Major catch up time!

Does anyone know what time it is? That's right folks, I have once again hit critical mass in terms of the amount of things that I want to post. In order to save me from going batty by typing long posts about events that have already passed, I am going to make a list!

1. Memorial Day Weekend: So the best part of my Memorial Day Weekend was when Warren and I went to Roosevelt's band camp on Whidbey Island. We went across the Deception Pass Bridge (which I love) and then we drove down the island to Fort Casey and basically stopped and looked at whatever we thought was cool. At Fort Casey we walked around and stalked some little bunny rabbits. We also faced our fears and went into the bunkers for about, oh, 5 minutes before we ran away. And then we left. We visited them at Camp Casey for *maybe* 45 minutes because they were kinda late getting there. The next best part of my Memorial Day Weekend was when I went and saw Pirates 3. I LOVED it! Especially the part where they had to meet on the little sand bar in the middle of the ocean and the guitar was rocking out in the background. Yah, good times.

2. Graduations!: If you haven't figured it out by now, I graduated from college. I actually had two graduation ceremonies to go to, one for the Psychology Department and then the actual ceremony in Husky Stadium. The Psych one was on Monday night of finals week so I ended up "graduating" before I was actually done with all of my finals. Then Saturday was the big to do. Unfortunately, it rained the entire time and Husky Stadium isn't covered. Basically, it felt like I was sitting in the stadium for a football game in October instead of for a graduation in June. And then the commencement speaker (Rep. Norm Dicks) was the WORST commencement speaker ever. He started out innocently enough by belittling the Cougs a little bit, but then things went down hill from there. He started talking about how HE had worked with all of these ex-governors and senators and mayors and all of the commissions that HE had been on and all of the bills that HE had passed and all of the good that HE had done. It basically was a very conceited list of all the ways in which he thought he was cool. And he kept saying that we needed to stop global warming and clean up Puget Sound (complete with a very funny quote about seeing a video of a "majestic Lingcod gasping for breath on the bottom of Puget Sound"). This is all well and good, but the speech had nothing to do with the graduates. He didn't even go as far as to say that we should be inspired by his example, which I think was his overall point. But then things got even more interesting when the people in the stands (not the graduates) started clapping and stomping to try and say, "Hey, you're done. We got your point, now sit down." To make matters worse, the Seattle Times has referenced the speech and the ceremony a couple of times and they haven't done a good job of explaining how truly awful the speech was. To every single person who was there, there is no room for his speech to be construed as anything even half-way decent. But due to the Times' ineptness in reporting the event, we now have people writing letters to the editor saying how much better the WSU students were because they sat quietly in the hot sun through Gov. Gregoire's speech at their graduation. Give me a break! This is ridiculous and people need to know when to stop.

3. Which brings me to the best graduation gift EVER! After my graduation I was hanging out with Warren and his parents are like, "We have something for you!" They handed me a bottle opener with the WSU logo on it and I was like, "Uhh thanks guys." But then they made it play... and it played Tequila and then said "Go Huskies!" And I was like, "?!??!?!" cause Tequila was made into a popular football song by UW and this was just blasphemy. Come to find out, they actually bought two bottle openers (One UW and One WSU) and then switched the little chip inside. They said it's cause I might be a Cougar on the outside, but I'll always be a Husky on the inside. Awwwwww...! =)

4. Saturday Alex and I had our family graduation party and a bunch of family from out of town came to help us celebrate. This upcoming Tuesday is Alex's graduation from high school, so the grandparents (from both sides) are staying from last Saturday until this Tuesday. This means that they are at our house. And this means that I don't have a bedroom anymore. I'm dealing with it, but it is rather stressful. Especially since last week I decided to start going through all of the papers/notes/books from college that I had been too hesitant to throw away. Only once my room had turned into a disaster zone did I find out that my grandparents would need to stay with us after all, and that I had approximately 1.5 days to put it back together again... grrr!

5. And last but not least, I am going to Portland tonight to Justin and Erin's wedding! I am currently at work, but I finished all of my work and my boss doesn't have any work for me and the phone isn't even ringing. But not only am I excited for Portland, but I am going to go to Ikea on the way home to buy things for my apartment!

6. Okay, I guess THIS is the last thing. Last Monday and Tuesday my mom and dad and I went over to Spokane to do some apartment hunting. We found some likely looking prospects, but I can't sign a lease until mid-July and I am still waiting for my financial aid letter. So we will see. Watch this space.

The sounds of my childhood

So I have been temporarily relocated to my sister's bedroom in the basement because we have various sets of relatives here due to graduation festivities (both mine and my brother's). Anyhow, last night I feel asleep to the sound of two things that I haven't heard in at LEAST 5 years: the sound of the dryer and the sound of our cat purring next to me. I know this sounds odd, but I hadn't realized how often I feel asleep to those sounds as a kid until last night when I heard them again. Being upstairs in this house, I am far from the dryer and Goldie isn't allowed up there, so I never hear them anymore. It was just sort of an odd experience.

My secret weapon

I know that Linda has written about Bloglines before, but I just had to put in my two cents. I heard about this about a year ago, but I never went to the "effort" of setting up an account. After getting tired of repeatedly checking back on blogs that never seemed to be updated (yes, that would be YOU guys!), I decided that it was time to pull out the big guns. I got a Bloglines account, and although I have only had it for a couple days, it is amazing. I love that I know instantly when something new has been posted. Similarly, I don't have to waste time going to each blog that I read to see if anything has been updated. The only down side (as I see it) is that you aren't told when new comments have been posted, so I will have to check back on those occasionally. Also, it couldn't find the feed for Mindy or Bryan's blogs, so I apologize if I accidentally miss one of your posts since I am stuck checking yours manually. Anyhow... just thought I would share the good news with you all.

And as if you haven't noticed... my blogging rate has increased exponentially over the past couple of days. This is due mainly to the fact that I am done with classes for the summer, so I actually have time to get caught up with stuff. I don't promise to keep this rate up (as I AM going to do other things this summer than just sit in front of my computer!), but I will try my best to post things as they happen, instead of a month after the fact like with Lisa and Josh's wedding.

I can hardly wait!

Although I'm not sure what I will do with myself once the lovely and delightful Harry Potter world comes to an end. I just hope that J.K. Rowling isn't too mean in who she ends up killing off and is able to wrap up the books with a little bit of hope still intact. Cause after all, that is what I think the series is all about. All of these bad things happen, but there is still a bit of hope and because of that they are able to keep on going. Anyhow, I'm not here to argue or debate or speculate, I'm just here to say that I preordered this last night!!!

(It's the cover art from the front AND the back of the book, don't get all confused now)

So the question remains, anyone else as excited as I am for this book? Or for the 5th movie? Which apparently is now being released on July 11th instead of July 13th (which would have been Friday the 13th). Does this mean that it is opening ALL day on July 11th; so that a midnight showing would actually take place Tuesday night, July 10th? Or is it opening the evening of July 11th? I can't find this information anywhere and it is making me sad. Oh well, no matter when it officially opens, I am SOOO there for the 1st showing!

Picc Retreat 2007

In the middle of May the piccolo section went to Grayland, WA for a retreat of sorts. This was the 3rd year doing it, and it was great fun. These pictures pretty much speak for themselves, so I will give them some captions and let them do the rest. Oh yah, and the website of the place we stayed (like I promised): http://www.wildrosehideaway.webtrellis.net/

The house that we stayed in:

We got there way early and didn't have the food, so we ventured back to the mall at Aberdeen where I got this nifty bottle of Coke from Mexico! (Yes, the writing was in Spanish):

Apparently Tom Cruise came to this mall on May 9, 2006:

We went to the pet store before we went back. There was nothing to do at this mall, think the old Mall 205 in Portland, or even worse, Eastport Plaza (which no longer even exists):

I want to live on this street:

This piece of paper made our weekend more fun:

We watched a lot of TV, specifically, "What Not to Wear" (Now don't let the irony of this picture escape you!):
And we ate a lot of good food:

The messes were immense... this was only the beginning. It was almost more than I could deal with!:

Yes, we even went to the beach. The weather was not the best, but it wasn't horrible:

Some picturesque little birds:

I had to leave my mark, which was promptly washed away by the waves:

And being good marching band devotees, we had to watch Drumline:

The true highlight of the weekend was watching Change of Habit with Elvis Presley and Mary Tyler Moore. It's basically about this nun who falls in love with Elvis who plays.... a doctor??!!?? It is a truly amazing film and something that you should watch when you are in a silly mood and feel like making fun of something! Having said that, I am all blogged out for tonight. I will post some more later. I do feel better, though, having posted the two important events that I had promised to write about.

It's your lucky day!

I finally have time to post all of the pictures that I have been hoarding! Bear with me, this could take awhile. First off: Lisa's wedding and Portland in general since Warren got home awhile back and was able to give me the pictures off of his computer. I'm sorry that some of these are a bit blurry, you know how it is trying to take pictures at a wedding, let alone inside the Portland sanctuary!

Of course you guys remember the picture at the Christmas tree farm from when we got lost going to the rehearsal dinner:

The church: Waiting:
The ceremony:
The newlyweds and me:
Old campmeeting roomies...too bad Lisa won't want to stay with us anymore ;):
Speeches and such, I think this is just too cute:
Let them eat cake! And drink chocolate milk and neon colored punch:
And then we had to go on a little Portland tour:

Herbert even made an appearance:

I stole Warren's camera for a while to take some pictures. Here are the park blocks in downtown Portland:

Warren, meanwhile, was busy taking pictures of angles and bridges and other architectural-type things:

And that's it folks. At least that's all the pictures that I am going to post from Josh and Lisa's wedding. Ya ready for more? Cause I got more pictures. Bring on the next post!

Revelations

This morning I had two revelations. Seeing as how they were slightly entertaining, I thought that I would share them with you.

Revelation #1: It is rather ironic how much pain we are willing to go through to make ourselves attractive

As I get ready to go away to school, I have been doing alot of "personal maintenance". I went to the doctor yesterday to get two immunizations that I need to be up to date on for nursing school (Hep A and Tetanus/Diphtheria/Pertussis, in case you were wondering) and last week I had a Tb test done. All of these things involve needles and minor amounts of pain. Understandable. Today I went to the dentist to have a regular cleaning, which also involves minor amounts of pain. (Especially if you get the hygienist that I got who always sprays you in the face and splashes you and then picks at things that didn't hurt before he started poking them with a metal spike but then hurt afterwards.) Anyhow, I had time to ponder the idea of enduring pain for beauty and I started creating a list of things that we are willing to endure in the name of beauty. Just a few of the things that I came up with:

-Manicures & Pedicures (don't let anyone ever tell you that these are completely pain free!)
-Waxing of various and sundry forms
-Tanning (which always involves the possibility of sunburn and skin cancer)
-Wearing high heels (mmm yah, enough said)
-Braces for nice straight teeth
-Icky tooth whitening programs for nice white teeth

And then there is the basic up-keep such as:
-Going to the dentist so that your teeth don't rot out of your head (definitely NOT attractive)
-Going to the doctor so that you can get you immunizations so that you don't get Hepatitis B and turn yellow
-Tough workouts and diets to maintain the perfect body type

Believe me, I'm not saying that the costs outweigh the benefits for these things. I was just wondering when our society as a whole become so masochistic. Another thing to mention here, many of the things on my list apply only to the female gender... how in the world is this fair?!? Or maybe I'm just forgetting about the ones applicable to males cause I'm not one... any males (or females for that matter) have some input?

Revelation #2: Apparently it is perfectly normal to go in to Starbucks with a list of drink orders a mile long and expect them to fill all of them

So after said dentist appointment, I went to Starbucks. My classes are all over now (my last final was yesterday) and from here on out for the rest of the summer I have rejoined the ranks of the work-a-day world. I thought that I would start things out right by going to Starbucks before I headed to work. When I got there, there was not only one but TWO ladies who had a whole list of drink orders and each had like 20 drinks on them. One lady's total came to $93.70!!! I can't even fathom spending that much at Starbucks. I like coffee, but it would probably take me a good half a year to spend that much at Starbucks. But apparently it is a normal phenomenon to take a whole list of drink orders for the office and head down to Starbucks. I guess I have a lot to learn about the "real" world.