12/28/2010

I decided to be artsy and take some pictures of the magazine art collage I've had on my wall in my room for years now. I clipped most of the pictures shown from a really cool fashion magazine called Nylon. There's an ad for Chuck Taylors, Ray-Bans, some random models I clipped out and Leighton Meester on the cover of Rolling Stone in the upper left. The whole collage is about four times the size of this photo. I am rather proud of it. :)

12/29/2010

A silly picture of one of Zack's dogs, Fiona, I took on his phone. She was literally sitting upright in my lap, like a human!

At the lake that my Dad lives on, people will put up shanties and go ice fishing. My Dad has tried it too, it really works! This shows the magnitude of the snow-covered lake and a few of the blue shanties - 3 clustered in the middle and some hidden behind the tree on the left.

12/30/2010

Oh, Fred...I was making my bed and he wouldn't move from the warm spot on the end so I just threw the blankets on top of him. He stayed like this for quite awhile.

Last night I went with Zack, his dad and his dad's girlfriend to go see Who Shot Rock & Roll at the Akron Art Museum downtown. It was sooo cool! This is a picture of the upper walls and ceiling of the recently remodeled museum. Very modern looking.

No photos were allowed inside the exhibit so I snuck this one of the entrance. We spent over an hour inside - I loved it.

Check out this link for an article I found interesting about the exhibit: Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History

12/31/2010

Happy New Year's Eve!

As if nature is bringing in the New Year, it is 45 degrees today and sunny, so all of the snow we've accumulated over the past month is finally melting away. I got some cool pictures this morning of the ice in the street forming pools of reflective water. The above was taken right in front of my driveway. If you look closely, you can see the ripples of the water trickling.

My favorite picture I've taken in awhile. I got down really low to the ground to snap this close up of the reflections in the water. I have always loved how puddles, lakes, and rivers form exact mirror images of the environment surrounding them. You can also see how beautiful and blue the sky is in this photo!

Have a safe and happy New Year's. See you in 2011!

Finally! An update on my winter break festivities. It's my latest blog update: Christmas edition!

12/11/2010

He's going to kill me for this haha...we were watching tv and I was just about to leave his house when I realized I needed a picture for the day so I snapped this. This is the intense-tv-watching face.

12/12/2010

If you haven't seen How to Train Your Dragon...SEE IT NOW. I've seen it two times now and it is the cutest, sweetest, most clever movie I've seen in awhile. I am absolutely in love with the main dragon in the movie, a night fury dragon named Toothless. He's the cutest creature ever. I think he looks like a cat, actually. The bottom right picture on this t-shirt I found at Wal-Mart is my favorite - he is attempting to smile and he looks kind of crazy but the effort is sweet. <3

12/13/2010

Another picture of Fred...are you surprised? Didn't think so. :) He was lying on my bed and kneading his paws so I snapped this and managed to catch him doing it. Awww!

12/14/2010

This is my little artificial Christmas tree I always keep in my room. It has all of my dance-themed ornaments I've gotten over the years on it.

And the real tree! We got it for only $20 at a local tree farm...and it's a blue spruce. Great deal. This year we decorated it in all red and gold ornaments. I think the result is really pretty!

I went to my Dad's house after decorating the tree that day. It was an extremely cold day and this is a picture I took of the sunset over the lake he lives on. Gorgeous. You can almost see how cold it was.

12/15/2010

Merry Christmas! Every year my Mom puts out her Christmas-themed dollhouse she made many years ago. If you click the picture you can see the full-sized version and all the cute little details she put into every room. :)

12/16/2010

The door decoration my Mom made this year - I love it (and it smelled great - mmm, pine).

12/17/2010

Unfortunately, I forgot to snap a picture this day. I don't remember all that happened but I do know that I worked a long shift that day (back at good old Marc's). Only the second day so far I've skipped in four months. Cut me some slack!

12/18/2010

Wild turkeys!! Out at my grandparents' house in Copley they have a flock of turkeys that live in the woods surrounding their house. They always come up to the big windows in the living room so say hi to us when we visit. This is the male turkey (because of his beard).

Sooo many cookies. Closest to the camera are the delicious shortbread cookies and on the smaller table are the sugar cookies. Every year before Christmas, my mom, Aunt, Grandma and I spend a day making and decorating all of these - it's fun, but pretty exhausting.

One of my pride and joys - a cute little teddy bear cookie I decorated myself. I try and make the decorations fun when I can.

12/19/2010

I think this is one of the only pictures I have of all four kitties together! Isabel is top left and Ginger is bottom left, Fred is in the middle and Henri(etta) is far right. They are so cute. :)

12/20/2010

Ocean made his first bubble nest! Apparently male bettas do this to hold eggs when they are ready to mate. (No, Ocean, I am NOT getting you a female companion. Nice effort though.)

12/21/2010

Oh, Isabel...there are no words. She is so huge. She looks like hulk-kitteh.

12/22/2010

My Dad and I went ice skating that day at Lock 3 in downtown Akron. The rink down there is great - it's free to skate unless you rent skates. We skated for not quite an hour and I had so much fun. I thought I would be sore but I guess I'm not as out of shape as I thought.

12/23/2010

I painted my nails to look like candy canes for Christmas. Success? I think so. :)

12/24/2010

Merry Christmas Eve! Fatso was just nibbling on the tree needles before I snapped this. Of course, she looks innocent now.

Fred was getting his Christmas cuddles from Mom but he did not seem too happy about it...

12/25/2010

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The tree and the presents. :)

Meant to post a picture of this earlier - this is the wreath my Mom made this year. I love it!

My grandparents' kitty, John, not-so-politely asking my Grandma for a piece of ham.

As punishment, I put a bow on his head.

Definitely not happy.

Another turkey shot I couldn't resist - peering right in the window to wish us a Merry Christmas.

12/26/2010

The aftermath.

12/27/2010

It's hard to see unless you click the picture, but I woke up to the prettiest snow on Monday. I love when it snows big chunky flakes. My backyard looked so pretty! :)

Will post the last couple of days' photos tomorrow.

11/29/2010

After getting back from Thanksgiving break, I was riding the bus to class on Monday and saw this as I passed. It was on the corner of 17th and College and I couldn't resist taking a picture - so sweet. Although I think I'd rather be asked in person...but it is a nice way to show the world you love someone. :)

11/30/2010

MERRY CHRISTMAS! :) Emily and I went a little Christma-crazy the night before and walked to the local Dollar Store to stock up on Christmas decorations. We wallpapered our door and taped up little stockings that we filled with candy for people to take. You can't really see but we put tinsel all around our door (and in our room too). It was pretty at first but by the time we left a week later after finals there were little silver strands of tinsel EVERYWHERE.

The Christmas lights we got were definitely a nice touch as well. We got two strands and ended up stringing them almost the entire perimeter of our room. I love Christmas.

12/1/2010

The first day of December on campus was rather appropriate - we had bitterly cold temps and got hit with the first snow in Columbus. The roof of this building is a bright coppery color that I've noticed many times before but on that day with the dark snow clouds above, the roof seemed to be glowing.

12/2/2010

I went with Anna to a ceremony put on at Mirror Lake called Light Up the Lake. It was a really nice little half hour that involved listening to some Christmas carols, free hot cocoa, singing Carmen Ohio and holding candles in a big circle around the lake (as seen above)...

...and then the Christmas lights around the lake were flipped on! So pretty.

12/3/2010

I noticed the bit of Christmas spirit in this little courtyard - the decorated lamp posts and bushes. Anytime I see any sort of decorations for the holidays I get a warm fuzzy feeling - can you tell that Christmas is my favorite holiday??

12/4/2010

My Dad got me these little penguins (one big one and one little one) since they are my favorite animals. :) I usually keep them on a chair in my room but I was using the chair and moved them up to my bed and noticed later the positions they fell in. I didn't even mean to do it - but it looks like the baby is peeking around from behind the big one and it cracked me up.

12/5/2010

I took this while walking back to the room after my final Calculus review session before finals week. This is an alternate view of the lights on Mirror Lake and the little bit of snow that Columbus got.

12/6/2010

Emily did my nails! She painted them a bright Christmas red and mixed a greenish-silver color to paint on little ribbons tied into bows on each finger, then added some glitter. Very festive!

12/7/2010

The sun was setting as I looked out of the window in my room across to Stradley Hall and I noticed that you could see the orangeish-pink glow of the sunset on the windows. So cool.

12/8/2010

All packed and ready to go on break! The night before my last (chemistry) final and going home I got all my stuff together. The room looks so empty after removing this much out of it! But I suppose it's appropriate since I'll be gone three and a half weeks.

12/9/2010

Hahahaha - I went to Zack's last night after finally arriving HOME (and surviving finals - yay winter break!!) and we entered his house only to find one of his dogs, Stanley, trapped in his doggie hoodie! :( It was hilarious but so sad - he couldn't see anything until we took it off of him. Poor Stanley.

12/10/2010

A bit of a change in snowfall from Columbus to Akron, eh? Yeah, we (Akron) got quite a bit the past week so it was a bit of a shock to come home to. Pretty, nonetheless. This is my front yard (with the festive Christmas holly tree on the right).

I finally got a male betta fish today to match Emily's Grumpy. I named him Ocean because in the pet store he looked mostly blue. Now he looks more purplish but I don't want to change his name. :) He's so pretty.

Only problem is, because he is a "semi-aggressive tropical fish," he is taking some time to get used to me. Whenever he sees me he flares his gills at me and tries to attack the glass of his bowl. Silly Ocean. Hopefully he warms up to me soon!