Now that I am 23, I of course have no such thing for such trivial things as keeping in touch through our lovely website… just kidding.

Things have been crazy here. My classes picked up speed so suddenly. I’ve spent more hours in the CSU library in the last two weeks than I did in the WOU library in my first two years there! My classes are okay, but not great, I’m a little disappointed to be honest, I had such high hopes. Short Story is a pretty frivolous in class and Chekhov is making me harbor thoughts of melancholy, melodramatic suicide. Research is a LOT of painful busy work, but I know it’s good for me – kind of like spinach, I imagine, but more expensive. Critical theory is like having a really, really, really, smart person talk to you in a language you don’t understand and without oxygen breaks for 50 minutes straight. yeah.

But, I have made fantastic new friends and recurring acquaintances, so Matt and I aren’t spending quite as much time alone in the house with the dogs. I’ve hosted two non-movie nights so far, where the only movie watching accomplished were on youtube, but they were so much fun. And, Matt and I have been frequently Emily’s to play Rock Band. I can do respectably not awful on the easy setting while she and matt play on expert and medium/hard, respectively. I am not envious – I just want to beat them up a little. But my ‘star power’ is screaming at the microphone which I think then gives me extra points and sparkles on the screen, so I just amuse myself with that while they kick my butt…

Now, as for my birthday, that was pretty awesome. I had a crappy day in school doing library busy work but after all that Matt made us reservations and I got marginally dressed up and we went out to dinner at The Melting Pot, which I guess is a whole change of fondue restaurants. Well, it was fantastic. We had yummy bread, veggies and apples in cheese fondue to start, then numerous random meats that we cooked “coq au vin,” followed by chocolate s’mores fondue with fruit, cheesecake and random goodies to finish. Gotta say, that was one of the neatest restaurant experiences ever, it was a lot of fun. And, with that I magically became 23 and a grown-up. Or not.

Anyways, I must leave the computer now or I wont be able to ignore the paper I need to write anymore.

yours,

Alaina

I was just brained by a butterfly.  I’m not kidding.  A butterfly, or possibly just strangely pretty moth, just flew directly into the center of my forehead.  Hard enough to feel it too.  Had this butterfly or moth been slightly larger or more forceful, I could have been injured!  Really!  Luckily, I was not harmed in this ordeal and simply now have an interesting anecdote to share with you all.  Thank goodness.

yours,

Alaina

For Labor Day weekend we all (dogs included) decided to go up to Mt. Evans,the tallest mountain unto which you can drive to (14,130 ft).  It was quite a drive!  The road was literally wedged into the side of a cliff, not a drive you wanna take if your scared of heights!  As we neared the top of the mountain I noticed my breathing was changing.  I was breathing twice as frequently.  Also I began feeling nauseated.  When we got to the top we started walking around checking out the great view and at times I felt very dizzy.  I guess this makes sense seeing how I get motion sickness out at sea, I get altitude sickness too!  Which kinda sucks because I like going up to the top of high mountains.  But, the awesome view is worth it.

On the way down we saw a Pika.  Alaina was excited to see that tiny little critter hopping around collecting food and hiding in the ground.  I must say it was quite entertaining.  If the dogs could have seen over the wall, they would have probably pulled like hell to catch that thing.  Also, we saw some mountain goats!  We parked the car and climbed up the hill to get a closer view of them.  There was a heard of them, and they were just laying around in the sun, old ones and young ones.  We were standing within 10 feet of them!  I wanted to get closer, but their horns on top looked a little intimidating.

Finally, on the way back home we stopped at a brewery in Idaho springs called Tommy Knockers.  The beer was delicious.  I think that is my 3rd favorite brewery for taste in beer.  The first of course being Lost Coast and 2nd Ice Harbor.  Their Oatmeal Stout and nut brown ale was to almost die for.  And to top it off we had really good food.  Alaina had some delicious french fries, dumped in buffalo sauce and blue cheese, and I had a taco salad, a little less creative, but very scrumptious.