Grotto Creek-The Rocky Mountains

We spent the day in a beautiful creek in the Rocky mountains. It was completely frozen over and we edged our way up the ice to see a frozen waterfall. It was really gorgeous and the weather was perfect for a hike!

I got my hair wet!!

It lashed rain last night and it's been raining on and off all day today. It was so strange to get my hair wet involentarily-this hasn't happened for a while...The rain here is so disgusting that it's really not nice to get wet in it. My car is filthy now!
We had a huge Thanksgiving meal in school today. Parents brought in dishes and we stuffed ourselves. I even have leftovers for dinner tonight!! :)
That's good seeing as I need to get packed for Calgary...

Cold in LA and other ramblings...

Today it is cold in LA/Santa Monica...I had to turn the heating on in my classroom. I have the AC on now though, cos it got too warm. It's a quiet week this week because it a three day week and on Wednesday we're having a big Thanksgiving feast in the school, which I'm really looking forward to. Then it's off to Calgary on Thursday morning, which apparantly is the right time to go because traffic on the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving is always the busiest in the year...I dread trying to just get home from work...
I don't know if I have enough warm clothes for Calgary. We may go ice skating or skiing!! I have a big bruise on my knee from ice skating on Saturday which I'm rather proud of, but I should probably try to not bang my knees on the ice too much... I may need to borrow some warm clothes from my Canadian friend. We Irish people aren't too into our warm clothes despite the weather we usually have :)

Christmas Shopping in California

My Apartment

From left, clockwise: Me, Debbie, Tiff, Sarah, Yoonah, Becky

Introduction to the girls in my apartment:

Becky:
Becky is Andrew's former apartment mate, Pete's, girlfriend. Pete's in dental school now in New York so our roles have reversed from me and Andrew being long distance and she and Pete living in the same building to she and Pete being long distance to me and Andrew living in the same building-it's strange :) Becky is a part time student/part time dental assistant and is applying for dental school next year. Becky has a crazy streak and is a lot of fun :)

Debbie:
Debbie moved into the apartment just after me. She's studying linguistics in UCLA, it's her final year. Debbie is our resident chef and can be found most days in the kitchen cooking up a storm. Debbie usually has to put up with me barging into her room to talk most evenings :)

Sarah:
Sarah was the one who had to let me into the apartment regularly before I officially moved in. Sarah is a part time student while applying for nursing school. Sarah is my shopping buddy. She loves getting second hand dresses for really cheap and doing stuff to them to make them look really nice. She's a very brave shopper :)

Tiff:
Tiff is our resident Electrical Engineer (I have to have one of them nearby at all times :) ) She's doing her final few classes in UCLA this year. Tiff is great, she's always ready to help, however don't try to get her to do anything that even resembles girlyness-she'll run a mile! :) She can make a great gift tag though :P

Yoonah:
Yoonah and I have lots in common :D Well Debbie has a lot in common with us also :P Yoonah is working in a lab in UCLA and she's also applying for graduate school, she wants to be a physician's aid. Yoonah's great fun, she and Becky have the funniest interactions :)

We really get on well in our apartment. I'm really thankful for a nice bunch of girls to live with. They really make our apartment feel like home and I feel like I can talk to any of them about anything. I think this a pretty rare thing for a house of six girls :)

I was too vain to pull a funny face :)

Election Day

So today is election day. It began with rain this morning, and by this morning I mean 3am which means that when I left home at 7:30 the ground was wet from rain instead of sprinklers and the sun was out again and most of the roads were already dry and there had been road accidents already.... The queues at election points here in LA are stretching 2 hours already-there are too many people here! It's really strange for me not to be able to vote here cos I love voting usually and am usually caught up in the excitement of being able to vote and then watch the polls come in. Everyone here is shouting for Obama and 'No' on Prop 8. I dread to see reactions should either of those things go against them...
I'm looking forward to an interesting couple of days.....