The Blonde Excuse

New Location

2006-03-12T03:04:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! For those of you who have been wondering why I haven't updated recently, it's because I've been packing up and moving to a new location: www.blondeexcuse.pixxiestails.com. Memorize it, change your links, alert the media... whatever you feel necessary. See you all there!

A Surprise Visit

2006-03-07T00:20:00.000-05:00

Although I already blogged about the black tie event that Brent and I attended with his family on Friday, I haven't said anything about the rest of this past weekend yet. I spent Saturday morning and afternoon at Brent's house until about 3:30pm where we watched Walk the Line and had some delicious home-cooked food. Once I got back to school, Brent came over to my room (he had been in his dorm) and told me that my friends (Cathy, Vanessa, and Molly) had just called his dorm phone looking for me because my cell was off and that they were on their way to Trinity to visit me! What a great surprise! I was even more surprised that no one had blown the surprise, but apparently it was a last-minute, spur-of-the-moment plan so no one had time to let it slip haha.

Unfortunately, this past weekend was pretty boring relative to the usual Trinity madness, but I think we had a lot of fun anyway. I was taking a certain medication that I couldn't mix with alcohol, so I had no drinks or plans whatsoever for Saturday night and campus was pretty dead anyway (I think a lot of people took last week as a vacation week the way it used to be rather than the 2 days they give us now). The five of us (including Brent and myself) had to find something to do, so we decided to do what we do best: eat food and watch movies. We went to IHOP where we all got pancakes and met one of the most incompetent waitresses ever. She messed up our order and forgot about us at least 3 times, almost making us late for our movie! We made it just in time to see When A Stranger Calls at the Crown Theater in Hartford. I enjoyed it, but it definitely wasn't the best scary movie I've ever seen. The plot was unoriginal, certain details didn't tie-in properly, the villain's character was undeveloped, and the ending was abrupt and, well, weird. I'm easily entertained, though, so I still enjoyed myself, and I got to see a bunch of previews for some awesome looking scary movies coming out soon!

Vanessa, Molly, and Cathy at IHOP:

After the movie we went to Cosi where we had hot chocolate and s'mores which ultimately led me to the decision that I can never take my boyfriend anywhere with fire.

The mini fire pit and my arm in the background:

Brent burned his marshmallows until they couldn't even light on fire anymore because they were pure charcoal at which point he moved on to burning the wooden skewers... then we left. After Cosi we went back to my room where we watched Clueless (one of the best movies ever). I can probably recite about 80% of that movie as I'm sure my friends can as well. After the movie Molly made an exciting discovery, that she's a full cup size bigger than she thought! After all that excitement we were pretty tired so we got into bed/sleeping bag/couch and talked for a couple hours, as girls do. It wasn't a night of crazy partying, loud music, and such, but I think we made the best of it and had some "good clean fun." Our mothers would be so proud! I hope everyone comes and visits again and maybe next time we'll do something cooler haha.

It's Monday now so I have to start getting back into academic mode, so I should probably go read... or watch TV. My final thoughts for the night are that 1. Reese Witherspoon is one of my favorite people ever and 2. Barnes & Noble makes good grilled cheese sandwiches in their cafe.

Goodnight!

Black Tie

2006-03-05T20:51:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged in such a long time, but it's really not my fault! My computer hasn't been working well at all lately and I haven't been able to 1. Use the internet or 2. Get my pictures on my computer. Luckily I have a new computer on the way!

Anyway, I was home in Greenwich last weekend (not the weekend we're finishing right now, but the one before it) for Trinity Days. I already blogged about Trinity Days a couple times, so this entry is going to be about the car wash.

As boring as that may have sounded, it was actually the coolest car wash I have ever been to. The water/soap sprayers were all attached to little robot people who were spraying the car! I felt like I was in Disney World! I guess I'm just easily entertained....

Workin' at the car wash...

Pretty pink lights inside!

The robot guy at the end who waved us on:

All right, moving on to something more interesting. Brent's dad was presented with the "Heart of Gold" award by the American Heart Association at the Heart Ball in Holyoke, MA this past weekend. Brent's family invited the two of us to come to the event with them and we had a wonderful time. There was great food, a band, dancing, and silent and live auctions. Brent and I obviously didn't participate in the auctions, but his parents won a few of them including 2 box seats at a Red Sox game this summer and a limo ride to it!

Anyway, at the event, during the "social hour" we enjoyed lots of different hors d'oeuvres like bruschetta, shrimp, various cheeses, chicken satays... there are too many to list, but anyone who knows me knows how I love good food. We had our picture taken a number of times by the photographer there, so maybe we're pictured on some website or in some local magazine somewhere! After the social hour we moved into the dining room which was beautifully decorated in red and white with lots of candles and flowers everywhere. When we got to our seats, we each had a Chinese food container filled with a fruit salad covered with raspberry yogurt and whipped cream. Eating grapes with chopsticks was, well, "interesting" but it was so cute and so yummy! After our fruit we had salad followed by "surf and turf" which consisted of filet mignon and grilled shrimp with green beans and some sort of special mashed potato all rounded off with a dessert of bananas foster. What a meal! I was very full of delicious food when it came time for Brent's dad to receive the award and make his speech which he got a standing ovation for!

Brent's dad making his speech:

Brent and his dad:

Brent and Me all gussied up:

Brent with his parents (I loved his mom's pink top!):

I tried to take an "in action" shot of Brent:

As you can see, there are lots of people dancing in the background. Brent and I danced to a fast song and then to Frank Sinatra's "The Way You Look Tonight" sung by a live band (and Brent, who was singing along). It was so much fun being all dressed up and being twirled around the dance floor just like people used to "back in the day." Sometimes I wish I lived back in a time when dancing really meant dancing rather than just moving around awkwardly to loud rap music. Overall, it was an incredibly fun night!

After we drove home, Brent and I took a few more pictures just to take advantage of the fact that we were dressed up.

Brent liked this one best:

Yes, it's pretty much the same picture, but I liked this one better and it's my blog so I can put up whatever I want!

I think I was dancing... or just jumping around:

Brent lent me some pajamas and we took this ridiculous (and unplanned) picture in our silly stripes:

Brent didn't like the gel in his hair so he tried to wash it out in the sink with hand soap... because he's a boy and boys think things like that are smart:

Trying to take a cute picture:

Oh Brent... boys are weird:

I'm glad he looks so happy in this... oh well, it could have been cute:

All right everyone, I hope you enjoyed this and I'm sorry I haven't been blogging enough lately!

Back to the Oscars... goodnight!

It's Been A While...

2006-03-02T20:01:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm having some problems with my computer so I haven't been able to blog with any pictures recently and therefore haven't blogged at all. I'm going to try to fix the problem soon, so don't stop visiting my blog!

Jumbo Muffins

2006-02-27T23:07:00.000-05:00

As I said in my last post, I'm home until tomorrow for Trinity Days and it has been a very nice mini-vacation. Before I start, though, I found this picture on my digital camera. Before I went home, Brent helped me button up my hood. This is why girls don't let boys help them with their outfits:

Anyway, I got bored and decided to bake something. Somehow, I thought it would be a fun idea to make one JUMBO blueberry muffin rather than a whole batch of them.

Doesn't it look delicious?

But here's the problem:

Oh well. I managed to cook it a little longer and make it edible.

Yesterday, my parents and I drove down to Pennsylvania to visit my brother Geoff, his wife Kari, and their son (my nephew!) Brady. The drive started off pretty well until we got to the George Washington Bridge and hit a huge traffic jam.

Ahh!

Obviously, this led to a family fight. My mom and I wanted to go a different route to avoid traffic, but Davey liked his better. Davey won because, in his words, "We have a democracy in this car! One man, one vote! I'm a man, I win!" Oh, well when he puts it that way, I totally understand.

Davey forcing us to sit in traffic:

Me getting extremely annoyed:

This is the view we had for quite a while:

We finally got out of the traffic jam which seemed to be caused by absolutely nothing, and passed the airport where I saw an airplane!

I love taking pictures... and I'm a huge dork; but a self-aware dork which takes away some of the dorkiness? Maybe?

Airplane!

I had been drinking iced tea so, of course, we had to stop before we got there. We stopped at a Starbucks somewhere in New Jersey, I think, where we saw this man with a flowered belt and a huge curled and waxed moustache! I got an AMAZING picture of him, taken (secretly) with my camera phone, but it somehow got deleted! I was very upset, but I did manage to get the back of his head.

Starbucks:

Moustachios (a fun way to say moustache that I learned from the book I'm reading, Vanity Fair):

We finally got to Geoff and Kari's in PA where we had some time to play with Brady!

Dad (or should I say Grandpa?) with Brady:

Kari with Brady:

Geoff with Brady:

This is the baby philharmonic toy I got Brady for Christmas. He seems to like it!

After spending a little time at the house, Davey took us all out to a late lunch at Chilis.

Geoff, Brady, and Kari:

Dad, Brady, and Geoff. Brady is playing with the cool ball toy that Mom and Dad brought him:

Three generations:

Mom, Dad, and Brady:

Dad, Mom, Brady, and Me:

Kari made a "better than sex" cake which was delicious and after having dessert, we drove back to Greenwich with no traffic at all!

Today, my Mom and I went out shopping for some random things. I got a really cute pair of pink Lilly Pulitzer shoes, new earrings, a belt from J-Crew, a couple tank tops for the summer, and some random stuff from CVS.

The clock on Greenwich Ave.:

Greenwich would have a Rolex....

The traffic cop guy in front of J-Crew:

I really like that Greenwich Ave. has the police officers directing traffic rather than traffic lights and I'd be EXTREMELY upset if that ever changed... so Greenwich budget people... don't do that. I'd be mad.

Earlier tonight, my dad was at a board meeting so my mom and I went out to dinner with my grandparents at MacKenzies.

Grandma and Poppy:

Mom and Me:

After dinner, my mom and I went to Blockbuster to rent a movie. We got Doom which was extremely disgusting and stupid. After the movie, I made Easter cookies!

Cookies!!! Can you tell which one doesn't fit?

It's this one:

Davey liked his cookie:

Ok, I agree. I sort of overdo the photo-taking.... Well, "Family Guy" is on and I'm going to go watch now, so... hopefully I'll have something interesting to blog about soon!

Goodnight.

Trinity Days

2006-02-25T12:10:00.000-05:00

This is going to be an extremely short, pictureless blog entry because my camera is packed somewhere and I'm too lazy to go looking for it. This weekend we have something called "Trinity Days." We have Monday and Tuesday off to "catch up on work" aka sleep in. Last night, Brent's family invited me to dinner with them at Bricco's in West Hartford. Bricco's is owned by the same guy who owns Grants, where Brent and I went for Valentine's Day http://billygrant.com/. Dinner was amazing, and afterwards Brent and I went to go see The Pink Panther which was HILARIOUS. It's stupid humor, but that's why I liked it.

This morning I drove hom to Greenwich while listening to the Spice Girls and singing along, obviously, at the top of my lungs. That is all.

The Raincoat

2006-02-22T19:36:00.000-05:00

This is most likely going to be an extremely quick (and perhaps boring) blog posting because I really don't have time to be doing this right now... but I love my blog too much not to. This week has been SO busy for me and I have an essay on John Locke due tomorrow and a quiz in my Islam class tomorrow as well (I'm definitely not prepared for either). Anyway, not a whole lot has been going on with all the work I've been doing, but I did manage to take a few pictures. This first picture is of Brent in his new sweater that his mom got him.

He liked it a lot at first:
j

And then realized his mom got it for free... hence the strange logo thing on the sleeve:

It's still a nice sweater though. Brent says he likes it because it has a "Jedi neckline." I dont know what that could possibly mean. Brent told me one of the jackets I tried on at J-Crew made me look like a space commando the other day too. Boys are silly.

Speaking of jackets, I borrowed Brent's raincoat yesterday. I loooove Brent's green raincoat for its sentimental value. Brent-- comment on my blog to tell the story from your point of view because I won't tell your side as well, but anyway... at the very beginning of last year when Brent and I had just met, a few of us were about to walk across campus when we realized it was pouring rain and Brent offered me his raincoat (what a gentleman!) and spent the whole night hanging out with me and putting his arm around me and just being really cute... and then we started going out!

Anyway, here's a terrible picture of me in Brent's raincoat:

Brent and I then took this picture together and I am only putting it up because I think it's really funny how the camera angle makes us both look so weird. I think our noses are the worst part of this picture:

Why do I put up bad pictures of myself? I really don't know. Well, here's a bad picture of someone else coming up.... Brent and I are in the library right now working on our Locke papers and I noticed across the way in the art building that there's a girl up against the glass wall of the art studio working on a painting and her pants are WAY too low and everyone over here in the library can see her buttcrack! As if that wasn't bad enough, now I'm posting it on the internet!

Ahh!

I don't feel bad, though, because you really can't see anything and it's not like I even know who she is.

All right, last picture... this is my dog, Chloe, and my cat, Frisky, sunbathing. I took this last weekend when I was home but forgot to post it:

I have to get back to my paper now... wish me luck!

Weekend Home in Greenwich

2006-02-19T15:46:00.000-05:00

Wow, it has been quite a while since my last post. I'd like to say I've been incredibly busy doing something awesome, but I haven't been. In fact, I've been doing so little that there really hasn't even been anything to blog about, but I'll give it a try.

I decided to come home this weekend since my friends Cathy and Molly would both be home also. Cathy has a three day weekend in honor of President's Day and I decided to grant myself one as well. I may or may not actually have a three day weekend, but if I don't then I most certainly should. Anyway, I packed up all my things Friday afternoon and embarked on my journey home via the Merritt Parkway. It was a beautiful drive, despite the strong winds that actually made my car shake. The Merritt is often referred to as the most beautiful highway in America. When it was being constructed, artists and architects were called in to help design it. Wow, am I a huge dork for blogging about a highway? Probably, but they have a web site so I'm going to somehow use that to validate it http://www.kurumi.com/roads/ct/merrittpkwy.html. Please don't read that if you have any semblance of a life.

Some building in Hartford that I've taken a picture of before:

The temperature outside during my drive:

I was somewhere in Fairfield County when I realized that I was out of gas! I live in lovely Fairfield County, though, so I figured I could probably make it home... just. As I approached Greenwich, the needle on my gas-o-meter thing got closer and closer to the E which made me nervous. The gas light dinged and turned on right as I got to my exit. Unfortunately, I was distracted by the amazing 90s music that was not playing on my radio and had to attend to the situation immediately. Yes, I missed my exit. Usually this wouldn't have been a problem because I know how to get to my house from another exit further down the parkway, but with no gas in BB's tank, I was getting a little concerned.

Uh oh:

Bigger uh oh:

In a complete panic (a familiar state) I drove into the nearest gas station in Greenwich where I finally got to feed my poor car! I'd like to note that only in Greenwich do the gas stations play classical piano music outside while you're pumping your gas.

After such a chaotic day I got to relax in front of the TV while watching Zathura with my parents and having steak! Yumm! We certainly don't get steak at school... well, not real steak. I had some Apple Jacks later as a snack since I really hadn't eaten much all day.

Apple Jacks:

Saturday, I woke up late and watched "Project Runway" with my mom before getting showered and dressed and heading out to Bloomingdale's in White Plains. My mom always has me exercise my Bloomingdale's credit card when I'm home so that they won't forget about me. It was a very successful day and I got a Lilly Pullitzer skirt, a Michael Kors "going out" shirt, a short, black, Michael Kors cardigan, and a cute black shrug. I would take pictures, but I'm sure you'll see me wearing all of those things in upcoming pictures.

After Bloomingdale's I tried on my long black dress (no pictures of it) to see if it still fit me. Brent's dad is being honored at an American Heart Association black tie event and Brent's family has very kindly invited me to join them! Luckily, my dress that I wanted to wear still fits, although I might need to get some higher heels (or have the dress shortened). Is it possible that I shrunk? How sad....

Saturday night I went to my grandparents' house for dinner (another home-cooked meal)! Everything was delicious, especially my grandma's mashed potatoes... I could probably live off mashed potatoes for the rest of my life. After dinner, Cathy and Molly came over for a movie night. We watched Saw 2 which I thought was an awesome movie. It's not make-you-jump scary, but it's just really... good. I don't know, I'm not a film critic. It's the same setup as the first Saw and, once again, very similar to the movie Se7en. That's how they spell it, right?

Molly at my house in her jacket that I love:

The three of us decided that this is was the WORST picture of us... so I fixed it:

Today I really haven't done anything at all. I've been getting fat off of "home food," aka ACTUAL food rather than whatever it is they serve us at school. Tonight my family is getting together with Cathy's family so I'll probably have some pictures of Cathy, Mike, and me up later!

Valentine's Day

2006-02-15T23:24:00.000-05:00

Brent and I had an amazing Valentine's Day yesterday as I hope you all did as well. After classes and a relatively lazy afternoon, we went to Trinity's movie theater, Cinestudio, to see Casablanca. Brent and I saw Casablanca here at Trinity on Valentine's Day last year also, so it's become a little tradition for us. For anyone who hasn't seen the movie, definitely go out and rent it... better yet, find a theater that plays it because I think it's just one of those kinds of movies, the ones you have to see on a big screen. Anyway, the movie was at 7:30pm which was perfect timing for our 10:00pm late dinner reservations at Grant's in West Hartford. Brent had been to Grant's before with his family, but I had never been. It's a really nice little 20s-style restaurant with antique mirrors on every wall and beautiful light fixtures that I wish I could have taken a picture of. If you're ever in the area, definitely check it out. You can read the restaurant profile on hartford.citysearch.com.

Luckily, I was able to get a couple pictures (taken very discretely) of Brent and me on our Valentine's Day date! I didn't want to use the flash and call attention to ourselves as "those people" so I had my camera on the nighttime setting and that's why the pictures are sort of blurry.

Brent:

Me:

As I always do, I'm going to talk about food for a while now.... Brent and I both started with salads and, of course, an entire table's worth of bread (which we obviously finished), then Brent had the salmon special and let me try a bite and it was SO GOOD! I've never had fish that literally melted in my mouth like that. I had the tuna which was also very tasty. We decided to order desserts which was, perhaps, one of the best decisions either of us has ever made in our lives. Brent had some apple thing... I don't remember what it was because I was completely engrossed in my own dessert. I'm not sure if I can even tell you what it was because you'll be too jealous, but I don't care, so here we go.... I had the white chocolate bruleed cheesecake with strawberries and whipped cream. Oh MAN. It was a miniature cheesecake (as in it was round, making me feel like I was getting more than just a slice) and the bottom layer was a crumbled chocolate cookie crust, then the white chocolate cheesecake, then the hardened top or the "bruleed" top. I actually don't know exactly what that's made out of, but the exact same thing as the top layer of creme brulee. It was one of the most fabulous things to ever excite my tastebuds. I could go on, but I won't because I'm making myself hungry....

Speaking of food (wow...) my parents sent me a package in the mail for Valentine's Day with all sorts of goodies including a pink purse and lots of candy (not pictured because, uh... it didn't last long).

Brent and I also exchanged gifts, and Brent (being the genius gift-giver that he is) got me season TWO of "Dawson's Creek!" I'm a huge "Dawson's Creek" fan and my amaaaaazing boyfriend watched all of season one with me and now we can watch another 13 magical episodes! Yay!

"Dawson's Creek:"

I got Brent a bunch of art supplies because he had mentioned to me a while ago that he wanted to get some drawing tools in a kit. The kits rarely have the right things because they're always put together by some guy who owns a kit making company and has no idea what a real artist needs, so I went out to Jerry's Artarama and got Brent all the tools to be the amazing artist I know he is. I got him charcoal pencils, paper, watercolor paints, black drawing pens with different tips, a sea sponge for the paints, a palette, finishing spray, a portfolio, an artist's model, and blending stumps. For anyone who wants to get into art, absolutely go out and buy the supplies separately at an art store, you will definitely save a lot of money and be able to get a lot more than you would in any art kit (although I'm sure there are a lot of great art kits out there).

The art supplies I got Brent:

I love my Valentine =)

Today, I took another afternoon coma nap. I don't know what's wrong with me, I've been sleeping way too much lately. Anyway, after my nap, Brent and I went to the mall because I wanted to spend my J-Crew gift card from my parents (part of my Valentine's Day package). Before making our way to J-Crew, we stopped in Godiva where we got two chocolate covered strawberries ($6 each!). They were delicious.

Classy Brent, very classy....

Me eating my strawberry:

After our chocolate fix, we got chocolate fix number two at Gloria Jean's where Brent and I both had cafe mochas with whipped cream.

Brent and Me at Gloria Jean's:

Wow, we sort of eat our way across the mall a lot. Eating is one of my favorite activities, so I guess it makes sense. I won't talk about the stop at Mrs. Field's....

We made it to J-Crew where we were recognized by two different sales people who commented on our frequent shopping trips there. It's true, we're in J-Crew at least a few times every week. One woman suggested that we apply for jobs which we might end up doing. I would love to have a J-Crew discount, LOVE!

I used my gift card to get a little white jacket for the Spring/Summer. I'll probably take a picture tomorrow to post whenever I write my next entry (sorry my entries are rarely daily anymore, but college kids are busy! Or lazy, either one).

Brent and I really worked up an appetite eating across the mall today, so we went to Barnes & Noble to have a sandwich at the cafe. We split a grilled chicken sandwich and it was really good. After our sandwich with Fiji water, we looked around at the books... again... like we do almost every day.

Brent at the bookstore:

Brent and Me:

We saw a book called Lamb that we both want to read really badly. It's about Jesus' earlier days which apparently involved kung fu, demons, and hot babes. I can't wait.

Brent got a book which he is currently reading. The title intrigued me, so I read a few pages and immediately handed it to Brent because I knew it was his kind of book. You'll see....

Brent reading:

What a great title:

Right now, Brent and I are both reading a little, probably watching some "Dawson's Creek" soon, and eating the last of our Valentine's Day heart candies from Brent's parents. I want to know how everyone else spent their Valentine's Day, so comment and let me know!

One final thought for my Valentine:

Snow!

2006-02-14T00:43:00.000-05:00

Saturday night and Sunday were very exciting for me with the blizzard we had here in the Northeast. The snow had just started when we left Joe's party on Saturday night and it continued overnight reaching a total accumulation late Sunday afternoon of 25"! The winds here in Hartford certainly weren't as strong as they were on the coast, but we still got some snow drifts. I took a TON of pictures, but first, here's a random picture of Brent and me:

Snow starting on Saturday night:

Brent in front of the Funtown snow drifts:

25 inches....

Brent and me FREEZING COLD out in the snow:

Snow shoveling and the evil Bobcat mini snow plow:

Skiing around campus:

Brent running through the snow towards the ATM in Mather Hall:

Look at that snow!

Through the window:

Brent and Me again:

Snow drifts:

Ahhh these things are always trying to run me down!

Brent got cold while waiting for me to take all my pictures, so I had to take him inside:

On the way in, we bumped into the guys who had just moved all of Chris' stuff into Joey's room and turned Chris' room into a "club" which they call "Club Guto." Here's the beginning of Club Guto, note the empty handles of Captain Morgan and the Natty Lite boxes covering the walls:

All the food places on campus were closed, so everyone ordered out. There were take-out delivery cars up and down the street all day long. Brent and I started out with Chinese food and later ordered Dominos. Yes, we're fat... but it was a lazy snow-in day so what were we supposed to do?

Chinese food:

After an afternoon of watching "24" and the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Brent and I had to move my car because it was in one of the weekend-only parking lots. Unfortunately, my car was stuck behind a 5 foot mound of snow created by none other than the Bobcat. Yes, the Bobcat.

My car in the snow:

Giant mound of snow:

Luckily, I had a shovel that my parents made me put in the back of the car which I was VERY grateful for.

Me shoveling:

Brent was really nice to help me dig my car out of the 2+ feet of snow all around it and to dig down the mound of snow. He noted the time:

I got in the car to try to back it over the mound of snow when the wheels started spinning, but luckily I had Brent standing outside and he was actually able to push my car over the snow mound! I'm so lucky to have him =)

We drove over towards the parking lot and one of us took this picture (we took a bunch so I don't know which one of us actually took it):

Look at these cars, they're completely burried:

And more:

Brent's car, Slater, buried under some snow:

I thought this light was pretty:

This is one of the frats on campus, Psi U. I thought it looked really pretty in the snow at night:

Icicles!

One of the arches by the chapel:

The chapel again:

And finally back in Funtown, this is what happens when you leave a bunch of college kids snowed in for a whole weekend... basically a whole lot of drinking and food debris:

I haven't been able to write a whole lot lately so a bunch of my entries have just been pictures with captions. Hopefully I'll be able to write some more soon!

Joe's Birthday

2006-02-12T01:54:00.000-05:00

I left off last night with my "That 70s Show" marathon which Brent and I participated in until we had had our fill. We then moved on to taking "artsy" blurred photos in the pink light created by my string of pink flower lights in my dorm room. Here are some of the pictures we took:

Brent took this picture of the lights around my Casablanca mini poster:

Brent took this picture of my silhouette with the lights blurred in the background that I think came out pretty cool:

Brent:

Me:

Brent's picture of the lights:

Brent and I both loooove this picture; it's Brent and me pretending to be sleeping and I think it came out really cute!

This morning, Brent went to his friend Brett's squash match with his parents here at Trinity and I did some Valentine's Day shopping! Later in the afternoon, Brent and I decided that we were in need of some good coffee and went to Barnes & Noble (one of our usual stops now) to get some. On the way, we passed the multi-colored house that we see every time we head in the direction of the mall/B&N/Target. The house belongs to a family from the Caribbean that decided to paint their house to look like their home back wherever it is that they lived.

Crazy house in Hartford:

We inevitably ended up at IHOP again where Brent had pancakes and I had French toast. IHOP is a beautiful, beautiful place. After dinner we came back to school where we spent some time reading before getting ready for Joe's 20th birthday party! Joe is roommates with Jon (we went to his birthday party a couple weekends ago), Mark, and Andrew.

Brent and Me in my room before we left:

I'm wearing the cute green jacket that my cousin Jessica gave me for Christmas and the Karl Lagerfeld shirt from Jocelyn a while ago.

Brent and Me:

Again:

The lights at the party were crazy and I think this picture is really cool:

Brent and Me at the party:

Brent making the "who's that other guy" face, Mark, "that other guy"-- someone from Bulgaria named Nicholai I think, and Mike behind them:

Joe (the birthday boy!) and Brent:

Joe is covered in champagne in that picture of him and it got sprayed all over Brent and me too. I have champagne in my hair right now and I'm super happy about it....

Me, Brent, and Jon:

Some people at the party:

Brent and Mike:

Brent and Me (post champagne spraying):

The guys threw another great party and I had a lot of fun! Happy Birthday Joe! It's time for bed now... there's a blizzard outside, though, so I'm hoping to wake up to a beautiful Wintery Wonderland!

Pancakes and Sunglasses

2006-02-11T00:10:00.000-05:00

These past few days have been relatively uneventful. I've had some work to avoid, some tasks to put off... the usual. Here are a few random pictures:

Brent all dressed up! He's so cute!!

Making a funny face:

Brent and Me (I look so gross next to him with my "just got up from a nap" face):

Brent and Me on our way to class:

Today I spent a lot of time cleaning my room until I got frustrated with the vacuum cleaner, threw it on the floor, and ran out of the room not to return for a few hours. I'm not ready to talk about it yet. Brent and I had to go to Target and Barnes & Noble so we headed out around 8:30pm but realized that we hadn't had dinner yet! Brent and I forgot dinner? Impossible! We made an emergency stop at IHOP where I had the "Silver Dollar" pancakes and Brent had the Big Basic. I put Silver Dollar in quotes because the chef clearly had no idea what that meant and gave me TEN regular sized pancakes. Oh man.... I wasn't even that hungry when we went in and then they presented me with a giant plate of pancakes! Between the two of us we managed to finish both of our plates off though, Brent eating most of the pancakes and me eating some of his hash browns; now that's teamwork!

My pancakes:

Brent's food which he mixed up into a "casserole" (something you can really only get away with at a place like IHOP):

After dinner, we went to Target where I took some more really embarrassing pictures.... Before I put these up, I want to say that I HATE people who take random stupid pictures at places like Target, and I don't feel like I'm being a huge hypocrite because I take them to make my blog more entertaining, not because I think pictures at Target are actually cool. With that said....

Me in Easter Bunny ears!

Brent, reluctantly, did it too:

We then made our way over to the sunglasses. This picture was inevitable and requires no caption or explanation:

We might be starring in Mission Impossible: 4 but keep that on the DL. All right, before I make myself sound like a major loser, I'm going to go get back to my "That 70s Show" marathon with Brent. Goodnight!

Winter Formal and the Superbowl

2006-02-07T00:39:00.000-05:00

I haven't been able to blog in so long! Well, I guess it has only been a few days, but it feels like forever. This past weekend was very busy with Christie and myself hosting two big parties in our room. The weekend started out with the winter formal on Saturday. The theme was "A Night at the Oscars" so we tried to look the part. I wore an A.B.S. dress that I blogged about a while ago and Brent wore his new Banana Republic shirt. Before the party started, Brent and I took a couple fun "mirror pictures."

Brent in the mirror:

Me in the mirror putting on lip gloss:

And yes, there will be a lot of pictures in this entry. After having some dinner, Brent's friend from high school, Billy, showed up to join us for the evening. Billy visited last year too and we always have even more fun than usual when he comes to party with us.

The night began with the cocktail party slash beirut tournament in my room.

Brent and Billy were the first team at the table...

...playing against Jon and Mark:

A Night at the Oscars:

Billy, Me, and Brent before the formal:

Brent and Me:

Everyone drank beer and mixed drinks of sparkling lemonade, pink lemonade, and orangeade mixed with Smirnoff vodka. Our makeshift bar:

The party got off to a slow start but picked up once the Funtown guys arrived.

CJ, Joey, Phil, and Brent:

Chris and Erik:

Oh Joey... did you learn nothing last weekend? I guess this is just the life of a Funtown resident:

There's just something strange about this picture....

Tom, CJ, Phil, Will the 4th, and Billy's head:

Brent, Briggs, and Joey:

We love Funtown... Faceless Tom, Garner (decked out in his usual V. Vines), Danny, Phil, CJ, and Will the 4th:

As the night progressed, so rose the BAC of the whole of Funtown. Brent and the guys played a brief game of "kick the empty case of Natty Lite" in the hall while the rest of us looked on.

Tom, Garner, and Brent in the hall with Gabe in the background:

Gabe, Garner, Brent, and Tom:

Brent and Me:

Brent and Me again with Billy in the background:

This is me not knowing how my camera works. Yes, I'm stupid.... This is the first of many camera mess-ups that night:

http://media.putfile.com/Brent-and-Me-Trying-to-Take-a-Picture

Brent and Billy played a couple more rounds of beirut. I love their faces in this picture:

Billy, Will, and Brent:

Garner and Me:

The Official Beirut Sign-Up Sheet:

I had been terribly outnumbered by an abundance of boys for the majority of the night until the girls finally showed up!

Kara, Emma, Me, and Emily:

Kara (a fellow Greenwich girl here at Trinity) and Me:

Brent and Me:

Jen and Kara:

Brent:

Emily and Jen playing some beirut:

It started getting late so we all headed over to the formal. Unfortunately it was POURING RAIN so I had to wear a big jacket over my pretty dress, my hair got soaked and my makeup washed off... ugh!

We met up with Erika and Julie at the party. They had already been in and were on their way out by the time we got there, though.

Erika, Julie, and Kara:

I had my camera on the nighttime setting which has a very slow shutter speed and made the pictures come out really strangely which actually created an awesome blur effect.

The formal:

I think these pictures are funny because they remind me of looking through those "drunk goggles" we always had to wear in high school health class.

Brent and Me:

We tried to take a cute picture of us while dancing and it looks sort of stupid, but oh well:

This picture just demonstrates that I'm incompetent. I went to the bathroom and took a minute to review the pictures on my camera, not realizing that it was on the wrong setting and I was actually just taking pictures of myself in the mirror. Oh well....

I also accidentally took a video at the formal where you can hear Brent and me singing "Pour Some Sugar on Me" along with the band in the background. I know, I need to learn how to use my camera in the dark:

http://media.putfile.com/Singing-at-the-Formal

We had to walk home in the rian, too, getting even more soaked. I think this is such a cute picture of Brent walking back towards the dorms with me. He's making such a "puppy stuck out in the rain" face if that makes any sense:

Back in my room Christie and I took a roommate picture, probably not the best picture of us considering that Christie was in her pajamas and I was soaking wet:

It was a very long night but a lot of fun! Everyone slept in the next morning and at some point Sunday afternoon Brent and I decided to go to the mall to get some CPK for lunch/dinner.

Brent at CPK:

While we were out I took this picture of the trees and the sky because I thought it was really pretty:

We got home in time for the Superbowl (not that I cared or even knew who was playing in it). Christie's boyfriend, Steve, came up to visit for the weekend and a bunch of the guys from my hall (even more than on Saturday night) showed up in Christie's and my room for an impromptu Superbowl party!

Christie judging the guys who were racing each other to shotgun beers:

Brent and Garner:

Brent, Garner, and Erik:

Garner (as well as all the other guys) was pretty drunk by about 7pm:

Will:

Christie and I played the first round of beirut against Steve and Garner. The game went into overtime and we almost won!

Steve and Garner playing against us... they almost lost to a couple of girls haha!

We had two TVs set up with the game on them and, as you can see, Christie and I were the only girls for the majority of the time. At one point I counted 21 guys to 2 girls (Christie and me).

I guess something exciting happened? I wouldn't know... who was playing again?

Joey, Gabe, Steve, Christie, and Brent around the beirut table:

Brent and Me:

CJ, Steve, and Garner in a drunken huddle of some sort:

Brent and Me again:

We have a lot of that same picture of us, but it's my blog and I like pictures of us!

Too much alcohol on that table...

Mom, I swear we're not alcoholics!

Exact same picture of Brent and Me number three!

The entire room was like a giant movie theater filled with just about every single desk chair from the entire floor and soooo many football fans! Steve, being the oldest, was the "bartender." By bartender, I mean that he was the one calling out to everyone to pass their cups back while he filled them with straight vodka and made them all drink at once... twice... and so on.

Intoxicated? I think so.... Erik, Zach, Joey, CJ, and Gabe:

Brent, Zach, and CJ:

Brian and Will:

Zach at the sign-up board:

Brent and Will:

The Official Superbowl Beirut Sign-Up Sheet:

After the game, Brent and I went back to his room where we watched the "Puppy Bowl" on Animal Planet. Wow, we're so not cool. It was basically a fake football field filled with puppies and football toys... and it was amazingly entertaining.

Looking into a mirror? Or just at another easily entertained puppy:

Whoa:

Brent eating A LOT of chocolate ice cream... well, I helped too:

And here are some Superbowl party videos if you haven't had enough already:

http://media.putfile.com/Beirut-with-the-guys

http://media.putfile.com/Steve-and-Gabe

And to put my statistics class to good use, here are the weekend stats!

1 cocktail party
2 beirut tournaments with multiple games each night
1 Winter formal
1 big football game
378 beers consumed in our hall or, the "trouble hall," if you will (mostly in Christie's and my room by the boys)
3 handles of vodka consumed
...and countless memories forgotten

Quote from Garner: "I want us all to make so many memories tonight that we'll have stories to tell tomorrow that we don't even remember!" It didn't make sense, but that's ok... I'm sure he doesn't remember saying it.

It was a looooong weekend and I have an 8:30am class tomorrow so I really have to get to bed! I hope you weren't too bored by this extremely long entry! Goodnight.

My Sidekick is My Life

2006-02-06T15:11:00.000-05:00

Before you read this post (again for those of you who have seen it before), I have been having some problems with Blogspot and it keeps deleting my previous posts whenever I add a new one. I hope the problem does not continue, but this post (re-published just now) was originally posted late Friday night:

It's sad, I know, but my Sidekick II really is my life. I spend pretty much all day playing on it. Basically, i'm OBSESSED and I think you should all run out and get one so that we can talk on them! Yes, I'm a huge dork.My Juicy Couture pink Sidekick II!

Isn't it beautiful?

Anyway, I haven't blogged in a while because I've been having some problems with my internet and my camera cord, both of which have now been solved. I've spent these past couple days shopping at the mall and playing with my Sidekick. And apparently I'm back to talking about my Sidekick.... It has a really cool camera with a flash and great resolution considering it's a phone. I used it to take a few pictures which, of course, I want to share with you!

Brent and Me (I think we're a cute couple):

Brent vacuuming his room:

The Trinity Chapel at night:

My new shoes from Nordstrom for the Winter formal tomorrow night!

Anyway, today was a gross, rainy day. Campus was pretty quiet (well, until now... I can hear the drunk people wandering around outside). I took this picture of the Cave patio flooded:

Brent and I got bored so we went to Cosi in West Hartford where we had delicious turkey alfredo sandwiches followed by some ice cream from Maggie Moo's http://www.maggiemoos.com/home/index.cfm. After fattening ourselves up, we decided to check out Barnes & Noble to get some coffee and look at the books. Brent got The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman and a book about writing novels. Brent is going to write an awesome book some day and you're all going to read it!

Brent in the loser, I mean... "Science Fiction / Fantasy" section:

Brent and Me in the window... because I think pictures like this are fun:

After getting my caffeine fix for the day (yes, I apparently get caffeine withdrawal headaches now), we decided to go back to school and see what wild and crazy things were going on at Trincoll on this wet and dreary Friday evening. As I walked to the car I jokingly said to Brent, "How awful would it be if I locked the keys in the car..." and jinxed myself because, as it turns out, I actually did! I had to call AAA to come help me get into BB (my car's nickname). They were very quick (once they finally got there) and we were on our way. I was sufficiently aggrivated with myself... no, with my keys for forgetting themselves in my car, and decided I was not up for any of the night's activities. Brent and I went to the gym instead for a little while and now I'm playing on my blog while Brent reads his book about writing books. Luckily tomorrow night will be more fun, the "A Night At the Oscars" Winter formal is tomorrow and I'm having a cocktail party slash beirut tournament in my room, so please stop by! Goodnight everyone!

Blogging From My Sidekick II

2006-02-01T22:26:00.000-05:00

So, I haven't been blogging a lot lately because I've 1) been having trouble with my internet and 2) been having issues with my camera. Anyway, I'm blogging from my brand new pink sidekick! I love it so much. For those of you who know me personally, I lost ALL my phone numbers so send me your numbers and make sure you get my new one!

Not a whole lot has been going on lately. Brent and I went to CPK for dinner and then checked out Barnes & Noble for a while. Right now we're watching Corpse Bride and doing some political philosophy reading. This weekend is the winter formal and I still need shoes for it so I'm probably going to be at the mall tomorrow-Saturday trying to find the right ones. Anyway, I have to get back to the movie but hopefully I'll be able to blog from my laptop again soon!

Triple Scoop Sundaes

2006-01-30T23:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I left to go back to school around 4 something. The drive started out with some light rain which quickly turned to a torrential downpour with thick fog somewhere between Greenwich and Hartford. The fog made the drive very eerie and creepy. Does eerie mean creepy? Am I being redundant and repeating myself? Haha I make bad jokes. ANYWAY, I took this picture in the rear-view mirror. For those of you reading this and thinking I'm crazy for taking pictures while driving in treacherous conditions... well, yeah.

Headlights behind me:

The fog got so bad that all I could see were headlights and black tree trunks in the woods. It was really scary, actually.

Bad rain:

Luckily I had my iPod with the cool iPod car converter thing to keep me entertained:

The conditions were so bad that I could hardly even recognize the roads to know where I was going! I accidentally took a wrong turn and thought I had gotten on the bridge to Cape Cod but it turned out it was just to East Hartford.

I'm not sure what bridge I was thinking of....

Anyway, I made it to school in one piece. Brent had spent the whole day in the library and was really bored so we went on a date to Taco Bell for dinner and then to see Hoodwinked, a new take on "Little Red Riding Hood." It was funny in a really stupid way.

This morning I got up for class and there was so much fog!

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I went to class, did some work, cleaned my room, and had some Friendly's for dinner! My mom gave me some coupons she got from the newspaper or something so Brent and I had appetizers and ice cream sundaes mmm! We both had Reese's peanut Butter Cup / Reeses Pieces sundaes and they were delicious, as expected. Unfortunately, now I have to go on the "need to fit into a dress this Saturday" diet which won't be any fun at all.

On the walk back to the car I saw a lamp with a purse and thought I should take a picture.

How cute!

Well, that's pretty much the end. I'm watching Scream 3 on TBS and then falling asleep now. Goodnight!

Jon's Birthday and the Golf Pros and Tennis Hoes Case Race

2006-01-29T15:40:00.000-05:00

Last night, Brent and I went to the library to get some work done for our classes. Aren't we good students?

Brent in the library:

After doing some political philosophy reading, we went back to Funtown to get ready for Jon's birthday party. Before going to the party, Brent and I joined the guys in my hall for a Golf Pros and Tennis Hoes Case Race. Unfortunately, the boys didn't tell the girls in time that they were to be dressed in tennis ho attire, so there aren't any cute pictures of the girls.

The golf pros:

Brent and Me:

Let the case race begin!
http://media.putfile.com/Case-Race

For those of you who don't know what a case race is, there are teams of three which race each other to finish a case of beer per team.

Some of the golf pros in CJ's room:

And then they got drunk....

Brent took a picture of me proudly sticking my boobs out:

Garner and Will participating in the case race in Will's room:

I love the bright green jacket:

Four polos at once... nice:

Tom, part of Joey, CJ, and Briggs:

Still in the race:

The guys unbuttoned their pants to make room for more beer:

We had a bunch of sticky mouse-traps in our dorm hall because of the problem we had with mice a few months ago, so someone made a very creative "Will Trap" with a Natty Lite:

Brent and Me (we were case race spectators):

Case Race winners! The guy in the background is Josh, the football recruit. I think we corrupted any and all of his morals last night:

After the case race, Brent and I went went to Jon's 20th birthday party! Jon is in a band called Late Night Uproar and you can check them out at http://www.latenightuproar.com. Jon's party was a lot of fun. We all had a crazy mix drink comprised of vodka, grain alcohol, Kool-Aid, and Sprite. It was pretty intense.

Jon's Party-- You can see Jon under the "B" in the "Happy Birthday" sign:

Brent and Hexx at Jon's party:

Brent and Mike with the jungle juice:

Hexx and Me at the party:

Andrew and birthday-boy Jon playing some beirut:

Brent and Andrew:

On top of the cooler full of jungle juice:

As Brent and I left the party, Brent leapt down the stairs:

On the walk, we discovered Joey wandering the LSC quad all alone. If you hadn't guessed, he participated in the case race too. He was completely drunk and lost, so Brent went to go get him and lead him back to Funtown:

Joey had his head down and was doing the sad Charlie Brown walk home:

Brent and Joey. Joey saying "I love you man, I love you! Take a picture with me man, I love you!"

Brent and Garner helped Joey find his bed and Garner threatened to draw on him if he didn't take his shoes off, to which Joey responded "No please! Not my highlighters, please no!" and jumped up out of bed and wandered down the hall because he was ready for some more partying! That's our Joey....

Brent and I then went to Brent's room where we ate some potato chips and watched a couple episodes of "Family Guy."

Brent and Me in his room at the end of the night:

"Family Guy" is awesome:

After a long night of partying I finally got some sleep only to wake up early this morning to come down to Greenwich for Sunday brunch! On the way home, I took this picture of the Capitol building in Hartford because I think it's really pretty:

I had eggs benedict for brunch and it was delicious! I have to get back to school now, though, but I hope you all had as fun of a weekend as I did!

Settling In

2006-01-28T15:35:00.000-05:00

We've been back to school for nearly a week now so I guess it's time to really start settling in. Brent re-arranged his room, I finally stopped living out of a suitcase and unpacked, and Brent and I made one of our usual trips to IHOP.

Brent in his newly arranged room. Still not perfect, but it's getting there:

Brent and I got hungry yesterday afternoon around 3pm, so we decided that we could be like the old folks and get a super early dinner at IHOP.

Leaving for IHOP:

Holding hands =)

Aww, BB (my car) and AC Slater (Brent's car) having some bonding time in the parking lot:

AC Slater is named after the slate blue color of Brent's Saab, and also just because "Saved By the Bell" was one of the best shows ever. Brent and I got to IHOP where we encountered another couple dining, in the middle of downtown Hartford, wearing pastel pink polo shirts. We decided they were probably fellow Trinity students. Brent and I both had omlettes and pancakes because we're huge fat kids. It was AMAZING.

IHOP for life:

After IHOP Brent and I went to Target to get some things for Brent's room. He needed attachments for his Swiffer and got confused because he's a boy:

Target:

Brent made fun of me for Wet-Napping my hands after touching the dirty, public shopping cart.

We stopped at a couple more places before going back to school last night, but for the most part, it was a very uneventful evening.

Brent driving:

This morning Brent and I tried to get some breakfast at school but everything was closed. We went to Bruegger's Bagels instead and had delicious bacon egg and cheese bagel sandwiches. http://www.brueggers.com/

On the walk back from the parking lot, I went through one of the many Trinity arches and it was really pretty:

Well, that's pretty much it I guess... I'm boring. Tonight Brent and I are probably playing some beirut with the Funtown guys, heading over to Jon's birthday party, then seeing what's up with Julie, Kara, and Kara. Have a great weekend everyone!

The Story of How Coffee Ruined My Day

2006-01-26T23:55:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning at 6:30am to shower and get dressed in time for some breakfast before class. I hate waking up early. I don't even want to get into it because it will only make me angry. I took this picture because in some way, I thought it demonstrated the earliness, but it's really just a picture of nothing.

Picture of earliness:

Brent and I went to the Cave where I had a banana and Brent had an egg and cheese sandwich a la Al. Al is a cullinary mastermind. I don't know how he does it, but everything he makes tastes like I'm eating a little piece of heaven. Overall, Al is just a really cool guy.

Anyway, anyone who goes to Trinity knows that you absolutely do not drink the Cave coffee. I don't know who is responsible that whole mess, but certainly not Al. Brent and I have our favorite coffee places, the Gallows Hill Bookstore and the Peter B's in the library cafe. We began our trek over the Mather quad tundra towards Gallows Hill, stomping along the permafrost with our hiking boots. We weren't actually wearing hiking boots, I made that up. Brent had on Merrells and I had on my Uggs. We made it to the bookstore only to be met with an unfriendly note informing us of the new hours, 9am - 5pm. The Gallows Hill Bookstore used to be open 8am - 7pm but, in an effort to ruin my college experience, they changed their hours.

Gallows Hill Bookstore:

Brent and I both had class at 8:30am so we did not have any time to spare! We trudged back across the permafrost quad towards the library which was also closed! Why would coffee shops exist on campus if not to serve the early-rising students? I had class, I was tired, I was grumpy, and I wanted my morning coffee!

I was desperate, so I resorted to drinking the Cave coffee, ugh. It was nauseating. As if my day hadn't gotten off to a bad enough start already, I had to walk past a group of small children sledding down the hill on the LSC quad! I wanted to go sledding, but received no invitation! All I could think about the rest of the morning was how I would have rather been sledding.

Sledding!

The rest of the day went all right, I had a new class that I enjoyed despite the fact that I got unexpectedly called on at least 10 different times.

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged as often, and that is partly due to the fact that I have not had internet! When my old roommate, Danielle, moved down the hall, she took her wireless router with her and left Christie and me internetless! It was especially hard for me since I am also currently cell phone-less because Cingular is stupid. Anyway, after classes today, Brent and I went over to Best Buy to get a new wireless internet router.

This is a bad picture, but I wanted to put something with actual people in here. Brent and Me:

I think Trinity is definitely its most beautiful in the Spring, but I still wanted to take some pictures because we're so lucky to have such a gorgeous campus.

This is the main quad, it's actually the biggest unbroken campus quad in the country:

This part of the quad is called the Long Walk. I lived in that dorm last year!

Here's Brent on the Lower Long Walk. I told him that his sweatshirt / jacket combo made him look like a crazy hobo, but he said that's what he was going for, so I guess it worked out great!

Statue of a guy looking over the quad. I don't know who he is, but he looked cool. Oh, Brent just said it's the guy who founded the college. Awesome.

We have a beautiful chapel on campus. I think it's one of the prettiest buildings in Hartford:

After Best Buy, Brent and I went to the Westfarms Mall across the road and had some California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. We had soup and split a Thai pizza, yumm! We made our usual stop at J-Crew where we saw Christie and Corey. I think the J-Crew in the mall is a regular hangout spot for Trinity kids. We checked out some really weird "new age" store called Blue Moon too because they sometimes have interesting/funny stuff.

This is so weird... "Body Frosting"

Everything in the store was sorta "out there" so I asked Brent, in probably too loud of a voice, where the meat-eating Republican section was, so we had to leave.

On the drive home, Brent and I saw a woman with her cat sitting in the front seat with her. You can't really see it, but the kitty was sooo cute!

Cat!

For the rest of the car trip home, Brent and I sang 80s songs without the actual music playing in the background, which made it extra special. We made an audition tape for the next "American Idol"

Come on Eileen: http://media.putfile.com/Come-on-Eileen48

We may not have tune, rhythm, or talent, but we have heart and that's what matters, right?

Now getting back to the coffee.... You didn't think I forgot, did you? Coffee ruining my day is the theme of this entry. Anyway, Brent and I decided that it would be fun to get our books that we're supposed to be reading and take them to Starbucks to have some coffee and read in the big comfy chairs there. We went back to Trinity, got our books, and drove all the way to West Hartford (the Starbucks in Hartford are sketchy). When we got to Starbucks, they were closed! There was brown paper covering all the windows and an unfriendly "closed" sign on the door, the second of the day! Hmph! I was outraged, or at least perturbed. We came back to Trinity sulking about our lack of delicious lattes in our stomachs as we walked along the little path across the soccer fields:

We spent the rest of the night rearranging Brent's room. Since about the first day of school, I've been telling Brent that if he just moved his furniture around that he'd have a lot more room and he didn't believe me! I was right, though, and now his little dorm room is very spacious!

Well, it's another early morning tomorrow... at least it might be. I'm considering going to the gym at 7am, so we'll see if that happens. Goodnight!

Why I Love 8:30am Classes

2006-01-24T16:10:00.000-05:00

Today was my first day of Tuesday/Thursday classes and also my first 8:30am class in over a year. My mom has decided that if I tell people what classes I'm taking that someone is going to stalk me, so despite the absurdity of that logic, I'll just say that it was a class of political nature. Anyway, I showed up at 8:30am on the dot along with about 20 other students. We all took a seat around a giant table and waited for our professor. Now, I'd like to first say that Kristina told me recently that people are considered actually drunk for the first hour after waking up in the morning, which I find completely believable. We all walked into a dark, empty classroom and not one of us thought to turn the lights on. We sat quietly in the dark for about five minutes until someone finally verbally acknowledged our lack of a professor. I'm sure everyone knows about the fifteen minute rule that the students are allowed to leave after fifteen minutes if the professor has not arrived. At 8:45am someone bravely suggested that we leave and was then attacked with evil glares from all around the room. We woke up for that class, some of us even managed to change out of our pajamas to make it there, and we did not do it for nothing! I have never seen a group of students so determined to hold a class, but come on... no one wanted to be out of bed before 8:30am for no reason.

We sat around for a few more minutes pondering the purpose of the professor-less class. We decided that he had probably hooked up a secret video camera somewhere in the room and was waiting for us to hold some sort of vote or something else political before jumping in to surprise us. When no professor arrived, we even called his office to see if we could reach him there which we could not. During the full half hour that we all waited around, a couple of interesting things happened. 1. I overheard someone say (jokingly I think), "Yeah, I was late to class because I was trippin' on acid and got lost chasing a squirrel." And 2. I witnessed the guy next to me take out a flask of scotch and take a few swigs of it while telling his friend that he's going to Scotland over the summer and might never come back because scotch is his favorite "hobby." He then said "Wow, I'm starting pretty late today!" to which his friend replied, "Uhh it's 8:30 in the morning dude," and the first guy's defense, "8:40 man, 8:40...." Yeah, that logic works I guess.

We passed two different sign in sheets around to leave for our professor which we all signed, but still... no one could leave. We wanted to have class! Well, too bad, it never happened. We finally left shortly after 9am, all of us disgruntled.

The rest of the day went pretty well, Brent and I went to the wrong class by accident and discovered that we're enrolled in perhaps the worst course offered at college (again, I won't say what it is). I'm doing some reading for another unnamed class now, so I'll write again later!

By the way, sorry about the lack of pictures today. I get embarrassed carrying my camera around campus being "that girl."

First Day of Classes at Trinity

2006-01-23T22:01:00.000-05:00

Today was the first day of the Spring semester here at Trinity. I woke up this morning and saw snow outside! I love snow, but only while it's still snowing... or if I have a sled, which I do not. I went to the showers in a generally good mood until I remembered that I had to wear flip-flops, ugh. College is dirty. Anyway, I'm sure everyone understands what I'm talking about when I say that I had to use my shower. Yes, it's mine. I have a very specific shower at school that I like to use and when it's occupied I get very upset.

The three showers on Funtown 3:

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you door number 2!

It may look dark and disgusting and, well, it is, but it has the finest water pressure this side of the Mississippi! Anyway, I turned the knob all the way towards the "hot point." I call it the "hot point" because it isn't actually marked hot or cold anywhere. This is where my mastery of shower temperaturizing comes in handy. "Temperaturizing" probably isn't a word, but I probably don't care. Back to the shower... there was no hot water!! I was distraught. I couldn't tear myself away from my shower stall.... I kept putting my arm in the stream of icy water and yanking it out over and over and over again, as if my standing there was going to somehow heat the water. After about 7 minutes (yes, I stood there for about 7 minutes) I decided to jump in and take the world's fastest shower only to realize that the water was actually really hot, I was just confused.

I took my shower behind that stupid shower curtain. I don't like not having doors on the showers, it's a PUBLIC restroom!! Yuck! I don't want people seeing me naked! I guess that's why there are two different shower curtains, but I never close the inner one because I like to live dangerously. Or that I'm scared of wet things touching me... either one.

After getting ready (in record time, I might add!), I went to my statistics class. There's nothing interesting to say about statistics... we talked about statisticsey stuff and left. By that time, the snow had entirely turned to rain and I had to walk through slush! Luckily I had my snow boots on!

Snow boots!

Ugliest building on campus in the yucky slush:

I met up with Brent and we went to go get some lunch at the Cave (one of the cafeterias on campus). We were nearly killed by a bobcat! And no, I don't mean an actual bobcat, I'm referring to one of these terrible creatures:

I was chased by one of these miniature napoleonic snow plows last year and it was terrifying, and now he's back! Beware!

After recovering from our brush with death, Brent and I walked through the slush to the gym to exercise for a while.

Check out our cute matching sneakers! Yes, we're those people:

Brent lifted while I used the elliptical trainer. We were really tired when we got back, but found the energy to have a TV marathon.

Brent yawning:

We used our workout to justify ordering a lot of Chinese food while watching the rest of season one of Dawson's Creek. How many people have a boyfriend who would watch a Dawson's Creek marathon? I'm so lucky =)

Brent gave this to me for Christmas!

This is the super cheap soda that came free with our super unhealthy Chinese food:

Well, Brent and I are watching some TV now, but maybe something crazy will happen soon that I'll blog about, so keep coming back!

Weekend at Brent's House

2006-01-22T21:37:00.000-05:00

I spent this past weekend at Brent's house in Avon, CT. I left Greenwich around 2:30pm on Friday afternoon and only got a little bit lost.... Actually, I didn't get lost, I just found a more creative way to get to Brent's house. I read somewhere once that women find their way around by remembering landmarks and men find their way with street signs. Is it true? Well... if you don't think so, then explain to me how I got to Brent's:

1. I arrived at the Target directly off the highway and drove in the general direction of the mall.
2. I saw the mall and knew that IHOP was right down the road.
3. I turned left at IHOP because I remembered seeing it on my left once while Blockbuster was in front of me, and I didn't know when else I would have seen that other than on my way from Brent's house.
4. I turned left in the general direction of a white church steeple that I always see when I'm drinking coffee at the Starbucks in West Hartford.
5. I got my bearings by placing myself at the Starbucks, but ultimately followed a girl with pretty boots (in my head: "Ooh! Pretty!!").
6. The girl was wearing a black shirt which made me think of how Brent's high school's colors were red and black so I figured she must be heading in the general direction of my boyfriend (if she actually had been, I would have run her over with my car).
7. I encountered the Exxon station where I always have trouble turning out of the driveway, so I went in the direction that always gives me problems, because that's usually the way to go.
8. I saw one of the UConn satellite schools and drove past it, the way I remembered doing once with Brent.
9. I was completely lost, but saw at least 10 cars turning left at an intersection, so I figured they must know where to go and followed.
10. I decided to take a chance on a blinking yellow light and turned on that street.
11. I found Brent!

Brent later told me that I took the longest, most round-about route possible, but I got there, right?

Anyway, here's Brent with a HUGE smile on his face in the guest room I was staying in. I hope he was smiling because I was visiting!

Brent:

Brent has a house in Martha's Vineyard where he spends his summers, and I found a shirt with his area of the Vineyard on it and had to buy it for him!

Brent in his new shirt:

Brent and I went to the mall that afternoon to find the right cord for his dad's new iPod nano (it's so small and cute!) and we secretly got some Mrs. Field's cookies... don't tell! After the mall, we picked up Brent's mom and went to the Hartford Golf Club to meet Brent's dad for dinner. Brent and I were very predictable and got the filet mignon. Mmm so good! After dinner, Brent and I went to the movies where we saw Fun with Dick and Jane which was hilarious! We laughed out loud a number of times, especially Brent... he's "that guy." You know the one I'm talking about... the guy who laughs obscenely loudly at everything. I loved it though... almost as much as I love it when my mom does it... all the time.

Yesterday morning, Brent's mom made us crepes which were so good! I had crepes provencal with my mom at the little restaurant in Bloomingdale's a while ago, but I had never had crepes with syrup before and they were delicious! After breakfast, Brent and I went to the mall to pick up iPod speakers and then to school to drop off a lot of our stuff from winter break.

Brent driving out of his driveway:

We stopped at the gas station because Brent needed gas. He's doing the "Why do you take so many pictures?" face. I think he might be right....

Brent and me at the gas station. I didn't realize he was making that face:

We drove past a pretty lake at sunset and I took this picture. You can't see the sunset... so it's sort of pointless... but that's my style:

Why do I even try to get him to take a nice picture?

This is the view on Brent's street. It's so beautiful, it's hard to see in this picture but it's a huge mountain with a gorgeous sunset:

Brent lives on a mountain, and it's so pretty:

Back at Brent's house, Brent played with his dog Beamer in the family room:

And in the kitchen:

Brent showed me a game he likes to play with Beamer where he puts peanut butter on her nose and watches her try to lick it off:

We got a short video of Beamer with the peanut butter:
http://media.putfile.com/Beamer

After playing with Beamer for a while, Brent and I went out to dinner at Carmen Anthony's in Avon http://www.carmenanthony.com/ . Brent's parents were so nice to have given us a gift certificate there, so we got to have a really nice seafood meal. Brent had tilapia and I had swordfish, and it was so good! I was wearing a big, puffy, white jacket which I zipped up all the way and snapped the hood up and, after making sure no one was around, chased Brent down the stairs saying "I'm the abominable snowman!! Ahhhh!!" Brent started running away from me. I thought he was playing along, but it turns out he was just pretending not to know me because some people had come outside right behind me... how embarrassing.

After I ran, frantically, to the car trying to hide my face, Brent and I went back to his house to have some tea which Brent made all by himself! I was very proud of his cullinary skills.

Brent making tea:

Brent and Me attempting to take a cute picture:

Brent made tea for both of us, and then decided that we should go see a movie. The movie was starting in just a few minutes, so he told me to chug my scorching hot tea as fast as I could. I didn't. We made it to the theater in time, though, where we saw Tristan & Isolde. We both thought it was a good movie, despite the fact that Isolde was a dirty, adulterous, slut and Tristan totally didn't actually love her... but I still cried.

This morning Brent and I brought some more stuff to Trinity College (where we go to school) and I realized just how messy Christy and my room is. We have quite a bit of work to do:

By the way, Christie and I now officially have the biggest college dorm double EVER. Still, quite a lot of work needs to be done. Brent and I ended up going back to his house again to have pizza with his parents for dinner, but first, Brent, being a good son, pounded in some stakes in his driveway before the snow (we're expecting 10 inches of snow tonight)!

Brent with the stakes:

The wind storm that I talked about a few entries ago (60mph+ winds) did this to a lamp post near Brent's street:

Here's another picture of the view over the mountain from Brent's street:

And Brent again. Isn't he cute?

Well, classes start again tomorrow and I still haven't finished unpacking, ugh! Brent and I have been waiting for Family Guy to come on, but the football game seems to have taken over television. Stupid football.... We'll probably be getting to bed early tonight, but make sure to check back soon! Hopefully I'll have a nicer picture of my room to be the "after" picture haha.

Goodnight!

Beach Exploration

2006-01-20T11:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, around noon, I embarked on an explorative adventure from my house to the beach and (part way) back. How can I even begin to document such a momentous trip? I suppose I could start with the fact that I got tired and bored about half way down my street. I spent the first few minutes of my trip thinking about how badly I wanted to live on an island. My dad got to show a house yesterday that has its own island!!

Check it out:

If I had an island all my own, I'd give my family a tribe name and make them carry spears. To answer your next question, yes, there would also be sacrifices... but I digress.

As I walked up the hill directly adjacent to my house, I realized that although Juicy does make nice sweatsuits and Uggs are warm and fuzzy... they actually don't make the most believable adventurer ensemble, but that's all right because I'm a different kind of adventurer. As I walked down Sound Beach Ave. (somewhat of a miniature, beachy Greenwich Ave.) I encountered two young girls, one wearing hot pink knee-high socks and the other, too insignificant to notice. They started playing tag on the sidewalk, yes... tag. They ran in front of me, in back of me, and every which way until we reached the crosswalk. We have the cool crosswalk buttons that are heat sensors or motion sensors or something and don't require any button pushing. Pink Legs, however, felt it necessary to activate the sensor at least 18 times (18 annoying beeps). Anyone who knows me is aware of the personal restraint I exercised in not throwing her into oncoming traffic. I continued my journey down Sound Beach until I had lost those little pastel street rats.

As I was walking, I saw a bunch of trees down from the previous storm. When I got close to the beach, I saw a tree that I thought had dropped all of its branches into its lawn until I realized that they were still attached... the following picture is of one of the oddest trees I have ever seen. The branches dipped so low that they were actually touching the grass:

I finally arrived at the beach with no further incidents of any importance. It was a beautiful, January afternoon at Tod's Point (the name of our beach).

View from Tod's Driftway:

This tree at the beach was entirely uprooted during the storm. The most amazing thing about it, however, is the fact that I didn't even notice it until I had walked past.

Uprooted tree:

Here's a tree that uprooted right below the sidewalk!

I walked all the way to the end of the point where I took this picture:

At the time I thought that would be a cool picture, but maybe not. I think that's Kathy Lee Gifford's house in the background though. My friends and I went trick-or-treating there sometimes back when we still did that. Her dog's name is Regis.

Anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis has already seen a lot of my beach pictures, so I tried to take some different ones this time. This is that same shell beach that I talked about a while ago, but this picture really shows just how many shells there are:

I walked across the shells so that they'd know I'm better than they are... because I am. I got all the way around to the other side of the point where I saw a swan right by the island with the bird statue tower thing on it. I don't know what that island is called, so I shall name it Bird Statue Tower Thing Island. I can do that, you know, because I'm an explorer!

Swan near Bird Statue Tower Thing Island:

Across that same body of water are the old castle ruins. I had forgotten how cool they are... I should take Brent there sometime.

Ruins:

As I continued back to the beach entrance/exit, the back of my left knee started to hurt. It wasn't a regular pulled muscle feeling, it kept getting worse until it became a sharp pain and started burning. I made it out of the beach and called my mom to come get me, like any great adventurer would have done, but not before taking a few more pictures!

Well, something I didn't get a picture of was the group of children driving their go-karts around the beach. What happened to the good old days of walking or riding bikes? I hope they drove into the water. Well, maybe not... that would have ruined those cool go-karts... Mom, I want a go-kart!

Moving on...

I love this stuff. I don't know what it's called, so I'll name this new species of plant Tall Stalks With Fluffy Things:

This is the parking lot where my Christmas tree went to die:

For those of you who have never been to Tod's Point, this is the main stretch of beach where people go in the summer. Isn't it pretty?

And so concluded my explorative adventure.

After resting up after my long day, my parents and I went out to dinner at a little restaurant on Sound Beach Ave. called Mackenzie's:

I had some delicious filet mignon with french fries, of course! Davey was on his cell phone, as always. I'm not sure if you're aware, but he's actually the most important man on Earth and needs to be reachable 24/7 in case he has to save the world. I think I should start making a list of crazy places he takes phone calls... number 1 would have to be the middle of a corn field in Nebraska. Don't ask... I have pictures, though.

Davey on the phone:

Well, I have to go pack now! I'm visiting Brent in Avon, CT tonight and then it's back to school for both of us!

Blackout

2006-01-18T22:56:00.000-05:00

Yesterday moring, we stopped at the Mountain Creamery in Woodstock, VT for some breakfast. I had scrambled eggs with Vermont cheddar cheese and it was so good! Brent's mom got me into cheesy eggs... mmm. Anyway, we've been going to the creamery for so many years that it just wouldn't have been right not to stop there at least once.

Davey walking into the Mountain Creamery:

The top level is a really cute diner-style restaurant and the lower level has the most amazing ice cream in the whole world. The drive home was uneventful, and we found Chloe in her little indoor dog house passed out with an empty tub of cream cheese.... My grandparents had been staying with Chloe and Frisky (our dog and cat) and my grandma is known for over-feeding, so naturally, Chloe and Frisky love her.

Chloe being fat:

I think she's pretty spoiled. My mom makes her omlettes in the morning (another reason why the dog is so fat) and I mean, come on... she has an indoor dog house! Oh, and my mom has decided that she should get an electrician in to HEAT it. Oh the life of a dog....

Last night, the weather was awful (or awesome if you're like me and love bad weather). The wind was really strong again, I think the news said 58mph (it was 56mph last time by the way, I think I had said 50mph). The power went out this morning because I guess a power line was down up the street from me. The house was getting cold without any heat and it started to get dark, so we lit some candles and turned on our camping lanterns (not that we go camping...).

Oooh candle...

I thought this looked cool with my dad behind the candle. And yes, I take too many pictures... but you love it.

We ended up going to my grandparents' house to watch TV and eat dinner. We had all been cold over at my house, so we sat by the fire to warm up.

The fire at my grandparents' house:

The fire turned blue/green on the bottom and it was really pretty:

These are a couple pictures that have nothing to do with this blog entry except that I thought they were really cool, and I think my blog is cool.... Maybe I'm the only one, but anyway... here's the train station in Old Greenwich!

And again:

I watched "American Idol" with Davey and Poppy. I don't care about the show itself, but I definitely enjoy watching the completely useless people try out.

Simon:

When left to come home, we brought hot water bottles to keep us warm (we heard from the power company that there would be no power until Monday! Ahh!) but when we got to my house, there was power! I've had a long day with no TV, so I need to check up on Tivo now!

Fire Stones

2006-01-17T09:12:00.000-05:00

Last night we went out to dinner at a restaurant in Quechee called Fire Stones http://www.firestonesrestaurant.net/. Fire Stones is known for their flatbread, so we ordered two of them to share between the three of us. We tried a mushroom pizza and the "special" pizza which had alfredo sauce, cheese, onions, and broccoli (doesn't that sound like something from CPK?).

Fire Stones:

Me at Fire Stones in front of the window that I thought was really pretty:

Davey drinking wine:

The oven where they cook the flatbreads:

The decor at Fire Stones is oversized and "woodsy." It was very Vermont and very pretty. Here's a deer head and some cool lamps right inside the door:

I don't agree with having animal heads on the wall, but oh well. It's Vermont, that's just how they roll.

Huge doors outside:

When we got back to the inn, we warmed up for a minute in front of the giant fireplace. Here's davey in front of the fire:

We went to Richardson's Tavern (inside the inn) to have some drinks before watching the 2nd half of the "24" season premier! The tavern is lit by candles inside lamps with shades which gives it a very relaxed feeling.

The fireplace in the tavern (and Davey's leg):

My parents at the tavern:

My mom and I had coffee:

And Davey having a Heineken:

The back staircase with a painting of Suicide Six:

I'm getting yelled at by Davey who wnats us to go get breakfast at the creamery NOW so I have to go! Check back later for more Vermont pictures!

Suicide Six

2006-01-16T16:58:00.000-05:00

Today, my dad and I got up early (Davey much earlier than I) and headed over to Suicide Six to go skiing! When we got there it was only 4 degrees! Brrr! With all our winter gear zipped, snapped, and buttoned, we hopped on the chair lift and made it to the summit!

Suicide Six:

My dad at the summit:

Me at the summit:

The wind at the top of the mountain picked up to 20-25mph so the windchill was INTENSE!! I was so cold that I completely lost feeling in my toes and had to go in early just to thaw my feet! Anyway, the wind was whipping the snow up off the ground and blowing it all over. At one point, there was such a strong gust that it actually blew all the skiers backwards! The following is a picture of my dad being blown backwards, and the snowy wind right above the ground is quite visible (it almost looks like a layer of fog).

My dad being blown up the mountain by the wind:

Our shadows right before the first run down the mountain:

Around noon we stopped for lunch. My dad had chilli and I had the most amazing french fries, almost as good as yacht club fries, and that's saying a lot coming from me. Yes, I'm the kind of person who orders filet mignon with a side of french fries and ketchup.

I was really entertained by this sign... apparently we were eating with the illiterate!

Get me some macarroni and brocilli!

Once we got cold and tired we brought our stuff back to the VERY dirty car to head home.

Me in front of the mountian on the way out:

Davey in front of the mountain:

Davey putting the skis on top of the disgustingly dirty car:

Once we got home, showered, and re-dressed, my parents and I walked through the village to go into some of our favorite little shops. We started at Gillingham's, an adorable Vermont-style country market. http://www.gillinghams.com/

How cute is this? We don't have grocery stores like this in Greenwich:

My parents shopping with the adorable little hand baskets they have there:

Me shopping:

After the market, we went to Aubergine's, one of my mom's favorite kitchen stores. I was extremely bored, but I survived. We went to a little toy store where my mom got a souvenier for my nephew, Brady, the we headed over to the local art gallery, one of our regular stops. Gallery on the Green, http://www.galleryonthegreen.com/pages/default.htm, is where I first saw some of the work of one of my favorite painters, Pino.

Some Pino paintings:

A cute statue called "The Singing Cook"

Going golfing:

The dogs that my mom said reminded her of herself and Davey. I'd have to agree:

We finally came back to the inn and are hanging around for another ten minutes or so until we leave for dinner at Firestone. Yumm!!

The Woodstock Inn:

High Tea and Bentley's

2006-01-15T20:59:00.000-05:00

My parents and I arrived at high tea around 4pm where we had tea and cookies with live piano music in the garden room.

Piano player at high tea:

My dad and me having tea and cookies in the little sitting area next to the library:

You have to love an inn that still serves high tea, there's just something so sophisticated about it. It made me discover yet another group of people that I hate, though. The people who think that just because they're on a ski trip that they can wear ski pants and winter parkas EVERYWHERE! Ugh!

After tea my mom and I went shopping in the gift shop right by the garden room. The Woodstock Inn always has some really cute stuff in their gift shop and this year they're selling all sorts of custom designed Vineyard Vines things with The Woodstock Inn's eagle logo. I mostly put this up to show my boyfriend, Brent, who worked at Vineyard Vines over the summer. I also discovered recently that the Vineyard Vines guys live down the street from me and go to my yacht club!

Eagle Vineyard Vines tote:

We didn't get anything... yet. I have something sweet (hint!) picked out for Brent though! After spending some time in the room, we got all bundled up and walked down the street to Bentley's, one of our favorite restaurants in Woodstock.

Woodstock at night, Bentley's is right on the corner in the middle of the picture:

I thought I had to put up a picture of Aubergine, one of my mom's favorite kitchen stores, which is right underneath Bentley's. I know I know... it's a kitchen store... but it's one of our Woodstock landmarks almost so I had to include it.

Aubergine:

When we got to the door, my mom took a picture of Davey and me in front of the restaurant, but with Davey wearing black and me wearing white, you can hardly tell there are two people!

Bentley's is such a cute little restaurant, all of the tables have different table lamps on them, most with beautiful fringed lampshades. The seats are old fashioned couches and the walls are decorated with gorgeous framed mirrors and other dining-room-esque items. We started with nachos and then my dad had salmon and my mom and I had maple mustard chiciken (one of the main reasons we come to Bentley's) which is SO GOOD!

My mom and me in Bentley's:

It was only about 4 degrees when we left the restaurant so I zipped my coat up all the way and snapped the hood around my face (the hostess at the restaurant made fun of me).

What does this remind you of?

Me:

Kenny from "South Park"

Oh well, I was warm. I'm back in the room now keeping warm under the giant, fluffy, down comfortor watching "24" with my parents, so I have to get back to the show!

Try to keep warm everyone!

Woodstock, VT

2006-01-15T15:50:00.000-05:00

Today we all got up early to leave for a three day vacation in Woodstock, Vermont. The storm last night left a few inches of snow that my dad had to shovel slash snow-blow... is that a verb?

Davey:

After clearing the driveway, we packed all our many bags into the car, got the skis in the ski rack, and headed out. The conditions were "treacherous" as Brent put it this morning.

Driving conditions:

It took us quite a while to get here with all the snow and ice. We passed a bunch of accidents on the way, including a jack-knifed truck and a bunch of cars in the snowbanks on the side of the highway. Luckily we made it here in one piece.

Woodstock, VT got some snow last night also, so everything is just as beautiful as we could have hoped for!

Snowy Woodstock:

This is a covered bridge (so typical of VT) that would have been even more beautiful without all the power lines. Woodstock itself (this was on the outskirts) has all the powerlines burried which makes the whole town so much more... "quaint" for lack of a better word.

Covered bridge:

We're staying at The Woodstock Inn where my grandparents spent their honeymoon in 1936, seventy years ago! We are their oldest customers so we always get special treatment which is really nice. We got our usual room with a beautiful view of Mt. Tom and the town of Woodstock. The rooms have just been renovated with $75,000 put into each room, so they are gorgeous! The carpets are imported from Spain, the beds are made of tiger maple, the bathrooms are brand new with marble floors, the TVs were replaced with plasma flat screens... it's amazing. I took a bunch of pictures so that everyone can see how nice it is and make reservations for themselves!

Davey sitting in the room:

Really comfortable beds:

Plasma screen TV:

The bathroom:

That's me in the mirror!

The view out the window of Woodstock:

Mt. Tom:

I didn't take this picture of the Inn, but it's so pretty so I had to put it up:

I hope everyone has a chance to visit The Woodstock Inn at some point. Check it out here: http://www.woodstockinn.com/

We're off to high tea right now and then probably having cheese and crackers at the bar followed by dinner at Bentley's, so check back later!

Freak Blizzard!

2006-01-15T02:20:00.000-05:00

My day started off to a relatively boring start... I called up Cingular where I was put on hold forever and was finally connected to one of the most incompetent people I have ever spoken with. I don't even want to get into how much I hate Cingular because it's just not worth it. If you have ever tried speaking with the Cingular customer service people, you know exactly what I mean... and if you haven't, then you obviously have a better phone service; but enough about Cingular.

This afternoon I watched "The OC," which Kristina was so nice to send me in the mail (I missed it, can you believe it?!). I heated up some Thai food that my mom bought from the grocery store. I was a little skeptical of Thai food that I had to make on my own in the microwave, but it was actually really good, so definitely pick it up sometime!

My Thai food with "The OC" in the background:

After watching some "Oprah" on Tivo, I went out to Blockbuster and rented Dark Water to bring over to Vanessa's house. Vanessa, Ali, Cathy, Jenn, Molly, and I had a movie night in Vanessa's basement... or at least we tried to.

The night began with Molly eating... as always.

Molly with her McDonald's:

We all just sat around talking for a while, as girls always do.

Ali and Me:

We made an attempt at taking a nice group picture, but we never take nice pictures. Here's the progression...

Take 1:

Take 2:

Take 3:

Yeah, that's how it went down. Molly stripping... again.

We finally started Dark Water and the power went out and came back on about three times and then half way through the movie, went out and stayed out. We were watching one of the worst "power outage during a freak storm" movies possible, so we turned on some flashlights and cuddled.

Flashlight tag anyone?

Even from all the way down in Vanessa's basement we could hear the wind outside. Everyone kept getting phone calls from concerned families because the conditions had gotten really bad all of a sudden. The pouring rain that I drove in on the way to Vanessa's house had turned into heavy snow/ice with terrible wind! The Weather Channel (or TWC for all you weather dorks like myself) said that there were gusts above 45mph, and I would have to say that was an understatement. My guess would be that we had sustained winds around 30mph and gusts around 50, but what do I know (probably more than you! ha!).

The power wasn't coming back on so we had to decide whether to brave the storm or spend the night at Vanessa's. Everyone had things to do the next morning so we all chose to leave... probably not the smartest decision. My car doors were iced shut and there was such a solid layer of ice on my windshield that I had to use my ice scraper on it, and even that didn't work completely!

Look at how fast the wind is whipping that snow around!

I got in the car and turned the heat all the way up in an attempt to regain feeling in my fingertips. I couldn't see anything and had to lean over towards the passenger side of the car just to see out the windshield. What a mess! On the way out of Vanessa's neighborhood I saw a few cop cars and a couple trees and powerlines down. It was amazing how much went wrong in just one little area! As it turned out, it wasn't just one little area, it was all over town! Everything was illuminated because of the white snow, so I could see the damage all over the roads even without the street lights (which were flickering on and off even in areas that still had power). Branches were falling from the sky right and left, trash cans rolled across the street, Molly told me that she even saw shopping carts from the nearby CVS out in the middle of the Post Road! I kept seeing bright flashes like lightning in the sky, but realized that it wasn't some crazy weather phenomenon, but the bright flashes of powerlines being hit by trees, sparking, and exploding all over the place! These were some of the worst conditions I have ever seen.

A tree that had recently been hauled off to the side of the road near Vanessa's house:

So many roads were blocked, whether by debris from the storm or police barricades, that I had to keep searching for alternate routes home. I tried going down my street, but found a giant tree that had fallen across the whole road making it impossible to pass through:

I tried to go down another street to get to my street the back way, but encountered yet another giant tree blocking my path:

I turned around and went down one more road to try my luck there. The weather was so crazy that I didn't notice the predicament I was in until it was nearly impossible to get out of it! I had driven over a down powerline and was stuck between the wires behind me, and the giant tree in front of me that was just barely holding itself above the ground by balancing on another powerline... the one directly above my car! I backed up over the down wires because I figured that was my best bet. The police had taped off one entrance to that street, but of course they had neglected to tape off the other end so that unknowing drivers like myself wouldn't meet an electrifying death at the end of the raod! I ended up driving over the tape just to get out of there!

I couldn't get a good picture of the powerlines and the tree because the snow was too heavy and there wasn't enough light, but I did get a picture of my car stopped by the police tape:

What a crazy night! Tomorrow morning we leave for Woodstock, VT to go skiing and I still haven't packed! I have to get going, but leave comments of your own weather horror stories from last night!

New York City and The Melting Pot

2006-01-13T21:51:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a very busy day! I woke up around 9am to get ready to go to the city to meet my sister, Jocelyn, for lunch and a lot of shopping. After the train ride in, I walked to Jocelyn's office on Park Ave. where we waited for two of her co-workers (who I also worked with this summer), Kim and Pete. We also met up with Jess, Jocelyn's roommate, and the five of us walked to Vong together. Vong is an amazing Asian-French fusion restaurant that you should all check out sometime: http://www.jean-georges.com/main.html I had grilled shrimp followed by mahi mahi, then sorbet for dessert. The sorbet had little flower petals that were covered in sugar. We got Kim to try one to see if it was a cookie... it wasn't. Anyway, the decor was beautiful and the food was delicious!

Jess at Vong:

Me:

Pete:

Everyone had to get back to work except for Jocelyn (she took a half vacation day), so the two of us began our shopping trip around the city. We got on the subway to head over to Union Square and saw an entirely blue woman:

We checked out a few stores in Union Square including the Diesel store which had its own DJ! Anyway, I got some Betsey Johnson lingerie; I decided that's not the kind of thing to post a picture of, but it's very cute. We took the subway all over the place and ended up at H&M where I got a little white lace tank top to go under sweaters (too boring to take a picture of).

Me at H&M:

I look sweaty and gross... it was actually very hot in the city! Well, hot considering that it's January. I think it got up in the 50s. Anyway, we went to the MoMA store which was really cool. Jocelyn bought her husband, Paul, an Andy Warhol Pop Box and I just looked around.

Me... looking around:

We also went to SoHo to a really cool little boutique where Jocelyn looked at a bunch of shoes and I got a cute dress for the summer!

Jocelyn looking at red cowboy boots:

My new dress! Of course it's pink...

Jocelyn in SoHo:

Me in SoHo. Don't you love the cobblestone streets?

We went to the Apple store in SoHo which was amazing. I thought the one in the Westfarms Mall up in Hartford was pretty cool but it's nothing compared to this!

Jocelyn took a picture of me walking down the huge, transparent staircase:

I saw this statue and it made me think of good old Anton, or "Uncle Tony" as he told us to call him one day. He was my English teacher my sophomore and senior years of high school, and also one of the coolest people I know. I don't remember what he told us about this thing... but something about feeding the earth... mother earth... lots of boobs? I don't know!

After a lot of walking, Jocelyn and I stopped in Dean & Deluca for some iced lattes. http://www.deandeluca.com/ For those of you who have never been there, Dean & Deluca is a grocery store slash coffee shop slash sandwich bar, and very tasty!

Jocelyn and Me at Dean & Deluca... very hot and tired:

We ended up making our way to Sephora where Jocelyn got some new Ole Henriksen products.

Jocelyn's "in action" shopping shot:

I didn't get anything, but I did use the hand sanitizer... NYC is dirty. We walked to Chinatown where we went to the Pearl River Mart which is a really cool store that sells all sorts of Chinese knick-knacks, dishes, statues... anything you can think of.

Jocelyn in line at Pearl River:

I thought the ceiling with all the Chinese lanterns would make a cool picture:

We went to Williamsberg for a while to look at some vintage stores there. Jocelyn got some cool t-shirts but I didn't find anything. I was freaked out by the weird sales girls wearing mis-matching punk outfits with funky hair-don'ts. We don't have a lot of their kind at my usual shopping venues on Greenwich Ave.

My mom started getting worried that Jocelyn and I were out wandering the streets at night and called to ask us to come home. Jocelyn explaned that there was nothing to worry about, that all we were doing was wandering through some dark alleys looking for drugs, but our shopping trip had to come to an end at some point.... We got back on the subway to go to Grand Central Station. On the very crowded subway we saw a Xerox box with a little hole in the top. After watching it for a while, wondering what kind of exotic city creature could be living in it, I saw a little, tiny kitten peek its head through and try to use its paws to pull itself through the hole. It was one of the cutest things I've ever seen and I wish I could have gotten a picture! In my attempts at doing so, however, I made a terrible mistake and accidentally touched the subway bar with one of my fingers.... Brent had to listen to me talk about how I thought I had contracted ebola for a good 20mins. Oh well, it's better to be safe than sorry!

Here's the box, but I don't think you can see the kitten very well:

When we got to Grand Central Station I ran to catch my train and just made it. Once I got home I had a few, short minutes to get ready to go out to The Melting Pot with my friends (yes, we go there all the time now). Anyway, I took off my belt, wrapped my Pucci scarf into a headband, and headed over to Vanessa's house where we were all meeting to head over to Darien for fondue! We didn't have dinner this time, we just had the chocolate mmmm....

Kristina, Vanessa, Me, Jenn, and Ali with our chocolate fondue!

We got the s'mores chocolate and they lit the marshmallow on fire to toast it right in front of us:

Kristina, Vanessa, and Me:

Molly showed up late, but we were all glad to have her join us!

Jenn, Ali, and Molly:

Molly throwing up or something... so basically, the usual.

After dinner we stopped by Nicole's house to see some people then went over to Vanessa's where we all talked in the car for 40 minutes before going home. It was a very busy, but also very fun day!

Today was far less exciting... I woke up late and spent the day hanging around my house watching TV. My amazing mom and I made a pumpkin cake together:

Yes, I'm wearing my scarf around my head. I was being a ninja. Or I was just bored and playing with stuff....

After making our cake, we had dinner and my parents and I watched The Constant Gardener which was a little strange, but still a good movie. I think that's enough blogging for today. I might go out with my friends later tonight, but if I do I'll save that for tomorrow! Goodnight everyone.

Dental Bleach and Super Glue

2006-01-12T01:17:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try to limit my verbosity in this entry because I need to get to sleep soon (shopping trip in NYC tomorrow with my sister, Jocelyn!) although I don't want that to detract from the harsh message I am sending out into cyberland about Brite Smile and super glue! Forget that comment about limiting my verbosity, because now that I've gotten all riled up about it again I can't stop myself.

WELL

My day got off to a good start as I, excitedly, headed over to the local Brite Smile center where I was to have my laser teeth whitening consultation. The dentist, whose name I will not post online, was one of the most dangerous threats to blonde girls... the hostile brunette. She told me that she would not whiten my teeth because 1. in her opinion they're white enough already and 2. because I'm blonde! What? Does that even make any sense? She just said no. You know what, she's probably right... I guess NO ONE with blonde hair has EVER gotten their teeth whitened, I certainly can't think of 300 examples off the top of my head or anything.... UGH! I was sort of pushing to try to get her to do it anyway so she asked how old I was and I said 19. Her response was "Oh, 19 right... well, if you were 20 I'd do it but at 19 you're just not old enough." I'm closer to 20 than I am to 19... but why should that even matter? And to think, brunettes call us blondes dumb! Hmph! Needless to say, I left angrily and will not be returning anytime soon, that's for sure!

After my traumatic dental fiasco, I needed to relax for a while so I watched Tivo. Tivo taped Wild Things 3 for me which was really weird. It's along the lines of a Cruel Intentions 3 kind of movie... no-name actors in a low-budget copy of the original film. I'm easily entertained, though, so it kept me busy for a couple of hours while I painted a pine cone red and gold. Yes, I'm 5 years old on the inside and need afternoon activities to keep myself busy. Isn't my pine cone pretty, though?

Who doesn't love a good pine cone?

After dinner I read my book, Vanity Fair, for a while. It's over 800 pages and I'm on 450 right now so I think I'm making some good progress... well, maybe not, considering that I started in August. It's a really good book, though, and it has my favorite actress, Reese Witherspoon, on the cover! My wonderful boyfriend Brent, or Brent the Wonderful (BTW) as my parents refer to him, heard me talking about how I wanted Vanity Fair but wouldn't be able to read it if Reese weren't on the cover, so he went out and got just the right copy for me for my birthday last May.

I'm getting sidetracked... let's get to the super glue incident. Do I even need to tell you what happened? I super glued my fingers to my other fingers and the super glue tube. Yes, I'm using The Blonde Excuse on this one. It really wasn't my fault, though. Have you ever seen those metal-like pressurized tubes that super glue sometimes comes in? Well, it was in one of those and, not realizing that the seal had not yet been broken, I squeezed and I squeezed to no avail. When I discovered the problem, I broke the seal with the tip of a pen and the super glue was super pressurized and came exploding out the top of the tube. In a desperate attempt to save the kitchen table from a super mess, I tried to catch all the dripping glue in my hands and hold the tube in such a way that the glue would stop erupting out of the nozzle. Pretty soon, my fingers were in a big, sticky mess and I had to wake my mom up to get her to help me un-stick myself... but not before I managed to get a picture! Yes, I found a way to take a picture for my blog while my fingers were stuck to a super glue tube, now that's dedication.

No, this is not a failed attempt at shadow puppets, these are my fingers stuck to the super glue tube:

I got my hands un-stuck using nail polish remover at the expense of the top layer of my skin and my beautiful French manicure... what a tragedy. I still have dried, hardened glue all over my fingertips, so if anyone has any helpful tips on how to remove super glue it would be much appreciated!

I think that's enough excitement for one night, so I'm going to bed. Wish me good shopping luck in the city tomorrow! Goodnight, and to all my fellow fair-haired girls, beware the hostile brunettes!

Greenwich Ave. All Day Long

2006-01-11T14:09:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Kristina came up from her Dad's house in Long Island to visit for the day and night. Her mom moved to Fresno, CA so she likes to come visit Greenwich whenever she can. Once she got here we headed right over to Greenwich Ave. to go shopping. We started at one of my favorite boutiques, Reflection, where I bought the most beautiful dress for our Oscars Night formal at Trinity! The dress was in the window and they took it off the mannequin for me to try on. I LOVE IT! It's and Allen B. Schwartz design with brown on the top and tan on the bottom and beading right below the chest.

My dress!

We hit all the best boutiques along with my favorite department store, Richards: http://www.mitchellsonline.com/index.aspx I love the beautiful staircase right in front:

After a couple hours we ventured into western Greenwich to go to Anthropologie. I think Anthropologie is such a cool store, so definitely check it out if you've never been there before. They have a beautiful fireplace with a little sitting area that I thought I should take a picture of:

Kristina and I tried on old lady hats together:

At night, Kristina and I met up with some people at Thataway Cafe, one of our favorite restaurants on the bottom of Greenwich Ave.

Jenn and Kristina:

Ali and Kate:

Kristina, Me, and Nicole:

After dinner we stopped at Gofer Ice Cream where Nicole used to work. Ali wanted me to take her picture to go on my blog. "Don't miss this opportunity! This is a photo opportunity! Take my picture to show everyone our ice cream!!"-Ali:

Back at my house we watched Red Eye which I would definitely recommend. I thought it was another Wes Craven horror movie, but I think it definitely fits more into the action category.

Hayley and Molly:

And another picture of Molly in this position... she was choking and freaking out:

Kristina will be back tomorrow night for another trip to The Melting Pot (we go all the time now!) so make sure to check back soon!

Molly, Michaels, and Munich

2006-01-10T00:18:00.000-05:00

Well, I started my day at 8am when I woke up to shower and get ready for my 9am hair appointment. I got it cut by Dorlene at Enzo Spa in the Greenwich Hyatt (a Dubya hotspot for all you Bush lovers). Check it out here: http://greenwich.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/activities/spa/index.jsp I went to Dorlene who cut my hair over the summer, and I'm very happy again. What do you think?

Good or Bad?

Shh... I'm cheating on Trisha, my long-term hairstylist... but what can I say? We were in a hairstyling rut and we just couldn't seem to get out of it! On an even more exciting note, my jacket finally came in the mail! I had to return the J-Crew jacket I got for Christmas and get a smaller size and it arrived by Fed-Ex this morning.

Me in my new jacket in front of my car, Bebe (My parents named her Black Beauty but I call her Bebe, for short. Yes, I name things. My purse in this picture is named Priscilla not to be confused with Purse-zilla).

I drove over to Molly's to get her and head over to the craft store, Michaels, in Stamford, CT where Molly got scrapbook supplies and I bought Altoids. I wasn't very successful, I know. After listening to some old 90s music on my iPod on the drive home (Eve 6 - "Inside Out" if you're curious), I dropped Molly off and headed back to my house where I passed the new Starbucks being built. It will be Greenwich's 5th Starbucks... like we need any more caffeine.

Taking over the town:

What are you doing little man in the yellow Christmas tree truck... and why did I take your picture?

This is an entry of random, useless pictures, but that's sort of what I'm known for now, so here are some more!

Since when are they called "humps" rather than "bumps?" As Mike would probably say, sex sells! Wait, what? I guess you don't sell speed bumps... but I suppose you could encourage one to abide by the sign and be cautious. I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore!

My humps, my humps, my humps:

I passed Chicken Joe's and thought I should show out-of-towners where all the cool kids get fat:

Well, I finally made it home, got my things together, and headed over to my grandparents' where I tried to teach my grandmother how to use e-bay. Things got heated and I went home after telling her no one was going to buy her 40 year old out-dated wildflower book for $50. Oh Grandma, how we love her.

When I got back to my house, I had a lovely note waiting for me in the mail from my amazing boyfriend, Brent:

He's so cute and he always knows how to make me smile =)

After dinner, my dad and I went to see Munich on the bottom of Greenwich Ave. I thought it was very good but also very long. I think we were in there for about 2 hours and 45 minutes. It was interesting, though, so I would definitely recommend it. I'm really tired and I have a busy day tomorrow with Kristina's visit and a bunch of people coming over to my house that evening, so I better get going!

James' 21st Birthday

2006-01-09T10:18:00.000-05:00

I can't believe some of my friends are already turning 21! I wonder if drinking is as fun when it doesn't follow "underage." As I'm sure you can all imagine, James received a lot of alcohol and kindly shared it with all his friends last night. Just to give you an idea of how the night went, we were drinking Grey Goose vodka and playing beirut with white wine.

Ali telling James that he couldn't play beirut with wine:

Cathy and Me (we won beirut!):

James breaking out the double G:

Too much alcohol:

No one thought to bring cups, so before Cathy, Molly, and I went out to buy some, we were drinking out of these:

Yes, we used an A&W root beer toy cup to measure shots and we drank mix drinks out of a jelly jar, a "Jesus Loves Me" mug with a bunny on it, and a clown cup....

I got to meet James' cat, Frisky, last night. It is absolutely the biggest cat I have ever seen and according to James, it just lost weight!

Jackie holding Frisky:

One of the best parts of the party was James' balloon that sang some variation of "Happy Birthday" whenever you tapped it. I was lucky enough to catch Molly on video dancing with it, so check this out: http://media.putfile.com/James-21st-021

Cathy with the balloon:

Unfortunately I had my camera on a weird setting so a lot of the pictures came out dark and blurry so not everyone is pictured, but here are a few more of James' party-goers.

Greg and Ali wearing coordinating outfits:

Cathy and Ali:

Cathy and Me:

Molly and Me:

Me, Ali, and Cathy:

James had some Peppermint Schnapps which he mixed with chocolate syrup to make a disgustingly minty chocolate drink. I love Greg's expression in the background of this picture:

After the drinks and sitting around the kitchen counter talking for a few hours, we decided to go to the 24 hour McDonald's to get some food. Let me list for you what James ordered to eat for a snack. 2 Double Cheeseburgers, 1 McChicken Sandwich, 2 Fries, and 4pc Chicken Nuggets. He's done much worse on previous McDonald's trips... trust me. The drive-thru guy was really weird... our conversation with him went something like this:

Molly: Do you still have the dollar menu prices?
Drive-Thru Guy: Not for you.
Molly: Why not for me?
Drive-Thru Guy: Your car is too ugly.
Molly: We're in a Cadillac!
Drive-Thru Guy: 20 dollars!!
Molly: What??
Drive-Thru Guy: $8.50, drive around!

Is that how he flirts with people? I don't even know....

Our sketchy drive-thru guy:

After getting food we dropped James back off at his house, said our last "Happy Birthday," and took our underaged selves back home.

Spooners

2006-01-08T19:41:00.000-05:00

It's about time I got around to blogging about the Spooners. I don't like to put last names up, but Spooner isn't actually our last name so it doesn't really matter. Anyway, Cathy, Mike, their parents, my parents, and myself comprise the Spooners, a highly dysfunctional family that should never be let out unsupervised. Being "the Spooners" started probably 9 or 10 years ago when we were too embarrassed to give our real names so we made up a new one... Spooner. The Spooners have traveled together to Lake George, NY and Daytona Beach, FL (by car!) a number of times and trust me, no one ever forgets us. I don't have the time or the space to describe all the adventures we've had and embarrassing situations we've gotten ourselves into, but I can say this... there are most likely a number of states all down the East coast that don't want us back. I'll have to dedicate another entry to the Spooners sometime soon, but for now let me stick to today.

The seven of us went to The Melting Pot for fondue. Wow, we really do fondue quite a bit. We had cheese fondue and chocolate fondue and, as always, it was spectacular. Davey and his Tommie even got to stir the cheese! "Don't get too wild on us now, Davey! That's it, you've got to whisk it!" -Tommie. Cooking advice from the dads is always entertaining. Cathy, Mike, and I watched on in horror....

Cathy, Mike, and Me:

Cathy, Mike, and Me minus Davey's fat kid arm getting in the way because he couldn't wait five seconds before getting more food:

Davey got a little sleepy...

Cathy choked about 20 times so Mike had to hold her arms in the air. I don't think that's actually how to assist someone who is choking, but it made for a funny picture anyway:

The seven of us got together for a Spooner family picture!

Mike said he'd pay Cathy $5 if she could spit her mint into the cup. She did, but I don't think she got the five bucks:

After dinner we went back to Cathy and Mike's house where we played with their baby cousin, Jensen. She's only about five and a half pounds and she's so tiny and adorable! I got to hold her and I'm hoping it's just a strange camera angle because my head is SO HUGE!!

Later tonight Molly is picking up Cathy and Me and a bunch of us are going over to James' house to celebrate his birthday (Happy Birthday James)! Maybe I'll have some more pictures later, so be sure to check back!

Our First Winter Break Goodbye...

2006-01-08T01:04:00.000-05:00

I guess it had to happen... winter break is coming to an end for some people and we have to start saying our goodbyes. Tonight, Cathy and I went over to Alberto's house to see him for a little while before he left to go back to school in Vermont. We parked down the street where we were nearly attacked by a loose cat! It was dark and that ferocious feline came out of the bushes to hunt us down. The trauma.... It wasn't nearly as terrifying as the movie Hostel, though. Yes, I saw Hostel... I felt like I had to, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Alberto and Cathy (near the site of our run-in with the cat/monster):

Alberto and Me:

Anyway, Alberto had a lot of people at his house for a tradition he taught us about where someone bakes little dolls into big circles of bread and when it's eaten, whoever gets one of the dolls has to bring the food for the next party. A party focused on food and the planning of another food-oriented party? Count me in!

Mmmm this is making me hungry, so I better move on. The new Lowe's Theater in Pocho (Port Chester, NY for those of you who aren't from here) is really big and nice. It's very clean and the snack stands are amazing! There is no need to limit yourself to popcorn and candy, they sell real food. They had places to get hot food like you would at a fast food restaurant, ice cream, and a glass cabinet filled with cakes and pastries! Wait, wasn't I trying to get off the topic of food?

Lowe's Theater:

Ok, here I go again... so the movie, not the snack stand.... Hostel was, as I had expected, gory and disgusting; but yes, I somewhat enjoyed it. I think I've become numb to most of the generic teenage horror movies, so I have to appreciate a movie that can actually make me jump in my seat. But here are some of my thoughts, as always: SPOILER ALERT (not that the plot matters in this kind of movie... and this doesn't actually spoil anything) but for those of you who either don't care if I ruin anything or don't plan to see it, the premise of the movie is that there's this factory somewhere in Eastern Europe where people can pay to torture and kill other people. The whole idea is just that getting some sick pleasure out of torturing and killing someone is disgusting! ...but then again, isn't paying $10.50 to watch a movie about people who kill other people for pleasure just as horrible? Now there's something worth pondering....

All right, I have to go watch some cartoons now so that I won't have nightmares!! Goodnight everyone!

Girls' Night at Ali's!

2006-01-07T16:52:00.000-05:00

Who doesn't love a girls' night? Well, guys I guess.... Anyway, Ali hosted a girls' night at her house last night and we all had an amazing time, as usual. It was great to see Nicole, Kate, and Hayley who I haven't gotten together with in so long! I don't think I've seen them since some time over the summer. Of course it was wonderful seeing everyone else, as well. Ali has a new puppy, Jake, and it is one of the cutest things I have ever seen. It's a silver labrador retriever (don't call it anything else or Ali will get mad! haha) and it is so playful! We let him join in on girls' night along with Nicole's friend Tim.

The evening started around 9pm when Cathy and her brother, Mike, came to pick me up (Mike was driving us to Ali's). Things got a little chaotic with Ali's driveway that's on a CLIFF and cars coming from all directions, but the situation was kept under control thanks to the teachings of Tom's Driving School (Cathy and Mike's dad is Tom). Cathy and I met Kate in the driveway and the girls night began soon after.

Cathy and Me outside:

Our hostess Ali (holding Jake) and Kate:

Everyone moved down to the basement because I guess on New Year's Eve we weren't supposed to be on the main level, so no one tell Ali's mom! I think we had Remember the Titans on in the background... so not a girls' night kind of movie, but no one was watching anyway.

Cathy and Me in Ali's basement... Cathy tried to make me wear one of those hats but I refused:

Kate and Nicole:

We tried to get a game of Kings going again like we did on New Year's Eve, but no one was paying any attention so the game failed miserably.

Me, Kate, and Hayley (clearly not very into the game):

Hayley just got back from her house in Florida so we're all very jealous of her awesome tan.

Kate and a very tan (at least in comparison to the rest of us) Hayley:

Hayley told a story about throwing a rock in Ali's pool that was somewhat along the lines of "I threw a rock in Ali's pool because I thought it would be fun and then it wasn't." I loved it. Hayley then had a little accident... well, not actually, but it sure looked like it:

All the girls got together for a picture that surprisingly didn't turn out that bad! We usually have to have at least five re-takes, but this took just one shot. Nicole, Ali, Cathy, Me, Ashley, Kate, and Hayley:

We gave up all hope of continuing the game of Kings and spent the rest of the night talking and reminiscing about the good old days back in elementary school... back when parties still involved pointy hats, when people didn't have to drink for losing a game, when boys had the worst kind of cooties, and when juice was just juice rather than a "good mixer." There's definitely a big part of me that misses it all, but in a way, things are still the same... a bunch of friends getting together to laugh and have fun.

My elementary school girls are still together! Me, Cathy, Molly, Nicole, and Hayley:

Around 1am the little neat freak in Molly came out and she ran around the basement psychotically cleaning everything up (Ali, you're very lucky to have her). By about 1:45 everyone was gone or leaving so Cathy and I called her brother, Mike, at Safe Rides... aka the drunk bus. Yes, Greenwich has a drunk bus too, it's not just for college! We weren't drunk, but it was still a very fun ride home with Mike and Brittany driving.

Drunk Bus!

The first week of the new year is now coming to a close and life has certainly been very busy! I think I need a nap...

Going Mormon

2006-01-06T21:20:00.000-05:00

Maybe I'm just trying to find a reason to post an embarrassing picture of Mike, but I thought I needed to add to my last entry. Mike is hilarious... and I didn't think I could leave this quote out of my blog. When asked who Mike was bringing to the prom, he responded with "Yeah, I'm taking Brittany, Claudia, and Katie... I'm going Mormon this year." He never fails to crack me up.

Anyway, here's the embarrassing picture of Mike (a dangerous thing to post considering the blackmail pictures Mike has of me):

Fondue Frenzy

2006-01-06T18:22:00.000-05:00

Well, before fondue, my mom and I went to Bloomingdale's to exercise my Bloomingdale's credit card. Mom says that if you don't exercise your credit cards regularly that the stores will forget about you! How frightening!! I got a navy blue blazer with really cute buttons that you'll see in the pictures from later on at Cathy and Mike's house. My mom got crema and coffee discs for Mr. T, our amazing hot drink maker.

Big success in medium bags:

Later in the afternoon, I went over to Cathy and Mike's house to make chocolate fondue. We've really been having a lot of fondue lately; I think we were meant to live in the 70s. Anyway, we dipped apples, bananas, cookies, potato chips, and goldfish in it and it was all delicious! We also dipped potato chips in maple syrup... yes, we have some major fat kid tendencies. The best, however, was when we dipped a potato chip in the syrup and a BBQ goldfish in the chocolate and put them together. It sounds pretty gross, right? Wrong! It was amazing. Here are some pictures!

About to start fondue-ing in Cathy and Mike's kitchen:

Mike and Cathy:

Mike breaking out the maple syrup:

Our creation:

We tried to take some "nice" pictures... but that never works.

Brent! Look what Mike did!

Mike and Cathy again:

After fondue we went walkercizing to the playground where we did swing aerobics. After my "jog" yesterday, I decided to never over-exert myself again, although the walking and swinging today did get tiresome.

Here's Cathy and Me swinging at the playground behind our elementary school:

Later tonight we're having a girls' night at Ali's house so I'll take some more pictures and post them as soon as I can!

The Beach in Greenwich

2006-01-05T15:41:00.000-05:00

Well, you should all be very proud of me because I finally got around to going for my jog at the beach! I did a lot more walking than jogging, but as Kristina's mom taught me, you burn just as many calories walking as you do running as long as you cover the same distance (Kristina, her mom, and I went shoppercizing in NYC one day. Yes, that's what I'm calling it). I got off to a good start but soon encountered a very agile-looking Asian woman with a bright orange windbreaker that was very distracting!! She and I were in such close proximity that I felt she was challenging me to an unspoken jogging competition which, of course, she won. My lungs started hurting from the cold air, reminding me of the cold, harsh days of winter track in high school. I don't care what the pros say, spandex does not properly insulate! Anyway, I walked the rest of the way around the beach while listening to my iPod. When I returned to where I had started, I thought I should get out my camera and take another walk around because it had been so beautiful.

And so began my epic journey. I climbed hills, trudged through the mud, walked on sand while wearing sneakers (so hard!!), and even reached the summit of a few moderately tall rocks! With the sharp, arctic winds penetrating my North Face, I continued on my sandy path in the name of amateur photography.

Here is one of the bridges right by the water:

The rocky beach (for those of you who don't live here, this is not the main strip of beach):

The shell beach:

Sea grass:

This is one of my favorite pictures of the day. The overcast weather created a really interesting lighting effect in a number of my photos:

This is another of my favorites. I almost walked through the grass to get closer, but my previous experience with lyme disease along with my memory of Davey killing a scorpion in the area (yes, we had a scorpion in CT) thwarted my ambition:

I think the silhouette is also pretty:

A lobster trap at the water's edge:

Of course the beach looks much different in the summer (especially on the main stretch of sand-- not pictured), but I think it is, perhaps, even more beautiful this time of year.

Last, but certainly not least, this is the rock where I thought Yoda from Star Wars lived when I was really little... yeah, I was a dork back then too.

I feel so lucky to live so close to such a beautiful beach. I don't know if I could ever live too far away from the water. I hope that everyone in the area has a chance to visit our beach at some point... but don't come in the summer when there are a lot of people because if you cause more traffic I'll be mad at you.

Another Night in Vanessa's Basement

2006-01-05T01:39:00.000-05:00

Tonight, Vanessa, Ali, Cathy, Molly, and I hung out in Vanessa's basement for one of our movie nights. We didnt really watch any movies but we did have Black Starz on in the background watching Hitch (which featured the restaurant, Tao, that Brent and I just went to). We talked about our boyfriends, keeping in touch forever, our wedding dresses... we're such girls. Everyone but Cathy was in pajamas so it was somewhat reminiscent of our slumber party days. The highlight of the evening was Molly showing us her boobs. I changed the screen name, obviously, to protect the not-so-innocent, but here's her explanation:

MOLLY (1:24:15 AM): sorry i showed you my boobs, it was just a sudden burst of "i think i should"

Oh Molly... what are we going to do with that girl. Here she is being her crazy self:

Molly (in her cute granny slippers), Ali, and Vanessa:

Cathy and Me:

I love how I matched my brown sweatpants with my navy blue and yellow sweatshirt... my socks didn't even match. Oh well. I'm going to miss everyone so much when I go back to school. I definitely took a lot for granted in high school and now that I'm not home with my family and friends I really miss them all so much! At least we still have some time left to lie around in Vanessa's basement talking over movies, overeat at our favorite restaurants while laughing about getting fat in college, eat ice cream at Cold Stone, have dance parties with all the lights out in Cathy's family room, girls' nights at Ali's, and sit around my kitchen table talking until 3am. I'll always love coming home to Greenwich, to me it's the most amazing place in the world.

Anyway, for those of you who are looking for something to do this weekend, my friend Jon (from Trinity) is in a great band called Late Night Uproar and they're playing at Kenny's Castaways in the village this Saturday. I know a lot of my readers are from NYC so I expect you all to go! And yes, I will take it personally if you don't.

Check it out here:
www.kennyscastaways.net
http://www.latenightuproar.com/

Thanks everyone! I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it, so check it out for me and send pictures!

Movie Ratings from Brent and Me

2006-01-04T18:36:00.000-05:00

Well, this past weekend Brent and I, for lack of anything better to do, watched a total of 7.5 movies. It's not that we didn't do anything, because I guess we actually did quite a bit, but anyway... that's besides the point. Back to the movies!

Brent and I decided to rate the movies we saw and share our opinions with you. I like giving my opinion, whether requested or not, so here you go!

In Good Company: A-

The Family Stone: B+

The Interpreter: B-/C+

The Producers: B+

The Birdcage: A-

The Ringer: B+

Labyrinth: B

The Dark Crystal: B/Incomplete (Brent left before we could finish it, so he's giving it an "incomplete).

I hope you all feel free to comment, disagree, say hello... anything you'd like. I'm heading over to Vanessa's house at 9pm to watch yet another movie, so I'll hopefully be blogging again later tonight!

A Lazy, Rainy Day

2006-01-03T23:57:00.000-05:00

Well, Brent and I, being huge dorks, stayed up until about 4am last night playing video games, so we didn't wake up this morning until about noon or 1pm. We woke up to the expected freezing rain and decided to spend the day inside. We cuddled up on the couch, still in our pajamas, and played more video games until we finished the Harry Potter game. Wow, we really are dorks... oh well. Around 5pm we finally got around to showering and getting dressed... well, sort of. I just put on new pajamas. Everyone has days like this. After eating dinner with my parents, Brent went back to his new hobby, The Helicopter Game. If you've never played, I'd have to suggest you never do, because once you start, you really can't stop. Just to be mean, here's the link: http://www.addictinggames.com/helicopter.html.

I think I may have lost my boyfriend....

My parents, Brent, and I then had dessert while playing Scrabble. Who doesn't love a good Tuesday night game of Scrabble? Brent and I lost...

I also wanted to show everyone Brent's dessert. He had an enormous chunk of cake on top of tiramisu.

After Scrabble, Brent, my Dad, and I played a few rounds of poker, and I won every time! Haha!

These are Davey's grandfather's old poker chips:

Has anyone ever played 20 questions on the "20Q" ball? I got one for Christmas and it's so much fun. It gets even the most random answers right! Anyway, Davey was using his beloved Palm Pilot with his special real estate keypad attachment as the thing for 20Q to guess, and it asked "Is it heavier than a pound of butter," to which my dad responded with what is pictured here:

He's so strange...

After poker and first dessert, Brent and I went to Molly's house where we met up with some of my high school friends to go to Cold Stone for ice cream. Cold Stone is different from most ice cream places, because they actually mix the ice cream with the toppings right in front of you. You pick what kind of ice cream you want, then you pick a few toppings and they put it on a cold stone (hence the name) and mix it up with ice cream paddles to make whatever kind you want. I had vanilla ice cream with Reese's peanut butter cups and peanut butter, and Brent had coffee ice cream with heath bars and chocolate fudge mmm... http://www.coldstonecreamery.com.

Brent thinks I take too many unnecessary pictures. I probably do, but I think pictures make blogs more interesting, even if they're of stupid things... like this one of Brent waiting in line at Cold Stone!

After Cold Stone, Brent and I went over to Blockbuster to rent two of my favorite childhood movies, Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, which we are watching right now. Oh David Bowie... what were you thinking.

All right, well I have to get back to the crazy nerdy 80s movies with my boyfriend! I hope you had a fun rainy day as well... or sunny day... I don't know where you live.

More Tao and Brent's Blog

2006-01-03T13:06:00.000-05:00

Before I write a real entry, I wanted to post a few more pictures of Tao, the restaurant Brent and I went to yesterday. I stole these off of the Tao website, http://www.taorestaurant.com, because I didn't know if anyone would actually click on the link to find the other pictures I wanted to show. I wish I could have taken more pictures myself, but it would have been pretty rude to ask people to move while they were eating. Tao actually used to be a stable for the Vanderbilt family and then became a movie theater, and finally a restaurant. In these pictures, you can see the movie theater style setup of the building.

The giant Buddha:

Look at the beautiful ceiling:

We sat under the red special events room:

Again, Brent would like me to advertise his new blog, http://swashbucklingruffian.blogspot.com/. He's just getting started, but he has a few funny entries up, providing the other side of the story to some of my blog entries. Check it out!

NYC

2006-01-02T23:31:00.000-05:00

Brent and I went to New York City for the day today to have lunch and go shopping. We actually didn't realize that the Monday after New Year's Day is a holiday, so we were pleasantly surprised when the city wasn't too crowded. We caught a train in around 11am when we were attacked by some woman right there in our seats!! We weren't actually attacked, she just sat next to us... but it was awful. We don't like strangers. After awkwardly squeezing as far towards the window as possible to get away from our nasty intruder, we made it to Grand Central Station. This is where I got us lost for the first time today. A nice cab driver found us wandering around aimlessly and came to get us. I thought this was nice of him so I think I gave him about an 80% tip (not such a big deal when the cab fare was only $5). Before you start making assumptions, I am not one of the dreaded New York City tourists! In fact, on our way in, I told Brent to watch out for the photo-happy aimless wanderers, only to turn into one myself. I got turned around, it happens to everyone! Well, we arrived safely at our destination, Tao, an Asian restaurant on 58th St. between Madison and Park. As I mentioned yesterday, I first went to Tao with my sister, Jocelyn, and some of her co-workers this summer and the food was amazing. Brent and I had a three-course lunch with chicken satays, salad, pad thai, sorbet, and ice cream with vanilla won-tons. Yes that sounds like more than three courses, but that was between the two of us.

Brent and Me at Tao:

By the way, our fortunes were "If you come to a fork in the road, take it" and "Make your partner beg." What? Are those even fortunes? The last time I was at Tao I got "That wasn't chicken," so I guess these weren't too bad...

Here's a picture of the giant Buddha, I wish I had better pictures but check out http://www.taorestaurant.com because Tao is so beautiful.

On the way out I decided to go to the bathroom... Here were the two doors I encountered:

I stood in that little hallway for a couple of minutes and finally decided to pick a door and go for it. Let's just say that I Yanged when I should have Yinned and was shooed away by the men's bathroom attendant. I made it into the Yin bathroom and look what I found in my stall!

An arcade game above the toilet? Only in NY...

After lunch, Brent and I went shopping. Look what we found at Barney's!

Brent saw me notice the sign and I'm pretty sure I heard a "God damn it..." under his breath. He liked it though, who wouldn't like a Barney's sale? It reminded me of the time I went to the Barney's warehouse sale with Jocelyn and her husband Paul when Jocelyn and I stripped right in the rows of clothing because there were no dressing rooms. Hey, I got a good pair of jeans out of that trip, so it was worth it! We were far from the only people doing it... At least we weren't violently ripping clothing out of other people's hands like some of those women were, they can be viscious!

Anyway... Brent and I went shopping on Madison Ave. for a while and made our way to the Lacoste store where we were very successful! Brent got a really cool pink polo in a different kind of fabric than the usual Lacoste polos and I got an amazing pair of jeans with an alligator on the back pockets... so cute. I made fun of Cathy a while ago for being obsessed with jeans, but I think I am too. I have a bunch of new pairs this season including a really nice pair of Diesel skinny jeans that Jocelyn gave me on Christmas. You can never have too many good jeans, and every shopping trip requires souveniers! That's right, I'm calling them souveniers.

Here's Brent making the "Guys don't take pictures of outfits" face:

Here I am with my new jeans! Why do I look like I'm 14 years old?

We had just come in from the rain, so you'll have to excuse our appearance... well, my appearance.

So, me getting us lost again... Brent and I were trying to find 5th Ave. I swear, I know how to get to 5th Ave., but I took us in the exact opposite direction by accident and we ended up in the ghetto in our J-Crew outfits with our Burberry umbrella.... In conclusion, no, I do not have any sense of direction and yes, I do always look like a tourist. As we were walking, Brent commented on how we had probably burned off our "small" lunch. I reminded him that we had had a three-course lunch, to which he responded "Yeah, but we ate it with chopsticks...come on!" Does that make sense? Boys are weird. We eventually made it back in the direction of 5th Ave. when it started raining so we called it a day and went home on the train again (no one sat with us this time!).

After dinner with my parents and grandparents, Brent and I went to yet another movie, The Ringer. We accidentally sat in the handicapped section of the movie theater which I think was highly inappropriate of us, but it was the only place with just two seats and, as I mentioned earlier, we don't like sitting with strangers! The movie was actually pretty cute. By the way, Brent laughs really loudly in movies... and he walked into the handicapped railing on the way out. Oh Brent, how I love him.

We got home around 11pm and now we're being huge dorks and playing the Harry Potter video game. I'm so lucky to have someone who I can completely be myself around whether we're dining at a popular NYC restaurant, making a scene in a movie theater, or being losers and playing video games all night.

And one more thing...

Here's a cuter picture of Brent wearing the Polo pajama pants I gave him with his new shirt (oops, I called his picture "cute"):

All right, I'm neglecting Brent now so I have to go. We're waiting to see what happens with this winter storm tomorrow! I hope everyone had as nice a day as we did =).

If you want to read more, check out Brent's blog; it's linked at the bottom of this page, or you can go to http://swashbucklingruffian.blogspot.com.

Happy New Year!

2006-01-01T20:31:00.000-05:00

Where to begin...

Yesterday Brent arrived around noon for a nice long visit... well, until Tuesday. That's pretty long though considering that our previous visit lasted about 12 minutes... but that's a story for another day. We went to see The Family Stone which was actually filmed here in Greenwich, CT in a house right near my yacht club! I was expecting it to be a comedy, but it was much more serious. It wasn't bad, it wasn't great... it was entertaining, though. When Brent and I got out of the theater the ground was covered in snow! What a nice surprise since we had been expecting rain. We drove home in terrible driving conditions but Brent's Saab (which he refuses to give a cute name to...I guess it's just girls that name cars) got us back to my house in one piece... barely. We were driving up a very steep hill on my street and ended up skidding and getting stuck right near the top, so we joined forces and brent eased the break on and off while I turned the wheel, trying hard not to skid all the way down into the pond! After dinner and watching The Interpreter with my parents, we drove over to Ali's house for her New Year's Eve party.

The party started at 8pm but Brent and I didn't arrive until about 9:15. We were greeted in the kitchen by our lovely hostess, Ali, and her boyfriend Greg

Don't drink and drive!

Molly and Vanessa took a picture of me because they said my boobs looked big in my sweater.

Ali made jello shots in dixie cups. Here's Ali, Me, Vanessa, and Jenn:

...but this picture is more fun:

The girls sitting on the couch! Me, Ashley, Ali, Vanessa and Molly:

Playing kings: Me, Brent, Vanessa, and Jenn:

Brent and Me... Brent was on the phone with Spencer. They bonded hardcore over camping:

Ashley and Me:

Molly, Ali, and Ashley:

Ashley, Me, Sarah, and Vanessa:

Life of the Party!

James, Ali, Vanessa, and Greg, they were the opposite flip-cup team... the more awesome team doesn't have a picture =(

Molly and Me with the chocolate fountain... don't worry, we didn't actually lick it. Look at my left hand, though. I don't know how that happened...

Me, Molly, and Vanessa:

We watched the ball drop at midnight and Brent and I had our first New Year's kiss!! (He was in Mexico with his family for New Year's Eve last year). Everyone had an amazing night! Thanks again, Ali, for having us all over!

Today Brent and I slept in late then watched In Good Company on Tivo. For some reason, about a year ago Brent suggested that we see that movie together and it has taken us all this time to actually watch it. We kept renting it and then not having time, but we finally got around to it and even after how much we built it up, it lived up to our expectations. We've had somewhat of a movie weekend, because we then went to see The Producers with my parents followed by some pizza at the brewery, SBC Downtown in Stamford, CT. Check it out here: http://www.southportbrewing.com/. We're trying to find something to do right now but we're most likely going to go to Cosi in Rye, NY to have s'mores! Yumm anyone who has never been to Cosi for s'mores is missing out on an important part of life. And here's another link because I really want everyone to try it: http://www.xandocosi.com/. Tomorrow Brent and I are going to NYC to eat at Tao, a restaurant that I went to with Jennifer and some of her co-workers when I worked with her this summer in the city. Wish us luck with the weather and Happy New Year to everyone!

Fondues and Fondon'ts

2005-12-31T13:58:00.000-05:00

So a few nights ago Erin, Cathy, Molly and I met at The Melting Pot in Darien, CT. We had cheese and chocolate fondue.... not together, separately. That would have been pretty gross.

Cathy and Erin eating cheese fondue:

Erin wanted us all to share it but Molly, Cathy and I "weren't hungry." Needless to say.... the three of us ate more of it than Erin did.

Molly and Me... we always look awkward in our pictures

We know Molly is one of our fellow blondes because she thought fondue was throwing pieces of bread into the cheese sauce and then trying to fish them out with her fondue fork.... oh Molly. We love her so much.

Chocolate fondue...mmmm

I'd have to recommend The Melting Pot to anyone who loves food as much as I do. It tastes great and there's plenty of it! Check it out sometime, you can even make reservations online: http://www.meltingpot.com/darienct/home.html

2005 Pictures Part 2-- September-December... The Good, The Bad, and the Self-Incriminating

2005-12-30T11:46:00.000-05:00

So I woke up this morning feeling a little better than before (I've had an awful cold). I'm hoping to be 100% better by tomorrow when I go to Ali's New Year's Eve party. Ugh, I'm just going to have to deal with the fact that everyone's pictures are going to have me with a bright red nose. I guess it's not the end of the world... or perhaps it is. That is pretty terrible.

Back to the year of pictures part 2... I'd like to call this section "The Good, the bad, and the self-incriminating" for some pretty obvious reasons. I'll try to keep it PG-13 for poor Mom who once saw her daughter on one knee drinking from a beer funnel.

I came back to Trinity College in September with brand new roommates! We had all been put into the "summer lottery" which means that we had no say in where we lived or with whom, but we really lucked out! We all get along great and we got an AMAZING dorm room! We're living in Funtown in the recreation lounge...how fitting. No, the name is not Funtown, but that's what the kiddies at Camp Trin Trin call it.

Danielle, Christie, and Me

Brent and Me that same night. What's he smiling about? ;-)

Aww, one of our first nights out together

On September 8th, my brother Geoff and his wife Kari had a baby boy named Brady! Here's a picture of me with my new nephew:

And back to Trinity... the boys in our hall are too cute. Danielle, Christie, and I were put in a freshman boys' hall and became their "Funtown Moms" which quickly turned into the "Funtown Milfs" because of the wisdom we gain after completing the ever-important freshman year of college. Our hall has recently been named "The Trouble Hall" on campus, and I must say we have earned the title. But when you look at this adorable picture of the boys surprising Christie on her birthday, how could they be trouble??

It was soon time for the annual Welcome Back Party, a "semi-formal" (very few people dress up) to celebrate everyone's return to Trinity

This is Brent and Garner by my desk... don't ask because honestly, I don't know. I can say that alcohol may have been involved.

Brent let me wear his fedora for a while and I had way too much fun with it.

On September 13th, Brent and I celebrated our one year anniversary! Can you believe it?? Brent took me out to dinner in West Hartford at a lovely Italian restaurant called Bricco's. He then took me out to the movies, although neither of us can remember which one, followed by second dinner at IHOP. Yes, we're those people... the ones who sometimes eat "second dinner."

Later on in September, Brent and I took a bus trip to Boston where we did some shopping on Newbury St. and visited the Polo Rugby store where Brent got this awesome sweater:

Columbus day weekend I was home in Greenwich and got to see a bunch of my friends at a party at Erin's house.

Vanessa, Me, and Cathy:

Vanessa, Molly, and Me:

Erin, Molly, Cathy, and Pat:

Mid-October, we went to a party in Jon, Mark, Andrew, and Joe's AMAZING Summit Suite. Brent's good friend and neighbor (from home-- Avon, CT) came to visit us. We all wish he was a fellow Trincoller...

Brent and Eric out of the torrential rain and playing some beirut with Joe and Mark:

Three blondies! Julie, Kara, and Me:

October was the month of themed parties... Tropical, 80s, and Halloween.

Tropical was rated as one of the top 5 college parties in the whole country, and it certainly lived up to its reputation. Outside of the hosting frat (Psi U), the ground was covered with sand and they even had a "pool." The pool, as we later discovered, was filled with muddy brown water and fish which, of course, died after hundreds of drunk college kids took turns diving in. I certainly did not step foot in the pool, but my boyfriend obviously did...

Before:

Brent and Me

Jen (a NYC babe) and Kara (a fellow Greenwich girl).

Poolside (we didn't realize how gross it was until seeing the pictures the next day, I swear!):

Soon came the 80s party, one of Trinity's infamous gatherings of the intoxicated. Girls all had their hair crimped out with bright colors and leg warmers while most guys went for the 80s rock star look. Down at the field house we all got together for a crazy night of dancing and screaming to 80s music that I imagine many people did not remember the next day...

An 80s rocker and his groupie (aka Brent and Me):

Ladies of the 80s! Jen, Kara, Julie, Me, and Kara hanging out beforehand in Kara, Kara, and Julie's Anadama triple with their own living room, bathroom, and kitchen! So jealous... they've been so great to host many a night of pregaming and crazy Rock Lobster dance parties in their room. But back to the 80s...

Halloween! One of my favorite college holidays.... It's always interesting to see what people come up with as an outfit. Pretty much every girl is a sexy this or a sexy that and I, myself, was guilty of such a costume. My friend Kristina came to visit me that weekend and we were sexy construction workers. Here we are "getting hammered:"

Brent dressed up as a pirate, so we called him Captain Morgan and made him drink some rum and say "Arrgh!" Garner and Tom were ninjas... of course they wore the children's ninja costumes which were way too small on them. Brian was a redneck trucker and he definitely fit the part. I've never seen a more miraculous transformation than that of a Connecticut prep school grad to a genuine redneck! In his Southern redneck accent he was screaming at everyone in... let's call it "colorful language," while we all played beirut in CJ's room. It was one of the funniest parts of the night. Perrin was spiderman, Joey was Arabian, CJ was... something with a silly green outfit, Phil was quail man, Danielle was Marianne from Gilligan's Island, Kara and Julie were twin cowgirls... there was so much more, I can't even try to list it all, but it was a great night.

The boys... can you guess who's who?

Kristina and Me in the Wheaton stairwell:

Brent and Me:

Julie and Kara, what adorable twins!

Chris and Will... leave it to the boys of the "trouble hall" to find a way to make fairy costumes badass:

Here is one of the first sober college pictures! The guys got together to play squash on one of Trinity's many squash courts. Everyone here, including myself, knows how to play a little squash... I think it's a requirement that you leave Trinity with this knowledge.

In this picture I think you'll find Chris, CJ, Will, Brent, and Joey:

A lot more happened at Trinity that there just isn't room for! Someone broke through and almost fell out of the window in Anadama at one of the girls' parties, mice moved into the trouble hall, Danielle decided to move down the hall so that she can have a single =( we'll miss her but we understand... and she'll definitely be back to visit often, Christie's boyfriend came for a visit and got snowed in, and I passed all my finals woo hoo!

Let me now skip ahead to Christmas back in Greenwich.

Jessica, Me, and Jocelyn on the piano bench:

The table all dolled up for Christmas dinner for 12!

Some of the alcohol... much better than what we get at school!

Jim (my oldest friend) and Me:

Our new coffee / espresso / cappuccino / latte / hot chocolate / tea / crema / EVERYTHING maker! I named it Mr. T for Tassimo. All it needs now are some giant gold chains and it could be famous!

Well, that's all for now! I'll post again soon with some pictures from the Darien Melting Pot, an AMAZING fondue restaurant, and hopefully some good ones from the New Year's Eve party tomorrow!

Au revoir! (Brent is trying to teach me French. That's just about all I know)

Pictures from 2005 -- Part 1: January-August

2005-12-30T00:34:00.000-05:00

So, once again I'm stealing ideas from the Rock Star Diary and posting about my past year. My intention is to bring everyone up to speed so that you're ready to read The Blonde Excuse in 2006! I have a reputation of taking far too many pictures, so I tried to limit myself to one or two per "event" but we'll see how it goes...

January 1st, approximately 1:30am... New Years Hotel Party, or as Erin calls it, a "telly." I'll spare you the drama of that night... but to sum it all up, here's a picture that pretty much explains everything:

Molly, James, and Jackie

On January 1st, my friend (and May 19th birthday buddy!) Kristina and I went to Cabo for a week to get tan, drink pina coladas, and get very sick... no, we didn't overdo the tequila, we just both got colds.

The Westin, Los Cabos

We survived the jet-lag and managed to finish off our second semester of college. Shortly after packing all my things to come home for the summer I celebrated my birthday twice!

First with friends... (not everyone is in the picture)

Then with family at the Yacht Club. Brent (my boyfriend) and Me:

Brent and I spent the summer trying to visit as often as possible. Here, Brent and I are standing on the cliffs in Martha's Vineyard where Brent's family has a beautiful summer home that they invited me to a number of times:

Unfortunately, amidst all the summer fun there was a memorial service for my Nana up in my father's hometown of Marblehead, MA. It was nice to get to see the whole family, but Nana will be greatly missed.

Marblehead, MA-- Look at the bagpiper!

Jocelyn, Uncle Sam, and Me at the Eastern Yacht Club in Marblehead where my dad and his side of the family spent a lot of their time:

Dad... or as I sometimes call him, Davey (I like to think it annoys him).

In late July some of my friends and I went on a camping trip, one of the best ideas we've ever had! We played with fire, swam in a murky lake, peed in the woods, and had some serious bonding time =)

The girls: Cathy, Vanessa, Molly, and Me:

Boys being boys... they were trying to create a tool to pull down branches for firewood. Spencer (Vanessa's boyfriend), Brent-- mine!, and Pat (Cathy's boyfriend):

Brent and Me by the fire

In August, Brent came to visit me at my summer place in Daytona Beach, FL. We went to a water park, Disney World, jetskiing, and we even went on a bungee jumping death machine called "The Slingshot." It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my entire life, and I hope Brent remembers the things I do for him!!

Some happy pictures as opposed to the video we have of us on The Slingshot where I am screaming out of pure terror as we are shot 300 feet into the air while attached to fancy rubber bands:

Brent and Me at the waterpark

Brent and Me heading off to go jetskiing

We took a bunch of Disney World "tourist pictures" and I won't bore you with them all, but here is my favorite....come on, you all know that everyone has one of these:

The summer came to an end with a party at Ali's house where we all played beirut outside by her pool. Pictured are James, Spencer, Ali with her boyfriend Greg, and Kate. The rest of us were in or around the pool.

I saved the best for Part 2-- College, so make sure to check out my next posting!

And so it begins...

2005-12-29T21:36:00.000-05:00

This is my very first blog posting and I'm so excited to get started! The Blonde Excuse is going to be my way of keeping track of my life and sharing it with anyone who might be interested. First off, The Blonde Excuse is a term coined by my friend Mike who told me once, after I had made yet another idiotic comment, "It's okay, you're blonde... at least you have an excuse." And you know what? He's right! This blog, however, was inspired by my sister's Rock Star Diary http://www.pixxiestails.com. Under the blogger name Jocelyn, my slightly older sister chronicles her always amusing life in NYC. Living at home in Greenwich, CT is far less exciting... however, I do attend Trinity College in Hartford, and anyone who has ever been there knows just what I mean when I say that things can get interesting. Perhaps the best way to describe my life at college is with a quote from one of my favorite TV shows, Arrested Development, to say that, "I feel quite certain the yacht club would disapprove." And yes, they probably would. Maybe this is the start of something great, or maybe this is merely the product of my tremendous boredom over winter break, but here begins The Blonde Excuse.