Live Free or Die...

The treacherous NJ Rest stop...

Good Day. Long Day. But very very good day. New Hampshire is beautiful. I love that this state's motto is Live Free or Die. Christine's house is beautiful. Her parents are soooo nice. And her dog is kinda scary, but really really soft. Seriously New England is exceeding all expectations that I had. It is absolutely beautiful! After the 10 hour car ride full of nonstop traffic in Connecticut, crazy rest stops in New Jersey, and ridiculous singing of original songs by Corrie, Cait, and Keiran we arrived at our beautiful destination: NH. We were given the tour of Christine's old high school and town. Afterwards we went to the beach, played ski-ball, ate boardwalk pizza, attended Yankee Homecoming, and met some of her friends. Now off to bed for some shut eye because tomorrow we are getting up bright and early to go explore Boston!

5 Hours Till Go Time!

I couldn't sleep. I leave for New Hampshire in about 5 hours... and I am beyond excited, especially for the road trip up there. So I decided I would take the time to finish Tyler's long overdue birthday present. He's always asking me to draw him something to hang in his apartment, so I figured a self portrait would be appropriate. Plus I thought all the crazy colors in his shirt were pretty sweet.  And now that I'm done packing, I guess I'll try and get some rest. 

(Pencil and Water Color Pencils on Sketchbook paper.

 I'll upload a better quality picture later...)

Director's Cut...

"I'm ready for my close up!!!!!!"

So my friend Max (from Temple and CASA) asked me to make him a giant mural sized poster for a film he is shooting this summer. The film, The Backlot, chronicles the lives of four kids as they grow up.  The poster is of four famous directors that the main character ends up worshiping and idolizing.  Unfortunately I only really know that the second one from the left is Hitchcock. (Mr. Smith would be so disappointed in me.) Anyways... the drawing is about 3ft tall x 8ft long and is a combination of charcoal, conte, and a charcoal wash on brown craft paper.

Photo taking props go to my lovely sister, Lauren.

Strawberry Swing...

I love stop animation. I wish I was better at it. And I wish Tyler had more classes in it. And I am determined to learn more about it, because it is instances like these that make me truly happy. I can't explain it, but I find myself inspired and completely and utterly captivated. This is beautiful.

Watch it in full screen to see all the details!

Pride.

Went to the Harrisburg Pride Parade and Festival on Front Street yesterday. I met up with Jaquie, Katie, and Sara which was nice because I hadn't seen them all summer! Here we are with some of our favorite people from the event... the "Silent Witnesses".

Photos Courtesy Katie.

Mikado...

My mom decided to take me out for sushi tonight at Mikado. I had never really gotten sushi with my mom before so it was nice being able to explain some things to her. The food was delicious and we got to catch up and plan her trip to Temple. 

Photo courtesy my mom's lovely camera phone.

A Little Piece of Americana...

Went to Knobels today. Drove Sarah, Cait, Kim, and Ellen. Seriously love how it is a pay as you go park... I feel like that's why it has lasted for over 75 years. And furthermore, all amusement parks should be like this. More people would go. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed roller coasters. 

And kettle corn. And chicken fries. And my friends.

And road trips where we laugh.

We did this last year... and I'm glad we've kind of turned it into a mini tradition. 

Here's to hoping next year's twice as fun!

Photos courtesy my wonderfully talented and beautiful friend: Miss Caitlin Weigel

Strawberry Fields Forever...

Fact: When I was younger I used to eat strawberries like there was no tomorrow. Seriously... I went through them like they were gong out of style. It got to the point that my parents began telling me that the reason I had red hair was because of my excessive strawberry intake. And I believed them. I told anyone who asked me where I got my red hair, (strangers, relatives, teachers, friends, the produce man at the grocery store, seriously anyone), that it was because I ate so many strawberries. And I did it up until the age of 5... when Mrs. Sebastian, my kindergarten teacher, called home and told my parents it was probably time to explain to me that fruit couldn't change a person's hair color. To this day, even though my love of strawberries has died down to that of the average American, I still tell the occasional person that asks me how I got my bright red hair, in all seriousness: "Strawberries."

All three of the Dunn children trick or treated in the infamous strawberry costume pictured... Here I am with Dan-the-Man.

Footloose!!!!!!

Reasons Why I Love Temple: 

Reason 8793: Impromptu Studio Dance Parties...

Sometimes my friends get the urge to visit me at Tyler around 3 a.m. It makes me feel incredibly lucky to have such great friends. Especially when they bring me food. I feel as though a dance party is the least I can do to give back to them. So that's what we do... we dance... and dance... and dance till the sun comes up. 

This one time, during finals week, Keiran and Caitlin and Corrie came and helped me spray my drawing final. We got pastel all over ourselves. Then we danced some more. 

(In other news: J. Carr is here!!! I missed her... and she is another reason why I love Temple!)

Puffy Jacket...

Fact: Some times I look at my baby photos whenever I need a pick me up. They usually make me wish I was little again and almost always leave me wondering "what the heck was I thinking?!" 

I call this one "Obsessive Compulsive Eater" 

(And I have to admit, my fashion choices were pretty amazing too)

Photo Circa 1993.

HP and the Half-Blood Prince...

So a few close friends and I attended the midnight premiere of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince last night. And by a few... I mean over 20. And by attended I mean we all dressed up as various HP characters.  Tyler went as Scabbers and I was Crookshanks. All I did was paint my shirt, make each of us a set of ears and tails, out of construction paper, and drew on some whiskers... but for the record-- I really liked the tails. A lot. 

Liz went as the Phoenix. And was beautiful as always...

High Point: Kim went as a patronus, complete with old Swan Lake dance costume, white eyeshadow, and Jessica Simpson body butter... only to find out there wasn't a patronus used in the movie. 

Low point: Being mistaken as the phoenix... by three different people. 

(Clearly not true HP fans)

After the movie we went to the Barry's house to eat and talk HP... I actually didn't mind the movie as a whole. In fact I actually thought visually speaking this by far surpasses the others. I think that because it's been so long since I read the books that I didn't remember every little detail... but my friends were definitely disappointed. I had to agree with the fact that I really wasn't a huge fan of the sexual tension in this movie though. It just didn't seem like authentic HP to me... Eventually I became too tired to keep up with my friends and passed out on the couch next to Bailey. (Story of my life.)

Anna Banana

I made this card for my friend Anna... She turned 19 two days ago so we decided to throw her a surprise party. The theme was bagel bonanza and included various types of bagels and jams.

Everyone also had to dress up in costumes of people they admired/wanted to be while growing up. Costumes ranged from pirates, to cowboys, to Sasha Fierce.

Anna had no idea which was nice. And we were all happy that we could do something to show her how much we care about her. Happy Birthday Ann-yo!

Watch us serenade Anna with our beautiful voices...

Shaving Time...

Reasons Why I Love Temple:

Reason 27: Impromptu events that lead to copious amounts of laughter.

I think the fact that this picture was taken less than a week after I had arrived at Temple is a testament to the good times I had over the first year. Not to mention the amazing friendships that developed alongside the craziness that is our lives at Temple University. In this picture Mercedes and I decided to have a shaving cream fight in her dorm room... having known each other for about a week. I won... clearly.

Team Red

Had a loverly dinner with Sarah at Okini. We ate the Tempura Roll, Alaska Roll, Salmon Skin Roll, and Spicy Tuna (not pictured) Roll. The staff kept coming up and making references to us being a married couple. Sar and I just went with it... 

We then headed over to the Cocoa Perk coffee shop to see Matt Barry. He made us smoothies and Caitlin showed up to talk a little too. We may need to start up our own super hero squad, seeing as we all ended up wearing red shirts... unplanned of course. TEAM RED...UNITE!

In other news: I need a hair cut... baddddd.

International Man of Mystery...

Reasons Why I Love Temple:

Reason 763: I can convince my friends to make fools of themselves in public all around Temple's  campus and the city of Philadelphia.

These particular photos chronicle just one of my never ending jokes while having lunch with Alison and Carleigh.  I got the glasses as part of a 3D project and couldn't part with them, so I brought them to lunch with me the next day. And wearing them all throughout the SAC just seemed like the natural thing to do. Car and Alison really didn't want to get their photos taken... but luckily I can always count on them buying the excuse: "But It's for an art project!"

Laugh a Little...

So I've been known to laugh at myself from time to time...

Some things that have really made me smile lately are:

1) getting out of work early.

2) spending time with my sister.

3) the dog park with trey.

4) when my mom buys me a whole lemon meringue pie.

5) cooking dinner for my parents.

6) reading blogs to the point that I lose all concept of time.

What a Blast...

Here's a list of some of my favorite things from the last couple of days. They also happen to be things I love very very much...

1. Sonic Runs with Liz and Sarah on the 4th of July.

2. Any flavor Sonic Blast. Or as I refer to them: Blast-O's!

3. Pictures of roller coasters at night as you drive by Hershey Park on your way to Sonic.

4. Anna and Liz's ability to make fires.

5. My ability in pretending I'm a wizard, like HP.

6. Going to Neato and the dog park with Brielle for hours...

7. And then walking Trey around Italian Lake with Brielle afterwards.

Mural Madness...

So it took my mom a good 17 years of convincing before she let me paint my walls... and to this day, two years later, I'm still not even sure she's really convinced. After all I did kind of just haphazardly start painting... I didn't really think my designs through... which is why after having this unfinished mural on my wall for almost a year and a half I have decided to paint over it. I've kind of decided to make it a summer project. To help me keep up with my art for school... So from time to time I'll upload a new photo of the progress I've made on my wall. And this time... I'm thinking it out first.

This was my first attempt...  

I was going for my dreams breaking out from behind the wall.

Last night I decided to try again.... but left some of the bricks.

Shady Business...

Sometimes you just really really really need to smile...

Here's to hoping you have a great day and find something to laugh about!

Burrito Buddies...

Went to Neato Burrito with Kim today for lunch. She leaves for the Cayman Islands tomorrow so I wanted to see her because she'll be gone for 11 days! We went to Checkered Past after and Kim got a new green belly button ring. We laughed like usual. I love that all we do is talk about our future plans... no matter how extravagant or farfetched they might be. I'm gonna pick up my Harry Potter midnight premier tickets later tonight. Maybe I'll go paint my room now... or finish my book... the possibilities are endless.

Cowboy Crunch on honey wheat tortilla. Kim got the same, but with a spinach tortilla.

Order Of The Pheonix

A list of things I've done today (last night):

1) Finish day 5 of work week: check

2) Drove to Caitlin's at 10:30 pm to obtain the 5th HP movie and watch it with laur

3) Was devastated when I showed up to find Caitlin couldn't find HP...

4) Laur and I called 5 different friends, asking if they had the movie and wouldn't mind lending it to us at 10: 45 pm

5) Sheetz run. Arizona Ice Tea and Microwave popcorn. To calm the nerves.

6) We drive to fishing creek and pick up Emily. She has all 5 of the hp dvds in her collectors special edition set...

7) We pop two bags of popcorn. I inhale 1 1/2 bags.

8) Lauren makes us smoothies in our brand new magic bullet. smoothies are amazing. bullet is a god send. I may need to invest in one for college life.

9) We watch the movie... Glorious!

10) I take emily home. We hear an owl hooting outside. We see a shooting star. The clouds are swirling. The spirit of Harry Potter lives on in the 717...

in other news:

I'm still deciding on what my costume for the new HP movie should be...

Potentials include but are in no means limited to:

-Colin Creevey

-Kreacher

-Crookshanks

-Gilderoy Lockhart

Any suggestions are more than welcome!!!!

In discussing HP further tonight... Emily and I have discovered I would probably be in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw... I would be good at Care of Magical Creatures and Transfiguration, and if I could have any magical/mythical creature it would be a Hypogriff. With a magical Owl that can deliver my mail a close second.

Realizing I'm still living my imagination through the eyes of an 11 year old: priceless.