I'm editing and trying to rework it to make it more interesting/entertaining/deep. Psh all this writing stuff is hardwork.

I've been looking at this one girls' fashion blog for the last hour or so, and I'm so inspired by it mainly because she travels all around the country in a big old RV and takes pictures of all the places she goes. Basically that's what I want my life to be like. At least for a little while. Traveling out of the country is cool, but there's so much here in the U.S. that we don't necessarily know about. I think it would be a great experience to travel around in an RV like that. And while I'm at it, maybe I'll actually get down to reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac and be all hipster and deep and stuff.

We'll see what happens I suppose.

Veteran's Day Trek

Our internet has been out since Wednesday due to a power outage on campus. Apparently internet has been out all over the place.

Veteran’s Day was a lovely day off from classes. I slept in until 8:30, until I was rudely awakened and pushed off the bed. From about 10 in the morning until 1 in the afternoon, I listened to Taylor Swift’s new album and worked on a scarf that I started three or four years ago. I’m about halfway done with it now. It’s taken so long because I’m using tiny needles to make the stitches really small and close together.

At 1, I decided I needed to get out of the apartment, so I took my laptop to Starbucks for a few minutes to get some internet while I waited for my coffee. After that it was barely after 1, so I decided to drive around for a bit. I went up to the Umtanum Falls parking lot. Ran into a couple patches of snow on the road, but nothing major. I turned around at the parking lot, and went back down the hills. Then I decided to go into Manastash Canyon a ways. There was a lot more snow on the road there. Luckily I need some practice driving in snow since I haven’t done it before. So that was pretty fun and exhilarating. It’s so nice to have a car here in Ellensburg so I can go out and explore a bit. When I got back, it was about 4 in the afternoon. Alex wanted to go out and explore in the snow after I told him about my adventure, so we all piled into his Jeep and headed out to a road I’d never been to before, I think it was called Culockum Road. We got out onto a gravel road, and then up and up into the hills where it got pretty snowy.

Alex decided to chop down a tree for our apartment. Who knows how long it will last since it’s too early to be chopping down trees. I don’t think they’ve even gone dormant yet. I wanted to say something, but once again found myself in a situation where I didn’t want to sound like Ms. Know It All. I figure why not let him do his Alpha-Male thing and chop down a tree? Who cares how long it lasts anyway. We won’t even be here very much between now and Christmas, what with Thanksgiving break coming up and then Winter break lasting most of December. So he chopped down a nice tree, put two of the seats down in the back of the Jeep and shoved the tree in there. Since chivalry seems to be nonexistent these days and a certain boyfriend didn’t offer to sit in the back with the tree instead, I rode back the entire way with it encroaching upon my space and dripping snow all down my left thigh. Although I’m not really trying to complain about being stuck in the back seat. I like it better back there, I feel less obliged to talk to people. The silently dying tree and I got along just fine on the 45 or so minute ride back to civilization. By the time we got back into town my entire left leg was wet and I was sitting in a puddle due to the snow dripping off the tree. We stopped at Fred Meyer to buy some Christmas lights, and then at Safeway to get some pizzas for dinner. Now our tree is sitting in the corner of the living room looking Christmasy. My guess is that it will be a crispy fire-hazard by the time Thanksgiving break rolls around.

I'll take a picture of it inside once we get the lights on it  :)

Overall, Veteran’s Day was a great day for all of us, and I can’t wait to explore farther into Manastash Canyon. I wanted to go farther today, but I was running low on gas…

Snow!

It snowed here today! And it's supposed to snow more tonight! But then according to the weather report we aren't supposed to get more snow for awhile.

In English class we got our second papers back, and I got an A- on mine, which is pretty good considering the other people sitting around me all got C's and B-'s... So I'm pretty excited about that! It was supposed to be a fictionalized story, so I wrote about Sasquatch Festival. Now we're on our poem unit. We turned in one poem today, but mine was so terrible I'm just going to pretend it never happened. But for our next poem assignment we have the option to write from the point of  view of something nonhuman, so I came up with this today. It's called Plea From a Snowflake:

You all see me as light and fluffy,
Floating gently down to the ground
Where I land upon my brothers and sisters
And slowly begin to melt

To you, I float like cotton balls
Or feathers, but to me this journey
Is like a plane crash, I hurtle
Towards the ground, look out below!

My brothers and sisters and I
Pack together in an attempt to stay cold
And you slice through us with your skis and boards,
Separating families of powdery snow, you monsters!

You catch us on your tongues
And burn us. You pack us together and
Throw us through the air, as if
Our first fall from the sky wasn't enough.

When the air gets cold, and
We come around, we beg you to
Step lightly. In the meantime we shall
Endure the pain and pray for global warming.

Hopefully by the time it's due next week I will have edited it up some more and maybe make it a bit better, but I think the idea of it is entertaining. Anyway, I wasn't able to get a picture of the snow, but perhaps tomorrow morning I will if there's some left. But I did bake a mountain of cookies and got a picture of that!

They are so delicious!

OH in other news, Daisy escaped last night and was out in the cold all night long. We didn't realize she was gone until this morning, and we frantically ran around the apartment looking for her in all the nooks and crannies, but we couldn't find her anywhere! Luckily she was out in the apartment parking lot under a truck just waiting for her chance to get back inside. When our roommate Alex left for class this morning she came slinking up to the door to get back in. Poor thing was a little Daisy-sicle!

Weekend!

This weekend was pretty amazing! Yesterday Kara and I went to the Pacific Science Center for the Harry Potter Exhibition that they have there right now until January.It. Was. Amazing. They had props and costumes from all the movies! We wanted to touch everything, but of course that's not allowed... I would have taken pictures to post, but there were no cameras allowed, so that was a bit of a bummer. I feel like my infatuation with Harry Potter has come full circle now, even though it really hasn't. It's weird to think that from the time I was 8 or 9, I've read and re read all the books a hundred times! And then to actually see all the stuff from the movies that were made of the books that I love so much... It was just crazy!

After the Potter exhibit, we walked around the Science Center for a bit. We went into the butterfly house and a butterfly landed on my head. Then we left and went to the Northgate Mall for a bit before the Bo Burnham concert started. We went to a store called Forever 21, which is a nice store for college kids to shop at because everything is so super cheap. I bought a cute sweater and a pair of warm tights for 20 bucks. After we looked at everything in there, we went and ate at Panera Bread which is my new favorite place to eat. They have the most delicious black bean soup and bread bowls and the sandwich that Kara got looked amazing.

After eating, we went into the mall and walked around for a bit. We went into Zumiez (a store for skaters and boarders) so Kara could buy a beanie like mine. We talked to the guy in the store for awhile who was a bit pushy about trying to get me to buy something but I already have enough hats to last me a life time, so I had to keep coming up with reasons why I wasn't going to buy one from him. We kept walking around for bit, went into a REALLY expensive shoe store that had super cute boots, and then decided we should leave before we decide we want new shoes.

So we drove back to the Showbox Sodo. The doors opened at 7, but we didn't know that. So we got there at 6 and stood in line in the cold for an hour. It wasn't too bad though. When we finally got let in, it was open seating so we got to sit pretty close. After the show he always does meet and greets so we stood in line for half an hour afterwards to meet him again and get a picture with him. He was so funny to talk to in person!

Anywho, I have to go to homework now

Bo Burnham!

Today on our college radio station they were giving away a pair of tickets to go see Bo Burnham. Kara and I decided it would be pretty cool to see him again since we saw him last year and he has a whole bunch of new material now. So we drove around in her car for an hour and a half, listening to the radio and the crappy music they play, when FINALLY the DJ (who's a friend of ours) announced the ticket giveaway question. We were the first to call in and answer, and we won the tickets! So this Sunday, we're going to the Showbox in Seattle to see Bo Burnham again! So excited!

Pictures!

Ok, so here are some pictures from Halloweekend! Didn't get any pictures from the cornmaze, I forgot my camera and was too lazy to go back.

There's Daisy. She's such a relaxed cat, we can pretty much put whatever we want on her. So we stuck this bag on her and told people that she dressed up as a snail for Halloween.

That's Loren in his pumpkin costume. We found it at Goodwill for 4 bucks. He was pretty ferocious and scary in that costume.

Those are the pumpkins we carved at Nathan's on Sunday. The one on the top step is Rose's, the one on the right middle step is Kara's Harry Potter pumpkin, and the bottom one is Nathan's cyclops pumpkin.

And that's Kara dressed up as a fairy and me dressed as Ke$ha in Nathan's kitchen! Good times, good times!

And there's Daisy in the closet just because she's awesome :)

Why I Rarely Make Plans of Any Sort

Halloweekend didn't turn out at all as planned. First let me make it known that I'm not bitter or mad or sad or anything like that because in the end it turned out alright, just not what everyone was expecting. So anyway, let's start with Friday, shall we?

Friday we went to the same cornmaze we went to last year. I drove everyone in the Subaru (which was a little frightening because my driving in the dark experience is pretty slim). Before we went to pick everyone up at Kara's dorm, Loren and I were getting frustrated at each other for some stupid little thing which put us in weird "I want nothing to do with you right now" moods. Once we go to the cornmaze, Kara was too scared to go into it (she didn't have the best experience last year), so I stayed outside of the cornmaze with her. Instead we went on the tractor ride around the cornmaze like six times. Loren, Rose, and her friend Connie went into the cornmaze, then came back out to try and convince us to go in. Loren got even more frustrated with me because he was hungry and didn't really want to be there and the only reason he went with us was so he could go in the cornmaze with me. But I didn't go in so then we were super frustrated at each other and I felt terribly guilty about making him come along when I didn't even really need him to be there. Anyway, long story short it was just not a great night. And then we didn't end up going to Nathan's afterward because he got sick this weekend and wasn't feeling up to hanging out. So no dressing up as a faerie either.

Saturday was a bit better. Loren and I went shopping for ingredients for cider beef stew and oatmeal scotchies, then we came back and I made delicious stew. While the stew was simmering we did laundry, since it takes something like 2 hours to cook. Once it was done, we ate it while watching The Crazies, a scary movie about a disease in this farm town in Iowa that makes people go crazy and become creepy zombie-looking murderers. We watched the remake from 2009, not the original. It was sufficiently creepy. Then I made about 50 oatmeal butterscotch cookies that were sooo delicious and addicting. There's only a few left now because the boys swarmed on them before I could even finish all the batches. We were going to go to a party on Saturday night, but we found out that it was actually on Sunday, so we ended up watching another movie called The Insider which was really good. I didn't really realize how old Al Pacino is though. I just watched The Godfather a couple weeks ago, and I don't know, I guess I just expected him to still be that young and good-looking. But that's life, right? Overall, Saturday was a nice cozy day spent staying out of the rain and cooking all day.

Then Sunday came along. Loren had an ultimate frisbee game at 3 where everyone was supposed to play in costume. So we went to that. I dressed up as Ke$ha and Kara dressed up as a faerie and we sat on a blanket and were spectators to the game. It was pretty fun and there were some good creative costumes. Later that night, Nathan and Rose invited us over to Nathan's place for pumpkin carving and scary movie watching. On the way there Loren and I were arguing again about something stupid and made us in weird moods again. I ended up just staying at Nathan's with Kara and Rose and everyone while Loren left and went to the party that we were going to go to together. Nathan's place was fun though. We carved pumpkins and watched a stupid scary movie from the 90's called Candyman. We ate pizza and watched another movie from the 80's called My Bloody Valentine which was MUCH better than Candyman. Then I drove Rose and Kara back to their dorm and came back to the apartment, talked to Loren for a bit, then went to sleep!

So overall, it wasn't a terrible Halloweekend, just not what we all planned.

I'll post picture later today, but right now I have to get ready for class!