excuse me, your nerd is showing.

last night the new Harry Potter came out!! and I must say I would give the movie five stars. Ben, Doni, and I went to the 12:30 showing, and yes we fit in with the Harry Potter fans a little too well. Not to mention we ran into many of our closest friends (such as Christy, Stephanie, and CJ). All three of us also wore us some homemade HP T-shirts that Doni and I spent 7 hours on! I kid you not. It all started with a dumb yet simple mistake. We bought white T's, and the iron on paper we bought was made for black T's. However, the directions for both types of paper/T-shirts (white and dark) were included in the box. Naturally since we had white t-shirts we just followed the white directions. Which resulted in us nearly burning down Don's apartment from ironing paper that was not meant to be ironed along with us spending about 4 hours picking off gooey ink that had burned onto our shirts. After finally figuring out where we went wrong our shirts were a success. And Don and I being so clever, made Ben a slytherin shirt which we considered to be a hilarious insult. Of course his shirt turned out better than both of ours anyway.
(for whatever reason it made sense at the time to show off our shirts by imitating our fourth grade, school pictures)

Bastille Day!

That's right, today July 14th is the French Independence day. Considering this is my friend Benjamin's first year not in Paris on this special day, we decided to celebrate the best that we could. This morning I went early over to BevMo to find a nice French champagne with the advice of some friendly employees who helped me out a lot with choosing a reasonably priced but still tasty imported beverage.

I ended up buying a Moet & Chandon, White Star.


We then went to a cute little French cafe down here in Tucson called Le Delice where we treated ourselves to some delicious pastries.



I hope you too can have yourselves a lovely Bastille day! (And don't forget to go watch Harry Potter at midnight).

Something Beautiful

Last night I went to a show. It was at Club Congress. The line up included Good Old War, Dredg, and RX Bandits. Each band was unbelievably talented and sociable. They all hung out after and related with the crowd in a very personal way. Love was spilling onto everyone. Some of my closest and dearest friends went with me to the show and I could not have asked for better company. We all danced to our hearts content and ended the night with wonderful conversation at The Grill. I am truly blessed to have such amazing people in my life. The highlight of my night was the first band. I had never heard of them and they were incredible live. I wish everyone could experience them in person.

Update in general:
Finished strong in math.
Term paper in English is due on Wednesday.
Finished, Under the Banner of Heaven currently reading, The Tipping Point, and The Shack.
Planning a road trip to wherever.
Re-started working the morning shift and am learning to fall in love with it all over again. It is refreshing to once again see the sun rise every morning and be there first thing when my kids wake up.

A Taste of My New Love:

Stars and Stripes

Fourth of July
Always a favorite holiday of mine.
This year I drove out to San Diego with my aunt and uncle to visit family. My cousin Alex is living out there for the summer so seeing her was a real treat. It was wonderful to catch up, spend some quality time with the family I am not able to see very often, and of course spend some time with the ocean. My aunt and uncle rented an amazing beach house that sat on the cliffs of Ocean Beach and we had the most spectacular view. We had a beautiful porch to sit out on in the morning and drink our coffee and read a book, and then to rap up the day with a beer and a sunset. That's what I call a vacation. My grandparents also rented a beach house just down the road within walking distance and my aunt and uncles house is planted right in the middle of the two. The locations made for perfect and easily accessed quality time with everyone. Just as they are every year, the fire works were shot from the peer and we all watched from our balcony and barbecued some hamburgers and hot dogs.
View from our balcony/porch.
Alex and I.
4th at the beach
met up with Stephany
Lit up the ocean.

With Mumuu and Fadi

These Roots Grow Deep

Happy VERY belated Dadio's Day! I hope you all had a fantastic one with all those incredible dads out there. what would we do without you guys? For fathers day in my family we decided to turn it into a traditional Finnish holiday.

My Mumuu (Dad's mom) who is from Finland along with a few others from my dad's side of the family came over to prepare the feast and have a beautiful day of relaxation.

My grandmother (Mumuu) gave us all a lesson on how to prepare a traditional Finnish dish called a Pasty. They were DELICIOUS. She also gave us the entire history lesson about pasties and why they are important in our culture. And to top it off, throughout the bake fest she gave us lessons on how to speak Finnish. Naturally the first word she taught us was shit pants. you know, just in case I ever need to call someone a shit pants in another language.

Lately I am growing more and more motivated to move to Finland for at least a short time in my life. I have recently acquired some of my family member's contact information who still live over there. My grandparents also gave me an old Finnish history book that was printed in 1834! It belonged to my Great Grandmother and is filled with rich history about the country. If all goes as planned, when I graduate this May from the UofA I hope to move to Finland and work for a couple of years or attend Grad school at the University of Helsinki. And luckily I will be well equipped when I head over sea's, to insult anyone who crosses my path. All those shit pants people better watch out.

Here are pictures of our feast preparation:

Bella Bean working hard.
All the women hard at work while the men caught a break.
Bella bean and I were put in charge of mixing the raw meat with the vegetables.
(pre-bake)(post-bake)
The loving Mom and Pop.