Cowgal...

Being on vacation for such a long time ensured I wouldn't be able to participate in one of my favorite things: Cowgirlin'!!!  Yesterday was a special return to the ranch and all the animals who currently live there.  Sherman was a sweet-peach, per usual.  After moving the cows, I realized I'd locked my keys in my car and Jeff and I had to old-school-style break into my car.  IT WAS BRILLIANT!!!

 Jude and Fireball, Jeff and Samantha, and Sherman's ears.



Vintage shoulder yum!!

The only thing I'm really missing in Denver is an organized fabulous amazing vintage store like the one I love back in Iowa called Revival.  Goodwill and the Arc certainly have their charms but they are too damn big, overwhelming and quite frankly, kinda gross.  After my mom vehemently refused to give me any of her vintage blouses, I was forced to do a little shopping on my own and found this gem.  The shoulders are key.

Collared shirts are the best.

 My three favorite necklaces.

Sunnies: F21  Necklaces: F21, Urban Outfitters  Blouse: Vintage via Revival  Shorts: Pimkie (in France)  Purse: Vintage

Love bright blue nails.

 Nine West shoes.  Of course.



CLIMB! CLIMB! CLIMB!

Climbing.  I can't tell you how good it felt to be back in the mountains figuring out how the heck to work my way up the ROK!!!  I felt great for not having climbed in months... maybe even a year (eek!) and I was also so happy and proud to share the experience with Jeremiah.  He's been putting off climbing with my brothers and me for a long time and he finally decided to give it a whirl.  He hates heights but he did an amazing job.. Spider monkey, he is.  Here's some pictures:

 Getting ready for his first tyrolean traverse across the ragin' rapids!

Mike showing how it's done.

 Westy, Kevin, Addy.

 Mike again.

 Getting ready for his first climb.

 Mike and Jeremiah.

Mike is a climbing guide so he was the best person to have around for Jeremiah's first climbing experience.

 Happy.

 A lil slab climb.

 High steppin.

 Jeremiah made it to the top too!

 Check out my ruined mani... so worth it!!

 Jeremiah on the way back.

 Adeline.

Climbs: started with a 5.8 and 5.10a/b.  Ended with 5.7 slab and 5.9 (best climb of the day).

Last days...

My last days in Iowa have been full of all kinds of crazy.  I haven't been taking any pictures because the thousands of pictures taken in Europe completely burned me out on picture taking.  BUT!  Here's what's been going on:

THIS IS A SHOUT-OUT TO PAIGE!!!  I met up with Paige at one of my favorite restaurants, the Atlas, and had a relaxed meal with a couple of her sweet friends on Thursday.  Shortly after we grabbed a quick MANGO PASSION FRUIT martini at the upscale Formosa and then left for the polar opposite bar, The Mill.  Ah, the Mill.  A couple minutes after we arrived, we were standing around the back patio and a drunken old man came up behind me and full-on groped my boob!!  Everyone was so incredibly shocked including me, but I managed to pull myself together, spin around, and heave his drunk ass into the brick wall.  I told him to get the F!! out of there and that was pretty much it... End Scene.  I guess that's the Mill for you...  The rest of the night was fabulous, however.  I saw DANA! and Tony, Peter and Brett among other grads from my high school.

The next night was also bananas.  I met up with Jenni, Keely and Jenna at Formosa for some insane sushi and Saki bombs.  The conversation was everything scandalous and nothing blog-appropriate which was absolutely what I needed!!  Keely and I had a lovely chat on the way home and I had just enough time to Skype with my honey before meeting up with Libby and friends at--you guessed it--The Mill.  I saw Peter and crew again but this time no groper and the addition of one of the Gunn's!!  Oh, I love the Gunn's.  Next stop was Joe's where too many shots were had and everyone stumbled home soon after.  I was fortunate enough to get a ride home from my good friend Tanner who saved me from a half hour of the dizzy-walks home.  So, I definitely owe him one.

I'm going to stop there as the next day was full of my five year reunion events and I still haven't recovered enough to put the day into words.  Instead, here's a picture of the albino deer that lives in my grandparents' town.  ENJOY!!

I love this deer.  We grew up together.  My grandparents' town is so small the slogan on t-shirts is St. Ansgar: Home of the Albino Deer.  AWESOME!!

Sea shorts...

She sells sea shells by the sea shore....

 I'm loving shorts right now as I haven't been able to rock them in 5ish years.  I gained 30 lbs after high school and couldn't bring myself to wear shorts until now.  Gotta love losing the college chubs.

 With this much leg, however, I felt a more conservative top was needed.  Since being in France the collared shirt is most definitely my friend.  And my mom gave me this elegant square bag to finish the look. SIMPLE.

Shorts: F21  Shirt: Express  Bag: Vintage c/o MOM

Hair...

I might talk about my hair too much...... BUT, I saw this picture and cursed myself for ever thinking I should cut it...  WHY!!???

Speaking of hair, I gave my mom a TOTAL HAIR MAKEOVER last night and it was really fun.  She seemed quite happy with the results.  This is BEFORE:

And this is AFTER:

 Pretty cute, right?

Naked...

MY BLOG IS NAKED!!!  I got bored of the pea green background and picture of mountains as I haven't even been to the mountains in a LONG time (sad!)... So, for now, I'm keeping it simple until I can figure out the crazy coding of blogger.  Good luck to me.  Yikes, my blog might be naked for a while...

I went to lunch with Meredith today and she gave me such a wonderfully thoughtful gift from her trip to Germany.  If you read this post, you know that last time Meredith visited Denver we had to bring out a hammer and nail just to open a wine bottle.  I still hadn't invested in a wine opener so I was thrilled to receive this jewel today:

THANKS M'BEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey! Hi! Nailpolish!

Nail! Polish! Rocks!  I just spent too much money on nail polish I don't need but it's so beautiful!  And I was in love!  Colors!  Drool.

In other news, Iowa City is really great.  I was sort of bummed in my last post, focusing my attention on little moments which weren't that significant and probably waayyy over analyzed on my part.  Ugh, I ALWAYS DO THAT.  The truth is, however, I've had a great time in my hometown so far, seeing some of my best friends and also a lot of other people who have brightened my entire trip.

I was blessed to have a night with my former roommate Jackie and another friend Chris T. who was pretty much my roomie during that time as well.  Jackie is moving to Seattle and I already informed her I'll be visiting all the time.  ALL the time.
The next night was spent at Joe's with two of my favorite ladies, Anna M. and Meredith R. and we laughed like hyenas the entire night.  I mean wow, the night was perfect.  I even saw Denny Ly, so great!!
The following night was a Saturday and I met up with Paige T. somewhat early at Joe's.  AGAIN.  That's three nights in a row.  I'm a sad sad person!  But Paige and I had a great time talking about our golf buddy dads and some much more juicy topics as well.  Just so I'll remember... here's a list of people I saw: Tyler G, Peter C, Sean from Spanish, first boss from Heyn's Ice Cream Peggy, Porche, Jim&Dave, TRISTAN D!, and Miss Kaily J.  Everyone was super nice and I was feeling the love by the end of the night.

With all the craziness of three days of getting down like donkey kong, I was so relieved to go to my Grandma's house for some detox and splendid company!!!  Now, take a look at my nail polish and try not to drool.  Don't worry Jeremiah, they were on sale....

Sinful Colors is carried at Walgreens and insanely cheap; Revlon is usually too expensive but lucky for me, on sale big time.  The colors from left to right are: Soul Mate, Metallic (boring name), Summer Peach, Golden, Chili, Paradise, Sunshine Sparkle and Jaded.  WALGREENS IS THE BEST.

Awkward...

Do you ever have those awkward moments of seeing someone from your past, going through the "Hey, how ya doing, good to cya, have a nice summer, buh-bye!" niceties and then feeling super weird and unfulfilled afterwards?  Sort of like, why even bother with the small talk?  In a smaller "town" like Iowa City, I generally see at least 10 people from my past wherever I go.  I've pretty well mastered the "look away and pretend not see the person" move, but when it's absolutely necessary to do the small talk jig, I try to stay positive and be as friendly as possible.  Apparently, not everyone has mastered the "be nice" part of niceties and I've felt like a major idiot on two separate occasions this week.  I'm needing a vent sesh so I will share!!

At the grocery store, I see a former sort-of gal-pal from high school and because I'd already given a ton of other people in the store the "look away" move, I was really excited to exchange niceties with someone I actually thought was super cool!  Maybe it was a bad day for her, or maybe the timing was wrong, but my hand claps of excitement and "HEY!!!" were received with nothing close to enthusiasm.  I immediately felt like an idiot.  BAM.  So that sucked.   

Next example.  I texted one of my ex-boyfriends from college (not Erik H. just to clarify) to see if he wanted to have a drink.  I'm not the crazy stalker lady that I used to be so I thought it would be a really chill way to catch up and have a normal adult conversation with someone I cared about for a bit.  He seemed receptive, good start.  So I'm out later with my gals and I'm informed he's at the bar too.  Oh, okay, I'll go say hi, like a normal person, right?  Maybe he thought I'd stalked him out or maybe I really do have the worst timing in the world, but I said "Hey!" in a friendly fashion and I basically got crickets... after a quick "How are you?" exchange he turned away and started talking to his friend like I wasn't standing there.  BAM!  Felt like an idiot again!  I mean who does that??  Why aren't people able to fake it better?? 

I don't know if I'm being super sensitive or am looking way too much into these exchanges but I should (and do!) feel lucky that I'm normally around the nicest people in the world which makes this type of behavior so insanely shocking to me.  I have to remember that as nice as I normally try to be, not everyone in the world will be thrilled to see me.  Ugh.  OH WELL!!!!!!!!!!!  After a bummer post, here's some pictures of what I BOUGHT IN EUROPE!!  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had my first ever experience with Zara and of course fell in LOVE.  Such a dangerous store.

 Zara.

 My second shopping experience at Zara.  Eva took one look at me in this and told me I HAD to buy it.  I say "KAY!!!"

 Favorite purchase of the whole trip.  Zara.

 I'm pretty sure every single boy and girl in Paris own a blazer so naturally... I NEEDED one too.  Zara.

 Zara.  Gold toes, oh my!

 My "Eva" dress.  Outdoor vendor.

 Zara.

 Little shop I don't know the name of.  Eva bought one too.  Friendship shirts!!

 Pimkie shorts.

 United Colors of Benetton.

 H&M.

 Two hot little numbers I can't show the blog world!  Lingerie shopping in Paris was hilarious.  I would be butt naked and two middle aged ladies would just barge in and hand me sets to try on without blinking an eye.  Just had to go with the flow!!  So much fun.