I seriously want a gingerbread icon - but so far I haven't been able to make one I like or find one premade despite some of the amazing holiday icons out there. Anyway - please to be checking out how incredibly talented and artistic and crazy my friends can be with gingerbread.

( Loads of really cool pictures of Gingerbread - TRUST ME - you want to see them. )

Most were taken either on the way to Madison or on State Street for our "date day." The last two are at my sister-in-law's house while we were hanging out there before going to a family event. (One of the cutest babies in the world's first birthday party - I would post pictures of her, but 1) the internet would explode from cuteness and 2) I don't like posting pictures of other people's kids.)

	You Are Here Being here is a lot like ... um ... being in DeForrest, actually.
	Cow. America's Dairyland.
	Who Wouldn't Drink Here? I'm sure the townsfolk were wondering why we parked, jumped out, took four or five pictures, then drove off. We were trying to visit the Westfield Candy Shop so Monkeys could get some disgusting candied raisons for himself and his sister, but the candy shop was closed. The Thirsty Beaver was open!
	Lunch at the top of the world State street had many tempting options. Two were Nepali! Monkeys had some sort of onion fritter soup dish with a salad and flat bread. I had a dal soup, a vegetable stew with cauliflower/carrots/peas/potatoes, and their version of flat bread. Oh, and their version of chai plus we each got a desert so we split rice pudding and some odd date thing that vaguely tasted like fruit cake. It was really good! State street shopping had a lot of incense shops and hippyesque stores, including loads of bumper stickers that said Free Tibet. After leaving lunch Monkeys commented "Free Tibet? That meal cost $35!"
	Monkeys on State Street! You can see the capital in the background. We had hoped to go on a tour of the capital, but we spent so much time at the gardens we had to cut that visit out. So next time, it's on!
	Seriously, Watch Out My brother-in-law has his own arsenal. He used to be a hunter, but now he only shoots photographs. He is still a big fan of firearms, however. I attempted the civilian version of the M16. That lake never knew what hit it. Yes, that's a Beatles shirt. I should have called this Happiness is a Warm Gun.
	Cookies! Monkeys' sister baked for our trip! Pecan Shortbread, Double Double Chocolate, Cherry!Awesome, and something like Haystacks but with chocolate and marshmallows. YUM!

	If Tim Burton Designed Plants They would look like this.
	I'm on a bridge, Charlie! Going on an adventure!! This is the path to the Thai garden. :)
	Ouch! I would say that he's monkeying around... One of the statues near the Thai gardens.
	Thai Pavilion Ommmmmmmmmmmm - Can you see me sitting in lotus position?
	Reflecting pool at the Thai Garden This building was donated by the Thai alumni of the University of Wisconsin. It's covered in gold, so there were signs everywhere saying "DO NOT TOUCH" but we still got to run around inside.
	Monkeys Squared My attempt at an artsy shot.
	Black Eyed Susans, of a sort I couldn't find a name tag for this flower. How incredibly cool looking is it?!??
	Love in Bloom We took over 200 pictures at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison. That place was awesome! It seemed to stretch for miles with many themed gardens. Inside they had a tropical conservatory and for October they had a quilt exhibit. I would have loved a picture of both of us where you could also see flowers, but my arms were not long enough.
	My pretties! Okay, I have a little regret about salting the earth in front of our house at this moment. But our yard would never look like this, so I'm sure we made the right decision.
	The Rose Garden There weren't really a lot of roses, but it was still really lovely.
	In an English Garden I thought this was the Rose Garden, but there weren't a lot of roses around. Still, it looked very British and had some amazing collections of flowers.
	I'm Old Gregg! Weeping willows are pretty much my favoritest tree ever.
	Where are the elephants? Wow, the Great A'Tuin turned out to be really tiny! (While walking to the waterfalls I found a little turtle! Oh -that's Monkeys' hand, not mine.)
	They Didn't Say Keep Of the Grass At the sunken garden. :)
	Don't be Koi! Inside the tropical conservatory. It felt like Florida in there - I was way hot in my sweaters!

	It seems like Toaster may have stopped at the same rest stop! I love the fact they commented "Big hats rule" :)
	Why we can't have pretty things. I would do this in my own kitchen, too. Even the Dragoncon hotel doesn't have this much stuff. We had a sink, minifrig, microwave...
	Biggest hotel room ever. Well, biggest one we've ever stayed in, at least. We went a little nuts.
	Where's Monkeys? I would try to think of something funny to say, but I'm watching Supernatural right now and Ghandi is choking Sam - it's hysterical.
	The Lounge Area Is that how you spell lounge?
	Too bad we didn't order one of these for our bathroom Not that it would have fit in our bathroom, of course. This tub was HUGE!!
	No Snow Always check your wardrobes for fawns and Turkish Delight.
	Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! Tis the season for Pumpkin Shakes!!!
	Mmmmm Cheesetastic! Yeah, can you batter and deep fry that cheese curd for me? I think cheese is still a bit too healthy otherwise.

For several years now we have had problems with our front yard by the porch - between evil popcorn trees and wild growing things, it never looked nice for long. After several years we chopped down the popcorn trees, but the stumps didn't want to leave. We tried various tricks for stump killing, but the trees kept coming back. Plus, while I like *looking* at nature, I'm not great at yard upkeep. So in addition to stupid baby popcorn trees we would get overgrown weeds over and over. I still had dreams of a flower garden or salsa garden, but after several years of it not happening, I gave up. So we salted the earth and covered it with flagstone. Tada!

Our plan became flagstones with river rock and container garden. Woot! We are partway done. We got the mesh stuff down to stop weeds from sprouting up. I also really did salt the earth. I thought it would be better for the environment than manmade weedkiller. We put down flagstone - but will probably still be rearranging for tighter fit over the course of the next few weeks to make sure we are happy before we finish out the project. :)

	Parents with Trucks are AWESOME My parents are so awesome! Not only did they let us borrow their truck, they drove the flagstone up and helped us unload it.
	Look At Them Working - I'm Taking Pictures Mom and Monkeys working on placing rocks.
	Working on filling in between the pots It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with no instructions and no guarantee you had the right pieces.
	Mom Working She swears she was not wearing this tshirt as protest or irony.
	Smile for the Union Newsletter! Poor thing was squinting more than smiling, but it's a good picture nonetheless. Plus, you can see my shadow in it, so I'm in there with her!
	Working Hard! Someone should organize these workers!
	1/3rd Done? Well, rock laying. We still have to add the gravely bits and plant the plants and fix up the water feature.
	Monkeys WATERING the water feature. Although it looks like something else...
	Close-up on the rocks Monkeys is filling the water feature (which turned out to be a bit of a let-down).
	Starburst! This was supposed to be a water feature, but it didn't really do much. But the starburst pattern is pretty!

Every year I vow to write up about Dragoncon, but the convention is just sooooooo big and soooooo much happens that I never know where to begin. So I thought I'd start with something easy like posting a few dead red shirt pictures. :)

We are home safe and sound, and I am already missing the convention!

We LOVED getting to see everyone and wish we could have spent more time together. (Especially zarathud, because I don't think I got to say more than "hello" to you at the pirate party.) ann_mcn so sorry I missed seeing you this trip - can't wait to hear your thoughts on the convention.


So without further ado... [Unknown LJ tag]

	What's that on that paintbrush? Okay, I was overreacting - turns out Alice wasn't really much of a threat. She had a rose and a paint brush dipped in red paint - not blood. But with my red shirt luck, you can't take chances! I probably would have survived this one if I'd had the phaser pointing the right way!
	I will probably be needed some of this later on in the day! PLEASE may I have some?!??!? Seriously! I need to keep some spare!
	There's no dying in baseball! Red shirt sporting events never end well... These ladies were so excited about getting to kill me. One of them actually blurted out "I have a bat!"
	Three against one! I can't even succeed when it's ONE against one! Ummmm - I don't remember which anime they are from, but they were really excited about getting to kill me, which is always fun. They even asked for their own picture and other people stopped to take pictures. (That part I don't like cuz my acting/posing is terrible, but I did get laughs with the wrong way phaser...)
	But what if there's splinters? When asked if he would kill me, Marc Gunn asked if he could shove the autoharp down my throat. :)
	Wait, I thought it was supposed to be The Red Queen *is* dangerous, I was right to fear her. But isn't it supposed to be off with my HEAD?!?!
	What if he's got a pointed stick? The smiley face was deceiving! He jumped at the chance to spear me! (And asked for his own picture, too.) No body every taught me what to do if they had a pointed stick!!! If only he'd come at me with a banana or a piece of fresh fruit.

Oh - I have a few more red shirt death shots, and one of them is Jack Harkness killing me with a banana, so that last picture is a lie. I don't know how to defend myself against fresh fruit.

EDIT:

I guess I *should* have learned how to defend myself against fresh fruit. A banana? What? I was expecting a pointed stick! I don't know what to do about this... Awww, who am I kidding. When do I *ever* defend myself.

I'm not claiming that *I* am pretty in pink, mind you. I'm referring to how pretty the shalwar kameez are. :)

	My attempt at a Bollywood Pose... Words cannot describe how much I love this shalwar kameez. I love everything about it - which is strange because I don't normally wear light pink and usually I hate lace. But this is sooooooooooooo comfortable!!
	Pretty In Pink Actually, I don't think I look all that pretty in this picture, but I had to wrestle Raven to get him to pose with me so it was kind of a stealth shot. How gorgeous is this pink lace?!?!
	Raven Approved! This is my favorite!! How gorgeous is this?!?! OMG!! Seriously, I wish you could see this in person. It's so intricate (sp) and it's some colorful lacey stuff. I'm not even trying to describe it intelligently.
	Mom and me! I call this my DDR shalwar kameez because the design on the top looks a bit like the arrows from DDR. Dad called it clouds.
	I took the yellow one back! You can't tell from the picture, but the yellow one has a lovely cutout lacey bit at the bottom and the top. So delicate! Mom's taking the coral one home to wear to church next trip home. :)

OH - when my parents came up to watch IT Crowd with me the other day, and I was showing them the clothes it just so happened that iTunes played a bollywood song!! I commented to Monkeys on how clever he was to play it, and he sheepishly said "it's not me, it just happened." How funny is that? Also, in the pictures with my mother and I - she was soooooo excited to try them on. In fact, she made a beeline for the yellow one. It was so cute. When I started to show her some I was originally only going to model two (the pink & the purple). When I finished my two, I asked if she wanted to try one on. Before I finished the question she was running to the bedroom and reaching for the yellow one. Ha!

From National Geographic POD

If you don't go to the link, here's their story: "My husband and I were exploring Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park-Canada when we stopped for a timed picture of the two of us. We had our camera set up on some rocks and were getting ready to take the picture when this curious little ground squirrel appeared, became intriqued with the sound of the focusing camera and popped right into our shot! A once in a lifetime moment! We were laughing about this little guy for days!!"

	The Man of the Hour Reddheaded brought over her graduation robes and Toaster brought her own, so we had a mini graduation ceremony. Everyone in the house hummed Pomp & Circumstance while poor Raven was forced to march through the living room. When we were helping him get ready he said something about not knowing what to do - I got to say "I do this for a living" in a serious voice before I started giggling. It was a lot of fun for me because I really do do this for a living. :)
	I didn't expect a ruddy Spanish Inquisition So I'm trying to get various angles of the cake in order for people to truly appreciate it's brilliance, but after a while It just seems like "And this is the cake coming around the side of the kitchen, hiding behind a tree..."
	Take it from the top! The lighting is funny on this one, but this is a top down view of the cake.
	Side view of the Cake Look what a great job he did shaping the leg muscles!! The fingers and toes impressed me, too. The body itself is made from marzipan with yellow sugar crystals for the hair. The towel is homemade whipped cream (not Cool Huip). Monkeys also made hte table top from melted and reshaped chocolate chip cookies. The cake itself is Black Forest - done as three layers with whipped cream between them It was fantastic.

We also made a coupon, which I may post. I have a few pictures of Toaster presenting Raven with a diploma WHICH HE LEFT AT MY HOUSE so no matter what he may tell you, he's not really graduated and legit until he picks it up...

More pictures from my NY trip - horses, giant tree trunks, octogenarians I want to be like when I grow up, my uncle's museum, ice cream, ice cream, fish and chips and ice cream, somewhat successful force perspective, and stores you really shouldn't visit ever.

( More New York Pictures behind the cut )

Meanwhile I'm trying to decide if I like the new Ms Marple. Haven't decided yet. She looks a bit too much like Florence Henderson to me, and while that shouldn't affect my judgement I keep picturing the Brady Bunch and it's taking me out of the story. Watching this, I want toast and I want tea. I want tea and toast.

Just about to leave the cafe, so no time to write a real post. It took forever to get the pictures loaded. :) THIS PLACE HAS THE BEST COFFEE!!

	Blue Ridge Mountains Can't see them too well, but that's the Blue Ridge Mountains in the background when we stopped off in VA for the night.
	Apples My uncle has a Macintosh apple tree in his backyard. Unfortunately they were not yet ready for eating.
	Me and Gram Stopped off at Pulaski for cheese curd and ice cream.
	Canada! W/o a passport this is as close as I can get now. I'm actually pointing at the building, not the ship. I was telling Monkeys to make sure to get it in the picture and didn't realize he was already pressing the button.
	Ship's a moving This is the same ship from earlier - it's made it all the way to the other side of the marina.
	Croak Croak Mom said it looked like he had pecans on his skin.
	Flower Power Monkeys giving me a wildflower.
	Monkeys gave me a flower! Monkeys picked a wildflower from the park and gave it to me. :)
	Busy Corner Cafe - again My favorite place in the 'Burg.
	Busy Corner Cafe If you are EVER in Ogdensburg, stop here!!! And get the caramel turtle coffee.YUM! Monkeys let me use his big laptop and took the small one so that we could take advantage of their free wifi to check email.
	GIANT marigolds Have you seen marigolds this big before?
	Ogdensburg banner Tried to get a picture of me near the sign. Gram's building is in the background on the left.
	Joining the Border Control I will be guarding the FL/AL border when I accept my new position...
	A is for Anarchy For some reason I really liked this bit of graffiti.

As promised, pictures of the shelves my husband built. He repositioned the aliens in the gumball machine so that they are looking down! How cute is he?!?!?

I have a few more pictures that I wanted to wait and get permission to post before sticking them up on the interwebs, including a great one of a tower of wake glasses... I was vastly disappointed to discover I did not take as many pictures as I normally do, but I was a bit giggly and not aware of what I was doing. It was an awesome night, even though we were missing several of our normal crew.

Here's what I posted previously about the night:
Tuesday was St. Patrick’s day! Erin go Bragh! RCIA was cancelled due to Mission week at the church. Instead we were told to go to our first confession and to attend any day of the Mission services. So in a rare case of good timing, it meant Toaster and I were available for our traditional McGuires dinner with Redd!headed and friends! We bundled up in our green and met up around 6pm. McGuires has this down to a science at this point, so despite the HUGE crowds, we got in fairly rapidly and the food was downright quick to arrive. I have pictures! I will be posting them! I will take bribes to remove them! Waiting to get in is part of the fun because many people are in totally outrageous outfits (dying their beards green, leprechauns sitting on people’s shoulders, giant hats, glitter, etc.), and everyone is cheerful so there’s a feeling of happiness and excitement that you can actually breathe in. Wakes were consumed. Giggling was giggled. Usual stuff. Of course, some of us headed over to the Krispy Kreme afterwards for more giggling and photographs. Tradition is tradition, afterall! I think we still ended up home around 10:30, so we did pretty good timewise even if we totally blew it scalewise the next morning.

	Burry, but then again - so were we! I wish this picture weren't blurry because it's one of my favorites. I look like I'm about to bite Redd, Redd has a crazy smile on her face, and LLL dived in unexpectedly at the last minute which is probably why I'm laughing so much. Best of all, Raven is actually SMILING.
	Someone Forgot To Wear Green... Look how handsome my husband is in this picture! Woot!
	Would you like even more sugar with that, sir?? I love that my friends will cater to my crazy demands, like "put on this hat and offer Monkeys some coffee."
	No X 's On Us!! Someone forgot their license and not only did they not give her a little green band signifying they were over 21, they also drew giant X's on the backs of her hands. Not down with that fashion, she figured out a way to remove the X's saying permanent markers couldn't get the best of her. We celebrated with a photo op.
	Irish!! I *love* this picture because our hair actually looks the same color. Normally Redd's hair is a lot redder than mine! When I showed it to her she pointed out the wake glass in front of us, saying it was very appropriate.
	Who's that with Toast? Mystery man... we know his name is Jeff. Hmmmmmmmmmmm

	Monkeys Bites the Apple We watched a BBC show where some guy interviews people while they cook family recipes. The episode we watched was John Barrowman who explained that when he poses for pictures he pretends to bite an apple, which is why all his pictures turn out so great. Ever since then, we've been "biting apples" when posing!
	Monkeying Around Ummmm... I really don't know what to say. They hadn't been drinking. This is just what they do.

Raven returned home from Canada two days before his birthday, so we had a welcome home/birthday party for him this Saturday. He said he was overexposed to Bollywood after two weeks visiting home. (Apparently his sister is a big fan? She rocks, cuz she picked out a bunch of movies for me!!!) To welcome him back from the freezing cold and in defiance of his overexposure, we decided to throw a Bollywood can Kiss My A$$ party in his honor. Friday disbandedtoastr helped us hang loads of Hollywood decorations (movie cameras, lights, film reels). To give it the Bollywood feel, reddheaded found a websites with decoration suggestions. Then, as luck would have it, my mother and I happened upon an Indian themed party set up at Target the day of the party. The living room and dining room were swathed in reds, oranges, yellows, and deep purples and loaded up with candles. It looked really pretty. I knew I wouldn’t be able to cook Indian/Pakistani food as good as his mom, plus he was tired of it anyway, so we didn’t do any special food for the party. Monkeys did make two killer cakes, however. One was a white cake with a Nutella frosting. The other was the ladyfinger/coffee/whipped cream portion of a tiramisu, because we thought that was Raven’s favorite part of the desert. Oh, and he made maple leaf cookies for Canada. We had planned to do a piñata he could bash that was filled with Bollywood and Canadian things to signify his return and symbolize the asskissing nature of the party, but I couldn’t find an appropriate piñata, so in reality it was just a Bollywood party. Tickmosis, Toaster, and I wore our Salwar Kamishes that Raven’s parents brought us from their last trip to the subcontinent. Redd wore a homemade Sari that looked FANTASTIC. Pictures posted below. After the opening of presents, we watched three episodes of Big Bang Theory, then we watched THIS:



Also, Raven brought me back a BUNCH of other Bollywood films, including some horror movies. He’s even willing to watch a few of them with us. Woot! Although, there are a few I’m under orders to watch without him.

( a few pictures )

*this* was our Christmas dinner desert.

My coworker took pictures of me next to my prize winning door - woot! I'm holding the stocking and medal in my hands in victory.

Check it out! Behind the cut are Gingerbread Party pictures! Eve, Wall-E, apple computers, Joker & Batman, Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who, Living Dead Girl, Marie Antoinette, 3D Carousel, PacMan, Sesame Street, Tasha Yar, Towely, Watchmen, multiple cookies. Best of all, the cookies tasted fantastic!! There were lots more, but this is already a lot of pictures.

( Lots of amazing pictures. )

I also have a funny story about tormenting Raven with a Maple Leaf cookie. Giggle!

My door so far! I'm actually rather proud of it. I want to make some record "ornaments" to hang at the bottom of the door so fill it out a bit. :)

I'm kind of tired tonight, but I did want to post a few pictures. Raven has a bunch of them up over on his journal. :)

( Halloween pictures )

Part of our halloween contest was a cupcake decorating contest. We only had about five or six contenders and I do hope to post pictures of other cupcakes because there were some brilliant ones.

I am not all that artistic, so mine were more "abstract," but I was proud of this one. It's hard to read, but it says "BOO LOL" When My husband saw it this morning he grabbed it and said "I can haz cupcake?" I made him pause so that I could take a picture. I love him. :)