spring among us.

Spring has definitely arrived here on the Cape Fear coast. We've had gorgeous blue skies, temperatures in the 80's, and lots of pollen covering our cars this week. Here's a couple fun photos of our adventures in Wilmington last week:

Some lovely ferns uncurling themselves in the wildflower preserve on the UNCW campus.

 Venus flytraps - in the wild. This area is the only place where they grow out in the wild.

Pollen feet after our hike.

Searching for buried treasure on the beach. (Actually looking for a shark's tooth. No luck yet.)

Enjoying a day at the beach - all sun & fun.

I hope everyone else is enjoying spring. It's finally here!!

spotlight: duckies, bunnies, and chickies, oh my!

This week's spotlight is featuring all those cute & cuddly animals we love to dote on this time of the year.

These wonderfully cute items are all handmade by artisans on Artfire and Etsy. You know they are all so cute that you can't help but click on them to learn more. This spotlight also got featured at ByHand Gallery along with other colorful & wonderful spotlights, so be sure to check over there to see a lot more lovely goodies.

I have also been featured on Ninja Jenn's blog! She has done a wonderful little feature of my items & I couldn't be happier. It looks great & Jenn is just such a great lady. Be sure to head over there and leave her a comment on her wonderful blog. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend. If you are celebrating Easter, I hope you have a great time with friends and loved ones. And whether you are or aren't celebrating the holiday I hope everyone is able to enjoy a lovely, warm, colorful spring weekend!

ups & downs.

The last few days have been just plain hectic! 

Andy's been having to go do grad interviews out of state, and being in the small town that we are, we of course do not have a large enough airport nearby so I have been having to drive him 2 hours to nearby airports and picking him up a few days later. So we've been dealing with all the stress that comes with flying - especially on his last trip. A delayed flight got him into Houston at midnight meaning we would not have gotten home till around 2 am. Needless to say, I found the cheapest hotel I could and we spent the night in Houston and drove home in the morning. 

On top of the travel calamity, I found out yesterday that I had been denied admission (aka rejected) from Scripps Institute of Oceanography at U.C. San Diego. Scripps had been my top choice of schools, but I think the terrible economy has played a large impact on their admission decisions this year. My first graduate school admissions decision - rejection. Even if I was slightly expecting it, being rejected is never a good feeling. 

One good thing that has come out of the past few days and all this driving is seeing all the beautiful wildflowers in bloom. I stopped to get this shot of a hill covered in blue bonnets on the way home from one of the airport excursions a couple days ago. It was breath-taking in real life. It's my favorite time of the year here. 

spring has come.

I woke up one morning and realized spring had finally come! The days are marked by warm humidity, the nurseries are full of colorful flowers, and even wildflowers have started to peak up from the side of the highway.  If there's anything I'll miss about Texas when I move in August, it'll be the wildflowers that mark the coming of spring.

The pictures above are from the flowers I planted this past weekend including some strawberries and blueberry bush. 

a new day.

   
Just a random assortment of the things we stumbled across at the park today.  

The whole roommate fiasco escalated yesterday when I returned to my apartment that morning to find two more of my textbooks missing from my very room where I had placed them on a shelf the night before. When my roommate got home later that afternoon I asked her if she knew anything about the additional missing books and was immediately presented with a very defensive, snotty, "I have no idea where you've put your books." Just the way she said it led me to believe that she did know something about them, but things just went from there with her claiming that she would never need the money from selling my textbooks. The whole time her boyfriend stood behind her totally silent. Perhaps she really doesn't know anything about it and it's the work of him, but I find it hard to believe that he would get away with taking 5 of my textbooks without her ever knowing since I rarely ever seem them with out the other in tow. Anyway, I drew the line and moved every item of mine out of the main living areas and into my room where they are locked up. As far as me and anything of mine that is worth anything, we have packed up and moved to Andy's apartment for the duration of the summer until she moves out in August. It's a hassle, but I would have been much more upset if something had ended up happening had I not taken these steps. 

In the meantime, Andy and I will just try to enjoy the rest of our summer. Our trip to Disneyworld is coming up soon and with the events of the past week, I absolutely cannot wait to take a vacation from it all. I can't think of a better escape than Disneyworld. 

spring is here.

I took a break from my busy school schedule and went to visit Andy's (my boyfriend) new puppy in Dallas with him this weekend. I don't have pictures of the adorable yellow lab puppy (deemed Lemonbutt) because Andy's mom stole the memory card I put the pictures I took on, but hopefully I'll have them soon. However, I do have pictures from all the great wild flowers that were in bloom along the way. The pictures aren't that great because I took them from the car as we sped by, but I thought I'd share them anyway.

My favorite are the bluebonnets, the Texas state flower. We don't get them up where I'm from so it's very exciting for me to see them in bloom out in the wild. Very gorgeous. Sometimes we'd drive past these huge fields of them that just took your breath away. When we weren't driving and playing with puppies, me and Andy had a Sonic Spinball marathon on his Wii. Here's Andy playing with my wiimote (it has sea life on it!) in his glasses from seeing Meet the Robinsons in 3-D, which was totally worth seeing because the 3-D was awesome even if the movie wasn't the greatest. "I have a big head, and little arms. I'm just not sure how well this plan was thought through." But anyway, we found these glasses hilarous because they were like Horn Rimmed Buddy Holly glasses. Just proves that "Heroes" is an influence in designing 3-D glasses.