Hi! Thanksgiving was pretty awesome! I don’t have internet at my house so I couldn’t update there so here it is!!

So the ride home was kind of frustrating. I drop Morris off at his home & then head off to Sunbury.  So to get to Morris’s house we take the Main Line and it’s about the worst way to go.  There was so much traffic and it took four hours to get to his house.  Taking the turnpike takes 3 hours to get from Philly to Sunbury, double the distance to Morris’s house.  But I got home eventually so no problems!!

So Thanksgiving at my house was absolutely nuts!  There were 18 people and 14 chairs.  Four of them were children so it was loud and Muffy, my 17 year old dog, kept toppling over.  It was exciting.  So my mom and I started to cook at 11 a.m and it was going fine until she started to cut the turkey at 5:00, and it was still bleeding.  So I came to the rescue and started playing Christmas carols on my saxophone for twenty minutes while she nuked it and Thanksgiving was saved (brush off the shoulder).  I ate so much stuffing I couldn’t move.  It was great.

Then there was black Friday, officially my favorite day of the year!  Nothing like getting up at 4:00 a.m. to shop!  Now I have a lot of crazy friends that wanted me to go with them because I haven’t been home for a long time but I went with old “No ride Mease” (my sister, nicknamed that because she no longer has a car) because I think it was the right thing to do.  Now it was fun for a while, but then she got tired and cranky.  But we got a lot done and did some sister bonding so it was a good time.  AND, we went to a cooking store in our mall and I was looking at something and this lady came over and was like, “Can I interest you in a  marble rolling pin for a present?,” and I was like, “No, because that is not marble because there are crystals which is a sign of an igneous rock, not metamorphic, which is what marble is.”  I’m kind of a dork  : )  Here’s AJ & I at the end of our shopping day. 

& here’s a Sponge Bob we say that was made out of all legos.  It was nuts.  Even more nuts was the 75% off of already reduced priced handbags behind him. Woah. 

So I also worked that day at Burger King which was interesting.  I haven’t worked there for a year and a half so I was a little out of my element at first but then I was fine.  Fast as ever!  And that was a great time meeting up with all of my old friends and hanging out…at Burger King. 

And then Saturday my mom and I went shopping for Christmas and my birthday presents.  I was having an awful time finding stuff until I ate.  I apparently had some low sugar.  Then I could find stuff.  I got a sweet Severus Snape shirt, two coats, a hiking book, you know, totally random stuff.   We took Mikey and Haley too and they got to see Santa.  A good time was had by all. 

Here’s my mom and I!

Here’s Haley and Amazing Amanda.

And again…

And we add Mikey to this picture…

What was really funny was how Mikey froze when talking to Santa so Haley was screaming from the side, “Don’t bring him a gameboy, he already has one.  And I glued his GameCube together so he needs one!”  It was classy. 

Then Haley went to visit my gram and Mikey and I went to Fort Discover with Cartman, our dog at home.  We were jumping stuff.  Cartman looks classy here.

Here’s me and Cartman again.  And by the way, his middle name is Eric.  My sister named him.

And Mikey all the way across the Fort. 

When I was in middle school, I helped build the fort.  It was done by one of my best friends dad who owns a construction company.  It was really nice to do  : )

And I worked again that night until close .  And then one of my way old friends, Anthony came in and we hung out after work at his house.  We watched some BMX videos (he tried to teach me tricks once).  It was a great time  : )  

 Then Sunday morning my mom and I went back to the mall and went to Hot Topic to exchange something and my old friend Dylan was there.  He always ordered Whoppers with light mayo, pickle, lettuce, and extra onion.  Interesting, I know.  And then my mom had a little birthday cake for me because on Saturday I’m 21 and the I packed myself up and headed home to Philly.  It was a very much needed break for sure.

One thing I love so much about Temple is you never know who you are going to meet.  Like just now, I met Palvo.  I by chance saw the papers he was holding and the words looked super Polish so I asked him if he was and he is!  Now what’s really cool about this is that I’m Polish too!  It’s kind of funny because he said he was about to ask me the same thing just from my facial structure.  Weird. 

Now for a little bit of emo Amanda:  Sometimes I get sad about my heritage.  I don’t really know where my family comes from (exactly), I can’t speak a language other than english with my parents, we don’t have any crazy traditions, etc.  And my only living grandparent in my gram on my dad’s side and it’s always a different story with her.  So when I’m with people that are crazy pround of their heritage, I get jealous.  And there are a lot of proud people on Temple’s campus, not that it’s a bad thing, I’m just jealous of it.

 So anyway, Palvo and I were talking about why he’s here, and what he’s doing, and he’s actually trying to start a Polish club on campus!  So he invited me to start the Polish club with him!  And it’s not just so that a whole bunch of Poles can get together and make perogies, he actually wants to help do meaningful work!  I’m so excited!  I lovvvvvvve Temple!

So Morris and I have been thinking about getting a dog for a long time now.  A few weeks ago we actually took action on this.  I didn’t want to post this until now because I wasn’t sure how things would work out with the dog, if he’d be to much, if he was a problem, if we had to take him back for some reason, but he’s not!!  So Morris and I went to PAWS (Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society) but we didn’t find one we really liked.  So then we went to the PSPCA (the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), and we found little Princess. 

(Morris and I on our way to PSPCA.)

So Princess is a 3 month old Beagle mix and so sweet!  We were going to get her but she was tied up in a court case.  So then we found baby Xerces. 

Now, I was a little sceptical at first.  He just laid on his bed with his taco chew toy.  He wouldn’t come over to us, pick up his head, absolutely nothing.  But we asked to see him anyway because he was the perfect size (Daschund/Beagle mix).  So we get to the family room and this little guy turns into a lump of sugar he’s so sweet!  He was really receptive to Morris and I, he was calm, he was a little playful, and we kind of fell in love.  So we had a rough first week but now he’s getting used to home.  He was pretty much house broken when we got him so that wasn’t an issue.  He doesn’t bother the cats at all.  He’s afraid of crossing streets but he’s getting better.  And playing, he is sure good at that!

Here’s pictures from when we went to get Xerces!

I like this picture because of Kim’s face. 

Here’s the man!

And us on the way home…

And Morris and Xerces. 

Last night Morris and I didn’t do anything because 1.) I had a stressful day of labs, calc tests, little sleep, etc., 2.) we needed to pack to go home, and 3.) the Biggest Loser was on.   So Xerces and I were just chilling on the couch and I threw his rope toy (which he never plays with) and he lept up and chased it!  So point of the story is he knows how to play fetch!  And I called Haley today and she had a breakdown because she really wanted to play with Xerces but he’s going to Morris’ house for Thanksgiving so it might be a little ugly when I get home.

So I have been way busy as of late, thus the lack of posts.  Too busy to do anything fun.  If you want to know about tests, quizzes, work, projects, etc., I’d be glad to share.  But lets face it, not may are.   So the fun stuff I got to do this week!

I went to the Temple vs. Kent State football game!!  Did some tailgaiting, Morris got on the Jumbo screen and answered a question right (what does the team touch before every home game?  a lump of coal, it’s called Russell’s rock, I’m totally jealous), there were pigeons, an all around good time.  Oh, and we won!  I don’t know our record but we’re not last anymore! Go Owls!!

Morris on the Jumbo screen

 Tailgaiting, woooo!!

 it was free, we don’t complain.

So then we went home and Kim and I got ready for another musical.  This one is called 50 West 50 and it was sooooo good.  I had mixed feelings going because I didn’t like the last one but this one was amazing.  I want to go again.  It was at Walnut Street theatre.  Their big production right now is Peter Pan. 

 The theatre:

 Me outside the theatre:

And it was way too cold to stay outside so we went to Starbucks to wait for our ride.

 Kim with white chocolate something or another…

Me with my gingerbread latte and the best cookie ever!! Just looking at the picture made my belly growl.

 And I worked all of today and am now in bed recovering and listening to X-mas music.  Right now it’s Pokemon singing “Must be Santa.”  I know, you all wish you were me. 

So yesterday I looked up all the classes I have to take to graduate and it comes out to 54 credits.   I have 3 semesters until I become a super senior.  If I take 16 credits each semester, that puts me at 48 credits, 2 classes short of graduating.  So I can either take a really hard senior year with 19 credits a semester, or just go another semester.  It’s scary to think that soon I’ll be done with college!  But anyway, for all geology majors anywhere, there is a class called field camp you have to take.  The one closest to me is New York, but I was looking, and I’m about 99% sure I’m going to Ireland for that   : )

So I’ll be chilling in Ireland basically sightseeing and getting 6 credits.  Some pictures of the program:

Where I’ll live….

It seems like a pretty sweet deal  : )

(more…)

So this is the weekend I got to go home for my newphew’s birthday party!  It was kind of fun!  So first, the car ride was beautiful.  I go from Philly, up the northeast extension, and then on 80 West.  It’s all trees so it was nice to look at.  First we had to drop Kim off at her house and this is what she lives by:

Kind of frightening, but whatever.  Here’s one of the scenic pictures I took:

So I finally got home and of got to go to OIP for dinner and it was delicious!  Then I played with the babies a little bit. Haley got a new doll that she gave a bath to.  Then we got an awesome idea to give her pink hair tips so we did that at the same time.

You can see a little bit of the pink here.  Now she was insisting she dress up like a spider and wear half of green goblin on her.  This is what it looks like:

This is us in the car later, Haley still being a spider.

But the reason we had the half a pinata was Jacobs birthday!!  He turned two and it was about the cutest thing ever.  He gets really excited and just topples over and lays on the floor for a minute or two.  He also really liked his pinata.  When the other kids were taking their turns, he would run up to it at the risk of becoming a pinata himself. 

He also got a little emo over Mickey Mouse.

Now this picture is because when I went to Burger King to make sure I could work there for the winter, I had one of my sister’s kids.  This lady looks at Morris, then looks at me, and asks if it’s ours.  I thought it was kind of funny.

Later Mikey, Haley, Morris, and I went down to the Susquehanna River to look at nature.  It’s really pretty this time of year.  I also found some pretty sweet rocks  :  )

Mikey was very confused as to why I liked them. 

Then my mom, dad,. morris and I went to the mall to get a new phone for me because we got upgrades.  I got the Blackberry curve 8310 and am completely in love with it!  Down a few dollars but def. worth it!  And that was the end of that night.  Then the next day we got OIP again and went to my sisters house to say goodbye before I left.   Here’s my sister, her babies Jake and Abby, and me. 

And here’s me and Jake….

He’s so cute!!  He likes to hang out in the window and wave when you leave.  So precious   : )  & here’s Abby and me.  She’s growing out of those looks.  And by she, I mean Abby, not me. 

& lastly, my mom and I, myself with a wonky eye. 

And then I came home and ate the OIP I had in my car for five hours.  That was a bad choice.  My belly is aching!!

So last night Kim, Morris and I did our night-out-before-we-leave-for-the-weekend at Plaza Pizza.  We went to Plaza Pizza right on campus and it was sooo good!!  I got a pizza and it was $5 and so worth it.  And it’s a really cute place.  I forgot to take pictures inside but here’s us walking!

They really do do this a lot. 

Kim and I aiming for emo, me a little to optimistic looking to be emo…

And then Kim made fun of me really bad because I have a story I like to tell and apparently I told her multiple times before.  So here it is again!!

Some of my coworkers and I went to California for spring break.  Not for the beach, or celebrities, but for the Price is Right before Bob Barker retired.  So anyway, we’re in the airport at like, 4:00 a.m, and Greg goes, “Yeah, she’s been dropping the F-bomb all the time lately,”  to which I responded, “Greg, maybe you shouldn’t say the word “bomb” in the airport.”  It was really funny and I love to tell it.  Kim heard it 7 times now  : )

Here’s Greg and I at the airport pretending to be sleeping (me again messing up the picture by smiling) moments before the convo happened: