Birthdays 3 and 4

So, birthday celebration #3 was a joint celebration with my mom, who has a birthday this coming Wednesday. We went to Yen Ching with Allison, Chris, and the kids and had awesome chinese food. I don't get to go there often, so it's always a treat. The kids were in rare form. I think Aidan has two volumes- loud and LOUD. Evan made a pretty epic mess on the floor, including crackers, rice, socks, shoes, etc...He seemed pretty pleased with himself. It was pretty funny. We went to Steak 'n' Shake afterwards for--you guessed it!--MILKSHAKES. I drew Brenna a princess on the back of my placemat thing. It was honestly one of my best pieces of SnS art, but alas..I didn't take a picture of it before I gave it to her. Ah well! It was fun. I always love spending time with them!


And last but not least, birthday celebration #4 was with my dad. He came up for the day and we hung around the apartment, went shopping for a new keyboard and mouse, then went to dinner. We always seem to end up at Macaroni Grill, because it's one of my favorite restaurants. I like being able to color on the table while you wait for your food. And their bread is great. Here is what my dad and I came up with for the evening:


I just had at it!


My dad's handiwork...ignore the shadow of me taking a picture!


This is what the table looked like when we were through with it..haHA!


I'll be uploading a picture of the present my dad gave me once I have it in place. He got me this gorgeous jade flower plant..it's really hard to describe, but it's beautiful. It has little white stone flowers and from a distance almost looks real. I'll be putting it on my desk at work, so I'll take a picture of it there. My dad's always been good at finding unusual pretty things for me, and this birthday was no exception.

You'll see!

thanks, Jon.

Jon sent me a link to a typographic translation of a scene from Pulp Fiction. Which then made me branch out into the related videos. Which reminded me of why I like typography so much. People who have a strong grasp of typography impress me to no end...What they do may seem simple, but it really isn't. They can convey any sort of idea through letters and punctuation, just by changing the font, spacing, weight, etc...At least the good typographers can. Here's an example that I thought was pretty awesome:



Wish it would show the rest of the song...but yeah, that just really impresses me.

Random sketch

My random sketch for the day.

Character Thing

Here's another sketchy-type thing I've been working on. These things have been popping up all over deviantART lately. They're called "meme"s...which I have no idea how to pronounce. I can think of several different ways of saying it, but they all sound kind of stupid. So I'll just call it a "Thing". That's a little more universal, I think. Anyway! This is Beau Morin, one of the characters from my skit with Laura. Nora makes an appearance as well...And Adie (Di). But only briefly.

Enjoy!

(Click to view the full-size version, otherwise you'll be really confused)






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MASSIVE UPDATE!

So wow! Almost a month since I last updated...this is going to be a pretty disjointed (and somewhat abbreviated) post. Or not. We'll see how it turns out...One thing I know, there WILL be pictures!

New Year's:

Laura and I had Jon over and we decorated sugar cookies, drank, missed the ball dropping, and watched the movie Just Friends. Laura went to bed at 3 because she had to work, and Jon and I stayed up until 5 talking. That was an extreme fluke in my normal behavior because I'm usually asleep by 2, especially with alcohol. But alas...Here are some pictures.


Everyone wanted to play with my crutch.


This is about as good a group picture of us as anybody will ever get...


Jon :(
Laura :D


Icing poop. Incredibly mature, I know...


Our confectionary masterpieces.

Birthday 1:

This year I get TWO shared birthday dinners, which is kind of fun. Jon's birthday was two days before mine, so we celebrated with a group of friends. Kona Grill and Comedy Sportz is an interesting combination, I have to say...Mostly due to the fact that Kona Grill is a pretty hip place, neat decor, with some exotic (and totally AWESOME) food. And then ComedySportz is all about beer and junk food, jeans and t-shirt, yelling out random things and laughing your ass off. So it was the best of both worlds that night. Here are some pictures of THAT...


My mandatory post-prep PRETTY picture! I like dressing up.


Laura's making her PRETTY face!


Colin NOT making a weird face at the camera!


Jon and Laura NOT making weird faces at the camera!


EVERYBODY not making weird faces at the camera!


There. SOMEONE had to do it.

Birthday 2:

My actual birthday was really pretty nice. Very low-key. Jon treated me to PF Chang's, which was awesome. I'm pretty sure that was only the second time I'd been there. And when I got home, I opened the door to UGLY CAKE!! I don't know why I wasn't expecting it, because Laura's got a habit of making Ugly Cakes for friends. It must have just completely escaped my mind...But anyway! There it was, the most epic Ugly Cake Laura's made yet. It made my day! Jon came over and we ate, drank, and were merry. The only real downer was finding out about Heath Ledger's death that afternoon...It's still hard to believe.


The Ugly Cake wasn't ugly enough, so Jon added sprinkles to the mix.


The birthday spread...Mexican casserole, salad, and Ugly Cake!


Ugly Cake on FIRE!


The birthday buddies.


Ugly Cake in all it's brightly-lit Ugly Glory.


This is what happens when you eat Ugly Cake.

My Broken Ankle Saga:

Yesterday marked 5 weeks since I broke my ankle. So as far as I know, with one more week, I may be able to ditch the boot and start walking like a normal person again. And drive! I'm so looking forward to driving myself. The past five weeks have been the most frustrating and annoying...but also the most uplifting, really.

Having to ask people to get things for me constantly, to carry things for my constantly, and to drive me places constantly got pretty old pretty fast. So did losing my balance, dropping things, and being afraid of "Caution: Wet Floor" signs.

But honestly, as frustrating as all of this was, I kept being reminded of what awesome people I'm surrounded with. I got cards and phone calls from people at the Synod office wishing me well and reminding me prayers were being sent my way.

As of now, I'm walking without crutches. It still aches sometimes, but the bruising is gone and the last time I got an X-ray, everything looked like it'd fallen back into place. Just one more week or so of dependence, then hopefully I'll be out of everyone's hair!

Some Sketches:

I have more than this, but I felt like I should at least stick SOMETHING up...so here's a tiny collection of doodles.




More to come, I promise!



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