Back in the Day

Jayme is correct. This is the same truck my dad had back in the day. It was an old Ford pick-up with an extended cab and 2 gas tanks. It was a good ol' truck. I remember multiple trips to Florida and New Jersey in this truck. It is also the truck that my dad got into his bad accident with.

Over Christmas break at my mom's house in Wichita, we spent a lot of time watching old home movies. Almost all of the time from Saturday evening to Wednesday we watched old videos from 1984! Jayme bought a DVD-recorder and we made about 6 DVD's worth of old videos. It was really fun to watch them. The first video our family has is from February 11th 1984, of Jayme being 10 days old. Now to think that it's 2008, almost 24 years later and that little newborn has a 17 month old of her own, crazy.

I should upload some photos, but they are on a different computer so... I won't be doing that now. Just know that I had a great time in Garden City and a great time in Wichita.

Olive Garden

You can't tell. But that is a shrimp inside of a mussel shell. Mom didn't order shrimp.

Christmas 07 Number 1

Colorado was our first stop for Christmas fun this year. We decided to go there first because last year the weather was too bad to travel that far so we didn't go. You may recall some ice and power-outs.


Well, we did some shopping at Centerra (above), Estes Park, and Boulder. We ate a lot of gelato. We had it from about 4 different places. Well, maybe only 3. But still, it was a lot of gelato and it was all good. :)


Saturday, our last day in Colorado, we had a big ol' family get together at Linda's. There were a lot of people. Me and Shannon, Jenette, and Chris, Michelle, Gary, Linda, Grandma and Grandpa Dick, Randy, Nancy, Wes, Jennifer, Suzanne, Emily, Amy, and Jonathan, Lindee, Terry, Katrina, Adam, and Dakota, Jerry and Cindy, and some of Linda's neighbors stopped by. So, 25-ish. Plus there were 4 dogs, Shadow (a German Sheppard), Libby (a terrier), Major (a beagle), and Jake (a poodle?). Not all of them are pictured above. But Major is below and he is a very cute and smart little puppy!!


This video is of Dakota playing Wii boxing with Emily. I don't know if Cody actually won.

It was busy. But fun.

Purple Crayon

So, remember last time I found some purple crayon essence? Well I found some more. This time I was stepping back into the car at one of the many crappy gas stations in Limon, Colorado.

Oh yeah. Get ready for it.

Michelle is gonna play hockey with us!! We went to Play It Again Sports in Longmont and she got everything she needs for about 160$. That us super awesome!

LED Lights Rock (bottom brewery)

We went to Centerra last night with Gary and Michelle. They had decorated for Christmas by putting white LED lights on all their deciduous trees and sweet dark blue LED lights on all their evergreens (not pictured). It was so so so cool looking. It was also very cold. And Michelle got an orange Broncos jersey of Champ Bailey. (He's going to the Pro-Bowl!)

Slingle Bells

It begins with sweet taffy. We stopped and got Michelle on our trip to Colorado and also got some taffy, flavors like Cherry Cola, Red Licorice, Juicy Pear, Peach, Grape, Rum...

Jardine Apartment Complex Complex

So, Shannon and I have lived in Jardine Apartments for over 6 years. We haven't had problems, besides it being rather small, but that is something we have decided it worth it for the price and the location.

But now I hate this place. And it's not the apartment itself, it's all the changes they've made since opening up the new buildings.

We no longer receive a visitors permit for our guests. If we have someone come over, they are to go down to Edwards Hall (campus police) and pick up a 1-day parking pass. If they want to stay more than 1-day, they are supposed to pay.

Then they removed our mailboxes. The old location of all 24 apartments having their boxes at the corner of the building was too convenient for the residents. We now have to go to a central location, building 7, to pick up our mail. All of Jardine (and there are way over 300 apartments) has to get their mail from one mail room. Kind of like PO boxes, but not by choice. It take about 5 minutes to get there and then you have to scan a card to get in and then use your box key to get your mail.

To make that more fun... If you've received a package that doesn't fit into your box (which most don't) and it is too big for the parcel boxes below (which happens), you receive a notice to go to the post office and pick up your package soon or they will mail it back to the sender.


Then just today, I tried to do laundry in our newly updated wash house. We have new washers and dryers. But we have to pay 75 cents for a wash and 75 for a dry. Not too big of a deal. But you don't put the money in the machine. No, way to easy. You have to use your K-State ID card. But I can't use mine. I have to use my husbands. And if you don't have money in your account, you have to go to a different building (Building 7 again) to put money on your, I mean, Shannon's card. Then I can do laundry.

I don't understand why they would take these things that work and then screw them up. I mean really screw them up. I can't wait to leave this place. If your considering moving to Jardine Apartments, don't. They suck on every level.

There are no...

Flashlights. We went to an super packed Wal-mart today and they are out of flashlights. This ice storm still has 12,000 people in Manhattan without power (that's since Tuesday morning).

We are lucky to have power. Even though I have a final tomorrow, I at least have heat and light to study by.

I feel like crying.

Yesterday the weather was really bad and the finals were postponed. I had my hardest on that day. So, when school was canceled, I hoped the final would be too.

The University is rescheduling all of Tuesday's finals for Saturday. Saturday!

We haven't heard from the teacher yet, but another student in a different class said that our teacher told her he will be here on Saturday giving us our final.

Saturday!!!

If you recall, this was an issue last year too. Different teacher though. And well, different circumstances too. Still sucks though.

Mitten

A lost mitten at Dillon's.

Pink Snow

They now use something pink to de-ice our sidewalks. Maybe it's peeps.

Deeper Underground

On Monday we went to Student Spotlight. It's a dance show put on by students at K-State. We went because Michelle was in a dance! It was pretty good, the whole show that is. There was this crazy "fish-flop" move that popped its way into about 4 dances, though. It was odd.

Michelle's group did a good dance. It was really odd but quite fun as well. It was fun to get to see Michelle dance. Shannon and I never did make it down to GC to watch her dance. So at least we got to see her sometime!

Frozen

It was kind of cold walking to school this morning, about 23 degrees. I took a shower this morning, and my hair was wet when I walked to school, so it froze. Not really that out of the ordinary. That happens a lot since I don't dry all my hair after a shower.

But the crazy part is the ball of ice that formed at the end of my hair. The picture above is of me holding my hair parallel to the ground. If you notice a small whitish dot on the tip to the left, that would be ice. A small ice ball formed at the end of my hair. That is not ordinary.

Smash-ed.

In January of 2002, Shannon and I bought our desktop. At that time, we picked up on a deal for a printer for 1$. That printer was used for about 2 years. It would take a new sheet up paper, tilt it slightly, then proceed to print on the now crooked paper. Memories.

This week, we smashed it. It along with a scanner that we got from Newgen that worked about twice then just started to control itself. So the zombie electronics are dead. They had a mind of their own, and now their mind is smashed and in a the dumpster.

Lights!

This is how I study. On a Saturday from 12 to 4 in my office with Christmas lights. Besides it being Saturday and having to study, it's pretty nice.

New Floor

Those fella's at Patch and Crows got a neat new flooring on their stair case. It feels clean.

Lucha Libra Masks

This is not the first man riding a motorcycle while wearing a Mexican wrestling mask. I saw one in Manhattan a few weeks back. This picture above was taken while in Wichita. I'm not sure what's going on, but I hope these guys know that mask isn't a proper substitute for a helmet.

Keep on Giving

With our arrival to Wichita came, well more good times! Mom, Jayme, Nicole, Maria, and her boyfriend Matt were out taking advantage of some Black Friday sales when we got in. So, when they got home, we had some dinner and then played some games, some Wii game called Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party. Not so surprising. It was great fun, as usual. But we did get tired and then had to go to bed.

Saturday we woke up did some things. One of which was go to Target and get some food for us to eat and for Jayme to cook with. When we got back, Jayme did a lot of cooking, and we eventually did a lot of eating. But before that happened....

It snowed in Wichita too! So what did we do? Put Nicole in a snow suit and took her out to play.


There wasn't much snow, less than an inch, and it was already starting to melt by the time we got out there. But it was great. Nicole ate some snow. Mom and Nicole made a snowman. Nicole ate some snow. Jayme and Maria made snow angels with Nicole. Nicole ate some more snow. It was rather entertaining. See for yourself.

She just laid there and let her mommy move her appendages. It was very cute. Nicole could hardly walk right in the snow suit.

After the snow, we came in and eventually had dinner. Jayme made a cranberry turkey which was injected with some flavor and stuffed with some really sweet cranberry stuffing. She also made sweet potatoes with bananas. It was actually really good. But the best tasting thing was the turkey salad. She used left over turkey from real Thanksgiving and made this awesome tarragon turkey salad. It was very very good.

Eventually, we let our tummies settle and then had some dessert. Jayme (that little cook) made pumpkin pie from scratch, a chocolate filled chocolate cake, a blueberry cheesecake, and some amazing cranberry apples. They apples were the best dessert. They tasted great.

It was a good time. Saturday we played some games with Mom. Then Sunday we took some pictures for Mom of her three girls. We haven't done that since I was about 9. We eventually came home, with Maria packed in the back seat. Now there are two weeks and finals left of school. It's exciting and scary at the same time.

Thanks Gave

Well, Thanksgiving break is over. That means only 3 weeks until Christmas break which will be over a month long. Thats right, more than a month of no-school. Awesome.

Thanksgiving started off with a trip to Rhonda's in GC. Shannon and his siblings cleared out the loft. It is nice and open in there. Thursday, after eating turkey, Shannon's cousin Tara and her husband Dan played the Wii with us. It was fun. After some Wii Sports and Wii Play, it was time for "the hottest party." Dance Dance Revolution! We had two pads, but since we had more than two people, Michelle and I went to Wal-mart and picked up two more dance pads! Sweet! We had the hottest party fo(u)r sure. It was very fun.

While some people were dancing, Michelle and I danced too. Only we danced the background dancer's dance. It was great. Here is a small clip of it. It was more work then the game itself.

Oh, and Rhonda made some amazing cranberry sauce. It was really really good!

Friday, we ate lunch at Lone Star and then headed to Wichita. It had been snowing in Garden, so we left before we did any shopping, which is fine. The ride was okay. It was a little scary for about 3 seconds when I drove on an overpass and kinda swerved a little more than I would have liked. Next time, I'll pay a lot more attention to when we are driving over a bridge of sorts.

Okay, I'll go eat some dinner. You know I'm hungry.

Pee-wee hockey

Beowulf

You can't really tell. But this is Shannon, Newgen, and Andrea stylin' the 3D glasses in the Imax. Good times. Altough, I don't think I can do 3D movies. About 1 hour in, I got this headache that just wouldn't go away. Beowulf was a fun movie though.

Groovy

Dude! I saw a very futuristic/fake looking ad in TV for these hand dryers. It was really neat to see them in action. We went to see Beowulf in 3D at the Imax in KC. They rest room was very nice and had these cool dryers. They do work pretty good too!

Granite City

On our way to hockey last weekend, we stopped for the night in Olathe with Newgen and Andrea. We ate dinner at Granite City and it was good.

Fatso

This squirrel is so ready for the holiday naps. He was very fat. I don't think you can tell from my picture, but trust me. He was fat.

MSE

While walking around K-mart for the once-a-year Christmas trip, I happened to notice this box that gave me a smile.

In statistics, MSE (or mean squared error) is a common estimate of the population variance. It's not really all that special or all that funny. But it made me smile a little so I took a pic.

This November.

Shannon and I have started to make our Christmas cards. It's fun. I am really looking forward to the holidays this year. Things should go well. Not only do I not have school for a few days, but I will get to eat good foods, and see lots of family! That is what I'm looking forward to the most.

Oh, we also bought ornaments for our Christmas tree. We got lucky and mostly all Christmas decor was on sale, 50% off, at Hobby Lobby today. We went for stuff for the cards, and wound up saving 20$ on ornaments! Sweet. My mom bought us some neat purple LED lights. So we bought cool black ornaments to go with them.

Yay holidays!

From Halloween

Here are some pictures from my weekend visit to Wichita a week back.


These are Matt's dogs. Cajun in the red lab. She is about 3 I think. Zeus is the white lab puppy. He is very young. About 2 months old.


He is a huge puppy, and adorable. Around the table are some of the party goer's. Jessica is one of Jayme's good friends. She is also dressed as a witch and about 4 or 5 months (?) pregnant.


After almost everyone left, we played some Wii. Here is Jayme and Lianna playing boxing. Lianna beat Jayme. It was entertaining. You can see my cute little niece examining something.

Cucumber juice.

Welcome to...

Spin City!! *insert circling lights on a big new sign*


Yes folks. The JC rink is pretty much done. And it is the sweetest rink in the state (possibly 2 state radius). They have a movie theater, an upstairs/loft. And, lights!

Now when we practice hockey we can:
a) stop.
b) turn.
c) see.
d) all of the above.

The correct answer is d.

The Mail Building

To make our lives less fun here at Jardine, we now have to travel to a completely different building to get our mail. And this building doesn't even have easy access. It's surrounded by construction and a lack of parking spots.

I have been nothing but disappointed with the changes Jardine has made to my living arrangements. Another such fabulous change, they moved the fire extinguishers from the back of the closet door, to just placed under the kitchen sink. This way when your oven is on fire, you must travel past the fire, to the under of the sink and dig through your flammable cleaning supplies until you finally get your extinguisher to put out the oven fire.

I am beginning to really dislike Jardine. Shannon has also recent discussed this topic.

Happy November!

It's crazy how fast the fall semester seems to go by. It seems like just yesterday I was fashioning capris and tank tops. Today I walk to school and it's dark and only 25 degrees! I'll take it though. The trees, the smells, the food, it's all worth it.

P.S. The trees have been really pretty in Manhattan this year.

Paper Willie

Since I was gone for the weekend I missed a football game, the homecoming game actually. This sad Willie above was a rather amusing sight to walk by on my way to school Monday morning. That afternoon, when I walked home, some of the fraternity guys were burning it. That made a lot of smoke.

Halloween Party

On Saturday the 27th, I went to Wichita for Jayme's tuba recital. She did a very good job. I'm really glad I got to go. That evening, her and Mom had a Halloween Party at Mom's house. People from their work came. Most of them with kids and almost everyone (adult and child alike) was in a costume. Above is Oliva. She went all out and even put in fake piercings! It was quite cool.

Another noteable thing is that Shannon and I found 5 Wii's at Best Buy. So we called my mom and decided to pick her up one. So I took it down with me, along with DDR: Hottest Party and our 2 dance pads. It was really fun to watch everyone play! Above is Lianna (?) and Taly (?), Jayme's friend Jessica's, daughter and sister. It was cute.

Silly Pumpkins

Here are some silly pumpkin carving templates we saw in Hobby Lobby. The howling poodle is what caught my attention.

Hi. My name is Richard.

Friday night we did a fund raiser for the hockey club. We provided valet parking and coat check for the Beach Art Museum. We went to Applebee's for dinner afterwards. A few things to note about this. First, I don't really like Applebee's and I always forget this. There just isn't much to get there that is good. And the good stuff, isn't really that good.

The other note is a story. Our first server left halfway through serving us. He basically just got us drinks and took our order, maybe refilled drinks once, even though we could have used more. Anyway, our new server, Richard, was all involved and made sure he knew who was drinking what and what every one got. He apologized for the other guy having to go and made a rather large deal of a small thing. But that's cool, he was at least attentive to our drink situation.

So, we order, eat, and then go to pay. He brought the bills and we got out our credit cards (Chris paid for he and Nette, I paid for Shannon and I). Eventually, Richard came back for our credit cards and then asked "Can I see some ID's?"

The first thing I thought was, "uh, we didn't get any alcoholic drinks..." But, he looked serious and so we gave him our ID's. He asked if we were surprised by this and then went on to tell us about how he had is card number stolen and it was a real bother to get it straightened out. That was enough to be annoying because really, the reason we are to sign the back of the cards is so the server can validate that it is indeed our signature on the bill. This isn't even the point.

He checks my card and says, "Woah, is that your real name?" I thought, "uh...yeah..." He follows it up with, "Your last name?" I said "uh...yeah..." but was really thinking, "no, it's my first moron." Perhaps realizing his overwhelming stupidity, he blabbers about how it's not a very common name (which is not correct) and then says "Hey my first name's Dick."

What an idiot.

Essences

In My Sims you build houses and furniture and then paint them with essences. Essences are things that you shake off trees, fish for, get from people, prospect, and the such. When prospecting, you walk around with a little detector and it beeps, you stop and dig and the essences pop up and you collect them like coins. One of the essences is purple crayon. So when I was walking with Shannon and happened upon this generic purple crayon, or essence, I thought it worth sharing.

Food and Games

Shannon has been giving me many fun things for my birthday week. So far I've gotten nifty-gifty "The Office" pens, Big Brain Academy, blueberry almond oatmeal, yellow curry rice mix, asparagus risotto mix, My Sims, dark angels green paint, and a garlic press.

Now some of it is just stuff we needed/ran out of. But some of it is purely fun! The two games are very fun to play and I have put in about about 11 hours between the two since Monday evening.

School on the other hand, has been rather hard. We have a really nasty STAT 860 test on Wednesday that was last Wednesday moved to Friday moved to Monday moved to Wednesday. Jeepers. I just want to get it over with.

Oh, and the weather has been real nice lately. It's cooling off and raining a bunch. We have finally had reasons to make soup and our new Hot Apple Cider Tea. That stuff is good.

A Festival of Pirates

Well, a week back we went to the KC Renaissance Festival again. Good times were had and neat things were purchased. Mom, me, Shannon, Jenette, Chris, and Nicole dressed as pirates. Jayme wore the very first renaissance costume I ever made. That was back in 1997, I think.

Nicole was so cute walking around in her little pirate garb. She got quite a few compliments and cute gazes. She behaved pretty good too. Here she is having a grand time with Mommy while riding a llama (a rather gross animal).


There was a rather good Captain Jack Sparrow walking around as well. Mom and Nicole took a picture with him and Barbossa (we are guessing). The Sparrow costume was very good. The Barbossa one was only okay. It's hard to look like that crazy half-dead pirate.


Jayme, Mom, and Nicole also rode the elephant. But I didn't get any good pictures. They were all too dark. It was a really fun time. The weather was great. It kind of rained a few times, but nothing drenching. Mom and Jenette & Chris got these really neat slate oil lamps. Jenette also got a really cool piece of art work. It is too neat to try and describe. The artist's name is Renae Taylor.

Also, Jenette got an ocarina for her fairy costume. It's a little whistley type device. Chris played us some music on the was back. There is nothing to see. You just have to listen.