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Friday, September 30, 2011

The Cat Lady In Me

Being unemployed and friendless in this town has forced me into serious cat lady mode. AHhhhhh!!! Today Collin came home for lunch and I was still a sleepy-eyed mess in my PJs lounging in front of the tube with Suki bathing herself on my lap. He burst out laughing when he saw me--"Looks like you're having a busy morning hun" haha!! In my defense, he came home for an EARLY lunch..... Anywho....Suki was even bored this afternoon and asked me to film her so with nothing else to do I obliged her (that was a serious cat-lady-statement....gahhh!)





I'll have you all know that I am getting out of the house this weekend (high five!!) Of course the reason is alcohol...strike. Collin and I are joining his sister and brother-in-law in Denver this weekend for The Great American Beer Festival. Holy moley I'm not ready to have a power 4 hour but Allison gave me a few veteran tips so that I survive my first GABF! Yeehaw!
That will be a post soon to follow...probably limiting video content seeing that my mom was not too happy about my tailgating video...oops.
It's another great sunny day here! Hope you are all having a great day too!!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Camping Weekend

This weekend we decided to head out to the mountains for a nice Colorado camping trip. Christian and Colleen (my cousin and cousin-in-law[?]) joined us and Collin's college friend Jake and his girlfriend Mari also came! The location we chose was about a three hour drive from our place but well worth it! Unfortunately, I forgot to charge the extra battery and wasted most of the one I had on our drive there, Collin wasn't happy and neither was I! I did manage to take some awesome photos to make up for it though!
We stopped for groceries, firewood, and breakfast and then we were on our way to meet C&C. Before we left I got a new sleeping bag made for 10 degree weather and after the frigid temps we slept through Collin now wants one. I felt bad but not bad enough to trade.
The first day we got there around noon and set up camp. After the tents were up and the trucks were unloaded we made a lovely sign so that Jake and Mari could find us. Somehow it actually worked and they showed up around 5 pm. We moved a few boulders to get their trailer into our site (Jake made a trailer into a "camper" fully equipped w a bed, toilet, microwave, and flat screen TV/sound system... they were really roughing it). After hotdogs and beer we all went to sleep and woke up the next morning to make a hot breakfast of coffee, eggs, bacon, sausage, and hash browns--all on our mini stove with settings of 1 million degrees or off--it all turned out really yummy though! Jake and Mari went dirt bike riding a few minutes away and the four of us went on an awesome four hour hike! Christian and Colleen left for Denver after the hike while Collin and I stayed another night and then left the next afternoon. It was a great time!

Some pictures before we left...

Suki kitty sleeping in her crows nest bed made by my dad! She (sort of) watched us pack.

Look mom! I've got some limes growing!!

Now onto the camping trip...




The meadow and stream that we stopped at on our way to see the reservoir (which ended up being closed to vehicles). Collin fished instead.

I stole this shot idea from Colleen. So beautiful with the clouds reflecting in the water I couldn't resist.  

Trail head at the start of our hike

Aspen trees on our hike

Hiker #1

And the rest of us

There were three horses and riders at the lake on top of the mountain. Tough hike for them and us!

Whitney Lake--11,000 ft.  The trail we hiked is the only way to access it

View from the trail on the way back


Have a great week!

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Life Rules!

A little different than my usual post but I am feeling under the weather today with a sore throat and no energy (possibly the start of a cold, boo!) so I was doing some random internet surfing and came across some neat things. I'm a big fan of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics and her philosophy regarding beauty: highlight your best feature and make who you are really stand out instead of using make-up to cover your "flaws." She's written a few books, one of which is called "Beauty Rules." This book is mainly geared toward promoting a healthy, positive self-image for young girls (which is always something that interests me!) There are rules that Bobbi lists in the book for really everyone to live by. They are simple but I think often overlooked.

Rule 1: Be nice! I'm not kidding!

2: Tell the truth

3: Take risks

4: Never give up

5: Be on time........(definitely the hardest for me!!)

6: Be OPEN!

7: Care about something

8: Give back

9: Work hard

10: Look people in the eye. It shows confidence!

11: Dream BIG!....you never know...


 Here is a youtube video that goes along with this theme and was made to promote the book.

 Hope everyone is having a great day! I'm still enjoying our mountain view, I hope they don't become everyday scenery anytime soon! Remember to enjoy the simple things in life and make yourself happy! :) I feel better already!!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Dorothy, you're not in college anymore

This past weekend we headed up to Denver (which is about 45mins - 1hr from the Springs). We visited with Collin's sister, brother-in-law, and niece and some of Collin's old buddies from his days at CU. Definitely had a blast but realized (for the millionth time) that I can't hang with the college kids anymore. Booo!! We tailgated for a while and then because we didn't have tickets we took a cab to Octoberfest. Good idea. We had a lot of fun, except Collin wouldn't jig with me. Lame. To round out our college flashback day we rocked out at a house party, fantastic time!

I did get a bit sad at the end of last week after realizing that I am friend-less out here for the time being. Collin cheered me up with a little encouragement, a marg and some apps at the mex place next door :) Looking more and more forward to taking my boards and getting a job! Also, still working on getting everything in our apartment in its place and all of the boxes out, so until then the apartment tour will have to wait!




Thursday, September 15, 2011

Pikes Peak

The last day that my parents were in town we decided to sight-see instead of continue the unpacking process. We drove up to the top of Pikes Peak which is the highest mountain in CO Springs (about 14,100 ft)! It was absolutely beautiful......and cold! We started at the bottom (the Springs is about 6,000 ft above sea level) at 68 degrees F and at the top it was about 36 degrees F! Yeeee, super cold and we were all in shorts. Bad idea. When we got back down it was in the 80's and clear as always. I think that's my favorite part about Colorado, the blue bird sunny sky all the time. Here I am with Collin in the plain gray zip-up while I represent WVU, woo!

 The beautiful view!


Gaping outtttttttt! If you don't understand that terminology let me explain......a friend of Collin's from CU introduced us to this phrase and quite frankly I love it. A gaper is basically a full blown tourist (his example included a skiing Texan in jeans exclaiming "He just took me down a damn double blaaack diamond, weeeehooooo!"......if you don't say it with an accent it really doesn't mean as much). In this picture we are totally gaping out. We took this right after a couple with O2 tanks had their pic taken. My dad was tempted to ask for a drag of 100% O2 to relieve his light-headedness, thankfully he refrained.

Shorts and sneakers....yeahhhh buddy!



Sunday, September 11, 2011

Traveling Circus

So, I’ve wanted to start a blog for some time now but with nothing exciting to talk about, I remained a mere blog-reader dreamer. Not that I really have anything toooo exciting going on in my life now but moving constitutes a legit reason to blog/vlog and so this blog is born! The title, well I came up with a long list of creative names that were shot down by Collin and/or my brother, this is the only one Collin said yes to so I kept it. So original!
Along with satisfying my desire to “blog”, our friends and family can watch us discover our new town and get into trouble!
The start of this blog should have been Collin’s first 2 months living/working solo while I stayed in the City of Brotherly Love to finish my degree collection. This isn’t his “thing” so I’ll pick up from where he never started. :)
A bit of background info for those of you who don’t know: Collin and I decided to move somewhere far and away for a while to satisfy our itch for something new. Collin was offered a job in Colorado Springs and being my first-choice place to go, I was more than happy to follow. Now, if my job search can just work out so perfectly I will be a really happy camper.

Even though I thought that I would be able to find time for a long weekend in CO before my actual move, it never happened. So we found ourselves regressing back to the earlier times of our relationship (when I was a college senior at WVU and Collin was just starting at Temple Dental!) doing the long distance thing.

The road trip from Adamstown to Colorado Springs included a giant trailer full of all of our belongings + my car, my parents, and my beloved devil cat, Suki. We left Thursday morning at 8am (should have been 6 but the rain caused some problems) and arrived in the Springs around 8pm Friday night. I made the following video to document our traveling circus! Enjoy!



Friday, September 2, 2011

PASSED passed passed!!!!!!!

Clearly excited to report that I passed my giant, dreaded, beastly comprehensive exam today!! Which means that I am moving next week! I have never been so relieved in my life! See ya never Drexel!

Hitting the road in six days! 

I can't wait to see Collin after two long months apart! And I can breeeeeeeaaaaattttthhhhhhe again! Yay!! Celebratory drinks certainly necessary. Thank you to my family and friends for supporting me through this year <3