Watkins Glen

Went to Watkins Glen for the first time with my sister and her husband Ryan and with Lipeng.  It was kind of like a double date.  I had a great time and the park is beautiful!  I climbed about 600 stairs too!

Christmas Theme continued

Here are some pics of the Gingerbread House I made with my team during FHE.  I like a lot of the little details that we were able to add.  Enjoy!

Notice the cute little dog with his HUGE bone.  Also, notice the little cars in the driveway. :)

And, of course, the lollipop orchard behind the house.

Favorite Christmas Decorations from 2009

So I was looking through some older pics from earlier in the year and these are some of the Christmas decorations that I had this year.  I thought I would post a few of the pictures that I thought came out best.  The cool thing about the Christmas tree is that I only set it up halfway or 2/3 so it looks full from all sides, but it is resting right up against the wall without any branches in back.  It worked out pretty well.  It looked good, it saved on space, and I was able to put it into a different spot.
So here are the pictures of my tree, my little Christmas village, the nativity, and some fresh pine boughs to give the apartment the right scent (since the tree is fake... easier when I leave for 5 weeks right before Christmas).

The Christmas Tree

The Christmas Village (Night and Day)

The Nativity

Pine Boughs

Hope's Way is gone...

On Thursday, January 28, 2010, Hope's Way, a local restaurant, cafe, and caterer, closed their doors for the last time.  They had been in Ithaca for 16 years and had made a nice name for themselves.  I had attended many lunches that they catered and had been to their restaurant/cafe inside of Triphammer Mall a couple times.  Every time I went I was always very impressed with the fruit/vegetable decorations they had on each tray of their salads.  They had amazing creations in the shapes of different animals or funny looking people using just different kinds of fruits and vegetables and a little creative cutting and carving.  It was amazing! 
I was surprised to learn of their closing just the day before it happened.  Spontaneously, a group of friends and I decided to visit Hope's Way one last time before they closed and enjoy a final meal and dessert there.  Here are the pictures from that event. :)

Nashville, Tennessee

This past weekend I went to Nashville, TN to meet up with my parents there. My dad had a conference in a town nearby and he and my mom arrived a little early. Since they were practically to where I live and the flight was cheap, I decided to meet them halfway. It was especially nice since it was Mother's Day weekend. I was able to make breakfast in bed for my mom and be there in person for the day.

While there, we went to this restaurant called the Aquarium. They have this really cool 10 foot tall aquarium right in the middle of the restaurant. It is really big and it has all kinds of really big fish, sharks, moray eels and manta rays in the tank. While we were there, someone went scuba diving in the tank to feed all of the fish. It was pretty amazing to watch. The food was pretty good too, but the fish were captivating. There was a particularly interesting looking fish called a Shovel-nosed Guitar Fish. It looked like a cross between a manta ray and a shark.

Next door to the restaurant they also had this little area where they had a few more creatures on display like poison dart frogs and different lizards. Best of all, though, was a shallow pool containing several manta rays that you can pet or feed. Some of them were really big. There were two ways to feed them. You could stick your hand under the water with a shrimp stuck between your fingers and your hand in a loose fish. You would hold your hand near the wall and a manta ray would soon sweep over your hand and suck the shrimp right out of your hand. The time that I did it, it felt kind of like a suction cup on my hand. It is pretty scary to do it that way though, because some of those guys are really big and it is a little unnerving when they come swooping down on your hand. The other way that they often get fed is by people kind of holding the shrimp right there on the edge of the pool. The rays have learned that people do this and so they have learned to jump out of the water to get the food. They have to since their mouths are on the bottom of their bodies and not near the edge. It was amazing to watch some of the really big rays hoist themselves 6-7 inches out of the water in a big splash of water just to get a shrimp hanging off the edge of the pool. It was so crazy. They usually hung out for a minute there on the side while they were chewing or digesting or whatever so that you had a good opportunity to pet them between the eyes. They feel soft and a little bit slimy, but it's pretty cool.

One of the other great adventures that we had while in Nashville was going to the Grand Ole Opry. This was actually one of the items on my list of approximately 50 Things I Want to Do in Life. So I was pretty excited about it. I was also excited because there were two performers that were going to be there that I like pretty well: Darryl Worley and Reba McEntyre. They both did an excellent job - and actually, all of them did. I really enjoyed the entire show, even the ones that I had never heard of before. They were all really good and it was definitely a good value for our money. Darryl Worley sang a new song of his that I really enjoyed called "Sounds Like Life to Me" as well as the hit that first made him famous, "I Miss My Friend." Reba sang four songs including her new single, "Strange," and "And Still" which comes from her show as well as another from her show and another one that I don't remember the name of. She's a good stage performer as well as singer though. There was also this gospel barbershop-type group that was really good called Ernie Haas & Signature Sound. They were really good and their final number, an a capella number, received a standing ovation from some people in the crowd. I was really glad that I got to go and I was thoroughly pleased with the entire concert. I was very impressed with the Opry and would love to go again.

On of the other adventures that we had in Nashville was that we went to a place called the Hermitage. It was the home of General Andrew Jackson, war hero of the War of 1812 and two term President of the United States of America. It is one of the best preserved presidential homes. I really liked going there because I enjoy learning about history, especially when you can see where it happened and what shaped it. I liked it because we learned a lot about what it was to live life during that time, both as a land owner and as a slave. It is also interesting to see how different facts are represented and what things are emphasized or demphasized. I also liked it a lot because Andrew Jackson was one of the people that we spent a little more time studying when I took either Block or AP History. The book The Age of Jackson was one of the extra books we had assigned that I actually read instead of just skimming. Anyway, I really enjoyed seeing it and I'm glad that they were able to preserve it so well.

I had a lot of fun seeing my parents and I am glad that I was able to spend some time with them as we explored parts of Nashville together.

Halloween Fun 2008

My friend Michele had a Halloween party on Halloween this year. It was a lot of fun! Friends from all over came. I got a picture of each of them in their respective costumes (I insisted), as well as some group shots of everyone and situational poses - and some candid pics too. I am posting some of my favorites here.

I was a bird this year for Halloween. Also, I made the mask myself with a basic mask mold, lots of feathers, and hot glue. It turned out pretty well if I do say so myself (and I do!).

Note the orange stockings. Pretty good, huh?

So what do you think? Could we be the next Birds of Prey? I think we look ready for the job!

(For more details on Birds of Prey, see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312098/)

The whole group:

Winners of each of the three rounds of donut-eating contests.

Winners of the Trick-or-Can competition with a total of 91 cans in an hour!

Road kill - get it? Road kill? Oh, never mind. (Notice my tongue sticking out.)

My Apartment Pics

Okay, so I have been planning to post some pictures of my apartment on my blog for some time now. I actually took these pictures a few months ago, but my apartment is still basically the same. One really funny thing is that each time a new person comes to my apartment for the first time is that they always say a variation on the same thing, "Wow, this looks like a real apartment." - or a grown up apartment or adult or some such thing. The thing is, I felt ready for a real apartment. It was the first time that I had the opportunity to furnish an apartment myself and decorate it how I wanted. It was completely up to me since I didn't have a roommate at first, and then even when she moved in, she generally didn't mind what I did with it. So... here it is. I hope you enjoy. At least in the living room (which are really the only pictures in here), the colors are black, tan, and green with iron wrought accents.

I'm particularly proud of how this one turned out. I love the table and I think the effect of the candles and Family Proclamation is very nice.

I really like how the windows turned out too. I wanted to hang these curtains because we have so many windows and it gets cold and doesn't help with the utilities bill. It turned out lovely with the window scarf. I really, really like how it turned out.

These are the window open so you can let light in.

These are the windows closed to keep the warmth in on those cold winter nights. Who knew that black, tan, and green went together so well?

Bookcases and the picture in between of the Sacred Grove, right above the TV - used exclusively for movies and the Wii, of course.

Dining room area. There are actually curtains on these windows now too - black with a green scarf identical to the one on the curtains (shown above).