Janie and Robert, sitting in a tree...

Okay, we didn't actually sit in a tree. We did stand next to one though, if that counts for anything. I got a CD in the mail today from Lora, the photographer who did Rob and my pictures last week. So here are a few of my favorite pictures, most with Lora's editing, at least one with mine. Let me know what you think! (These were all taken on campus, by the way!)

Because I like to keep you on your toes...

I decided to post today, too. I know, it's totally out of character for me to actually be somewhat regular in my blog posts, but I have some cool stuff to say. (I think, at least.)

First off, to address a few things in comments Mom and Trudy left for me...

I plan to take regular scrapbooking classes at GASC in June, because I can digi-scrap anytime. I've been doing a lot of it lately because it is easier, quicker, and less messy, as well as because I do have creative team requirements! I'm glad you like them, though, Mom.

I would love to put pictures of cats and dogs on my fridge, only I don't have any. So let's combine Mom and Trudy's suggestions, and have Ella, Ari, and Egan draw me pictures of cats and dogs to hang up there! How about it, guys?

And now, a recap of my first field trip in this class. We drove around to 4 or 5 different sites, stopping on the side of the road and talking about rock formations. We were particularly interested in discovering what types of rock we were looking at, as well as imagining the paleoenvironment that may have formed them. (Paleoenvironment meaning "ancient environment", for example, we know limestone only forms in marine (oceanic) environments, so finding limestone would suggest that parts of Colorado were once covered by an inland sea.)

We looked at sedimentary and plutonic rocks, sandstone, limestone, shale, mudstone, granite, glauconite, quartz, feldspar, mica, and many other different cool sounding rocks and minerals. At our last stop, we were all feeling a little tired of rocks (it was around 1 pm, and we had been out since 9 am) when my professor announced that we were to embark on a 2 hour hike. I haven't mentioned this yet, but it was COLD out there, and WINDY! We didn't have a choice, though, and it turned out to be a nice hike.

Here are a few pictures. (The first 2 are different, I just couldn't decide which I liked better.)

This is a couple of my classmates studying the rock during our field quiz. We were supposed to identify the type of rock that the Purgatoir Formation is made of. Can you guess what it is?

If you picked sandstone, like me, you would be correct!

I got extra points for finding this gigantic piece of quartz. Our task was to find the largest clast in the Fountain Formation, and then either extract it or, if extraction is impossible, outline the size in our notebooks. (Fountain formation is a sedimentary rock that is made up of Pikes Peak granite, which is made up of quartz, feldspar, and mica, among other things. A clast would be an individual piece of the foundation stone (granite) that can be found in the sedimentary rock (Fountain formation).) I found the biggest one, and my professor told me to take it back to campus.

Now, do you see anything special in this next picture?

What about now, if I give you a little help?

The lighter bits outlined in white in the above rock are fossilized dinosaur bones from the Jurassic period! Cool, huh?

And here is my friend Alex conducting an extremely scientific test to determine if these are, in fact, dinosaur bones.

The conclusion is, yes, they are. We learned today that if you can tell if it is fossilized bone or not by licking it. There is some reaction between the bone and your saliva to cause a slight bonding or sticking sensation for a second if it is bone, and not just rock. Yep, I licked the dino bones, too! It was pretty cool.

And look at what I got in the mail today! The OWOH prize I won from Kim Mailhot. Not only did she send me the magnets I won, she also stuck in two of her "Rock my World" rocks. Thank you so much, Kim!

I've got a lot to say...

First, I'll start with some sweet new layouts, using three of Amanda Heimann's new kits, and one older kit. The first uses Truly Yours, from the Digi Files #2.



The second uses Amanda's new collab with Bella Gypsy, Tomfoolery. I really love the colors in this kit, they're so vibrant. Tomfoolery will be in Amanda's store sometime this week.

This third layout uses Firefly Lane, a new collab between Amanda and Ziggle Designs. (I love what they come up with together!) You can check it out at Scrap Orchard, here.

This last layout I thought I had posted here already, but I guess I missed it somehow! It uses Amanda's other collab with Ziggle Designs, Smooches. You can check it out here.

I've got plenty to say about what's going on right now, but let me go back to block break really quickly. Of course, it was so much fun, like I said before, but here's a picture that I think summarizes the whole break. (Robert agrees!)

Here I am, looking super cute (lol), but bored enough that I'm taking pictures of myself, while Robert is siting on the bed in a Wii coma. I swear, he (and I, to a lesser extent) played that thing for HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS. It's a good thing that I'm pretty good at entertaining myself on the computer! (Okay, it wasn't that bad, but I just really love this photo.)

Here's the same photo, but with some things marked that I feel like explaining. (I'm bored, alright?)

#1. Well, you can see the Valentine's card Rob brought me, but really I'm trying to show you the gorgeous card Ella sent me. It's above and kind of behind Robert's card. Ella, I adore the card. It is fantastically beautiful, and I hung it up on my wall of cards using the string of beads.

#2. Robert's comatose video game face. I do have a picture where his tongue is sticking out, in deep concentration, but I'm not in it! (Which means I will not post it, lol.)

#3. One of my super cute new shirts. I bought it at Target, presumably for the photo shoot, but I ended up wearing the other shirt I bought. However, it does look amazing on me, and Megan swears that this color purple is MY COLOR. (I don't know how she knows this, but some other lady in the dressing room said it looked nice, too, so I'll believe it.)

#4. My magnet collection on the fridge, which has never been used (this year). Does anyone have any ideas for what I can do with them? I feel bad that I'm not using them, but what can I put on my fridge?

#5. The requisite Ramen Noodle Soup. I am a college student, you know.

#6. My trash can that always seems to be overflowing. You should see it right now. It's about a foot taller. I really need a bigger trash can. Do you think anyone would care if I took the gigantic one from out in the hall?

Okay, enough of that. Lora (our photographer) was supposed to mail me the CD with all of our pictures today! That means I'll probably get it on Thursday, which is super exciting. I can't wait to see all of the pictures!

So I've started a new class, which is more interesting and informative than I thought it would be. I swear, I've learned more BRAND NEW information (stuff I'd never even heard of before) in the past two days than in any other two days I've had at CC. My class is titled Geology of Antarctica: A Record of Global Climate Change. I'm learning so much about Antarctica, it's amazing.

Plus, we don't have to buy any books; we're reading really current popular literature and news sources instead. My professor is a super cool geologist lady, who has actually been to Antarctica NINE times, for a total of 18 months of her life. I'm pretty excited about the rest of the course. We have three day trips, beginning tomorrow.

Tomorrow we're just going around locally, in the Springs, in Manitou Springs, and of course to Garden of the Gods. (I think about 50% of CC classes go to Garden of the Gods.) Next week, however, we're going to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (where Obama just signed the Stimulus Bill, which I think is pretty cool). I'm not sure where we're going third week, but I'm sure it'll be cool. I'll keep you updated.

So does anyone remember that I was on an IM basketball team last semester? Well, I've been talked into it again this semester. I missed the first two games week before last (one night I was sick, the other I had my research paper to write), but I made it to the game tonight. We're a pretty bad team, truly.

We were losing 48-11 at halftime, and we tried to get out of the second half, but the other team wanted to keep playing. The bribed us into playing another half, saying that they wouldn't do any more fast breaks, we would only play ten minutes, and one of the scorekeepers could play on our team. (That's how pathetic we are, lol.) We still lost 58-16 (I was told it was actually more than 58, but they stopped adding points to the scoreboard).

We have our next game on Thursday, so wish us some luck? We could really use it.

(I told you I had a lot to say! Hope everyone's doing well!)

Giveaway winners! (And other stuff...)

So yesterday was the end of the One World One Heart giveaway caravan, and since Robert is here with me, I let him pick the winning numbers! My winners are Patti (Lot #1) and Letha (Lot #2), who I've already been in contact with. I should be able to get those packages out to you two on Monday!

Speaking of winners, I am one! I won Kim Mailhot's adorable Love Magnets. I'm so excited! Thanks again, Kim!



Robert and I have been just hanging out and having fun the last couple of days. We've played a lot of Wii (I beat him at golf AND baseball!), watched a couple movies (Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist and Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa), gone shopping (I got 3 cute shirts at Target, and Price is Right for Wii, which is not super fantastic, I'm sorry to say), eaten out (Old Chicago) and eaten in the cafeteria. We plan to do more of the same for the next two days.

But the coolest thing we've done, by far, is having a local photographer named Lora Swinson take our pictures together! We did that this afternoon. We were hoping for great weather and a long time spent shooting outdoors, but it was below 30 degrees and snowing the whole time, so we confined it to about 45 minutes. However, we still got a lot of shots in, and I can't wait to see all of them. You can check out a few previews on Lora's blog, here. I love the first one. What do y'all think?

Going to Boulder tomorrow...

So tomorrow morning at 8 am I'm getting on a bus and heading up to Boulder, Colorado. My class is spending Monday night in a hotel and heading back to campus on Tuesday. We're meeting with the author of one of our textbooks and he's going to take us around and explain everything we're reading about. We're also meeting with city planners and all kinds of other stuff. It's going to be a very busy couple of days.

Here's a layout I did today with Mikkel Paige's new kit Grapevine. You can check out Mikkel's designs here.


Also, I'm hosting a challenge at The Red Porch that's starting tomorrow! You can check out TRP's blog and the challenge here. It's definitely a Valentine's Day themed challenge. Here is my layout for the challenge. It uses Leah Riordan's Freebie Paper Pack (given away on TRP's blog in December) and Sarah Poulton's kit Happy Garden, available here at The Red Porch.

And finally, here's a picture from Megan's birthday bash yesterday. We had so much fun. She's one of the coolest people I know.

Busy day today...

So today is my friend Megan's 20th birthday. Some of her other friends coordinated this HUGE, all-day birthday bash, which I am right in the middle of. First, we surprised her in the cafeteria at brunch, by inviting a TON of people and decorating our tables and everything. Then we went to go see He's Just Not That Into You, which we just got back from. (It was okay, but not super great. It really wasn't as funny as I thought it would be.) For now we have a bit of a break while Megan goes to Dance Workshop rehearsal, but we're meeting at 5pm to get ready for dinner. Everyone is getting all dressed up and we're headed to Fujiyama. (I'll let you know how that goes, since I don't really like Japanese food.) (I'm wearing the same dress I did last weekend. Maybe I'll actually get pictures this time.) After that we're going to Laser Tag, then we're coming back to Megan's and having a sleepover.

I'm tired already. Here's a couple of pics of what I made Megan for her birthday. It's the first time I've tried out this pattern, and it's a little strange looking, but still cute, I think.

Oh, and I'm feeling a lot better, by the way. I'm probably at about 80%. Not all better, but hopefully that will come in the next couple of days.

Quick update...

Winter Ball was a ton of fun. I went with four other girls, one of whom is actually from CSpgs. So we went over to her mom's house to get ready and her mom made us a delicious meal. Then we went to the Ball. It was super packed, but still fun. The only bad part was waiting in line at coat check for 45 minutes at 1 am.

So I had so much fun last Friday...then woke up feeling just kind of blah on Saturday. By Sunday morning I felt horrible- I'm pretty sure it was just a cold. It got progressively worse over the past few days rather than better, but I think I've finally turned the last corner. I hope so. I'm so ready to feel better. I've been taking medicine and sucking down orange juice, trying to feel better because...

My research paper is due tomorrow. This is the super gigantic independent project worth 30% of my grade. Ugh. I've found some general sources, I just need to sit down and pull out all of the information and then get to writing. I just want to get past tomorrow, because I have some sweet plans for the weekend...

I know lots of people in the family and here at school have been sick, so here's hoping everyone (including myself) feels better ASAP!