Outer Banks - Here I Come!

I'm going on vacation. Miss me, but... not too much.

Lost in my brain

Did you see the finale? Did you like it? I may have gotten teary eyed three times during the finale AND once after on the car ride home. Sentimental? perhaps. A couple of great love stories? Why yes, I think so. If you watched it and have a strong opinion, tell me about it in the comments!

State Dinner at the White House

Took this photo right before we ran into Beyonce outside the White House.... okay, maybe not. But we DID talk to a lady leaving the White House in a ball gown who told us Beyonce was there! So, this is a picture of me and Andrew about 500 feet from Beyonce (and Obama).

And THANK YOU internet, this is an actual photo of what we would have seen Beyonce looking like, had we actually seen her. This photo was taken last night on her way to the partay.

The Bird IS the Word!

Walking to the mailbox this evening I noticed a bright red bird who sang a tune that went woit woit woit... chew chew chew! I'd heard this guy before from my hammock where we have whistled back and forth. Today was the first day I've ever seen him!I ran upstairs to my room where I keep my Field Guide to Birds and verified him as a Northern Cardinal. Such a bright pretty fellow! Much prettier than say, a Northern Mockingbird...

Field Guide to Birds? Here's the kicker- in the brilliance of my brain and not wanting to take another massive science lecture course at BYU, I found out that I could take a bird watching course instead. So...

I NEVER ACTUALLY TOOK PHYSICAL SCIENCE!
A fact I forgot recently- see Physics comments.
(I went to this class AND got a good grade, Mom! SHELBY...)

And I'm no stranger to field guides. Jon got me an awesome astronomy field guide for Christmas last year. It's the size of a small child... but a field guide nonetheless. Lovin' my field guides... Ash

1... 2... 3...

1.)
Last night we saw "Robin Hood" and Jimmy did not disappoint when he brought his friend who looked like Russell Crowe! Here I am with my new friend Jason, Jason Crowe.
See the similarity??! Even more so when he speaks!
And can I just reiterate... H-O-T.
2.)
Robin Hood review: I really liked the love story between Robin and Lady Marian. I'm thinking I'll need to watch the movie again to really appreciate the entire thing. It was good, I just don't think I was in the zone! (we saw it pretty late at night...)
3.)
Erin wanted strawberry cupcakes for dessert tonight, so I made them. And they turned out lovely! Tasted like chocolate dipped strawberries... mmm...We made quite a few, and decided we'd better take the bulk to our friends (to avoid eating them all ourselves...). On our way to drop them off, it became apparent we may have already eaten too many! I said to Erin, "I feel ill like I might be nauseous and break out in a cold sweat" to which she replied, "the cupcake sweats!" (a play on Joey from Friends when he gets the meat sweats) I burst out laughing... first you eat too many cupcakes, and you get the cupcake sweats... then you have to put on sweats.
Here I am (without the cupcake sweats, in my sweats) with our cupcakes.
The end!

Draft - "She" team

I'm having a hard time pulling this draft list together... basically I just keep thinking of other men I wish were on my man draft! But, here goes... my "She" team only has 4 gals for now... TBD for the rest of them!



Amanda Peet- love her!






Evangeline Lilly- great hair/name!





Cate Blanchett- timeless!
Liv Tyler- magical!




MAN DRAFT- Waiting in the wings to join my team are the following...

I'd like a little bit of this, please...
or A LOT! .. Jim Caviezel










Add a dash of Lee Pace...












And a smidgen of Alan Tudyk. Much better. :)

Vampire Bats Softball

Last night I played my first game (the team's second game) of Softball for the National Geographic Vampire Bats. It was fun, our field was right in the National Mall, we were basically under the Washington Monument, hitting balls toward the Capital building. My team is made up of kids from NGT who are really cool, most of whom I haven't had a chance to work with yet.

Anyways, the point of this post is that this morning when I got to work there was an email from our coach that said:

And the MVP for the night is....

Ashley Pinney - in her first game with the Bats she was the most consistent hitter, pitched an inning or two, and had a couple of clutch catches in the field.

Little ol' me! :) This made my day.

Why I love Physics

I'm not the kind of person who is overly obsessed with time travel. But when I read an article like this, how can you not be enthralled? The Universe is an amazing place. And there is so much about it that we just don't know! Theories of relativity and wormholes are especially captivating. The most amazing part is that God follows/commands all these same rules of the universe that we are subject to. Isn't that spectacular?!

STEPHEN HAWKING: How to build a time machine (read the full article here!)

Wormholes and Time (by Ash)
A wormhole is a passageway in space between two very distant points. A shortcut, if you will. Imagine space (as we know it in 3D) is really a 2D flat surface, like a piece of paper. A wormhole would be like folding the paper in half so that two opposite corners are now right next to each other, drastically shortening the distance between the two points.This is the concept on which several television shows and movies are based: for example, Stargate and Star Trek both have plots that are based upon this theory.

In Hawking's article, he discusses time as a fourth dimension of space. I find that concept very interesting. So, three dimensions are length, width and height- and the fourth dimension is time. I know that sounds confusing, but think of it this way. Light travels at a constant 186,000 miles per second (which Hawking refers to as the cosmic speed limit- because nothing can travel faster than this speed). If light travels that fast each second, imagine how far it can travel in a year! Stars in the night sky are light years away. If a star is 100 light years away, it will take 100 years for light from that star to reach Earth. When you look at a star that is 100 light years away, you are looking at that star as it looked 100 years ago. Which means what you're seeing is not real time for that star, but a glimpse into the past.

So in reality, we are all time travelers!

Isn't it fascinating?

I LOVE SCIENCE!

The Draft

After eating several cookies and watching American Idol and Lost... Erin and I decided to do something really productive with our time, and create celebrity teams. Our guy friends do this "draft" for their favorite women celebrities, so we decided to create our own teams as well.

It's an ongoing draft, so if you think of someone who I should pay attention to next draft, let me know!

I'd like to introduce you to my starters:

Leading us out of the gate is a newbie, Sam Worthington- though I've actually been crushing on him for awhile. He may be blue, but he's one tough marine/cyborg/demi-god! And hello, very attractive.

A close second is pretty boy Jude Law. Real men cry, and you don't mind when they look like him!

What's a top man list without Matthew McConaughey! He still steals my heart in Contact every time. And I don't mind him as a buffed up dragon slayer either.

Next out of the gate is an all time favorite: Russell Crowe. Not just cause he's a kick-a gladiator, but also a math wiz, family man, and one heck of a reporter!

Rounding out my starters is funny man Jack Black. Need I say more? Okay, skadoosh! Kung Fu Panda I love you.

The rest of my team rounds out as follows:

Clive Owen- been lovin' on him since the BMW commercial days...

Daniel Craig- hello 007!

Shia LaBeouf- another funny guy/action adventure type, good in a tough situation.

Christian Bale- I like him best somewhere between the Reign of Fire/Equilibrium days...

Viggo Mortensen- uh... he's royalty!

Who's on YOUR team?

Birfday Marathon

For Jimmy's birthday we went all out ALL over town. It was such a fun day! One of the highlights was a National's baseball game (where the Nat's actually won!)
Here's me and Jim...

Me, Darci and Andrew...
Dylan and Jimmy.
Here's to a great day!

Night Owl

My roommate called me and a couple of our friends "Night Owl's" tonight, to which I said someone once said to me, "that's kind of redundant" to which my other friend said I'm pretty sure there really is an owl called a "night owl" to which I said interesting, I'll have to look that up.

Turns out, there is no such thing as an owl whose actual name is Night Owl.

But there is a Night Monkeyand Night Courtand Night Sweats -which was the first thing that showed up on google when I typed in "Night" lol...
Speaking of Night Owls, look what I found by searching the internet instead of sleeping-

Hawk Owl- Yowsa, those eye balls are about to pop out! Apparently this is a "full threat" display... he's doing a great job if you ask me.

This owl looks like he has a stick up his bum (like some people I know, jk)... that cannot be comfortable...
Here he looks like a Klingon...
This snow owl looks like an arctic explorer in a parka... that, or an albino penguin!

(Penguin: Whatchu lookin' at?!)

Owl's are very pretty when they're not looking weird.

The End. From one Night Monkey to another...
GOODNIGHT!

This makes me laugh til I cry...

The Bird is NOT the Word.

There is a bird that recently moved in about 100 feet from my bedroom window that incessantly chirps ALL NIGHT LONG. I thought most birds (excluding owls) were supposed to SLEEP at night. Have you seen Failure To Launch? Oh yeah, I'm starting to feel like THIS girl.
Turns out (after a little research) what I have on my hands is a Northern Mockingbird. And, it's mating season (oh joy). My little neighbor is trying to establish a territory and find a mate. Now I feel a teeny bit bad for chucking rocks at him... once he finds love the singing is supposed to stop.

I actually found a clip of what one sounds like. Does this not sound like an imitation of a car alarm? Yeah. Right outside my window... all night long...

How To Train Your Dragon

What a great movie!!! If you haven't seen this, you should. It's excellent! And the dragon is so stinkin' cute. Here's my crew with our special 3D glasses (they crack me up):
Scott, Erin and Andrew