The Blonde Excuse: October 2006 Archives

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October 06, 2006

Cathy and Pat's Visit

Two weekends ago, Cathy and Pat came to visit Brent and me here at Trinity! They both go to Mitchell College in New London, CT and were going to be in the area so they came to see us. Unfortunately, it wasn't the best night around campus for partying since the Fall Concert was the next night, but we definitely still had a good time.

Cathy and Pat:

Cathy and Me (I'm wearing my new necklace that Jocelyn got me from her trip to Mexico!)

New England Gangstas:

I wish I could say we were really drunk for these pictures because that would make them less embarrassing... but we totally weren't. We're just idiots. In this next picture, I had the camera set up on top of my DVD rack so that we could all get in it, but as the 10 second timer was counting down, the camera shifted a little bit (I guess DVDs don't make a good photography tripod) and in the last two seconds we all had to jump/dive/throw ourselves towards Brent to get in the picture. The shot actually came out way more hilarious than any of us could have expected:

I think my favorite part is Pat reaching for Brent's crotch, or maybe me torpedoing into it.

For my birthday in May, Kristina gave me a bunch of really cool lip-plumper lip glosses that I use all the time and I attempted to get the guys to try it to see how cool it feels:

He loves it, can't you tell?

Nice lip gloss:

Pat contemplating his beer:

I decided to put my camera on its black and white setting because I thought that would look cool.

Pat:

Brent:

Brent and Me:

I'm really entertained by the faces Pat makes:

Cathy:

Brent holding the Kings cards that a guy he knows made. They're really cool so I think you should buy them:

For those of you who don't know, Kings is a drinking game with a different thing you have to do for every card you pick out of the deck.

This picture makes me happy just looking at it:

I don't know why we're staring into each other's eyes:

After playing a couple rounds of Kings in my room, we headed over to Jon, Joe, Andrew, and Mark's quad where they were having a party for Marissa's birthday:

Cathy and Pat:

Happy Birthday Marissa!

Jon and Brent:

I have no idea who any of these guys are, but I told them that if they posed for a picture I'd post it on the internet. What an offer! I think I'm going to name them Rudyard, Mateo, and Chaz:

Back in my room...

I have no idea why Cathy has a bag on her head:

Brent and Me:

Ok, so this picture is a little weird. No, not just because we look like idiots. If you look right above us towards the ceiling, it looks like there's a little puff of white smoke or something. There's never any sort of smoke in my room, so we can't figure out what it is except that for the entire time that I've been living in my dorm room (about a month) I've been seeing bright flashes out of the corner of my eye in that EXACT place over and over. I also hear weird noises coming from that corner in the middle of the night, so I'm convinced it's haunted. Here's the picture:

I zoomed in on the "smoke" here and played with the contrast of the whole picture a little bit so that it would be more visible:

Pat and Cathy:

Ok, that's all for now. Let me know what you think about my dorm room haunting!

Posted by lauren at 11:29 AM | Comments (1)

October 02, 2006

Hiking in Avon

A couple weekends ago, Brent and I decided to take a break from our TV on DVD obsession (yes, we're the kind of people who are capable of watching an entire season of Lost in two days)and went for a hike outside. Brent and I drove to Avon near Brent's house and went for a long hike through the woods. Hiking doesn't require a lot of explanation, so here are the pictures.

Brent:

Goldenrod?

Some sort of pod in the middle of the stem of the yellow plant pictured above:

On the trail:

Crossing a river:

I kept telling Brent the whole time we were hiking that I felt like we were in that movie Stand By Me, doesn't it look like we could have been?

Brent doing his "farmer gaze":

A really old tractor tire in the ground:

Mushrooms:

In the woods it got very dark:

Moss:

We reached a clearing where the trail picked up again:

In another part of the woods...

Spider web with dew drops:

We have no idea what this funky orange stuff is, but it was all over some of the trees in a certain area of the woods:

I forgot what this plant is called, but it's the one with some sort of milky substance inside the stem:

These pods on the side are also filled with sticky, milky, stuff:

A fence at the edge of the woods:

Spider:

Another uprooted tree:

I wonder what lives in here:

Woodpecker:

A spiderweb with a... tunnel?

We came across a path in the woods that we thought we didn't recognize even though we thought we were heading in the right direction back to where we came from. The dirt on the path looked very red:

We had remembered walking on a path with black mud. I turned around and looked behind me only to discover that from one direction the path looks red and from the other it looks black. It's so drastic that it even showed up well on film. Check out these pictures of the exact same stretch of the path but from different sides.

Red:

Black:

We came across a group of about twenty little tiny butterflies. Here are a couple pictures of a few of them:

Giant beetle:

Toad:

Grasshopper:

I love this picture of a big old tree:

I think these maybe had seeds of some sort in them:

A salamander-type thing:

Pure white moth:

Berries:

People riding horses along the trails:

Back to where we started:

Brent found a stick in the woods that he whittled into "the perfect walking stick" (his words) with his pocket knife. This large unwieldy stick has been in the backseat of my car for a couple weeks now to keep it safe. Thanks Brent.

Brent working on his stick:

After our hike, we drove to the reservoir in Avon to take a walk there.

Flowers at the reservoir:

Geese:

Reservoir:

Brent with his stick:

Stone wall in the woods:

That's all for our hike. It was a lot of fun and we plan to go again soon when the foliage is at its best. Happy October everyone!

Posted by lauren at 03:44 PM | Comments (2)

Two Year Anniversary

September 13th was Brent's and my two year anniversary! Yes, we've been dating since the first week of Freshman year which is probably so uncool of us but we don't care. Anyway, for our anniversary, Brent and I went to Max's Oyster Bar in West Hartford. We went there together shortly after we started dating back in 2004 and it was Brent's idea to go back for our anniversary. The food was amazing, as always. We started with Wonton Tacos (charred ahi tuna, sticky rice, mango salsa, and wasabi aioli inside wonton taco shells) which were so delicious. I can't tell you how good they are, so you have to go try them for yourself. For dinner, I had the Grilled Native Swordfish Steak (with crispy polenta cake, caponata de melanzana, and basil and pepper coulis) and Brent had the Pan Seared Alaskin Halibut Filet (on crispy calamari lo-mein with Asian gastrique, snow peas, and miso broth). No, I don't have that good of a memory nor do I know what a lot of those foods are, I just found the menu online. Brent and I were both way too stuffed for dessert... until we passed Maggie Moo's on the way to the car and had to get ice cream sundaes. It was a lovely night and here is my one and only picture:

Posted by lauren at 02:10 PM | Comments (2)

October 01, 2006

Brady's First Birthday

September 8th was my nephew Brady's first birthday! Geoff and Kari threw a Mickey Mouse themed birthday party for Brady which was a lot of fun for everyone.

Mickey Mouse Cake: