Got my PhoJo back

So I got my brand new, beautiful camera on Monday and just turned in my first assignment. Here are some pictures from my first two days with my new best friend:

Dirty dishes

I've moved into my awesome new house with four of my close friends and week two at school is underway.

It's become obvious that we all grew up by different rules and need to get used to each others. For instance, at my house we put knives sharp side up to get them clean better (or so Mom says) but Melissa almost removed a finger when she was unloading the dishwasher because of my home training.

Have you ever heard of washing hats in the dishwasher? Well one of my darling roommates, AK, decided that the best way to clean her Chacos (sandal/shoes) was to put them in the dishwasher.
As Casey, another roommate, was going to start the dishwasher, AK yelled, "WAIT" and ran to her room. Expecting her to come back with dirty dishes we were all caught by surprise when she ran around the corner carrying her Chacos and thrust them into the dishwasher. It is still under debate whether they were put on top of dishes or not.
**Adorable, really**

Normal is relative

So Lisa has long said that I should blog on this and I'm just now getting around to it. What sparked my interest? The tallest woman in the world.

My dear friend (that was a lie), Jeff Foxworthy once said, "You know what? You don't have the stupidest family in the world. You don't have the goofiest family in the world and if you ever need to verify that all you have to do is go to a state fair. Five minutes at a fair you'll be going, "You know what? We're all right, we're dang near royalty.""

Well y'all, my "state fair" sounds a lot like "TLC show." The lineup on TLC one night consisted of Siamese twin girls then "Treeman meets Treeman" and then "The Girl That Never Grew." They also have shows on families with 18 kids (all with names starting with "J"), "I didn't know I was pregnant," little kids in pageants who get spray tans and wear fake teeth and, of course, lots of shows on little people. Everyone loves a midget.

What do we learn from this? That we're much more normal than we think except that we love to put abnormal people in the public eye. So whenever I think my life is a sitcom I just thank God it's not a TLC special.

Oh hey girl.

So the other day I was making a casual stop-in at Target to get some green nail polish and realized on my way in that I was in need of some bladder-emptying. So there I go to take care of business. It was one of those awesome stalls where you turn the lock closed but the little stub of a “lock” actually only protrudes about ¼ of an inch. So alas, another woman who was also hearing the call of nature hurried into the bathroom and yanked open the bathroom door…to my stall. There was a magical moment where neither of us said anything and my thought was, “Enjoy!”

She looked something like this:


And I looked something like this:

All in all, it’s good to know you’re never too old to have someone come in the stall with you.

Gimme gimme

Yesterday was the first day back in normal life with no cake flavors and bustle techniques on my mind. I went to classes like a good little college kid, including my photojournalism class. I'm hoping to get an emphasis in photojournalism but apparently it's really difficult. Anyways, this year 85 people tried to get into the class and only 16 of us made it.

The point of the class is to tell a story with a picture. It makes a lot of sense actually. Think about the picture of the Iwo Jima flag raising or the Viet Cong street side execution or Winston Churchill scowling. Now think of what the headline was the day those pictures were run in the newspaper. Can't, huh? That's the point.

So in order to tell these stories we'll need cameras right? Here's the kicker- all 16 of us get brand new 12 mega pixel Canon cameras with lenses to carry around all semester as our own. You could practically mop up the drool in the room when our professor showed us what we'd be getting. I felt like a little kid in a candy shop. Point being, expect some pictures with incredible quality up here over the next few months. I'll try to make them good pictures too.

Wedathon Finale!

Wedathon '09 is over and the big finale was INCREDIBLE! It was such a great party and everyone had a good time. There really isn't much I can say about how much fun it was but pictures are worth a crap ton of words so here we are (in reverse order cause I'm too lazy to reverse them):

An Eye for an Eye

Three cheers for my 50th blog!


So, as we all know, Wedathon '09 is in full swing and the Austin's like to go big or go home. As I mentioned before, Lisa had an awesomely cute eye infection that consisted of some nice eye watering and puffy redness. In an act of sisterly love she shared that with our blushing bride.

Yikes.

Luckily, Ashley's eye isn't as bad and I think it'll be in normal eye shape by the time she says, "I do." The best part of the whole thing is, not only that I seem to be immune, but Ashley's initial reasoning for why her eye was watering in the middle of the day for no reason.

"I thought it was from watching the people on Top Chef cut onions."

That's my blood, y'all.

Wedathon Begins.

So wedding week has begun and yesterday was the last big event before the rehearsal dinner. The number of parties and events that go into a wedding is ridiculous.

I call it The Wed-athon.

Our awesome family friends, the Carter's, had my whole family, some bridesmaids and their significant others up to their lake house for the day and we got to spend hours soaking up the sun in our strapless bathing suits. We thought ahead for the bridesmaid dresses.

If there's one thing in the world that I love, it's the lake. And what else do I love? Taking pictures. Here is their love child:

**The happy couple**

**The birthday girl. Fifty-four years old and still a badass on skis**

**We made her a lake themed birthday cake. It's our application piece for Ace of Cakes.**

**Carrie's Adam shows off some sweet moves.**

**He landed this with complete grace.**

**It took alot of years to perfect the look of Lady Liberty.**

**Happy and giggly and probably quite sore today.**

**He likes to do hoodrat things with his friends.**

**Ooooooo...**

**Let me just note that the man in the back with the visor on is the lake house owner. He sat on his noodle with an empty Corona bottle stuffed upside down in each side of his noodle. When someone mentioned the wedding or anything he deemed worthy, he would yell, "CHEERS!" and toast himself with the empty bottles on either side.**

Think before you ink

The siblings and I were watching one of TLC’s many badass shows, LA Ink the other night. We started to talk about whether we’d get a tattoo ever or where we’d get it. Here are some great tattoo ideas to look into if you’re on the market: