Sweet Haven

Since I have been bogged down with midterms and research papers and cold weather I have been dreaming of the California get away that my family got to enjoy this summer. We rented a house in Santa Barbra that my entire family played at for a week. It was honestly the best, I miss it with all my heart. It was gorgeous and perfect in every way. What I wouldn't give to be back there right now.

There was a gorgeous living room that was parallel to a garden type family room that was complete bliss. It had vines that covered the walls and ceilings that came in from outside which were awesome.

This was the master bedroom that my parents got to enjoy and below are examples of what our rooms looked like, they were perfect places to relax.

This is the stunning dining room, we never got to dine in here, too many little kids endangered the antiques but this is the room in which my family's obsession with ticket to ride was born.

The kitchen and some of the bathrooms had the quaint feel from the 1930s which was when this dream house was built.

The grounds were absolutely amazing, B E A Utiful!! The pool was my favorite, a complete sanctuary!

There was a cute little cottage guest house on the grounds where everything was miniature it was adorable. It was right next to the chicken coop! This place inspired me to have chickens when i get a house of my own, they were so cute and were basically pets, we would go hold them everyday and collect fresh eggs every morning.

This is an example of the beautiful scenes that we would enjoy on our drives to our numerous excursions, such a pretty place, I want to go back so bad and escape the stress of finals!

Adventures in photo taking

So I got a sweet camera for my birthday and I have been busy experimenting with it and figuring out how it works. My first goal is to fully understand the white balance, ISO and aperture and to develop my artistic eye. So this is what I have captured so far, keep in mind these were more of experiments to help get acquainted with the settings on my new friend. To add a different dimension to my images I have assigned each photo one word to describe what I see when I look at them which might give you a little insight to my quirky personality, but that's what makes the art world awesome.

"Determination"

"Hello"

"Tentacle"

"Transition"

"Mystery"

"Old"

"Charge!"

"Intricate"

"Burn"

"Comfort"

"Polka-dot"

"Creepy"

"Dragon"

"Color"

Happy Birthday to me!

It was my BIRTHDAY on October 28!!and boy did I have the best day ever! It started off in floral design lab, i got to make myself a beautiful fall arrangement and since it was my birthday I got to be the first in line to pick out flowers! YAY! After school I came home and found this note on the door. Who doesn't like to come home to cute surprises like that! There was a nice note inside and a set of instructions to follow, instruction one was to call Nicky B., so I did.

Nicky B then came and picked me up and treated me to lunch at my favorite place
I N D I A P A L A C E! Yummy! we even made it in time for the buffet which meant as much naan as I wanted, that was their birthday gift to me.

Then we went for a little fall drive up the canyon and luckily Nick was there to point out this note on a random little turn off. We were sooo curious to figure out what it said! It said, "Kate welcome to the trail, follow it." I had no choice, I followed it. A little ways up there was a clearing with a fire pit and there was another note! Who would have thought? This one said, "follow either trail both are legit. follow the yellow." such amazing little clues! This is me "following the yellow"

We happened to come across this box that was so oddly placed in the forest, we decided to open it and see what was inside. There was a pair of socks that will be documented later, they are purely amazing and a watch box that had a note inside that said, "O no! I was stolen! follow the other trail" while I was following the other trial I couldn't help but think what kind of person stills a watch from the middle of the forest? While on the other trail I found this cake underneath the leaves I was so surprised! It had my name on it so I decided to take it.

When we got back to the car Nick asked me to get his camera out of the glove compartment, I thought how odd, nick never ever ever has his camera .... OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!!!! inside I found the watch that I had been coveting for months and months!! I could NOT believe it i waited for him to say that it was mine before I took it out I just couldn't believe it!! I was elated.

Then we went to a pretty little park to eat my DQ ice cream cake. Notice that it is green with polka dots. Green is my favorite color. I love polka dots. Perfection.

The socks. The black cats on the heels are my favorite part. I wore them the rest of the day.

My awesome roommate and best friend gave me the gift of a spotless kitchen, lime bar cupcakes and a box of recipes that I had been eying when we went shopping the day before. What a sneaky and sweet person. I loved all of it.

Next up the cornbelly's corn maze and festivities at Thanksgiving point with the ladies of S club 8. We explored the belly of a monster which nobody could identify, then we made our way through Larry H. Millers face. We survived both ... barely. Then we bounced on "the bouncy things" I loved this part, I was as happy as a child on their birthday ... wait ....

When we got home from our wild Thanksgiving point adventures I had a surprise visitor who brought designer treats!! How did she know I love cupcakes? most likely becuase she is my sister and "that's how we roll, connected at the soul!"

The party doesn't stop there. On Sunday I had my combined birthday dinner, my daddy's birthday is 2 days after mine so we party together. We had a delicious turkey dinner, once again my faVoRitE! and the best Halloween cake bakers ever created. Then my sweet family teamed up and got me this SWEEEET camera that I have been wanting ever since bethy let me borrow hers back in California this spring. So hopefully my posts will appear more professional now! My sister also got me a gift certificate to my favorite store ever, forever XXI. I am so stoked I could live in that store.

thank you, Thank You, THANK you, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone that made my birthday so amazingly awesome! I LOVE all of you so so SO much!

Our world is great to

So I went up to Heber recently and happened to be driving at the most perfect time of day when the sunlight was casting its illuminous (yes, I often do make up words like this in order to express my thoughts and feelings) golden rays onto everything in our beautiful little world. I couldn't help myself, I pulled over on the side of the busiest road, as I too often do and took some pictures with my best bud, my iphone. Keep in mind these photos in no way, shape or form give this scene of serenity and beauty any justice. It was the absolute perfect blending of nature elements and colors, blue skies, white clouds, purple mountains, bright yellow fall trees, green lucious grass, golden wheat and the majestic beauty and power of horses, whew wee! gives me the chills just thinking about its perfection. If I was a Die Blaue Riter artist, this is what I would paint (yay for art history nerds!) I thought I would blog about this because its little, everyday, spontaneous pleasures like this that make my life blissful and splendid in addition to the the true joys that I am blessed with and enjoy.

This was the view while driving home. I think its almost equally as aesthetically deep and powerful as well as neato as the first. Or .... I have been studying modern art for too long and have come to view the world as a constant series of paintings that all have deeper and more complex interpretations.

People are great

So now a days I volunteer at the Springville Museum of Art and I get to work with some great people. This week I was helping the museum accept works for their new upcoming exhibit (Its going to be great you should all go see it when it gets put up, its all religious and sacred art, very impressive) so I was working with a lot of other great volunteers, most of them cute grandma types. One of these amazing grandma types comes in and announces that she was a wonderful treat for all of us that were working so hard, her treat was bacon and eggs pictured above. Maybe its just me but I found this hilarious, is this not the most random treat to make for a bunch of people. I'm used to the ordinary cookies, brownies maybe even a cinnamon roll or halloween store bought candy. But no this is amazing treat finds its quality in its sheer uniqueness. I just wanted to pay tribute to this lady who I don't know at all because she is outstanding in her creativity and generosity. Plus she absolutely made my day, the pictures does not give this treat justice.

DoMo

Tell me honestly, can you look at these pictures and not giggle a little bit? or at least smile? Either the complete randomness of them or the funny looking little fuzzy brown monster are bound to get to you. I live across the street from a 7 11 and am slightly addicted to diet soda, thus I am a regular. I just wanted to give props to the 7 11 advertising people for making me extremely happy every time I go to their store and see Domo, my new best friend.

Domo!! what did you do?!

"oh just hanging out with my hot dog, nbd, no big deal."

Post, the lost - by Kate Johns

I made a new post
I don't want to boast
But its not at the top
I just couldn't stop
It was saved as a draft
you just would have laughed
I don't know how this works
but this new post now lurks
so scroll down past Italy
to find the bomb diggity