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Oh... hi!

9/4/2014

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Well... it's been over a year since I posted last - I'm the worst.  Needless to say, things got a little crazy and out of control.  A LOT happened...

So, maybe I'll just try and sum it up with some quick bullet points and snapshots...
  • I discovered a new love for West Coast Swing - JP, Katie, and I went up to Vermont last September on a whim for the social dance at the 2013 Vermont Swing Championships.  We were completely wow'd, a little over whelmed, but overall had an AMAZING time.
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  • I continued horseback riding for the Fall semester - even broke out Mom's old saddle! :)  (The Spring got a little too crazy though, so I took a break until after the semester ended...)
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  • Krista came to visit in October and we had a girls weekend while the boys went off for James' bachelor party.  We took Lucas apple and pumpkin picking!
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  • Ballroom had a full-fledged Halloween costume party! 
  • I presented a poster at the AVS conference in Long Beach, California in October.  I ended up being able to fly out there a few days early and spend some time with Aunt Carol and Uncle John - it was great to visit them and to have them come out to the conference with me! :)
  • The family at Thanksgiving!
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  • Also in November, we had a Bachelorette party for Adrienne - we had a great time playing Bachelorette Bingo!
  • Here are some quick pictures of JP and Lucas playing some video games together - because cute.
  • And then, of course, James and Adrienne's wedding! :)
  • Christmas was great - Dad got me a couple of snowball guns that we couldn't wait to try out!  And I made beard hats for the boys! :)
  • For New Year's, I drove to Cleveland to visit Krista!!!!  We got SO much snow while I was there!  But we had a great time - we went to the botanical gardens, the art museum, a little shopping, some snowy walks, and a lot of time snuggling up with knitting and some Downton Abbey.
  • Matt and I hadn't really been able to dance together much this year - we competed at Tufts in December and that was pretty much it, unfortunately.  (And lets not even talk about the fact that I danced even though I had pink eye, a fever, and just generally felt pretty miserable... hence the decision to only do Smooth...)  But I DID go to Columbia's competition with the rest of the team and TBA'd with Steve - we had a blast!  And did really well in Rhythm! :)  (And thank you to Eric for the great photos!!)
  • But Matt and I FINALLY were able to dance at the RPI competition!  JP and I danced a 3-person Cha Cha with Rozalyn - toooooooo cute.  And I was able to wear a bunch of new dresses!  I'm completely in love with the green one.  

              (All of these photos are thanks to Jay Zhang, Chris Shake, or Eric Lam!)
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My absolute favorite... THANK YOU JAY!!!! <3
  • I suppose the next big milestone was USA Dance Nationals!  It was really overwhelming but Matt and I danced our hearts out and did pretty well for our first time out there. :)  We got 7th in the Adult Champion Nine Dance!  We also danced the Adult Pre-Champion and Champion Rhythm and Smooth events (I honestly don't remember what we got in any of those four... haha I told you - I'm the worst...)
  • So I suppose there is one MAJOR detail I have neglected to include, thus far... Sometime in February, I decided to audition for the musical.  Crazy right?!  The show was Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - if anyone was going to be Marilyn, I just knew it had to be me.  PLUS Jen was going to be the choreographer - how fun!!  So I went to the auditions, nervously forced my way though a song (When You're Good to Mama, from Chicago - obvi.), read my monologue, and then rocked the little piece of choreography for the dance audition.  I found myself with a callback for Lorelei, Dorothy, and Gloria - crazy!!  Long story short, I found myself as Lorelei... :)  Nothing says "stressful" like having your very first theater experience be the leading character...  But I more than survived - and while I had a few jitters opening night, by the end of the third scene I was completely comfortable and loving performing!  All in all, amazing.  I would pretty much do anything to put on that blonde wig and belt out Diamonds one more time!!!
  • JP did the trifecta for his birthday - QUITE an afternoon/evening/night! 
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  • At the end of May, JP and I headed up for a long weekend in Montreal to go to the Canadian Swing Championships.  The whole thing was SUPER fun - it was mostly Lindy Hop (and also Blues, Rockabilly Jive, and Balboa) but there was some West Coast, too!  We got to watch some amazing dancing and were bummed that we didn't plan on staying for the full competition weekend.  We ended up going into Montreal for the second half of the weekend (dancing was actually in Sherbrooke) and then JP stayed for the American Helicopter Society conference for the rest of the week with his lab group, while I went home early.  This was definitely the spark of West Coast fever. :)
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  • I PASSED MY CANDIDACY EXAM!!!!! Thank God.
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  • JP, Katie, Susan, Steve, Emily, and I all met up in NJ for the Liberty Swing weekend at the end of June - amazing.  SO many workshops and SO much dancing!!!  Amazing - I can't wait for next year!
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(Photo from Steve's camera)
  • I also used this summer to unleash a little bit more of my creative side - with painting!!  Definitely something new for me, but I'm loving it.  Don't get too excited - I've only done three Painting at the Pub nights, but Kristen makes the whole thing really easy-going and it's super relaxing!  I can't wait for the next one! :)   June was "Fireflies in the Moonlight," July was "Aloha Summer," and August was "Under the Sea" - which Mom even came out and did with me!
  • Another cuteness interlude - Lucas just HAD to help JP with his guitar.  #adorable.
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  • Mom, Dad, and I took a mini-vacation in mid-August to go up to Lake Placid for the weekend.  It was perfect - although I forgot how chilly August actually is up there!  (Our first stop was to the Gap outlet to stock up on cute sweaters and scarves).  We also went for a trail ride at the Olympic cross-country facility and had a nice time exploring Mirror Lake and the downtown area!  Overall, very relaxing.
I ended my summer with a trip down to Maryland for Labor Day weekend - I went to visit JP, who has an internship down there for the Fall semester.  I didn't take many pictures, but I was able to get a few from our trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore!  We also went out West Coast Swing dancing Friday and Monday nights, had crab cakes in Annapolis Saturday night, and then had a pretty relaxing day on Sunday (grocery shopping, brunch, some pool time, went to the movies to see Guardians of the Galaxy, experimented with pumpkin tomato sauce and tortellini for dinner...).  All in all, a pretty great weekend :)
Whew!  I think that just about sums it up?  Maybe I'll be able to stay more on top of this from now on... Or maybe not...  I'll certainly try though!!!

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Back to Circle B

5/23/2013

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On Tuesday we had a little group get together and head up to Circle B Ranch in the Adirondacks for a trail ride!

It was a bunch of fun!! (Complete with an post-ride ice cream stop, of course...)  :)
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(Photo from Susan's camera!)
So the back row is JP, Trick, Tyler, Katie, Shannon, Luc, and Steve, and then the four girls in the front would be me, Krista, Susan, and Yaroslava! 

Best part of the day?  My horse was named Forest!  (He's in the one in the middle...)  When I take lessons back at school (well... technically East Greenbush) I also ride a horse named Forest!  Crazy... My Forest is white with gray spots though... this Forest had honey highlights in his brown maine...)
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Tulip Time!

5/23/2013

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The Friday before Mother's Day, Luc and I decided to take a mini-adventure into Albany to check out the tulips in Washington Park!  (We ended up going before the official kick-off of the Tulip Festival, but with the looming crowds and possibility of rain the next day?  Playing hooky on a Friday afternoon seemed like a better plan...) :)

We took a bunch of photos of the tulips, made it rain pink petals from some of the flowering trees (um FUN!) and then decided to continue our wandering down at the Plaza.  We checked out the reflecting pool, peeked in the windows of the museum, and then walked the entire length of the Convention Center Concourse!  (And almost had to walk it again when we couldn't figure out how to get back to the ground level... but luckily we found and elevator that spit us out in the Egg!  Even if it was a creepy elevator...) 

Anyways!

Here are some photos :)
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It officially feels like summer!

5/13/2013

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Some of the girls and I kicked off May by heading up to Grafton Lake for a lazy Saturday afternoon in the sun...
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Ohhhh yeahhhhh..... :)
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(Photo by Alyssa K.)
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Sam and I! (from her camera)
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The group! (Pretty sure this is from Katie W.'s camera?)
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New Orleans!

5/13/2013

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In the beginning of April, Mom and I took a little trip down to New Orleans, Louisiana! 

Neither of us had ever been before so we were both super excited!  (Unfortunately, Dad couldn't make it because of work...)  

What was the occasion?  My abstract was accepted and so I was off to present my research at the ACS (American Chemical Society) National Conference!!  Double super-exciting!! :)

(Side note:  I'm the worst tourist ever and didn't bring a nicer camera with me.. So I spent the entire weekend taking snapshots with my phone... #thankyoudroid) 

As soon as we got there?  Out to lunch of course!!  We went to the Oceana Grill for some yummy seafood.  And alligator, too of course!! It was actually delicious - we tried it fried and cajun style.  The street view from the restaurant was super cute, too.  And we had beautiful weather the entire weekend!
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And then we spent a little time wandering around...
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And our wandering quickly bee-lined for Cafe du Monde so we could get ourselves some beignets!  
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It was absolutely packed but they were well worth it!  Sooooo much powdered sugar...
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Ok, back to walking...
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Donkey carriages! 
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LOVED this street art.... totally regret that I didn't get one...
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For our first night, we had a delicious dinner out at the Palace Cafe - complete with doo-wop serenading! 
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Yeah... Dessert was totally worth it...
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We started off the next morning with a ride on the famous Streetcars!  We hopped on and went down to the Garden District, well... and then pretty much got right back on and came back... but still a fun ride!
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Ahh, what an amazing line up!!! Wish the conference was just a few weeks later...
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And we ended up making it back to the French Market and then finally the Cafe du Monde for our daily beignets.  We found a nice bench in the sun where I could sit for a little bit and work on my presentation slides.
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This was one of my favorite areas to people watch... There was just so much going on!  Plus street art... have I mentioned how much I love street artists?
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Jazzy wedding parade!!! SO FUN!  Complete with big feather hats, and everything :)
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A lot of places had gas lighting for outside by the doors - Absolutely in love with the look... (they left them running 24-7 though... not sure how I feel about that... but still cute!)
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Speaking of lighting, Mom was pretty crazy about the antique chandelier stores, too.  We stopped to peek in the windows every single time we walked by :)
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For dinner, we went to the Court of Two Sisters - it was absolutely delicious (I have yet to eat something on this trip that I didn't like...)  We sat outside on the back patio - it was beautiful with all of the lights, grape arbors and the fountain!
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Strawberries foster over vanilla ice cream?  YUM!
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More gas lanterns on the walk home!
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We're still on crunch time to finish my slides and "rehearse" my presentation... Hello late night, early morning!  But it went just fine!  Mom went with me and we watched the other presentations in my session - all about PPCPs in the environment!!  (Oh... right... PPCP = Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products...) I was toward the end of the morning session and I ran out of time to go as in depth as I wanted but all-in-all it went great and everyone seemed pretty interested in our work!

We were basically starved after and I wanted to catch one more of the afternoon presentations so we decided to have lunch at the convention center - which was HUGE by the way!  Holy Cow!  Oh, and of course snap some photos :)  Here's Mom by the conference poster!
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And I just couldn't pass up VooDoo chips... 
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We also went through the Expo a little to try and pick up some swag from the visiting companies.  
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Let me tell you - scientists are WAYYYY more stingy than engineers!  Getting swag was like pulling teeth!  Plus you ended up tricked into surveys and questionares about videos and product shpeels they forced you to sit through... crazy!  (Everyone knows engineers be THROWING swag at you...) :P

With the rest of the beautiful afternoon to ourselves, I was ready to rip out of my suit, throw on a summer skirt, and hit the town for a little sun.  We decided to check out the riverfront (turns out there wasn't much new to see... by the time we were waiting for our fourth streetcar, we hadn't actually traveled anywhere...) and then ended up deciding on going back to the garden district to actually walk around a little more.  We saw a lot of beautiful houses - we never made it far enough to see Toulane (which Dad says is where the shopping, etc. is) but it was still pretty and made for a nice walk...
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Best climbing tree EVER!!
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For our last night, Mom and I went out to dinner at GW Fins - ummm AMAZING.  Everything we ate was absolutely delicious (although apparently I'm terrible at taking photos of food... whoops...)
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And then it was time to head back to the hotel so we could pack up and fly out the next morning.  :( 
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What a wonderful trip though!!! 
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    Alison "Ali" Rose

    Currently working on a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering and all of the side projects that help get me through it!

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