Got Hoops?

Okay so I was checking otu some blog posts of a friend, I am so far behind on reading blogs, it is awful... Anyway I came across a great post on my friend Sarah's blog about a new exercise she is hooked on, called hooping. It is like hula hooping for adults but there is more to it. Instead of trying to explian it and getting it all wrong I will link you to her blog so you can see what it is all about since she has video of her hooping.

Sarah's hooping Blog

And if you decide you want to try it out here is the link to her Etsy shop where she is selling them.

Hoop soup Shop

For my Peas

I saw this painting on a wall while we were in Phoenixville tonight for BlobFest and had to take a shot for my fellow peas.

More on Blobfest later!!

Vacation Part 3 - Get out of the way moron

Friday was the 4th of July, my mom's birthday (Don't worry I called her) and raining so perfect outlet shopping weather. I know, I know MORE shopping?? Yep Jamie, Jeff and I headed to the outlet mall for a day of shopping. See when I am around Jamie something happens and my dormanty shopping gene becomes reactivated. Oh and yep Jeff actually likes to shop.

I would have to say it was a great success for all of us. Jamie made out the best but when you are as cute as her it is tough not to find cute things to buy! We were all tired from shopping when we got home and took little naps.



Jeff then went to hang out with some friends and Jamie and I drove downtown to see the fireworks. (The downtown thing is not Jeff's thing) We used Jeff's parking pass from work and went to the top of the parking garage for a great view of the fireworks. Right before they started a bunch of people who had been out to dinner made their way to the top of the garage to see them too.

Now these are not the greatest shots since I was hand holding my camera but I had to take them just the same. It was a fun night till the finale when we had ash and paper raining down on us. LOL












Driving home there was a lot of traffic as people tried to leave the city. We were driving down a narrow side street when on the other side a cop had sirens blaring and this little hatchback was in front of him was just putting along but not pulling over in any of the numerous spots he could have, Just as the cop car was next to ours the officer gets on his loud speaker and yells to the little car. "get out of the way, Moron." We were cracking up all the way home after that. It really was pretty funny.

Ernie decided to be a traitor and sleep in my room that night. He is such a funny little guy. I gave him the nickname of Ernesto in honor of his mexican heritage since he is part Chihuahua.

Saturday was sadly my last day there, can't believe how fast the week went. Jeff headed out to a friends house and Jamie and I ran a few errands (Like shipping some of my purchases home) then went over to her classroom to work on it a bit more. It was hot though because the AC was not on. She is going to have some super cute bulletin boards this year.

She was really happy to see her new iMacs had been set up, too bad she didn't have a username or password to log on and play though.









After that we went for some Dairy Queen to cool off and then headed home and crashed for a bit before going to 5 guys for dinner. After that we went to pick up Jeff and his car and headed back to the house and played a little Wii. Yep Jeff let us play with the Wii. I did okay at bowling but stunk bad at Darts!! Pretty fun toy, and I guess I am lucky I don't have anyone to play with at home or I would want one!!




I of course played ball with Ernie again and he decided to sleep in my room again. I think he started to forget who he belonged to. *sigh* I miss the little guy.

Sunday I was up early and headed home. I am ready to go back already, even if it was not the most glamorous vacation it was fun just to kick back and relax. (well that is when my slave driver cousin wasn't making me work on her classroom, be her personal assistant, forcing me to be creative or play ball with her dog.) LOL

Vacation Part 2

So Tuesday was another great day weather wise.

So since the weather was so nice what did we do? Errands of course and a little fun shopping.

We wne to Hobby Lobby so Jamie could find a frame and Mat for another one of her wedding pictures. It turned out great looking.

I swear Jeff has Radar for when Jamie spends money. Like 30 minutes after she bought some adorable Coach sunglasses from TJ Maxx he was on the phone asking her what she spent money on at TJ Maxx, Uncanny I tell you. I managed to find a cute jacket at TJ Maxx also, so it was a good stop. We also did some other little shopping it was a productive day, I of course managed to find some little things to use as props in pictures!! It is an illness I tell you!

For dinner I treated Jamie and Jeff to dinner at the Mellow Mushroom for pizza. It was great BBQ chicken pizza. After dinner we stopped at a couple stores then it was home to veg for us girls and Jeff retreated to the man cave to play his Wii "the Godfather" game. We tried to watch the one movie we rented but as I mentioned it was horrible, so we just took it back. We did have another good malt night thanks to the Magic bullet...

Wednesday - Another nice day weather wise but a little on the warm side. The started with Jeff heading to the dentist for a root canal. Yep they both went to the dentist unexpectedly while I was visiting, what are the odds.

We went to Jamie's new school so I could help her start to unpack all her boxes and get the room set up. Man does she have a lot of stuff to sort through and get organized. I don't envy her having to go through it all. We made a lot of great progress though. I could just unpack the bozes and hand stuff to her to put away. Wasn't it sweet of her to put me to work on my vacation, she is such a slave driver!! Actually I had fun helping her pick a theme for her room but don't let her know, or she will want me to come back out next summer to help.

Wednesday night we went to a little demonstration party someone she knew was having and then we headed back home for Jeff's famous spaghetti and meatballs. In the end Jeff retreated to the man cave again, hmm maybe I didn't use enough deoderant while I was there since he kept bailing on us and hiding in the man cave.

Thursday - this is where the weather took a turn, it rained all day and ruined the plans to go see Weird Al in concert. Total Bummer. How cool would it have been to seen Weird Al? We did manage to get some adorable pictures of her friends baby Miss B. Yep I can't even go on vacation without finding a sweet baby to photograph. I love it!!







After that we did a little running around then headed back to the homestead so I could play ball with Ernie again. LOL



Since the concert was out Jeff and I convinced Jamie to go see "Hancock" at the movies. She is more of a chick flick kind of movie goer, so this was really out of the box for her but she ended up really liking it. I didn't know there was some major twist in the movie and guessed it early on.

Before the movie we went out for Mexican food. The food was great, despite them having some staff issues with people getting up an walking out on the job!! But hey we got our meal comped so I say I treated them again for dinner since I left the tip!! Okay so that is slightly cheating but I will take credit where I can.

Of course after the movie Jeff retreated to the man cave and Jamie and I vegged for a while and Ernie wanted to play ball. See I told you it was a kick back vacation!!

Okay that's all for now. Only one more vacation post after this one I swear. Next time I need to try to keep up with my blog while I am away!!

Vacation part 1

So I have been back from Vacation for a few days but have been so busy I have not had a chance to update my BLOG...

My first day out there was very kicked back. We ran to Blockbuster to pick up a few movies, Dan in real life, and "My mother's new Boyfriend" . Now Dan in real life was hysterical, the other movie which the lady at blockbuster talked us into getting was TERRIBLE and we shut it off 1/2 way through!!

Then it was over to Walmart to pick a few things up. We of course all got sucked into the vortex of the $5 movie bin, and each picked one out, we had "fools rush in", "Airplane", and "The Toy". Jamie and Jeff needed some curtain rods which they got, a new toaster, which was sadly out of stock, and some food for dinner. As we were checking out we all took a stab at the total for the purchases. I naturally won with my uncanny ability to guess totals. I was off by a whopping $.99 and as a prize I get to keep the $5 DVD of the Toy.

So we headed home and Jeff being Jeff had to hang the curtain rods right away. I would have left them hang around for weeks before I finally got them hung up.. Although I was shocked he hung the curtains up wrinkled, completely shattered my image of him. Naturally he was multi tasking while doing this by cooking the Bratwurts on the grill while hanging curtains. Both turned out great.

Jamie and I put the magic bullet to use and tried to make salsa, Try being the key here. It looked like Vomit at first and the onion we used was way to strong so it was like cold onion soup. We did recover the look a little by adding tomatoes, but sadly it never really did work out right. So magic bullet attempt #1 was a bust!!

Now our WW mac and cheese recipe was a much better success. It was great with our cheddar cheese bratwursts.

Jamie and I watched a little HGTV, and then popped in Dan in real life while Jeff was playing on the Wii in his Man cave down stairs.

Then was use #2 of the magic bullet. Jeff made Malts. This was a much bigger success than our failed salsa.

On Monday Jamie ran to the Dentist and I watched Ernie, well okay I wore Ernie out by playing ball with him for close to an hour, and did a little photo session with him!! He is only slightly more cooperative than Grover.







Then it was off to Panera for lunch(love it when you have a gift card!), and then off to the zoo.

I took way too many pictures as you can see but it was fun. I would have gotten a picture of the visiting koala's but they sleep 18-22 hours a day so they are not all that entertaining, but with that sleep schedule I think in my next life I want to be a koala.





This little guy was totaly posing for us while I took his picture, don't you love his smile??









Someone was having a really bad hair day!!

The butterfly exhibit was really cool and Jamie and I were determined to get pictures of the blue butterflies, and it was a challenge!!











Finally a blue one



The weather was perfect, and we ended the day at the Dolphin show.



After that we headed to the store to get stuff to make tacos, and pick up wine for Jamie's bachorlette get together with friends. I am no help in picking stuff like that out so I just agreed on the fact the bottle looked really cool, which it did!!



Dinner is where magic bullet attempt #3 was made and sadly it failed again. Jeff tried to dice tomatoes in it, they were more like pureee instead. After Dinner Jeff retired to the Man cave to play Wii again and 2 of Jamie's friends came over for the bachelorette.

Okay since this post is already too long I will end for here and update more on my vacation later in the week.

Enjoying Vacation

I realize I have been neglecting my blog for the last few weeks. I had a crazy schedule between work and school but I survived it all and now I am enjoying a week of vacation in Indianapolis visiting Jamie and Jeff. I arrived on Sunday and am here till next Sunday. I promise there will be pictures once I return and can download them all and go through them!!

As a recap of what was keeping me busy I had work, as usual, school rapped up so I had 2 finals. So now i just have 6 classes left till graduation. And I had 4 photography jobs, 2 of which I will have to finish editing when I get home! Not much else to report. Promise lots of updates when I get back next week!!

Happy Birthday to me

And Happy Flag day to the rest of you..

So I am now 35 and am having a hard time believing it. I don't feel 35 and I certainly don't act 35..

I would have to say it has been a very Photography related birthday for me which is OKAY in my book. I mean who can complain about getting things you drool over on a weekly basis.

My mom gave me money a couple weeks back to help me buy my new camera which I LOVE, and she also bought me a Background stand and some clothes. We then got up and left the house at 5:30 am to head to Rices Flea market which was really fun.

Now I didn't want to have to carry my good camera with me all day but I did bring the point and shoot so I could snap a few shots.

We got an early start! Even the sun wasn't fully awake yet.




It gets pretty crowded but it isn't too bad if you get there before they open.








I wish I had my good camera to get a picture of some of the pretty flowers they were selling!!



If you get the chance by all means GO!! Here is a quick snapshot of some of what I got. Yes I got 4 pairs of sunglasses I couldn't pass it up at less than $5 a pair. Only bummer was I didn't find any photography props...



Oh and anyone remember banana clips from the 80's? I saw some and had to grab them for the next 80's party I go to!!!



Then on the way home we swung by the coach outlet where I got these little treasures.



Then we hit up costco. I got a couple of movies and another 4gb CF card... This is more shopping in one day than I have done in the last 6 months combined!!


From my aunt I got a monopod I have been wanting... It will come in handy when I don't feel like dragging the big tripod with me but feel I need a little extra stability. It is a welcome addition to my gear.

My grandmother (with the help of my mom) got me a lens pen, CF card holder and the new tripod head I have been wanting for a while now!! (My current one is starting to show some serious wear and is not always locking and staying in position.)

My dad and my other grandmother sent me birthday cash which is going towards the new lens I am hoping to purchase this week.

Even The dog, Grover, bought me a present. He got me three books. The digital photography book #2, Layers, and Understanding exposure. What a good little dog, now if he would only pose for pictures!!!

Well my mom and grandmother are taking me to an early dinner at the cheesecake factory so I should wrap this up so I can get ready to go.

I guess turning 35 wasn't so bad after all.

A quick visit and a BAD storm

So Tuesday night my cousin Ryan and his adorable and always charming girlfriend Michelle stopped by on their way to Boston, where they are both relocating for new jobs now that they have received their Master’s degrees. I had school but was looking forward to spending some time with them afterward. So I am sitting in class and it started to get really dark. Then the wind started to kick in and we heard something crack and heard a lot of noise and the lights started to flicker. So our teacher let us all jet out of class when the winds kicked up and lights started to flicker. On the way out we saw downed trees around campus and all started to run for our cars before the rains started. The sky looked very menacing and the winds were strong. The sky was completely lit up from the continuous lighting flashes. I even had my camera with me and thought about stopping to take some pictures of the damage on campus or even trying to capture some lightening. But I decided I didn’t want to risk hurting my camera if the sky decided to open up and start to pour which it did the minutes I shut the car door. Phew that was close!! (Yes I was more concerned about the camera getting rained on then I was about being struck by lightening or having a tree land on me)

(I did go back the next day and got a few shots of a large tree that was snapped.)








So as driving home listening to tree branches hit the roof of my mom’s convertible and praying that the stuff I was running over was just tree branches and nothing else I was thinking “mom is going to kill me if I hurt her car”. While driving and dodging trees I saw a huge bright flash right in front of me and thought, “this is it, I am about t see my life flash before my eyes.” No worries, it was just a bright flash from several downed power lines and some flames on the tree that caused the power lines to go down. Nothing like the smell of electrical based tree fires to get the heart racing while trying to drive in Hail and pounding rain. It took some time to get home finally because so many roads were closed or blocked by downed trees and power lines and no traffic lights were working.



So I finally make it home to find my mom is NOT home, which means she is out in my car so I no longer felt bad about any damage I might have inflicted on her car since mine was out there having its own damaged inflicted upon it. Hmm I realized a slight problem as I pulled into the driveway, well actually several slight problems. No power meant no working garage door opener, which meant no way to get into the LOCKED house, since I didn’t have a key with me. The next issues had to do with a missing gutter, which was located across the street. Next was a giant piece of siding missing from the front of the house, yep found that in a different neighbor’s yard.



So now I am sitting on the front porch with various pieces of the house around me watching the storm and giving my mom directions via the cell phone since she could not get home any of the normal routes either. She finally got home safely with Ryan and Michelle and as far as I can tell both cars managed to make it unscathed from their outing.



The bummer was the power being out since it meant no getting to show Michelle the Video tape she has been anxiously awaiting to see of a little lip-synch routine Ryan, myself and Jamie’s friend Cathy made over 20 years ago. The words humiliatingly funny come to mind. Next time Michelle, I promise next time you will see it!!!



Also this meant no pictures were taken since we were without power till sometime in the middle of the night. We had a lot of battery operated candle light though.



But hey despite it all they came bearing gifts from their recent trip to Ecuador. Wasn’t that sweet of them? I was totally surprised and LOVED mine, even though I had to pick out the color scarf I wanted in the dark... Here are some pictures of my treasures. I am already using my little change purses and the scarf will get put to good use in the winter. The thing that impresses me the most is Ryan actually did some shopping/bartering and enjoyed it. The Boy HATES shopping!!!




Thanks again for the treasures and I can’t wait to come see you in Boston.

UGH!!!

Yea I think this about sums it up. I really can't believe how much the price of gas has risen the last several years.





Just last night this same station was $3.99.

Not much happening

So this weekend was filled with a lot of homework and some housework. It has been beastly hot here and I am just not used to it. I have to say one thing I am very thankful for is AIR CONDITIONING!!!!

But I did make a brief trip to the park to do a few pictures and when I look at this picture you can't help but smile, despite the heat and humidity.


It doesn't get much cuter than that. They were such good girls.

So another week starts. Amongst the usual stuff of work, and school my cousin Ryan and his girlfriend will be making a brief stop on Tuesday on there way up to Boston. Then Saturday is the all important holiday of Flag Day, or as I like to call it my birthday. Ugh I can't believe I am going to be 35. When did I get so old??? I think we are headed to Rice's flea market in the morning where hopefully there is a good bargain or two waiting to be found. Plus there is usually dinner out for things like birthdays.

Dinner out with the work crew

So tonight we all went to Bawarchi in Chesterbrook for some Indian food. Everything we had was really good. The occasion tonight was not the usual to say goodbye to anyone or welcoming in new group members. Tonight Ramana wanted to celebrate the birth of his little girl with his coworkers.
















We also joked that it was a liberation celebration for Prashant to finally be free from that Tyrant Ashish that he had to work with.



Just kidding Ashish we really do still love you. But it is good to know Prashant really does have a voice and can talk to someone other than Baboon (Anshuman, Sir). Now we just need to seperate those 2.

We had all sworts of yummy food but I can't rememebr what 1/2 of it is called, even with a take out menu. The one I really wish I could remember is the Cauliflower dish we had as an apetizer. It was great!! My kind of vegetable all the way. Some stuff I do remember (Or at least I think I remember) that we had was Aloo Tikki, Aloo Choley, Chicken Vindaloo, Chicken Biryani, shrimp Biryani, yummy breads and a few other dishes. Oh and I had a Mango Lassi to drink per Ramana's suggestion and it was very good. (Hey guys feel free to leave a comment and fill in the other dishes we had that I missed)


Some of the food was very spicy and Jeff was bright red so they kept asking him if it was hot, as a joke.



They were kind enough to pick a night I could actually join them and didn't have class. Thanks again Ramana and congrats on your precious litle girl.

Oh and one final note. Don't get into a car with this guy, he has his red and green lights confused.