had to go digging for this photo for a project i’m doing at work. road trip stuff. wall drug is the most road trippiest place one could go, and here i am, riding a jackalope with my brother. totally awesome.

since i was doing a little bit of frantic photo-digging this morning, i decided to scan in a few others, as well. this is all making me want to finally put together my diary of travel and adventures. i imagine i need to create a sort of index first, with dates and locations, then dig up all of the extraneous, fun details from there.

i love a good adventure, people.

my grandma p.i. and me in the badlands of south dakota. so pretty there and i have been craving a trip back there recently.

i remember my grandpa telling me about how, when he was a boy, they went spelunking in the area and very nearly fell down a cavern. was that for real or was he pulling a fast one? who knows.

me with grandma “d” in oklahoma somewhere. she bought me fiona apple’s “tidal” cd on this road trip, which is really when i fell in love with her music. based on suggestion from kelsey. i wore my hair in braided pigtails pretty much constantly. i was so damn cool.

also seems i was a bit emo. (still am) i hadn’t quite gotten over nine inch nails yet. do you like my jacket? i wore that everywhere, too.

i went to southern oklahoma with my parents and grandparents when my brother was graduating from basic training. we went to texas for a day trip and ate bbq and stopped at a mall. i bought two left sandals at a dig-through-the-bin-of-shoes sale. i did not realize this ’til we were back in our oklahoma hotel that evening. true story. sad story.

also, i remember grandma p.i. kept picking wildflowers and i had just learned that this was Not Allowed. i think.

also happened across this photo, which is part road trip/part hiking trip. jen took this photo. we took this class through umn for may term to go hiking in the black hills of south dakota. in this photo, the dudes who were actually in shape had gone off to eat or something and i really, really wanted to lay down. i would do this sort of trip again, but i might take less junk in my pack and i might allow for more time. why was everyone in such a hurry? i just wanted to have fun, really.

it was neat to climb to the top of harney peak, though — the long way up. i will be forever grateful to the one awesome wrestler dude who carried my pack part of the way and cheered me on up to the tower.

what a terrible idea. i was so out of shape. okay, i still am.

my mom was thawing a ham for the family meal on christmas day. it was my brother’s ham, so it was like he was there with us. right?

but for christmas eve dinner, mom made two giant vats of soup – chicken noodle and split pea. yum!

hannie likes bread best.

as we finished eating dinner, dad got a phone call from a friend. “looks like someone hit the front side of your van…” he said. dad looked outside, and though there was no damage to the van, there was a very large package next to it. bryan and i ran outside to bring it in…

a 55″ lcd hdtv! dad was stunned and hannie was very excited.

bryan, dad and i went to wal-mart to get a new entertainment center for the tv, while karyn, mom and hannie frosted and sprinkled cookies.

hannie had an icing mustache, which was pretty funny, but she wouldn’t let me take a photo of it.

so, that was a pretty exciting night.

we also had a turducken for christmas day lunch. this was very exciting for everyone involved, i assure you.

hannie got really excited about opening presents, so she got to open her stocking right away. i also let her open a small present i got for her.

so many presents for hannie!

but there were a few presents for the rest of us, too. fun!

jason gave me a wii for christmas and now i have a new game to play on it – epic mickey! i started the other night. it’s kinda dark, but will be fun once i get into it, i think.

karyn got her very own masher! wahoo!

“hannie, are you silly?” “yeah!”

mom and dad got a new camera for their trip to taiwan next month! take lots and lots of photos, okay, guys?!

karyn disguised my last gift (which hannie helped me open) by wrapping it with a few random other things inside at least 5 different bags and boxes – it was a new ipod nano!

we went to uncle tom’s & aunt kim’s for our first christmas day meal. grampa bob brought some “mystery wine” he made at home. it was pretty tasty!

but kim opted for poinsettia cocktails instead.

newest christmas tradition: cousin micheal’s robotic santa.

tur! duck! hen!

then it was time for the always hilarious dice game.

shih tzu party central.

cousin jenny and jeremy got married this year. they still seem to like each other, so that’s good, ‘eh?

cousin jon got a pregnancy test. let’s hope it negative!

hannie got a whoopee cushion. i have a video, which i’ll upload to youtube… someday…

all tuckered out! i guess that was a pretty exhausting gift exchange for the puppies.

oh, wait! one more gift for jeremy from cousin micheal!

… it’s an… alligator?

and for another oddity, steve made a christmas poo. but it was delish!

for dinner, we joined aunt deb, gramma d, and cousin brock just down the road.

gramma d got just a few more owls for christmas.

good thing hannie was around to help gramma open all of her presents!

we went home around 9pm. sioux falls was a-glow as we left it.

we had to get on the road back to minneapolis by noon, but i was glad that kelsey and aurora could come over before we started packing up.

can you imagine what life would be like to be that adorable? those eyes! she’s such a sweet little babe.

hannie was a little unsure about not being the center of attention, but she hung around anyway.

thanks for the visit, ladies!

when we got back to minneapolis, jason picked me up and whisked me away to st. paul for that night’s wild game. i won the tickets through email bingo at work! so even though the wild lost (unfortunately), we still had a pretty good time.

the final score was 1-4.

when i finally got home after the game, santa had brought jason another, special gift to give to me. santa sure is a sweet, generous guy!

i’m feeling very blessed this holiday season – lots of great family, a wonderful boyfriend, and really super friends. i’m currently in indianola, iowa, with jason’s family – waiting for 2011 at midnight and a few more christmas festivities tomorrow. i hope you’re having an equally fantastic holiday season, too.

happy new year!

my cousin jenny is now married to her dude, jeremy. it was a super reception.

jenny and jeremy got married in hawaii on one of the best beaches in the world (i know, i’ve been there) then came home and partied with their family and friends.

my aunt kim and uncle tom were glowy-happy parents. (but then, who isn’t happy at weddings?)

for a while i got artsy because i was too antsy to sit still.

i want this lens so bad. (canon ef 50mm f/1.8) bryan let me borrow his for the evening.

i only got to visit the chocolate fountain once. i missed out big time!

aunt kim’s sister, kristi, used to monitor my lunch room back in elementary school. she’s pretty hip.

cousin jon is a macarena badass.

this is the prettiest i have ever written “congratulations” i think.

and now for something completely different:

p.s. i am so behind it’s not even funny. hopefully a flickr tip that raymi shared will help me catch up a bit!

…

It feels wrong adding my regular update after that note, but it also feels wrong overshadowing it with a separate longer post. What is a girl to do? Onward, I suppose…

I’ve been exceptionally busy at work this week, hence I haven’t uploaded photos from Sunday until just an hour ago. I went to see the Minnesota Rollergirls with Jen, Kristi and Jared. We were rooting for the Dagger Dolls and the Garda Belts all night. I don’t remember the final scores, but our teams won!

After that we went to visit Jon at the Radisson. He made us some chocolate cake.

Then we went to Stub & Herb’s for last call and video bowling.

Right now I’m pretty exhausted. I don’t have any plans until Saturday. Karyn and Bryan bought me a class at the Kitchen Window for the morning and in the afternoon, my aunt, Laurie, is having a holiday party. Until then I’m lying low and taking it easy.

I’m really looking forward to Christmas break. And New Year’s Eve (I think the Bell Museum is having local musicians play original scores for silent films — they did this last year, too). And getting to kitty-sit Harley and Dot during January. That will be nice a time.

* Broken link removed 2011-11-22.