Christmas Time!

Christmas time is time for decorating Christmas Trees, singing Christmas Carols and making fun of the puppy that falls into the snow! :) Just kidding. Here are some pictures of Rou after the first real snow fall of the winter.

He's winking!

Check out how deep the snow is! Rouge didn't seem to mind though. I thought his paws were going to freeze off, but he stayed out there for a while.

Of course, I have to have some artsy type pictures to include...this first one is of our evergreen tree out back. It was so pretty with all the snow on it, but I didn't have the right shows on so I had to shoot it from the patio. I decided to add a few effects to the pic and this is what came out. I think its pretty.

I was trying to take some pictures of our Christmas tree without the flash on and it never seems to work. Its always blurry...so I decided...lets just make it really blurry and twisted the camera as I was taking the picture. Pretty cool, eh?

Sweet Home Chicago!

This past weekend, Mike and I took the puppy to the kennel and went on up to Chicago to see the Illini battle the Arizona Wildcats. We hoped the game would be like the last time they met in 2004 when the Illini went to the final four in St. Louis, but unfortunately, this time they lost.

We met up with Tim and Laura in Collinsville on Friday evening and headed up to the windy city. We ended up getting there a little after midnight and couldn't even muster up any energy to get one drink at our fun looking hotel on Michigan Ave. Oh well. So we got up early, went to breakfast and then Laura and I went on our shopping adventure, while the boys did their manly watching the basketball game thing that they do.

The city is awesome. It is so big and there is so much to do. We saw three Walgreens within the first few blocks we walked and passed three Ann Taylor Lofts! We went into several stores (mainly to get the feeling back in our toes), but didn't buy much since the lines were around 2 miles long. Oh well, saved some money, right? After our shopping, we heard from Mike and Tim that the game was over and met them at a bar near the United Center. It was great to see all their college friends and hang out. Everyone was in pretty good spirits despite the Illini loss. From there we decided to go to Wrigleyville, which is obviously where Wrigley Field is.

We went on our impromptu pub crawl and took lots of crazy pictures. I usually don't like taking pictures of people, because I feel like I'm being annoying, but I got more courageous as the night went on. Here's a free lesson in bar photography...just hold the camera up above your head and fire a few off. And poof, candid, silly pictures. Boy, I'm good...I should write a book!

By midnight we were back to the hotel ready to sleep, because that was a long long day! We had to leave early the next day because of course, a string of ice storms was lining I-55 and we knew we'd have to drive slower than normal. Luckily the roads weren't too bad and we were able to get back on time to get the puppy from the kennel.

What a great trip, but way too short...I'm going back again and definitely when its warm! Chicago in December...What were we thinking?!?!

Shoppin the Photos

I am trying to improve my photo shopping skills and I'm not sure if its working or not, but I'm having fun anyways.

I took several pictures in Mammoth when we went there a few weeks ago and really liked a lot of shots I got. It is easy when the scenery is so beautiful! Here is a picture I took at Mono Lake. The rock formations are called Tufas and wikipedia tells me Tufas are "rough, thick, rock-like calcium carbonate deposit that forms by precipitation from bodies of water with a high dissolved calcium content." I just thought they were cool looking.


I decided to turn it into black and white because there is so much contrast in the picture with the rock formations, and so this is what I got when the computer took away the color.


Then I realized there was an option to chose the filter type I wanted to use to convert it to black and white. Default was blue, but I could also try yellow, green and red too. My photo class from high school was starting to come back to me and as I tried the different filters I got this picture by using the red filter.

I think I need to do some more research on this to see what else I can do to improve my pictures. I'll make sure to get to that right after I finish Christmas decorating and shopping, plan a wedding and get all my school work done. Hmmmm, this could take a while.

Mammoth Pictures

A few weeks ago, Mike and I went to Mammoth Mountain in California with our friends Kim and Ty. Kim is my friend who I met when I first started working at Boeing and we both moved to California for work. She moved to Ridgecrest, CA (2.5 hours North of LA in the desert) and I moved to Lancaster, CA (about an hour north of LA also in the desert).

It was the first weekend of ski season, but since none of skied we just enjoyed the scenery. If we did ski we would've been disappointed because there was only one run open on the mountain. Anyway, I just wanted to share some pictures from our vacation, so here they are!

Below is a picture of June Lake. (8 miles north of the ski resort)


Kim and I at Mono Lake (15 miles north of the ski resort).


Next is a picture of the hot springs we saw.

This is convict lake. It is my favorite lake because I love the way the mountains dip down around it. I have some pictures of this from the last time Mike and I went to Mammoth when we lived in California and it looks so different because it was barely cloudy out last time.

Thanks for checking out my pictures!

Engagement Photos

Yeah, so we got engaged a while ago, but its never to late to get engagement photos done! I had hired our photographer and included in the package was an engagement photo session so we met her at Tower Grove Park and she just started snapping pictures. I felt so America's Next Top Model!This last picture we took kind of as a tribute to Mike. He is always wearing his sunglasses, yes even indoors with no lights on sometimes. Probably not the picture we'd use for the newspaper announcement, but its fun to have. He was tickling me by the way, that's why I have the double chin face going on! :)

Wa Waaaaa!

It was Oct 20th, the day of the Illini-Michigan football game. We were raring to go see an Illini win. We packed up the car and went to tailgate all...day...long. Mike and I had to stay in Decatur (there were no hotels closer to Champaign, too many Michigan fans got those). Jobu and Dimple and Mike Lemons also stayed in D-town and rode up with us. Below is a picture of Jobu, Dimple and their frind Missy.

We made it safely to the tailgate area, only losing our tarpaulins on the road. We didn't have enough room in the car for the table, so Mike tied the table to roof of the SUV and put some towels underneath it. The towels flew out from under the table right as we approached Champaign and some guy following us in a car rolled down his window to warn us we had lost our "tarpaulins". We had no clue what he was talking about until someone informed us that tarpaulin is what tarp is short for...ohhh, what you learn as you go tailgating.

Once everything was set up the party was started. We met up with Matt Kraft and his friend Beth. They had the grill and the food, we had the beer and the extras. Matt and Beth below.Mike brought along his bags game, so that was a big hit. I tried to play, but sucked, so I gave up. Yes, I quit my bags career before it even started. Mike and Matt, however were experts in the game and were in charge of telling everyone how to throw the bags and where exactly to position the ramp thingy, as shown below.


While we were there we had a lot of fun hanging out with the people who came to our tailgate as well as the outsiders who were just out to have fun and get free beer. These two guys were in the Marching Illini back in '80 or '90-who knows when. They played for beer, so we gave them a Bud Select and got to hear some good ol' fashion Illini fight song. Of course, Matt's friend Beth was the only one who actually knew the words, but the rest of us were nice and stood and clapped.Jenna and Dave made their appearance and of course brought the lovely Adelle! Isn't she cute?! She can be so serious! She was busy calling people so I didn't bother her too much with mundane things like taking her picture. :)


Of course after the food and beer were consumed and we had enough fun playing bags and laughing at the guys tailgating next to us doing keg stands, we headed in for the game! It was supposed to be such a great game...the Illini were finally getting it together and Michigan hasn't been great this year. This was going to be a game for the record books...wa waaaaa...it was not unfortunately. It was a game full of many mistakes and it almost seemed like both teams were trying to lose at times. I was pulling for the Illini, but they just couldn't do it. I think the Iowa loss got to them. Oh well, they are still doing good and now are bowl game bound (after the Ball State win this week.) Who knows, they could end up in a bowl game against a big 12 team...Kansas State anyone? Uh oh, I smell t-r-o-u-b-l-e.

Go Illini!

Frahber

Random tidbit of thought because I don't have any pictures to post because I'm out of town for work...

I was thinking about it and if Mike and I were to have a Hollywood merged-type name like they did with Bennifer and TomKat, we'd have a horrible name like Meth or Bike. So I decided to put our last names together and then you have Frahber. I like it!

I'm back!

No, I haven't fallen off the edge of the earth or anything like that. I have been very busy lately and haven't had time to update my blog. :( Yeah yeah yeah. Isn't everyone really busy. That's a bad excuse and I apologize for even thinking of using it. I will just chalk my hiatus up to being lazy.

Not much has been happening in my life lately...same old stuff. Planning a wedding, hanging out with friends and family, a little craftiness, and a whole lotta web site design learning. I have taken two classes about web design from Webster Universities online classes. They have been very fun because I'm a geek and like school and homework and such. I love being able to learn XHTML coding while still having to be aware of how pretty my site looks. I have pasted some screen shots of some websites from my Web Design class below. (my first class was just learning XHTML so those sites were too boring).

This is my website for my final project which was a website for an online candle store. I had to go and find pictures from the internet, but I liked my overall design.

I also liked this design I did. The purpose of this site was to create a logo with my name. Its a painter's pallet and paint brush. I don't actually paint, but I like art, so in that respect it was appropriate.

Well, that's it for today. But I'm back, Baby! And I plan to keep on blogging. I've made some wedding planning progress I want to write about soon too! Bye for now!

My new crafts

Here is my new craft...glass etching! It's really fun! I have been saving jars from olives and pickles and wine of course.

Here is everything that I've done so far...














Here is a close up of my first jars I did...its hard to see what they are. The shorter on is supposed to be picture of an olive branch. The taller one is supposed to look like string or something wrapped around the jar. I think it will look kind of neat if I put some rocks in it and then a votive holder with a candle inside. We'll see.

I also decided to etch some glass marbles that you can by at the fish tank section at Walmart. I had punched out some flowers out of contact paper and used that to make the design. I think I might put decorative paper on the back and make them magnets or something. I really like how these turned out and have a few ideas for Christmas decorations!

Lastly, I etched an empty wine bottle. I got this idea out of my new magazine, Adorn Magazine. I really liked the look of the big flowers. I also liked how it turned out on the green bottle. I think I need to find more colored glass to do this with!

Weekend in Decatur

This past weekend we spent Saturday up in Mike's hometown, Decatur, IL to see his nephew Jack. I hadn't seen him since this spring and he's grown so much!! He's crawling and standing up with the help of tables and already saying "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma". And he likes to Dance and shake his head a bunch. He's so cute! He did cry once, but once out of two days isn't too bad. And he only cried because he wasn't where the action is...that's why they call him Action Jackson. Here are some pictures of him:





I decided to include this little pillow thing I made for Jack in this post. Its my first felt craft. Its like a little pillow with a loop for Jack to hold on to. One side is a puppy face and the other is the letter J. I used embroidery thread to attach the felt objects together. I think I'll start using felt more!

Visitors...

This weekend, my friend Julie and her husband Andy came out to visit Mike and me in St. Charles. It was great seeing them...and great having some other KSU fans in the house so we didn't talk about the Illini for one weekend. ;) Just kidding, Mike!

Saturday we took Andy and Julie on the Bud Brewery tour in St. Louis. It was fun. Free beer...can't beat that. We saw the Clydesdale's and barley and hops and huge barrels to mix it all in. I had been once before when I first moved to St. Louis, but it was still interesting.

My next goal is to talk someone into going to Grants Farm...animals and beer...nice!









Left: Mike and I touring the grounds of the brewery.

Below: Julie and I drinking our free beer.

After our morning learning about beer...we went to the another Anheuse-Busch owned property...Busch Stadium. We watched the Cards kick the Phillies' you-know-whats on Saturday! Sure it was hot out, but we had great seats (22 rows up from the field...good job, Mike!) and once it rained a little, the weather was great!

After the Cards' victory, we all needed naps and showers. We tried (for the fourth time I think) to go to Tony's on Main Street, but it was an hour and 45 minute wait at 6pm. So we went to Spiro's on 94 and had a great dinner! Topped off the evening by going back to our house and enjoying the weather out on the deck and just relaxed.

It was a fun weekend! Thanks for coming Julie and Andy...hope to see you guys again soon!

Outtakes...

Just for fun...here are a few outtakes from Rou's photo shoot while I was trying to get the perfect shot for Mike's Father's Day card:

Sure, he's cute, but not always photogenic.

Sometimes he's just too cute for words!!! But this one looks too sad. Must be the tie.

This one is a cute picture...interesting angle, but just not quite right...I think I picked the best one for the card. The final shot is in the previous post.

Father's Day!

Hello all and Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there. I made some cards to celebrate my Dad, Mike's step-dad, Bob, and Mike's grandpa...here they are:

The tie one is for my dad because growing up, he always wore a tie to work...there was no business casual for him! The grill card is for Bob because we always seem to grill out up in Decatur. The grill embellishment is made out of shrinky-dink paper...Shrinky-Dinks are back!!! :) The fish card says "Happy Fishing Day" and the inside says "Oops, we mean Happy Father's Day...because every day is fishing day for you!" That was for Mike's Grandpa in Kentucky, because he's on his boat everyday on Kentucky Lake, fishing!

For Mike...I had to do something from our puppy! So Rouge so graciously posed for me and here is the picture I used for Mike's card... isn't he cute?!?!