The highlight of the summer

Hoo boy.. It's been so long. I've been out of town and out of motivation this past month. But lots of exciting things have happened recently. The first to mention was my birthday celebration. My birthday was July 21st. It was probably the best birthday I've ever had.

So, I knew that Ross was taking me somewhere. I had no idea where or what we might do. So we took off heading East in our civic. As we approached Kansas City, Ross told me to pull out the camera; "Lauren-- you're gonna miss the city scape, take some pictures!" I assumed that that was our final destination. You know what happens when you assume. So we kept on driving. At about an hour west of Columbia, MO, I weaseled our destination out of Ross: we were going to St. Louis! Woo hoo! I was so excited. Best part of the trip there was that Ross had to pee soo bad that he almost went in a bottle. I've never seen it done- don't ever want to! Luckily a rest stop came up.

I won't give a play-by-play of the rest of the weekend; suffice it to say I was NOT disappointed. We stayed in a 4 star hotel, a block away from the Arch. I guess Ross got a great deal there. Oh, and if you're ever in the area, know that EVERYTHING in St. Louis is free! We hit the Science Museum, Art Museum, and Zoo all at no cost whatsoever! We did go to a Sea Lion show at the Zoo that was a couple dollars, but it was worth it.

We also went to a glass blowing factory where they were having demonstrations- that was fascinating. There was a party going on there though, and I felt a little bit nervous about the combination of alcohol and hot skewers.

But the BEST part was Saturday night. We went to an amazing Italian restaurant and then went down to the arch and saw Pete Yorn live!! I love Pete Yorn. He's one of the few of my favorite musicians I had not seen live, and he put on such an awesome show. And after the show there was a HUGE firework display! All for my birthday! I guess they do that every weekend during the summer in St. Louis, and it happened to be that Pete Yorn played on MY birthday. How lucky. Ross outdid himself. I don't know how he's gonna live up to this next year- but I think I'll remember this birthday forever.

This is the view from our hotel room

Chilling at the sea lion show- Ross has food in his mouth.

Outside of the St. Louis zoo

Pete freakin' Yorn!

Ross as lawn sculpture

Hanging out in the water fountain downtown

The St. Louis arch- did you hear on the news that some people got trapped in the arch? That was the night we were there! But we didn't go up in it.

The simpsonizer

This is another cool thing I learned from photojojo. So this is my brother Will as a simpson character. I have yet to do myself and Ross. I didn't have enough time. But isn't it cool!? You can do it here

Topeka wedding

A couple of weeks ago, my dad and I went to Topeka for a wedding. It was such a beautiful wedding!! EVERYTHING was outdoors. Which I LOVE. So much easier to get good pictures outdoors than indoors. And not only was the wedding itself beautiful, the couple was so sweet too! They both couldn't stop crying! The close up of them together was of them trying to laugh through their tears. It was a really fun day. Here's just a few pictures I took, of miscellaneous things. The barn is where they held both the ceremony and the reception. I think it's called the brickyard barn. Or something like that. It was a really cool place.

Sweet awesome stop-motion video

So if you're a fan of photojojo you've already seen this. But I happen to be a fan of Modest Mouse and of Photojojo, so this made me quite pleased. I like this song a lot, and this hand-made video is so cool!



Here's where it originally came from, and here's where I found it.

I can't help it-- one more post today

This is my adorable little brother Will. This is what he does. Video games. He's 13. And super cool. But he doesn't just play video games- he's also a rising tennis star, as well as a talented writer. I love him. I must have caught him a little off guard with the first one.

LIFE

After my post a while ago about not living my own life very well, I remembered that Ross and I had done this recently. And it was a lot of fun- and I would argue that we were indeed living it up! I already posted these on facebook, but I thought I'd put them here too. As I explained on facebook, the quality's not great- It was quite dark, and so I used a super high ISO. Oh yeah- and I used one of them as a banner for my blog! We're so awesome! Haha.

BFF

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me if I could take some pictures of her daughter and and her daughter's best friend. One of the girls was moving (in fact, we're moving into their old place) and this would be their last HOOrah together. I think some of them are fun. It was really hard to get both of them to look at me at the same time! But it was really fun to do!