1,000 IG Followers, Brother's B-Day, & More!

Before I start with my happy list and a recap of my weekend and other news, I wanted to let you all know about my current Instagram giveaway!  I hit 1,000 followers on IG this weekend, so I posted this lovely little prize pack for giveaway!  It's open to the US & Canada and ends on 10/1/13!  Check out the original post on Instagram for more how to enter and the rules, and make sure you start by following me!

♥ ♥ ♥

I also want to wish my little baby brother a very happy birthday yesterday!  Well, I guess he's neither little or a baby anymore, I mean just look at him.  He's 17 and a total gentleman-do you see how gorgeous his Homecoming date was?  Not only did he take this beautiful girl, but he made sure to get on Facebook and tell everyone that if they hadn't taken her then they didn't have the best date there-so sweet!  He's really the only 17 year old little brother who makes sure you know he loves you and that he always gets a hug from his big sister.  I love that kid.

♥ ♥ ♥

This weekend was forcibly laid back.  Last week was a mess... There was a bed bug scare (I came into contact with blankets used by someone who may have had bed bugs/scabies-gross!) which made me take the day off from work to get all checked out from the doctor and clean every bit of bedding/laundry in my house to make sure nothing followed me home.  Thankfully it appears I'm in the clear, but better safe than sorry on that one!   Then I woke up the next day with a massive head cold which made it so I had to cancel plans to go to a party Friday night, and dancing plans for Saturday.  So I spent Friday night curled up on the couch watching Desperate Housewives, and Saturday cleaning my bedroom... Well in between wanting to just sit down and veg-so I didn't get much done.  

I did go out Saturday night to Taqueria 27 with Josh, Meggy, and Julie-I hadn't seen Meggy or Julie in a long time so I figured I'd get dinner with them, and then part ways as they went dancing and I went home to rest.

Sunday morning Josh and I trekked out to the far east side of Sandy to try a diner called The Black Bear diner, which we'd heard good things about.  It's apparently very popular and all over in California.  They had really tasty Sweet Cream Pancakes and good bacon! And their menus are in newspapers with stories from the 50s.  It was pretty neat.

♥ ♥ ♥

On another note, I'm happy to report that Ricki-Jill's suggestion of using Cetaphil as my only face cleanswer worked wonders.  There's such a difference in my skin-it's still not the best, but so much clearer and not nearly as many little red bumps on my cheeks.  I've been getting away with just BBCream and Powder, which I dig.  Also letting my curls go pretty natural, just some cream to control frizz.

Don't forget there's only 1 week left to take $10 off any holiday ad with code: EARLYBIRD

Linking up with:

Crafting, Happies, & a Long Weekend

Long weekends just don't seem long enough in most cases, especially when you're working full time and going to school-man, I wish I had more of a break!  Friday night Josh, Brittany and I drove up to see Meggy in As You Like It, part of Shakespeare in the Park put on by the Davis Art Council.  It was bad... Megan was good (she's a brilliant actress) but the Director's cut was not good, a lot of the actors couldn't find their light, and the costumes were HORRIBLE!  So bad...

Saturday I did 5 hours of French homework-teaching myself conjugation and inversion ended in tears... I am so grateful for a French teacher roommate-I would never survive this without his help! Then we went and saw Margaret Cho live-she really goes there haha!  After dinner we went to Campfire Lounge (the owners used to run a restaurant called The Bayleaf, which we used to love.)  The portions were smaller, but the food was pretty good-other than the smores.  The smores were disappointing because they used Marshmallow fluff and chocolate syrup instead of real marshmallows and chocolate.  We also ran into Kerri Cronk, local news anchor and the new Josh's favorite TV person.  She was extremely friendly and very nice!

Sunday I went up to Kristina's house. We made broccoli cheese soup from scratch and I loved on the baby.  Then Monday we got up and started crafting and making masks-I love how my masks turned out! It was so much fun! Creating and having awesome results make me happy.

Other things making me happy:

• The bag I ordered from Kinies on Etsy came, and I LOVE it!  Every concern I had about ordering from them (the fact that it shipped from Malaysia, quality, etc.) was invalid-it's such a fantastic bag and shipped so much faster than I expected! 
• I found two new favorite restaurants in the last week or so.  First, Indochine, which is French & Vietnemese food.  I had a Vietnemese crepe which was amazing, and Josh had curry stew with a baguette.  It was amazing!  Second was Curry Express, which looked really dinky as it's in Halal Market-a little dinky shop on Redwood Road, but the food was utterly fantastic.  For $6.99 we got a drink, curry, and a salad-and their curry was some of the best I've ever had.

• I've been on such a fruit kick lately.  Seriously loving pears and plums especially.
• Class.  It hurts my brain-trying to get used to going to class and doing homework-but I love that I'm feeling accomplished and proud of myself for finally doing it.
• While my mornings are early and require lots of coffee, they sure are pretty.

Don't miss out on the Favorite Color Swap over at Chaotic Goddess Swaps!

Also, don't miss out on entering to win a steampunk light-up bottle from Live Steamy! 

How was your Labor Day Weekend?

Linking up with:

Camping in a Rattlesnake Habitat During a Monsoon

Well, I really can't say this weekend was uneventful at all.  It was quite the opposite actually.

About mid-week last week Josh and I decided to put together an impromptu camping trip for this weekend in case he gets the job he applied for in Seattle and moves away.  Usually we go up to Idaho every year to go tubing down the river, but this year we decided to go closer to home (to save money) and we ended up at Jordanelle State Park.  When we arrived they had a full sign outside, but when we asked them about it they said they had some hike-in spots available if we were willing to hike a half-mile in.  We decided to give it a go, and Josh, Ortie, and I made the half-mile (each way) trek about three times that evening to gather stuff and get camp set up.

We had been worried we would get smoked out, since there's a huge forest fire not to far from Jordanelle, but it wasn't bad at all up there.  The fire made for some beautiful sunsets.  Once camp was set up finally we celebrated by cooking hotdogs and sitting around the camp fire with a beer and watching the lights over the lake.  It was so pretty.

Unfortunately I had to (of course) go to the restroom at 3am.  The restroom was a quarter-mile hike up to the top of the hill-and doing that in the pitch-black alone through a Rattlesnake habitat and past various other creatures (stressing about Mountain Lions) and frat boys might have been the scariest walk I've ever taken.  But sunrise over the lake was beautiful to see a few hours later.

Sunday we got up and fixed breakfast.  While our campsite had the most amazing view it was also in direct sunlight for most of the day-so we very quickly applied sunscreen and decided to walk down to the Marina (probably about a mile hike/walk each way) to go swimming.  We swam for a bit when we saw lightning and heard thunder and decided to get out and go back to camp.

We had just enough time after getting back to camp to have a quick sandwich before the rain started coming down and we took refuge in the tent where we talked, napped, and drank wine.

Unfortunately after about 3 hours of sitting in the tent waiting for the rain to end, we were done.  I had to pee and it was pouring buckets so a muddy hike to the top of the hill did not seem fun.  I was contemplating using a bush just about the time that the wind picked up and suddenly the tent was no more-it started flooding and collapsing in around us!  We started panicking as the stakes came out one by one and more and more water soaked us.  Josh and Ortie jumped out and held the front of the tent up while I grabbed everything I could and ran it to the food tent (a child size tent we'd been keeping supplies in).  All of our stuff was soaked, but the little tent was holding together well.  We collapsed the big tent (which had turned into somewhat of a sale as it tried to blow away) and put the cooler on it to keep it steady before hiking up the hill to take refuge in the bathrooms.

Go figure that the minute we got to the bathrooms it calmed down and stopped raining.

By this point I was starting to realize how sun-burnt we were.  Ortie was only slightly red (since she has fabulous olive skin) but Josh's head (because he's a white Irish boy) was beet red.  I didn't realize until I hit the bathroom that I was going to be in pain very soon.

  At camp as it was starting to kick in.                                            At home once I showered-OUCH.

It wasn't long after that we decided to try and make a fire, but with everything being so wet (except the wood which was still in the trunk) we had no luck.  However, we were lucky that our friend John was coming up at that point, and being a former boy scout he had it up in less than 2 minutes.  We cooked our hobo dinners (which were fabulous) and roasted marshmallows until I was too cold (still in damp clothes) to stay up any longer and retired to my sleeping bag.

Sunday morning we were about done.  After a hike up to the restroom Josh and I opted to sit at another camp spot that was in full shade until the need for coffee overruled our need to not be in the sun (as our burns were now throbbing) any longer.  This made the decision to pack up and get out a lot faster since we couldn't handle much more.  We were going to go swimming one last time after hiking out, but the sun kept us in the shade of the pavillion until we gave up and went home.  It was still a great trip and I'm so glad we went!

I was exhausted, sore, & burned by the end of the trip, but I also felt like a total badass.  I hiked probably about 7-10 miles (both without and with arms full of camping gear) and swam.  I'm sure I burnt more calories than I ate-and I need to make it a habit to be much more active.  The sore was good-it felt so accomplished like I'd earned it!

How was your weekend?

A Very Full & Fun Weekend

Well, I did it.  Friday night after work I received an email informing me that my wait list spot was up on the French class I want to take this semester, so I went and finished up my registration. I also applied for a payment plan so I don't have to come up with everything all at once.  My dad told me he thought it was silly that I was paying for French when I live with a French teacher, but I think it's brilliant.  If I take it now while the roommate is still living with me I'll have loads of help!  I'm definitely not excited about having to go to work an hour earlier so I can make it to class on time, but I'll cope.

After registering for classes we headed down to Bingo, which was slow, and after Bingo we grabbed some Betos on the way home where Kristina and Courtney met us to spend the night.

Saturday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed and down to the Farmers Market where I gathered lots of awesome goodies for my Local Flavor Swap partner Ricki Jill.  I'm so excited about what I'm sending her, it may not be a huge box, but they're definitely quality items!  After the Farmers Market we went to Target and Hell-Mart to finish up some back-to-school shopping for Kristina's kiddos.  While we were at Target I fell in love with some canvas shoes with skullies on them-but just my luck there were only 1 pair left and they were a size too small... Just FYI, the Target app is scary easy to use and I probably shouldn't have it on my phone-but happily a pair of these pretties are on their way to me in the mail:

Then after the shopping was done and Josh went to pick up Ortie from the train, I whipped up a Strawberry Sour Cream salad, we grabbed some fried chicken, and headed up the canyon for a picnic and swimming at East Canyon Reservoir.  It was so lovely out, and while we were very dirty, it was very fun!

While at the store Saturday afternoon I picked up a new beta fish.  I'd been holding off because none seemed to have the personality my last one did, and I missed him.  So Sunday morning I woke up early and cleaned out the tank and set it up so the water could start aerating, did some dishes, and took care of some blog and school stuff.  I also finally ordered the bag I've been drooling over.

Then Josh and I went to breakfast and then wandered through the Lowe's Garden Center where I picked up some Bamboo for the fish tank.  We then wandered around Dancing Crane Imports before I ran home to shower and head down South for my grandmother's birthday dinner at Chuckarama.

By the time I got home from dinner I figured it was finally time to introduce Socrates (the new fish) to his new tank.  He panicked a bit and puffed up at me (I'm guessing because this was a scary experience since he's been living in a tiny cup his whole life!) but eventually became curious and started exploring his new digs.

How was your weekend?

Linking up with: