Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving!

When does one officially become an adult? No, it's not when you graduate college, get a job with a benefits package or even get married and move across the country. You truly become a real live, functioning adult when you are able to successfully prepare a thanksgiving turkey with all the mandatory side dishes for yourself AND guests. What does this mean for Gregg and I? We did it! We can now join the world of adulthood. We cooked thanksgiving dinner yesterday (including turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, fruit salad and apple pie all from scratch) for ourselves and two of my friends from school. Today we put up our 4 1/2 ft christmas tree. I hung my 57 ornaments and Gregg hung his 2. It's very cute and pretty in the corner of our living room.

Last weekend we took a day trip to New York City. My school had organized a trip to a gallery in NYC and with some luck I managed to get Gregg a seat on the bus. I knew he would be jealous knowing I was spending the day wandering through the galleries of Chelsea and he wasn't. The bus dropped us off at a gallery showing the work of NY artist, Vince Desiderio, who gave a lengthy talk not just about his show but an involved lesson in art history that Gregg had no trouble following. After the talk we got lunch with a few friends from my program before checking out the other galleries in the area. By that I mean we picked a street and 2 hours later arrived at the end of it. There are soooo many galleries in New York!

We can't wait to head back to the midwest for Christmas, only 3 more weeks!

Us in a gallery in NYC
Vince Desiderio's show
Our Christmas Tree!
Delicious apple pie

Our Thanksgiving meal with Olive and Rachel
One of the paintings I am currently working on
The other painting I am working on

6 People, 1 Bathroom - Philadelphia's Version of Survivor

Hey faithful readers!  It's been a while since I contributed to this blog, so I'm stepping up (although Libby's nice enough to do all the hard work of uploading the pictures).   We've had an exciting two weeks in November so far.  The first weekend, we decided to cram as many people into our apartment as physically possible - with 2 sets of married couples staying over in our one bedroom apartment.  It worked out really well and was a really fun weekend.  There were a lot of fun games played, large pancakes eaten, and the only temporary blip was a temprarily lost purse.  And the housing situation was perfect.  Of course, I didn't have to sleep on an air mattress that deflated in the middle of the night, so I can say that -  sorry Jenny and Spencer!  The Hellmans and the Marshalls were in town, and they got to experience life in Manayunk.  Libby is well on her way to becoming an independence hall expert with 3 trips in the past two months.  

This last weekend, Libby and I decided to spend all day Saturday downtown, and it turned into a bit of an adventure.  While walking by city hall, Libby and I ran into a pro-gay marriage parade that wrapped around an entire city block.  Libby and I passed by on our way to her school, and when we emerged over an hour later, the march was still going strong.  It was very cool to see all the support.  After that, Libby dragged me kicking and screaming to a musical (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).  We went to see Hairspray, and it was a lot of fun, although I could barely hear it with Libby singing the whole  thing next to me.  When it was done, all that was left was for Libby and I make the leisurely mile walk back to our car, but there was one simple problem - pouring rain and no umbrella.  Needless to say we swam back to the car.  

Last Sunday, Libby and I had yet another exciting experience as we were invited to a fellowship dinner through a church we had started attending.  The dinner was great, our fellow adults were very friendly, but the 10-15 yelling, screaming kids were kind of intimidating.  We felt a little out of place as we ate with a 2 couples who each had 5 kids, a couple who had a baby, and a couple who was expecting in February.  

Anyways, those are some highlights from the recent past.  Enjoy some pictoral proof below.

Someone's large head obstructing a view of the parade

Spencer being surprised by the Blair Witch

3 hotties in the park (careful boys, they're taken)

Trying to take a cute couple picture in Rittenhouse Square

The Phillies won the World Series... this is how I survived

Halloween costumes!

Very excited to be at the pumpkin patch!!

I think the pumpkin on the right looks like an elephant
The Great Pumpkin!

Our carved pumpkins, a scary ghost and a spooky owl.

It's time for another post because this past week Philadelphia has completely lost its mind. seriously.  It poured rain monday and tuesday delaying the 5th world series game and then Wednesday, oh man... Gregg and I went to see a promo screening of an independent film downtown and as we were driving home we knew the Philly's had just won because suddenly every car in the city started honking their horn and people began running into the streets screaming "PHILLLLLLLLLIES!!!!!!" When we got home we turned on the TV and watched helicopters footage of 5-10  thousand people crowding every major intersection across the city.  Seriously woah.

Yesterday there was parade downtown that I found myself swimming against the current in an overwhelming sea of red.  The trains were too full with people to pick up anyone from my station so I took an adventure on an unfamiliar bus stuffed to the brim with people heading to the parade.  Once downtown I decide to be a part of the mob for about 15 minutes before taking refuge in my studio for the rest of the afternoon.  Just long enough to see the Phillies mascot from a far, which by the way has to be  the weirdest looking mascot ever.  So what I'm saying is... the next time a Philadelphia sports team has a chance of winning a championship game I'm taking a vacation.

Gregg and I did a pretty good job of celebrating Halloween. We went to a pumpkin patch last weekend and carved awesome pumpkins.  The pumpkin patch wasn't quite as spectacular as we'd envisioned and was obviously designed for 4 year olds who are easy to please and have no prior knowledge of what a good pumpkin patch is like. Last night we went to a Halloween party in the city with a bunch of students from my school.  It was fun taking the train into the city on Halloween because every time someone got on the train it was like a costume parade.  I think Gregg and I had the best costumes by far.  He was nice enough to let me copy his brilliant idea of dressing up as iPod commercials.  We wore all black, iPods and taped sheets of neon colored posterboard to our backs.  From behind we looked like post-it notes but overall it was a very convincing costume.  

This is a picture of my studio this week. I've stopped collaging and am now making some abstract paintings.