Starved Rock Camping Trip

This weekend my friends Carina, Carla, Carol and I drove out to Starved Rock on Saturday morning and camped out over night at the camping grounds there until Sunday. We were also able to enjoy two nice days hiking at Starved Rock.
On Saturday we arrived at our camping grounds early and set up our tent and ate lunch. After lunch we waited until 3:00 which was our check in time and then we drove over to Starved Rock State Park and went hiking all day. We saw tons of canyons and there were lots of pretty colorful trees everywhere.
Around 6:00 pm it was starting to get a little bit dark so we left starved rock having only hiked through about half the grounds. We drove back to our camp site and attempted to cook hot dogs on a fire. We were able to make a fire no problem with starter logs my friends had brought but we didn't really have anything to cook our hot dogs with. We had to make due with a little stick we found which kind of worked. At least we didn't starve but we did freeze to death in the tent all night. It went from being really hot during the day to absolutely freezing at night. We all tried to stay as warm as possible under our sleeping bags and mounds of blankets. Some how we managed to make it through the night. During the late morning the wind was really strong though and it was hard to sleep with it constantly blowing across the tent and making loud noises.
We ended up getting up kind of early and just decided to eat breakfast and pack everything up and head to starved rock again. So that's what we did and it turned out to be a decent day. We were able to hike almost all day until about 2:00 when it started raining pretty hard. Unfortunately we were as far away from the main lodge as possible so we got pretty wet walking all the way back. It was all worth it though because we saw some awesome canyons on the second day of starved rock. They were even cooler then the ones we had seen the day before.
Next time we decide to do this we're going in the summer time. I had a great time despite the cold we endured at night. It wasn't cold at all hiking so at least we enjoyed that.





































































I couldnt choose the best photo's to post on my blog because I thought they were all so great haha. :)

Apple Picking

This past Sunday my family and I drove down to Edwards Apple Orchard and went apple picking. Its a tradition in our family that we have been doing for years! This time we had been so busy that we ended up going really late in the season. On Sunday it was really cold out but we managed to make due and went anyways. By the time we got out to the apple orchards the sun was shining and it made the cold a little more berable.
We also met up with Jessica, Carl, Pam and Carl and we all went picking together. The apples werent as pink and golden this year but we went kind of late in the season so its to be expected. It was still nice picking them off of the trees and eating them. After we picked apples we listened to the band and got apple donuts. I think the apple donuts are my favorite part of the entire trip. There so delicious and addicting you cant just have one or two.

Blue Man Group

Tonight John and I offically celebrated our three year anniversary by going to see Blue Man Group. Our official three year anniversary was on Monday September 26th but I had to work that day so we didnt really do anything. Today I baked brownies and I hung out at John's house all day. Later on we drove down to Briar Street Theater in Chicago to see Blue Man Group. I've been to see them once before and I knew how spectacular they were! John had never been to see them but I just knew he would love it. The audience participation and all the crazy things they do on stage are fantastic. We had front row seats in the poncho section so we were right in front of the stage. If you havent seen Blue Man Group before I HIGHLY recommend it. There freaking amazing every time!
They even make art during the show and hand it out to the audience. One of the blue men made John a paint splatter painting using a gumball like item that he caught in his mouth from across the room. It was totally awesome! John dosent have much room in his bedroom so he gave the art to me. I'm not sure what to do with it, maybe find a place to hang it up? Now we'll have a keep sake to remember the show.

Hanson Concert

Yesterday was another Hanson Concert at The House of Blues in Chicago. As tradition Olivia and I had to go and we had a wonderful time. No matter how many times I see them live they are always amazing. I think this is a tradition Olivia and I will continue to follow for a long time.
Yesterday was like any other day, Olivia and I took the CTA in Rosemont this time instead of taking the metra because it is much cheaper. From the CTA we walked about a block and we were already at the House of Blues. We had to wait in line for about an hour and a half until they finally let us in.
The opening act was Meiko who is a solo girl musician just starting out. After she performed Hanson came on and performed the best show ever. Now Hanson always does an encore no matter what. People always chant for them at the end of the show and they always come back on and perform at least two more songs. This time was different however. Towards the end of the show a few feet in front of where Olivia and I were standing a man fell off the second floor balcony and landed on the floor. I'm surprised he didn't hurt anyone but somebody ran to get security and that was the end of that.
Because of that guy Hanson didn't go on for an encore, that's the only reason we can think of. The entire crowd was chanting and cheering for Hanson for about twenty minutes until the lights finally came on and they announced that the show was over and House of Blues was closed.
When Hanson was wrapping up there last song all the sudden one of the band members says "uhhh... I think someone just fell off the balcony" like he didn't even know how to react. So there was no encore and all the Hanson fans were angry haha.
However, to make up for there being no encore we met the drummer while we were walking back to the CTA. When we were walkking back we see one of the band members standing on the sidewalk. A few other girls are there talking to him. The drummer Zac Hanson was on his way to go bowling haha. The show hadn't even been over for half an hour and Olivia and I had just left House of Blues and he was already on his way to the bowling alley by himself.
I guess hes just human like the rest of us but it was a weird experience. Him there walking down the street in Chicago with his A&W root beer in bowling shoes headed to the bowling alley to throw some balls. You think after a show he would be doing something else like relaxing. Why was he by himself? Where were his brothers?
Anyways, he apologized for ending the show early and that was that.
This is one Hanson concert I'll always refer to as the time the guy fell off the balcony.

365 Days Holly

Today I've started a new blog on blogspot.com. You can find this blog at
365daysham.blogspot.com.
Here I will post a picture of myself every single day for an entire year, for 365 Days. I might take a picture of myself on my webcam or shoot a picture of myself using my orange pocket camera. Or maybe I'll have my Nikon with me on a photo shoot. Whatever type of camera I have with me and where ever I happen to be during the day I will take a picture of myself. I will have snapped 365 pictures of myself by the end and have posted them on my blog. It might be 11:59 at night when I post my picture for the day or 2:00 am but whatever time it is there will be one picture posted every day.
I hope everyone will join me for this year long ride. You can comment on my pictures at my blog and see what I look like and what I'm doing every single day for one whole year.

http://365daysham.blogspot.com/

:)

Late College Nights....

Yesterday afternoon I spent hours trying to finish up my final paper for my Capstone class. I didn't quite make it before I had to go to work. So I went to work and then I had to come home from work at 12:00 am and keep working on my paper. I ended up staying up until about 2:00 am and although I don't have Capstone until noon on Wednesdays, sleeping in until 11:00 am just wasn't good enough. I woke up and left myself a half an hour to get ready today which is usually no problem some days because I can get ready fast. Today I was just dragging along though. I ended up leaving my house late and I still had to go to the bank to take out some money because my gas tank is almost on empty. Its just one of those days I guess. Its so close to the end of the quarter but its not quite here yet.
I had such a hard time finishing my paper. It had to be ten pages long which is the longest paper I've ever written in my life. I'm terrible at writing papers because I can never get them long enough. When I turned that paper in today a million pound weight was taken off of my shoulders. I'm sure you guys all remember your late college nights up until the wee hours of the morning writing papers. I only have two big projects to finish up before I can celebrate my week long break. Right now I'm sitting in class a little sleep deprived but I don't even care. Now that I've turned in my paper I'm completely free the rest of the day. I'm going to make it the best Wednesday ever.
I hope you enjoy the picture in this blog post. I shot it from my seat in class :)
My little orange pocket camera is so handy for shooting spur of the moment pictures. I keep it in my purse so I can whip it out anytime I need to.

We the Sheeple

This past weekend has been pretty crazy for me because I've been trying to work on final projects and finish up assignments. There are only two weeks left until the end of my summer quarter so I've been going a little insane. Its only normal at the end of the quarter to be a little crazy though. Anyhow, this past Friday September 9th was my classes art show. The class is called Art Direction and our entire quarter in this class is spent preparing to put on an art show with our own work at the end of the quarter. It felt so stressful planning all the details for this show all quarter but when the show was finally here on Friday it felt like it was over to quickly. All that planning and it was over in just a few hours.
The first thing we had to figure out was our theme and topics. We had to figure out what we were all going to do our projects on. My project was about technology and two ways we used to communicate before we had technology. I shot two images and created them to be interactive to go along with all the 3-D interactive technology coming out onto the market today. I used my friend Chandra in the first image holding a cup to her ear. Then I attached a real string and cup to the frame. My other image was of Kristi pretending to write a letter and then I attached a real peice of paper to the picture.

















Next we had to figure out where we were going to hold our show. We ended up holding our show in a Gallery called Studio 101 in downtown chicago. The space was really nice and it fit all of our works on the wall comfortably. To have the space for a twelve hour time slot it was in the 1,000 dollar range. Our show was only from 6-10 pm but we needed all the rest of the twelve hour time slot to set up for our show and prepare during the day. If you dont know anything about having a show and renting studio space I can tell you that this price was rather cheap. I was part of the food/fundraising group and the first few weeks of class we sold food at school. After the first few weeks of raising money for our show one of the kids in our class was able to get Geico to sponsor our show. This had never been done in the history of an Art Direction class, we were all pretty shocked. So in the end Geico payed for our entire show as long as we let them have a booth at the show.

The Name/concept of our show was We The Sheeple. "Sheeple (a portmanteau of "sheep" and "people" ) is a term disparagement, in which people are likend to sheep. People unable to think for themselves. Followers. Lemmings. Those with no cognitive abilities of there own".
In our day and age with technology and trends everyone follows each other. We are like a heard of sheep so our show was inspired by that. We made little post cards and give aways to hand out to people at the show that had little sheep on them.