journal.

i wrote for an hour tonight.
for the first time in 5 months.

it was glorious.

2008 pictures (so far).

Norah, me, and Garrett toasting the new year.

Garrett and I having a Nertz war.

Me, Julie, Natalie, Garrett, and Megan pre-hike.

The five of us at the top of the hike overlooking Santa Barbara.

The ladies doing a jumping picture.

windy new year.

Welcome to 2008, or as some of have decided to call it Twenty O Eight. So far it's been a pretty good year. It started off rather windy (hence the title). In fact it was ridiculously windy. Stuff blowing over, and trees banging on the house, and walking outside to feel like you're going to get blown away.
New Years eve itself turned out to be quite good. I watched Zoey in the morning then Natalie, Megan and I prepared for the party that was being thrown at Nat's that night. The primary preparation was the making of one of the three desserts that we were serving. A bit of the back story is that I got this really great new cookbook for Christmas from my grandma, and one of the recipes that looked extra amazing was a no-churn pomegranate ice cream. After purchasing the needed items it took us about a half an hour to make it. The most time consuming part was whisking the ingredients together so they formed soft peaks. We had to alternate turns just to get through the amount of ice cream we were making. In the end it was great and it was a big favorite among the guests. Oddly enough though I liked the other dessert that we made out of the same book better. It was a Mango Split (like a banana split but with mango). The party was fun of course. We had a great group of people who really came in two shifts and overlapped for the crucial dessert hour. The first part we played this great game that I hadn't seen before called Imagineiff. It was loads of fun, and probably made more fun for me because Nat and I played on a team together so that everyone could play. We were team Cat. Nice huh? The second half of the party we had a rousing game of Nertz with 6 people. I started off strong, kicking but through the first five rounds, before falling off badly and coming in second to Megan who won with a strong last three rounds. After midnight and our fabulous toasts, we hung out and chatted and did silly things for the next two hours. Garrett and I played more Nertz, in which I lost in the same style as before. During that time we planned what we would be doing for the next couple of days including a hike on New Years day to Seven Falls in Santa Barbara.
I don't really go hiking often, or ever I guess, but it's something that I think I could enjoy a lot more if I was in better shape. The hike ended up being pretty good and i had a good time doing it, but there were times on the way up where I really wondered what I had gotten myself into. However once I managed to get beyond that whole "Crap, can I really make it?" stage and we reached the top, it was totally worth it. To go on the hike we really couldn't have asked for a better day. The weather was perfect if not maybe a little warm. The view was seriously beautiful and amazing and every other word like it. Plus we just had a lot of fun. We took between 15 and 20 jumping pictures and got some great laughs out of it.
Also in the last few days I have joined the Heroes craze. I've only seen the last two discs of season one though. I'd really like to watch the rest of the first season and start watching the second, but when I went to the video store today they only had the middle discs and that just won't do. As it is I'm already going to be watching them out of order some, I'd rather not watch the whole season in a mixed up order. I guess I'll just have to wait. Ah well, when I get around to seeing them I'll see them.

Hopefully this great start to the new year will mean a great year to come.