Apple Pickin'

Last weekend, some friends wanted to go to an apple orchard near town. I was excited because I love apple picking and it was a gorgeous day! We set off in 2 cars to travel to Tanner's for a fun day away from campus.

Me with a bunch of trees? Yay!

As soon as we walked over to the paths to the orchard, we saw this adorable school bus. Because we are all basically children, we posed with it and threw in some silly faces! :)

After hanging out, we got onto the covered wagon and drove out to the apple tree rows. Here are my good friends Maria and Adam! AKA goofballs :)

I love this pic for a few reasons... the cute little apple trees and the wind turbine in the background. How cute! Thanks for the pic Nicole!

It's a tradition for the group to take a pic eating an apple. So I (very unattractively) took a bite out of one. It was delicious!! I had like 5 different apples on this day... :P

The girls at the orchard! It was a beautiful day!

I was bonding with this llama at the petting zoo. We are mocking each other! Hahah

There were a ton of these cute(ish) scare crows. I tried hitting on Mickey, but he wasn't interested :(

Us posing with the cute Wizard of Oz characters!

It was a really fun day to get off campus and enjoy being outside! I can't wait to go back and look for some pumpkins! :)

ISU Fame

I forgot to tell you about this when it happened! Right at the beginning of starting my new job, I was working in my office and I started to get alerts in my facebook and email about the front page of the ISU website. I tried to ignore it because, come on.... I'm a little busy with this new job, guys!

I finally went to the site and found out what they were trying to tell me...

I was on it!



I'm the tie-dye shirt in the middle! This was during my second year as director for student move-in. It made me smile to see it because I definitely miss doing it and I miss the people in the picture! I laughed later because I finally made it on the front page of the ISU website.... AFTER I graduated! :P

Hey, it's still pretty cool :)

My newest love...

.... is an inanimate object. Like, you can't really even snuggle with it comfortably. But I do. Because I love it that much.

It all started a few weeks ago during Labor Day. I walked into a store and saw it....

The blackberry torch.

Sooo, the family decided to go to the AT&T store to check out some phones, as Doug and I were interested in getting new ones. I was agonizing over phones because I wanted one with internet access but there were quite a few options. But I couldn't stop thinking about the epic commercials I was seeing about it. I had done some research about it and the reviews were pretty good. Hmm...

I tossed around other phones, but since we talked about getting new phones, I confiscated Maria's blackberry and fiddled around with it to see if I liked using a blackberry.

Yeah. Um. That was a hands down not a problem for me. I loved it. :)

So at the store I was looking at the blackberries to see if I wanted to do this for sure. Eeek! Syncing my life up with email and internet... is that the best idea? Sadly, with my job, I need it.... or rather, it would REALLY help. So I decided yes.... here we go.

I bought this baby. Slide screen, touch screen, blackberry goodness. I am in LOVE with it! I'm sooo excited.



Oh. And I've only dropped it twice. That is good for me, fyi. :P

Labor Day

Horray for me! I was able to get travel granted to leave campus for Labor Day. This was exciting for a few reasons:

• I hadn't been back up north since my Dad's birthday in July
• I had a short list of things I needed to bring back to my apartment
• Austin was playing at a street dance
• Stephanie and Adam were moving into their house officially
• It was the weekend of celebrating my grandmother's 80th birthday

There was a ton happening and I am so glad I was able to come back for it all! Came back into town Friday night after driving with Megan. It was fun for us to catch up and for me to hear about her classes, roommate, and how she's liking ISU. We got into town around 7:30pm, so she went home to her family to eat dinner, and I was greeted by my parents as well. With... a HOME COOKED MEAL. Something I suck at is cooking anything besides pasta... and let's face it, my stove scares me enough as it is. Yum yum yum, I LOVED enjoying my momma's coookin'!

Saturday morning was an impromptu birthday breakfast for Doug. My mom cooked his favorite breakfast, we gave him our gifts and chatted as a family. It was very nice and fun to do. :)

I got him this clock. Ok, I know its random, but he's been eying a similar one that my grandma has in her basement, and there's no way he'll get that clock - my dad will! So I got him a similar one - hopefully he likes it!

The rest of Saturday was running around town - got my car's tire fixed, got new cell phones, and then went to watch Austin sing. As I have mentioned a thousand times, he is trying to get the word out about his singing and song writing! I am a big supporter, so I try to make it out when I'm in town.

Austin on the stage singing some of our favorite country songs!

Closer up! It was a beautiful day for it, too!

After Austin sang, the corny DJ got the kids up and dancing! It was so cute!

Sadly I couldn't stay too long at the street dance, I had to get to my grandma's birthday dinner. She was turning the big 8-0! My dad and his sisters planned a nice dinner at a beautiful, yummy, restaurant. Most of us kids came into town and we were all there for her!!! We even surprised her by bringing her 89 year old sister in, too! It was great to have everyone together - even if we are the LOUDEST people in the restaurant. Hey, we're Italian!

Grandma and Grandpa posing with the cake!

My wonderful cousins who joined me at the wacky end of the table! :)

The group toasting, eating, celebrating, and just being plain awesome!
My grandma opening up cards and gifts after we surprised her with the cake canolies!

I had to end this post on this goofball. I have a whole folder of goofy pictures of him! Haha!!

It's times like these I can't wait for the holidays for us to all be together again!!! Until then.... I loved my Labor Day weekend!

Things I am currently obsessed with....

Currently, I am trying to get through adjusting to my new job, my own apartment, and living on my own.... and there are a few things that I am obsessed with. They get me through it on the rough days!

Ready? They are random....

Food: Bread and butter pickles. Oh. My. Gosh. I just cant stop eating them! Sometimes for dinner, I make a sandwich specifically to put many pickles on it. One night, I couldn't get the pickle jar open and I went ballistic. I couldn't even fathom eating a sandwich without pickles!


Drink: Mango Strawberry Frutista Freeze from Taco Bell. Sometimes when I leave the office late, or I'm running errands, I go to Taco Bell for one. You will ALWAYS see me with one if I'm having a bad day. My lunch break will end with a quick trip for this frosty delight. Best $2.40 I ever spend. Ever.

TV: Keeping up with the Kardashians/Kloe and Kourtney Take Miami. How trashy am I? But I seriously tune in every Sunday to watch the new episode. I love it! It's my new reality TV guilty pleasure before I start a loooooooong work week. Why are they all so gorgeous?!

Music: Country. Country?! AMY LIKES COUNTRY?!?? Ok, well first of all, I blame this on Stephanie. When she got engaged, I knew her wedding reception would be loaded with country music and I was determined to know it and dance! So she gave me a mixed CD with songs I should know. Then, down at ISU, my friend Maria loves country and we listen to it whenever we drive anywhere! The picture is Keith Anderson... because really.... he is the hottest country singer. EVER.

Beverage: The Diva Martini. Oh. Em. Gee. My friend Mike turned me on to them, and they are DELICIOUS!!!!! At a local bar and grill, they are $3 on Thursday nights. That is a fun hangout for us during the tough weeks! YUM!

Person: Maria. She is my position, but in West Campus, and she is GREAT. She is freaking hilarious and we are always making each other laugh. We motivate each other, calm each other down, and amuse each other. I'm glad to have met a friend like her down here! I have a few stories of some fun times we've had.... coming up!

Well there ya go... some random things I'm obsessed with lately!!! Hehe, I wanted to something fun before updating on some stories!!!