So, there is this blogger who has this amazing blog about lacquer and is very talented with nail art. Her name is Kristin Bastas and, in celebration of the Hunger Games DVD release, she has decided to do a giveaway with some awesome lacquer from China Glaze's Capitol Colors collection! All of you should check out her blog, regardless of whether or not you want to enter the contest. Kristin has some great reviews on beauty products and, of course, beautiful nail art that she proudly shows off! Take a peek in the link below!
Luminous Lacquer: Giveaway Time!!!
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
New costume // Shout out!
So, as you're all aware, I love costuming and I am suuuuuper strict on how I want my costumes to look when I commission/buy them. (I would say make, but I have yet to actually try to learn how to sew yet. That is probably going to be my New Year's resolution for 2013.) Well, I wasn't sure what to get together for Halloween this year but after a few suggestions from Facebook friends and thinking it over, I'm going to try and get together a Katniss Everdeen costume!
The one I'm specifically going for is probably one of the most recognizable ones, mainly since it is worn for most of the movie. I'll be making her arena costume as seen below.
Yup! I've already found some boots that look really close to the ones in the movie and I've also found an archery company that makes replicas of Katniss' district bow as well as the silver bow used in the arena; I see archery lessons in my future! The pants and shirt should be pretty simple and I already have the pin. I think the hardest part, for me, is going to be the hair. Not only is my hair not long enough nor the right color, but I have no idea how to do any kind of french braids. I'll be keeping an eye out for a good quality wig to help me out here. The jacket I can get through Think Geek or Amazon so I'm keeping an eye on that and waiting for it to come back in stock. As far as the quiver, I'm not too sure how to handle that one yet!
So I'll keep you posted on the progress of Katniss and show you the finish product at Halloween! Anyone else planning on doing a Hunger Games costume? If so, comment below!
Also I'd like to give a shout out to two close friends of mine, Ryan and Ashley Denton. This couple are seriously some fun people to hang around and their costumes are awesome! If you've happened to see pictures from Phoenix Comicon (or maybe ran into me) this past year, you may have noticed that I was walking around with this badass Dark Knight Rises Bane. That was Ryan in that mask and let me tell you that's the most accurate Bane I've seen to date! His beeautiful wife, Ashley, has also completed a Captain America USO which she debuted at San Diego Comicon 2012. Both of them have some more costumes in the works and you should check them out! They have a Facebook page where you can follow their costuming endeavors!
RAD Costuming
That's all for now! Hope you all are enjoying the posts! Also if there's something you guys would like for me to talk about one week (let's try to keep it on the geeky side ;) ) then post a comment below or on my twitter page @geekyambitions!
The one I'm specifically going for is probably one of the most recognizable ones, mainly since it is worn for most of the movie. I'll be making her arena costume as seen below.
Yup! I've already found some boots that look really close to the ones in the movie and I've also found an archery company that makes replicas of Katniss' district bow as well as the silver bow used in the arena; I see archery lessons in my future! The pants and shirt should be pretty simple and I already have the pin. I think the hardest part, for me, is going to be the hair. Not only is my hair not long enough nor the right color, but I have no idea how to do any kind of french braids. I'll be keeping an eye out for a good quality wig to help me out here. The jacket I can get through Think Geek or Amazon so I'm keeping an eye on that and waiting for it to come back in stock. As far as the quiver, I'm not too sure how to handle that one yet!
So I'll keep you posted on the progress of Katniss and show you the finish product at Halloween! Anyone else planning on doing a Hunger Games costume? If so, comment below!
Also I'd like to give a shout out to two close friends of mine, Ryan and Ashley Denton. This couple are seriously some fun people to hang around and their costumes are awesome! If you've happened to see pictures from Phoenix Comicon (or maybe ran into me) this past year, you may have noticed that I was walking around with this badass Dark Knight Rises Bane. That was Ryan in that mask and let me tell you that's the most accurate Bane I've seen to date! His beeautiful wife, Ashley, has also completed a Captain America USO which she debuted at San Diego Comicon 2012. Both of them have some more costumes in the works and you should check them out! They have a Facebook page where you can follow their costuming endeavors!
RAD Costuming
That's all for now! Hope you all are enjoying the posts! Also if there's something you guys would like for me to talk about one week (let's try to keep it on the geeky side ;) ) then post a comment below or on my twitter page @geekyambitions!
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
An update (FINALLY): Vacation in July!
Okay it's been well over a month and I'm WAAAAYYYY overdue to give you guys an update!
So I was on vacation, as you all probably know, from July 19th to the 30th. On this trip we went up to Montana for a wedding where I met Steve's longtime friend Lindsey. She got married on July 21st (a month ago today!!!) to her lover of ten years up near Glacier National Park on this BEAUTIFUL lake. The wedding, needless to say, was amazing. It was perfect outside, there was lots of dancing, laughter, and of course some tears. I really enjoyed myself even though I didn't really know anyone there!
We stayed in a hotel room from the 20th to the morning of the 22nd so we could have a place to shower and get ready for the hotel and look nice for the wedding. But after that it was all camping for the rest of the trip! On the 22nd, I went ziplining for the first time ever at Whitefish Lodge in Montana. It was absolutely amazing and totally exhilarating. We had rented a helmet cam, which was surprisingly not too expensive, and Steve and I shared it back and forth so that each of us could get the other ziplining and some nice views of just what we were flying over. When I get a chance I'll have to get the video from Steve and upload it somewhere for you all to see.
Also before we went ziplining, we headed down to a nearby lake to relax for a while. There we saw a bunch of people with their dogs who were enjoying the sun and swimming out to catch sticks that their owners would throw it. They seemed to be having a blast with it.
After we were done ziplining, we went into Glacier National Park where we camped in the park itself. We had to be careful with food and other items that might carry scents that attract bears while we stayed. For someone who had never been around bears before, I can tell you that having to get up in the middle of the night and walk down the road in the campground to get to the bathroom is kinda frightening. I felt like I was in some thriller movie... except my murderer would have been a big gigantic ass grizzly bear. Luckily for me though, I never came face to face with a bear during the trip, but you can bet your ass I was clutching that bear spray at night!
Anyway, we stayed in Glacier for about two days or so. One of the days we took the opportunity to drive through the entire park and see as many glaciers as possible. It was much much colder once we got to the glaciers, but the sights were beautiful. I was even able to walk down to one of the Glaciers and touch it. I got some awesome shots. Unfortunately, the best ones happened to be on Steve's camera which I have not gotten yet. But here are some of my shots from my own camera and iPhone.
Toward the afternoon/evening we decided to go hike down to see a waterfall. It was backcountry hiking and we were pretty much the only two people on the trail. There was also a warning about bears so we were also constantly looking around. We saw signs of bears having crossed the area since there were some trees that had some of the bark scratched off of it, but still no grizzlies to be seen. The hike -- for me anyway -- was long and it was all downhill to the waterfall. But man once we got down to it, it would make the hike back up completely worth it. Here's some pics of it.
On the last day we had breakfast on the lake at our campground. It was cold and windy that morning, not to mention overcast, but it was still as relaxing as you can imagine it to be. That happened to be the morning of my birthday. Unfortunately, the rest of the day was spent driving all the way down to Utah to get to our next campground to stop for the evening. We only spent one night at this campground in northern Utah but man was it cool. We happened to get a campsite that was a lot more secluded from all the others. It was in the middle of the area and we were absolutely surrounded by bushes and trees and it was like we had a little "yard" in our campground. It was nice. But unfortunately I don't have pictures of it.
The next day we headed to Bryce and stayed out in a campground about 17 miles away from the National Park. It was in the middle of no where. Like seriously. You had to take a dirt road for 7 miles from the main road before you even came across the actual campground. At first we were iffy and we were about to eat the cost of the reservation for the four days. But after checking it out and staying for one night, we found that it was pretty freaking awesome. There were no lights anywhere near the campground so at night we could see all of the stars. It was neat. The ironic part was I had 3G coverage in this campground in the middle of no where. Weird!
Anyway, from July 26th - July 28th, we stayed in this campground. On the 27th we took a day to go out to Bryce and checked out all the views. Even though it was completely different from Glacier, Bryce definitely had its own kind of beauty. We also took a long hike that I believe was about 8 miles or so (I can't remember) that took us all the way down into the canyon and all the way back up the Grand Staircase. It was a 4 hour hike, but we were also stopping a lot to take pictures and mess around, because that's just how we are.
On the 28th, we headed down to Zion. In retrospect, we should have made sure to go to Zion two days in a row since we didn't get to see all of the park at all. However, we did get to hike through the Narrows. Now this hike was awesome because once we got to the river, we were able to go through the river back into the Narrows. At one point the water got so deep that it was almost to my chest. I had to hold my pack up above my head and Steve definitely had to make sure his didn't get wet because he had his handgun with him the whole trip. That hike was probably the coolest hike I have ever been on. Luckily for us, we had bought hiking sticks the day before in Bryce and we were able to use them for the river hike. That hike, in total, was an 8 mile round trip hike that took up most of our day.
Whenever I am able to go back to Zion, I want to do another hike to their Emerald pools and see the rest of the sites.
The night of the 28th, we had decided to get a hotel room. It had been almost a full week since I had gotten a proper shower and although I was a little sad that I could not continue camping one more night, I was relieved to be able to take a shower. Also the jacuzzi they had there made up for it. That was nice too. Since the Olympics was on at the time, we spent that night watching swimming and, I believe, women's gymnastics. It was still a nice last night to our vacation.
The last day, July 29th, was spent driving home. But we stopped at the Grand Canyon since Steve had never been before. We went along the north rim and did a 2.5 mile hike down into the canyon. We would have gone further, but we had gotten there late and still had to drive four hours to get home.
All in all, the trip was amazing, relaxing, exhausting, exhilarating... and just all around wonderful. I had an amazing time with Steven and I hope that we can have more vacations like this one in the future. Steven did the math and all together we hiked about 38 miles total between Glacier, Bryce, Zion, and Grand Canyon National Parks. Needless to say, Steven has turned me into a hiker after this trip!
If you would like to see more pictures, head on over here!
I apologize in advance for the pictures being out of order and/or turned sideways. I'm way too lazy to organize all these photos in the right order right now but I will at least try to make sure all of them are rotated for you. :)
Well this blog post got WAY long. If you're still with me, KUDOS for reading through all of that. Seriously, I applaud you. I don't have that much of an attention span.
Look for another blog post soon! I have plenty of updates, but this one deserved its own post!
So I was on vacation, as you all probably know, from July 19th to the 30th. On this trip we went up to Montana for a wedding where I met Steve's longtime friend Lindsey. She got married on July 21st (a month ago today!!!) to her lover of ten years up near Glacier National Park on this BEAUTIFUL lake. The wedding, needless to say, was amazing. It was perfect outside, there was lots of dancing, laughter, and of course some tears. I really enjoyed myself even though I didn't really know anyone there!
Here is the altar where the ceremony was held.
We stayed in a hotel room from the 20th to the morning of the 22nd so we could have a place to shower and get ready for the hotel and look nice for the wedding. But after that it was all camping for the rest of the trip! On the 22nd, I went ziplining for the first time ever at Whitefish Lodge in Montana. It was absolutely amazing and totally exhilarating. We had rented a helmet cam, which was surprisingly not too expensive, and Steve and I shared it back and forth so that each of us could get the other ziplining and some nice views of just what we were flying over. When I get a chance I'll have to get the video from Steve and upload it somewhere for you all to see.
Whitefish Lodge
Also before we went ziplining, we headed down to a nearby lake to relax for a while. There we saw a bunch of people with their dogs who were enjoying the sun and swimming out to catch sticks that their owners would throw it. They seemed to be having a blast with it.
Coolest looking dog there. He was a sweetheart too!
After we were done ziplining, we went into Glacier National Park where we camped in the park itself. We had to be careful with food and other items that might carry scents that attract bears while we stayed. For someone who had never been around bears before, I can tell you that having to get up in the middle of the night and walk down the road in the campground to get to the bathroom is kinda frightening. I felt like I was in some thriller movie... except my murderer would have been a big gigantic ass grizzly bear. Luckily for me though, I never came face to face with a bear during the trip, but you can bet your ass I was clutching that bear spray at night!
Anyway, we stayed in Glacier for about two days or so. One of the days we took the opportunity to drive through the entire park and see as many glaciers as possible. It was much much colder once we got to the glaciers, but the sights were beautiful. I was even able to walk down to one of the Glaciers and touch it. I got some awesome shots. Unfortunately, the best ones happened to be on Steve's camera which I have not gotten yet. But here are some of my shots from my own camera and iPhone.
On the last day we had breakfast on the lake at our campground. It was cold and windy that morning, not to mention overcast, but it was still as relaxing as you can imagine it to be. That happened to be the morning of my birthday. Unfortunately, the rest of the day was spent driving all the way down to Utah to get to our next campground to stop for the evening. We only spent one night at this campground in northern Utah but man was it cool. We happened to get a campsite that was a lot more secluded from all the others. It was in the middle of the area and we were absolutely surrounded by bushes and trees and it was like we had a little "yard" in our campground. It was nice. But unfortunately I don't have pictures of it.
The next day we headed to Bryce and stayed out in a campground about 17 miles away from the National Park. It was in the middle of no where. Like seriously. You had to take a dirt road for 7 miles from the main road before you even came across the actual campground. At first we were iffy and we were about to eat the cost of the reservation for the four days. But after checking it out and staying for one night, we found that it was pretty freaking awesome. There were no lights anywhere near the campground so at night we could see all of the stars. It was neat. The ironic part was I had 3G coverage in this campground in the middle of no where. Weird!
Anyway, from July 26th - July 28th, we stayed in this campground. On the 27th we took a day to go out to Bryce and checked out all the views. Even though it was completely different from Glacier, Bryce definitely had its own kind of beauty. We also took a long hike that I believe was about 8 miles or so (I can't remember) that took us all the way down into the canyon and all the way back up the Grand Staircase. It was a 4 hour hike, but we were also stopping a lot to take pictures and mess around, because that's just how we are.
We also found really cool-colored rocks on one of our hikes in Bryce
On the 28th, we headed down to Zion. In retrospect, we should have made sure to go to Zion two days in a row since we didn't get to see all of the park at all. However, we did get to hike through the Narrows. Now this hike was awesome because once we got to the river, we were able to go through the river back into the Narrows. At one point the water got so deep that it was almost to my chest. I had to hold my pack up above my head and Steve definitely had to make sure his didn't get wet because he had his handgun with him the whole trip. That hike was probably the coolest hike I have ever been on. Luckily for us, we had bought hiking sticks the day before in Bryce and we were able to use them for the river hike. That hike, in total, was an 8 mile round trip hike that took up most of our day.
Whenever I am able to go back to Zion, I want to do another hike to their Emerald pools and see the rest of the sites.
The night of the 28th, we had decided to get a hotel room. It had been almost a full week since I had gotten a proper shower and although I was a little sad that I could not continue camping one more night, I was relieved to be able to take a shower. Also the jacuzzi they had there made up for it. That was nice too. Since the Olympics was on at the time, we spent that night watching swimming and, I believe, women's gymnastics. It was still a nice last night to our vacation.
The last day, July 29th, was spent driving home. But we stopped at the Grand Canyon since Steve had never been before. We went along the north rim and did a 2.5 mile hike down into the canyon. We would have gone further, but we had gotten there late and still had to drive four hours to get home.
Steve at the Grand Canyon
All in all, the trip was amazing, relaxing, exhausting, exhilarating... and just all around wonderful. I had an amazing time with Steven and I hope that we can have more vacations like this one in the future. Steven did the math and all together we hiked about 38 miles total between Glacier, Bryce, Zion, and Grand Canyon National Parks. Needless to say, Steven has turned me into a hiker after this trip!
If you would like to see more pictures, head on over here!
I apologize in advance for the pictures being out of order and/or turned sideways. I'm way too lazy to organize all these photos in the right order right now but I will at least try to make sure all of them are rotated for you. :)
Well this blog post got WAY long. If you're still with me, KUDOS for reading through all of that. Seriously, I applaud you. I don't have that much of an attention span.
Look for another blog post soon! I have plenty of updates, but this one deserved its own post!
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