New York City

This weekend we headed up to New Jersey/ New York City to see Eric perform in ABT's La Bayadere. It was amazing! Of course, I am by no means a ballet expert, but it was really great. It's so weird to actually know someone that performs on the Met stage.. kind of cool :) Went out for dinner at this place across the street (okay, i confess I'm horrible at remembering street/restaurant names in nyc) the food was quite tasty. Got 3 giant pizzas, appetizers and lasagna. Mmmmm. After the performance we went to a bakery called Magnolia's(?) a few blocks up and had some dessert.

Saturday we lounged around deciding what to do and eventually by 2pm we decided to go to the mall to do some shopping and see a movie. (Aren't we just the go- getters). We ended up seeing Get Smart which was actually a pretty good movie.

Sorry I don't have any pictures of the performance... unfortunately flash photography can be "harmful" to the dancers so I kindly refrained :) Also didn't want my new camera taken away. It was also remarkably hard to get a good shot of the NYC skyline while zooming down a crowded highway. Oh well, better luck next time.

Mmmm.... sushi for breakfast!?

Alison came over around midnight last night and our original plan was to stay up all night.. but, uhm that did not work so well. Fell asleep around 2:45 or so and decided to set the alarm for 6:30am to go to giant and get some SUSHI. Well.. we slept through 2 alarms and ended up getting up around 8. We went to Giant and got some tasty veggie sushi w/brown rice and sat outside in this little park/fountainy place in the village center.

In conclusion, yes, sushi makes a good breakfast. (Sarah thinks we’re absolutely disgusting!)

Movie Review: Stranger Than Fiction

We watched a spectacularly wonderful film a few nights ago called Stranger than Fiction. Of course, it does not beat Center Stage or Rent... but it is certainly a movie worth seeing.
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Summary (as found on google):
Everybody knows that your life is a story. But what if a story was your life? Harold Crick is your average IRS agent: monotonous, boring, and repetitive. But one day this all changes when Harold begins to hear an author inside his head narrating his life. The narrator it is extraordinarily accurate, and Harold recognizes the voice as an esteemed author he saw on TV. But when the narration reveals that he is going to die, Harold must find the author of the story, and ultimately his life, to convince her to change the ending of the story before it is too late.

Noah's Ark

So, some minor flooding occurred yesterday.

Sarah and my dad were off at volleyball practice & my mom was in VA... I was doing who knows what upstairs.. probably writing that last blog post. Anyway, I come downstairs to find our kitchen is WET. Most of the counter was completely soaked, huge pool of water in front of the pantry (as seen in the picture), the entire bottom of the pantry, in front of the stove, etc. I managed to get the water situation under control with loads of towels... and unplug all of the electrical equipment that was sitting in a pool of water. Never did find the source of the water, we’re thinking it was the sink or dishwasher. I could of used some rainboots or an ark, I got pretty wet. Hope it doesn’t happen again :)

All Things Made New

This weekend my parents took on the task of repainting our two wooden adirondack chairs. I believe they were something like... 18 years old? There’s nothing a fresh coat of paint can’t liven up, so now they are spectacularly green. Our next door neighbors, Ever and Lux, wanted to join in the painting so we ended up having a painting party on our driveway and fixed up an old table which now is a matching shade of green.

Speaking of new, did anyone notice the clarity of that picture up there?! I GOT A NEW CAMERA :) It’s a Canon SD890 and has a whopping 10 megapixels. Quite nice, if you ask me. So be expecting an overload of pictures.

Jessie

A while ago, I ran across a blog about an adorable 6 year old girl, Jessie Hall, who unfortunately has rasmussen encephalitis. I have NO idea how I ran across it, but I did.

Anyway, her condition was worsening and eventually her parents had to make the tough decision to have surgery; the surgery would require half of her brain to be removed.

She had the surgery on June 11th at John’s Hopkins (in Baltimore, Maryland). The surgery went well and she is in the process of recovering.

I don’t know her. Never met her. But i’ve been following her blog and her story is pretty incredible. It’s so good to hear that she’s doing well and finally recovering. I thought i’d add a link in here if you’re interested in reading more about it. If you have the time, I’d recommend starting at the beginning (all the way at the bottom of the page).

http://jessiekelley.blogspot.com/

Multiple Uses for a Scale

We are ridiculous, there is no getting around it.

Of course, NORMAL people would use a scale to weigh themselves. We, are NOT normal people and instead choose to use it strictly for entertainment purposes.

Previously, Alison and I have spent an afternoon weighing different parts of our bodies on the scale just for the heck of it; arm, leg, head, etc. Today we got the bright idea to see how high the scale went.. first test two people on the scale at once! Keep in mind the scale is less than a foot wide so balancing two people on at once proves to be quite a challenge; a challenge we were up for. After about 45 minutes, we had not only weighed our heads (12lbs each??) but the two of us together, the two of us plus a rock, the two of us plus sarah, and various seated positions (which actually makes you weigh more than when you’re standing up). We have determined that our scale is not exactly the most accurate thing but it was fun anyways.

(sorry about the blurry picture, it was hard to balance on that thing-- plus alison was taking it... enough said. just kidding :) )

Snickerdoodles

And the summer festivities continue...

Last night around 9 pm Sarah and I decided to make snickerdoodles. While I don’t mean to gloat, these cookies were AMAZING. Perhaps we should open up our own snickerdoodle shop.

If you ever find yourself with nothing to do and you’re feeling a tad hungry... make some snickerdoodles! They’re fool-proof.

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1. Heat oven to 400ºF.
2. Mix 1 1/2 cups sugar, the butter, shortening and eggs in large bowl. Stir in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.
3. Shape dough into 1 1/4-inch balls. Mix 1/4 cup sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.
4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.

Final Stretch

In talking to a few people yesterday who will be attending RIT with me in the fall, we began to realize that time is passing quickly and we’ll be up in Rochester before we know it. 65 days to be exact.

65 days from now seems like a long way away but then again, nothing at all. 65 days ago I was at the RIT accepted students orientation. Sure since then i’ve taken tests, done homework, taken finals, done all the senior activities, graduated, and had 3.5 weeks of summer but it doesn’t really feel like that long ago.

Gritty Teeth

Doctors appointments = clean teeth

YEAH RIGHT.

Instead of making my teeth squeaky clean and smooth the dentists’ office now uses fluoride made from tree sap. YES... tree sap. Let me just tell you that stuff does not leave a very pleasant smooth feeling. Of course there is the benefit about being able to eat/drink 30 minutes after but when your dentists’ office is about 30 minutes away then it doesn’t really matter, does it? Not to mention that it supposedly stays attached to your teeth for a month or more??

I think I prefer the old giant tub things that they shove in your mouth filled with gobs of a sketchy tasting gel that claims to be “peppermint” flavored.

Melting

5 Ways to Keep Cool
1. Stay inside (with ac)
2. Drink lemonade
3. Lie under a fan.
4. Put ice down your shirt.
5. Go swimming!

The past week has been ridiculously hot, not only here but everywhere along the east coast. Including Rochester! Poor people, they’re used to 70 degree weather. Needless to say, I have been keeping to the indoors. The heat has brought really BIG thunderstorms which has knocked out the power lately (luckily ours has only gone out for about 30 minutes at the most, in some areas they haven’t had it for up to 4 days! :( ) It’s the kind of heat where you can stand there for less than 5 minutes-- doing absolutely NOTHING-- and start sweating. It’s gross and disgusting. I much prefer air conditioning and the thought of nice cold rochester weather is getting me through it.

This morning Megan, Alison and I got the bright idea to go swim in Alison’s pool. It felt SO good. We must have been out there for almost 3 hours. Not to worry, I was covered in about 14 layers of sunscreen! No sunburn!!

Picnicing

Alison and I have a list we made a few months back with everything we want to do together on it before I leave for school in August. On our list was go on a picnic and what better to do on a nice day than go on a picnic in the park? So we did just that.

Woke up early this morning and went to giant to pick out some tasty food for lunch. Deviled eggs, pasta salad, cheese and strawberries (as seen in the picture). We went to Centennial Park and had ourselves a picnic lunch. It has been decided that this was our first, but not last time as we had a lot of fun :)

Quote of the day: “It’s more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long difficult words but rather short, easy words like “what about lunch?”