march madness.

somehow spring break turned into madness for me. i didn't have time to do many of the things i'd planned.
like get my eyes examined.
or get my hair cut.
or go to target.
or see alice in wonderland.
or wash my car.

or go to the gym.

or even blog.

but...

i did write my second personal statement for my pharmacy application. [finally.]
and i celebrated james' birthday with him.
and i did my best to comfort him when he found out his grandpa passed away in south korea.
and i spent quality time with my sister and parents.
and i graded lab reports.
and i got frozen yogurt with erin.
and i painted my own fingernails bright red.

here's some photographic evidence:
we had dinner at the newly remodeled atlantis steakhouse during my sister's visit. i'd been wanting to check it out since learning about the remodel. it really is quite impressive now. it used to have a kitschy underwater theme. i'm glad they've updated it with some really awesome decor.
scott and his girlfriend erika came with us, and scott ordered the 36 ounce steak. it was insane.
i opted for the potato encrusted salmon, which was amazing. i crave it pretty often now.
notice the change of scenery, and different outfits? yeah... we ended up eating there two nights in a row while my sister was here. our dinner plans for saturday night didn't work out, so we just decided to go back to the steakhouse. that's a classic griffith move. my dad likes repetition in dining.
the second night my mom, sister, and i had the steak diane, which is prepared tableside. it's quite a show.
and my dad decided to copy scott and get the 36 ounce steak. :]
my dad obviously didn't finish it, but my sister enjoyed feeding bites to helix when we got home. and helix didn't complain.

for james' birthday we went to dinner with some of his friends.
i can't believe he's 25. and i just think i look old in this photo. haha.
i tried pretty hard to get a nice photo of the boys... i should have known it's not really possible. :]

getting back to school after spring break also seemed extra busy. i had my practical in anatomy, which ended up being pretty easy. i need to toot my own horn and just say how proud of myself i am for more or less overcoming my fear of the cadaver. i can look at them now with a perspective that doesn't cause a total melt down or panic attack, which is nice. today, i even had to look at one of them which hadn't been raised out of the ethanol tank. that would have been impossible even a month ago. i certainly don't enjoy looking at them, and i never will. but i've come a long way from the first cadaver day last semester.

last week i also judged the western nevada science fair again. each year, i always hope to see someone from fallon participating, and this year it finally happened! i didn't even have to look at the school though... as soon as i read the title, i knew it had to be someone from fallon:pretty funny, right alyssa?

and i always like to take a photo of all the elementary projects from above.

anyway. that's basically all for now. time for bed. :]

march scraps.

i finished two layouts last night. according to my goal for the year... that's the necessary pace for each month. :]

seriously, i'd hoped to get more done, but two is better than zero.

both are based on sketches... i guess you could say i'm officially a sketch fan. :]

the first one is based on the sunday sketch from studio calico for march 28th. it's an 8.5x11 sketch. when i was done, i haphazardly set it down on kraft cardstock and thought it looked pretty good. so i just stuck it down and decided it was better as a 12x12 layout.

the photo is from the most recent trip to disneyland. i'm trying to get better about taking photos of my parents after realizing that i don't have very many. i'm happy that even if i'm not taking tons of photos these days, i'm at least getting a few good ones.
everything came from the february studio calico kit, except for the lace trim which is vintage lace that jeanne gave me a while ago. thanks jeanne! i sewed it onto the layout, then did some additional stitching around the top boarder of the layout. it's kind of hard to see in the photos.
i'm surprised that i was able to use those lace doilies on the first layout i made with the kit, but they worked pretty well here. i bought an add on in february primarily for those doilies... so i'm just surprised that i didn't decide to hoard them. :]

i won a spot in kelly purkey's sketchbook class, which started yesterday. it was basically the little kick in the pants i needed to get some scrapping done. this is based on the first sketch from the class. honestly, i wasn't in love with the sketch, but i made it work. :]
all in all, it's a pretty simple layout. i have to say, i changed the thread in my sewing machine for the first layout, then changed it back for this layout... two thread changes in one night is probably a record for me! ha.

i'm still not too sure i like the orange here, but i was trying to stick with using the kit to keep the process as simplified as possible, instead of digging out tons of stuff. so it is what it is. :]

i keep intending to do an actual update post, and i even have a partial draft written. so i'll try to get that finished soon. i hope everyone is having a good week!

speaking of purple shoes.

i was looking for a new pair of black flats the other day when these caught my attention. it wasn't until i came to update my blog that i made the connection to the purple shoes of my childhood. :]

oh. and it's an iphone photo, so the color is a little off here. i'll have to get a better shot soon.

color.

i came across this fun and very quick color quiz from true value paint today. i ended up with purple and the following description:
the funny thing is that i didn't choose spontaneous, yet it's in the first sentence of my results. at first i was thinking, "hmm. inaccurate as usual." but then i realized that james is VERY spontaneous, so it does play a pretty big role in my life.
also purple had a long stint as my favorite color sometime during elementary school. i even had purple shoes that i adored that were basically the color shown here. i'm not a gigantic fan of the color by now, but i still like certain shades of purple. in fact, lately plum and wine shades have been edging dark teal out as my new favorites.

i never take these things too seriously, but i do find them fun.

let me know what your result was if you decided to take the quiz.

bits of las vegas. march edition.

i arrived in vegas after my delayed flight just in time to get a crepe before the patisserie closed. my sweet tooth was definitely happy about that. i'm pretty sure i had a crepe every night i was there... i had to make up for only having one crepe during the last trip. :]

on friday, my mom and i picked victoria up from school and went to my brother's house where we had all kinds of fun, like dumping out the blocks and putting them away, reading books, and we even had a tea party. :]
victoria is getting super cute and way more talkative than last month. she's putting together little sentences, which can take a moment to interpret, but it's exciting to see her little mind at work. at dinner one night, there was a baby crying and she looked at amanda and said "mommy, that baby's sad." hehe. she was also very into discussing that great grandma and grandpa went away on the airplane. [my mom's parents were there for several days before i arrived to surprise my mom for her birthday.] she was also willing to let me hold her and interact with her a lot more than the last trip, so that was awesome.
here are a few photos of her from saturday, when i finally got out my camera. :]
this one was in the lounge where she was enjoying a roll. she has crossed her legs like that while eating basically since she was born, and i think it's adorable. i'll have to look for an older photo of her having a bottle like that when she was tiny.
after dinner, she was happy to check out the conservatory and run around a little bit. it was so hard to get a good photo of her as a result of her constant movement. :] but this one really shows her curls. i hope she loves them more than i love mine when she grows up.
she found a nickel on the floor during dinner and immediately knew that she wanted to throw it in the fountain after dinner. it's so cute to see her memory in action like that. on the way to my brother's house one time, she let us know that there were no balloons, which are usually out at the entrance to their neighborhood. i know i'm totally biased, but i just love those little comments.
she's also really into sun glasses right now and picking out her own clothes. this is her pirate princess shirt from disneyland, which is her current favorite. it's nearly too small for her, but amanda said she picks it every time it's in the drawer. :]

one night my mom and i ventured over the the city center to see the aria hotel. my dad's host at the bellagio moved to colorado, so i guess we're considering branching out to other hotels. i can't even find the words to describe the city center. there's so much to take in, and it's really unlike anything i've seen before. everything seems to have been done on a bigger scale there. aria is pretty cool too. definitely very modern compared to the classic style of bellagio. not sure which one i like better. here's a look when you step out of the city center and look up at aria.
there's an identical patisserie at aria, and there were so many cute decorations there. my mom and i were actually wondering why the patisserie at the bellagio wasn't decorated as much as it usually is... and i guess it's because they took all the cool decorations to aria. :]

we also got to watch the progression of switching the conservatory from chinese new year decor to spring decor.
this was saturday night... it was the first day it was open and the whole conservatory was packed. but i had to get a photo of the cool lighting.
when victoria saw this on our way to dinner at the cafe, she said "it's a butt!" hahaha. :]
this frog was attracting tons of ladies. we saw a bride posing for photos pretending to kiss him on saturday night. then when i attempted to take this photo, i had to wait a while for people to clear out who were taking similar photos.

my cousin dustin also happened to be in vegas for the weekend to celebrate his friend's 21st birthday. we were able to meet up for dinner on friday night, which was nice. i hadn't seen him for quite a while. i was hoping that we would be able to meet up again during the weekend, but it didn't pan out. it was his first trip to vegas and as far as i know, luck was on his side. way more than it was on my side, but that's why i don't gamble more than once per year. :] anyway. i can't believe how grown up we're all getting. my little cousin is 21 now. yikes. time just goes so quickly.

one other highlight of the trip was that my dad went to the pawn shop featured in the show "pawn stars", which i've mentioned before. my dad and i love this show on the history channel. i wasn't with him when he visited, but he met chumlee and sold them an old coin he had, just for the purpose of being able to tell the story. haha. i'm a little upset that i wasn't with him, but maybe i'll be able to convince him to go back with me. he said the shop is much smaller and less impressive than it appears on the show. so maybe i shouldn't visit it in person after all. haha.

that's about it for the trip. one of these days i will take more photos and maybe remember to get a photo of myself at some point.

i hope everyone has a happy st. patrick's day!

i watched a new show called "who do you think you are" the other night because i noticed that sarah jessica parker was on it, and it really made me more interested in my family history than i've ever been. i know i have irish roots as my dad's dad has made several trips to ireland in hopes of tracking down some genealogy information. i know it might seem silly, but i feel inclined to celebrate st. patrick's day in some way this year as a result. i don't drink beer, but maybe i'll have some potatoes or something. :]

staying busy.

i'm not sure what i've been up to all month, but apparently i've been too busy to blog. :]

school has been a little bit hectic. my plan of not going to my anatomy lecture in order to have more time for other things pretty much backfired. despite studying a lot for my last exam, i didn't do as well as i would have liked. point taken. lesson learned. ok. i'll go to class for the rest of the semester even if my professor annoys me to no end and wears skirts with boots that have the boys in the row behind me making comments of a particular variety even if they know she's married and has kids. i wish i was kidding.

i haven't been scrapbooking lately, as i've had no inspiration. i keep pulling things out and attempting, but i just haven't had any luck. this is why i set my layout goal for the year on the low side. i definitely have long periods of time where i don't make anything. instead i've been reading lots, which has been awesome. i go through periods with reading too... sometimes i read every night and sometimes i might not read for a few weeks.

james was in a winter "deep freeze" softball league with his friends. i didn't make it to very many of the games partly because they were on the same night as my anatomy lab and partly because it was way to cold for me to be interested most of the time. but i did make it to a few games along with some of the other girlfriends. during one of the games when we were huddled together in blankets in the dugout, we decided that since the boys tend to spend sundays watching football or whatever sport is in season, the girls should initiate sunday craft days. i'm not even the one who brought up the idea of crafting because i generally shy away from letting my peers know that i'm a grandma at heart with my scrapbooking and knitting hobbies. but you can probably imagine my delight when it was mentioned. :]
during the subsequent chatter about crafting, someone brought up the clay canvas. i hadn't been to the clay canvas in probably four years, but ever since that night at the softball game, amanda and i kept talking about how we definitely wanted to go paint some pottery. so we set a date for a friday night, and sarah came with us. obviously being on a friday, it wasn't an official sunday craft day, but for some reason i felt the need to segue into this photo with a very long explanation of how we decided to go to the clay canvas.
i picked up the pieces today, and i'm pretty happy with the results. i painted a spoon rest for no good reason besides the fact that i couldn't decide on anything else. i really planned on painting a mug for tea, but they didn't have any i liked. so after the spoon rest, i painted a bowl. i'm not sure yet if i will use it in the kitchen or just to house some craft supplies. we'll see.

this week marks spring break, and i have nothing exciting planned. instead my week will be spent grading lab reports. i can't complain too much because i was able to go down to las vegas on thursday and spend the weekend with my family. and my sister is coming to town on wednesday for a conference, after which we'll hopefully be able to enjoy some quality time together. james' birthday is in a couple days and while he has a softball tournament all weekend, i'm hoping that he'll be able to take friday off work and perhaps we can take a day trip to sacramento in order to see alice in wonderland at an IMAX theater. i've been dropping hints like crazy lately, and although i've been reminded several times during our relationship that he's not a mind reader, i think he's learned how to pick up on my hints. :]

i'll be back shortly with a few photos from my trip to las vegas. i hope you're all enjoying march!

farewell, february.

i can't believe it's already the last day of february. so my favorite month has come and passed again. and i've been a bad blogger through it all. i'll have to rely predominately on iphoto to tell me what i've done this month because my memory is pretty pathetic.

i mentioned in the last post that we went to carol's wedding reception. she got married in korea on january 3rd. i was actually going to try to make it to korea for the wedding, but i never found a reasonable flight. they played a video of their ceremony during the reception, but it was all in korean, so i wasn't too sure what was happening. it was still fun to see the differences and similarities between korean weddings and american weddings. i love that i can rely on carol to counsel me on the korean ways... it definitely helps me understand certain things about my own relationship. here are a few photos from the reception:she wore her traditional korean wedding dress for the reception, and kwon wore his traditional attire as well. i wish i had a photo of the two of them, but there was a professional photographer, so i felt a little bit funny taking my own photos. for her actual wedding ceremony she wore a wedding dress just like what we would wear in america, but afterwards there is another ceremony where the couple wears this traditional korean clothing. that part involves a lot of customs where you pay respects to your elders and your new family members. i wish i had a better explanation, but i still don't completely understand what happens during that part. :]
i thought her cake was beautiful... simple and elegant, and i just think the bow is an adorable touch.

we also had another huge snow storm this month... i didn't expect it to be nearly as big as it turned out, but i was wrong. here are a few photos of that:this was taken from my front porch. i'm pretty sure i posted a similar view of the big storm in december. my dad said i should have taken a photo with a yard stick placed in the snow to demonstrate it's depth, but i was too lazy. haha. these photos really don't adequately show how much snow there was, but they do give an idea. we had about 18 inches.
this was the day after the storm... it was sunny and everything just looked amazing outside. i took the long way home just to see all of the scenery. :]
i was really surprised to see the damage that many of the trees in the quad area at unr had amassed. i'm just sort of surprised this didn't happen in one of the other big storms we've had. maybe it did and i wasn't aware of it, but there were so many fallen tree limbs. it was insane. and as you tried to walk, there would be huge piles of snow falling off the trees. luckily, i was never the recipient, but i saw several people have a nice miniature snow storm fall on their heads.

it was a moderately busy month for school related stuff. i had tons of grading for lab, and they haven't even turned in their first lab reports yet! that will happen this week, so i'm sure i'll be busy with those for quite some time. i also had an anatomy exam, which went pretty well, and a practical in lab. i missed two questions on the practical... one of them i am fine with missing because it was on the cadaver. since i'm unwilling to touch, let along dig around inside the cadaver, i sort of accept the fact that i may miss some of those questions. but the other question i missed, i'm just kicking myself about missing. i wrote leukocyte instead of lymphocyte, and somehow never checked back to realize my mistake. ack! i'm still happy with my performance though.

aside from school work, the olympics have been keeping me up rather late. i really don't understand why they have a tape delay for the west coast. i wish they would just show it to us live. watching all of the skiing, snowboarding, and bobsledding has been a lot of fun. but i have to say... something about ice skating just doesn't thrill me like it did in the old days. i remember thinking it was the greatest thing when i was a little one, but this year... not so much. it was exciting to watch the women's figure skating though. james may or may not have a crush on kim yu-na. haha. he did say he remembers seeing her in various advertisements when he was in korea last year.

i also finished reading chasing harry winston. it's by the same author as the devil wears prada. it was a fun read, but i had a little trouble getting into it. the second half picked up though. i'm not sure if i would recommend it or not. if you read and liked the devil wears prada, and you're looking for a mindless and lighthearted read [my favorite kind, in case you didn't know. i don't like serious books. i do enough serious reading for school.]... then go for it, but don't expect it to be as good as the devil wears prada. so yesterday, i took a long bath and started love the one you're with, which is by emily giffin. so far, i'm hooked. and yes, i know my english teacher would be disappointed, but i'm too lazy to properly format the book titles. there is no easy underline option for me to use, and i don't remember all the html coding i used to know. :]

my friend mike was in town this weekend because he had a little break between blocks in med school. last night we were able to get thai food, and tonight we met up at olive garden. it was so nice to see him again, and it was nice to catch up with other old friends as well. i miss having mike live here... he was always willing to get food with me. :] plus we both talk to each other about our relationships, and it's so nice to have the male perspective for things like that. he tried really hard to convince me to go to creighton for pharmacy school so that we could live near each other again. haha. maybe if i don't get in this year, i'll have to consider that.

i didn't have very good luck getting a group photo tonight, but this one is ok.

i can't really think of much else. i haven't really had time to scrapbook, but i'm thinking about trying my luck tonight. since i have another studio calico kit headed my way soon, and i haven't even touched the february kit... it might be a good idea to make something. we'll see.

well. i hope everyone had a lovely february! :]

bits of las vegas.

the weekend following my birthday, we went to las vegas for the super bowl party. my sister and jamie were able to come as well as my dad. my mom was visiting her family in colorado since it was her mom's 80th birthday celebration. aside from only being able to eat one crepe during the whole trip, it was a good one. :]
we arrived late on friday, so we didn't do much except eat plenty of chocolate covered strawberries and get a healthier bite to eat at the cafe.
on saturday, i slept in while everyone else enjoyed the buffet for breakfast. i'm a little bit sad that i missed it because it's so yummy. eventually, we met up with paul, amanda, and victoria for some shopping, but it was raining outside, so our attempts were cut short. for dinner, we decided to go to noodles, and it was delicious, as always.

victoria made a few attempts with the chopsticks, before ditching them for a fork. i can't believe she's almost two years old now! she's so much fun to be around, and i'm sad that i don't get to see her more often. she still loves to dance, but she gets a little shy in front of too many people. and she's pretty much potty trained now, which blows my mind. it didn't take long at all.
after dinner, we headed to the town square mall. i found a cute sweater at martin + osa, but that was it. some of katie's old friends we're meeting up at the blue martini, so james and i got suckered into going along. i wasn't a huge fan... but mostly because of the crowd of people who were there. i did manage to get some fun photos though. :]

after our adventure to the blue martini, we had some late night soup at the cafe before calling it a night.

sunday was the super bowl party. here's what happened when i tried to take a photo during the big game:
i walked over to the forum shops for the first half of the game. i didn't find anything i couldn't live without. instead, i ended up taking a big spill which resulted in a badly bruised knee. it's still pretty black and blue and sore over a week later. i tried to laugh it off, but everyone around me gasped. one guy came up and said i should sue the casino. ha. not my style really, but darn those floors are slippery. note to self: no heels for walking around the forum shops.

shortly after i got back to the super bowl party, victoria came to enjoy the party as well. she's holding the wrong color of streamer here, but i forgave her. :]

after the game, we wandered over to the miracle mile shops. in keeping with the general trend of the trip, i didn't find anything. i guess my wallet is happier that way anyway.

we decided to have a late night breakfast that night, and my dad even decided to join us this time at the cafe. the service was slow, but the breakfast was pretty fabulous.
the hotel was decorated for chinese new year, as it is basically every time we go down for the super bowl. i liked this tree full of lanterns, so even though we were pretty much falling asleep, i stopped for a photo.
we had to wake up at 5 the next morning for our flight home at 7. james had a full day of work ahead of him, and i had to head to school. it was a long day, but the weekend was wonderful and worth it.

anyway, i hope that everyone had a lovely valentine's day today. i decided to buy a new case for my phone today since my old one had amassed lots of tape to cover its cracks. i came home with a red one, which seems natural when you go shopping for an accessory on valentine's day. otherwise, james and i enjoyed dinner at home with my parents while watching the olympics. james wanted to try a new potato recipe, which was pretty yummy. and i made some chocolate chip muffins just a bit ago, and i've already helped myself to two of them. :]

oh and i feel like i should also mention that after our friends' wedding reception last night, james and i were in the mood for a movie, so we went to see valentine's day. it was pretty lame. considering the cast, i thought it would have been a lot better. so i would say wait for it to be on tv sometime time when nothing else is playing if you've been thinking you want to see it. ha.