vegas, vegas

I would show you some pictures from our trip to Vegas, but my dear phone on which I document most everything took a two hour swim in a fake Italian river while we were there so I am left with nothing to document our trip. Which, surprisingly, is ok besides the phone dying part, that part was not ok. I realized what I already knew, Vegas is not for me. You might be thinking but Elise! There are millions of drunken stumbling people there! They will probably be yelling in your face and/or telling you of all the fantastic deals you can get on strippers! And people of all ages gambling at all hours of the day and night! And incredibly expensive drinks and food! And every single person you see will be littering! Aren't those all things that you love?! Well, you've got me there...oh wait. I would HATE Vegas! Now I can fully realize my distaste for the entire state of Nevada. Remember how awful it was for you to live vicariously through me while I was biking there? Shudder. I can't believe I even went back! Fortunately the main reason I returned was for a wedding, and it was a great time. We were proud to be there for our friends Jeremy and Karyn as they got married. The setting was gorgeous, and food delicious and the dancing was the best. If any of you are thinking of getting married in Vegas, I will gladly come, but I will only enjoy the part where you tie the knot, and not a minute more.

looking pretty good from here

Oh guys, I made it!! I made it to the end of my exams (for the moment, and yes you can ask me how I did on the hardest organic chemistry exam in the world ((I GOT A B! In your face extremely hard class that makes me question my choice of future career!)), to the end of work for a while and almost, almost to spring break! This year for spring break we dabbled a bit thinking maybe a road trip to Utah, or some time in Minneapolis (I haven't seen Kathy's new kitchen OR Annie's new house!), my parents were thinking a trip to P-town to visit Joe and Em would be nice, but in the end it is ME that gets to be the proud host to my family!! In less than ONE WEEK my favorite sister in the world is coming here and just over a week until my parents arrive too! I can not tell you how excited I am for this, I've got a whole bunch of fun things planned and since this is one of Emily's first times to Colorado I can't wait to show off the state that I call home now! Holy exclamation points, eh? In all the excitement I wanted to show you some pictures of us so you can get a little taste of how much fun we have together, and why I can barely contain myself with the glee of it all! (Can people still use that word now that there's a whole t.v. show taking over the connotation?) But then I remembered that I only have pictures dating back to 2009 on this beast of a computer, most of which you have probably seen. So instead I'll just have to post some after she comes here, and if I find any on the meantime I will slap them right up here for your viewing pleasure.

In other news for the giddy exciting department, also in the dorky department but isn't most everything I write about here classified there? You might know that I am a sucker for Pyrex. Seriously a sucker, and the goodwill by my house (just a scoot away!) always has at least one piece if not multiple pieces. It takes a lot of self control to not buy every single piece I find there, but today I walked away with three and even left three sitting on the shelf for some other pyrex-loving girl to happen upon. Here they are in all their just cleaned glory:


And lastly, I got a letter from my dear sister yesterday expressing how excited she was for her visit that is oh so soon. Secretly I got a sneak peek of the card from here, but I waited patiently for her to slap a stamp on it and it came yesterday! This is how people in Vietnam would greet us, mixing up the words, but accidentally delivering an even more charming hello:

nerdiest study group ever?

I started an organic chemistry study group, which on paper consists of seven people, but in reality no one has ever shown up except Mason and I. Anyone remember my disastrously failed book group? Well if you don't, then just recall your own memories of working in groups while in college, with a bunch of different schedules to work around and no one ever wanting to motivate, and I am sure the feelings will match right up. In any case, my study group is super nerdy. Last Sunday Mason thought maybe some other people would show up for once, since our exam (tomorrow) is a particularly hard one, but no dice. He baked a pie for all of us (read: me and him), and if you look closely at the decorations you can see that it is in fact a tetrahedral chiral carbon molecule with an R group attached.

We ate the R group first to make the molecule a carbocation...

aprons, aprons, everywhere!

For some reason I have become obsessed with sewing aprons. Yes, I realize how weird that sounds especially for someone who never wears one unless I'm back at my parents home and can tie on the little kid one I used to use that hangs in the kitchen. I made my first one from the scraps of my owl costume for my mom for christmas. I even had the forethought to snap some pictures of it (JP graciously modeled it around the kitchen while swaying his hips for me) but then that horrible thing happened for the very first time to me, in which my camera and computer mis-communicated and instead of actual pictures I ended up with tiny little thumbnails that won't do anything but look like real pictures until you try to actually look at them. Sad day! I have only one picture of the whole process, and it's kinda crappy quality cause I took it on my cell phone at night before switching to a camera, so don't judge too harshly!

It's a really cute apron, my first ever and I made the pattern up myself! Which might not seem all that impressive, but since I don't sew very often and when I do it's usually for comical reasons (octopus or owl anyone?) I am taking it for a win. In any case, I was at Goodwill the other day and I found a really great comforter cover that would have looked awfully girly and weird in our bedroom, but looks awesome and not too, too girly when re-purposed into aprons. Who would have known!

If you can believe it, this isn't even all of them because I forgot to get a picture of the one I sent to Nora for her birthday present! I told you I've become obsessed!