Christmas Sundaes

Friday, the day after Christmas, was my Mom's Christmas "get-together" with her, my step-dad, Dave, my sister, Lori, her husband, Albert, and my niece and nephew, Cody & Emily. Definitely fun. Mom made homemade pizzas and we ate ice-cream sundaes. She set out tons of stuff on the table to make your own. Definitely not a Christmas tradition, but it will definitely be one from now on :)

(mom & cody; gotta love em')

(me stuffing my face for the very last time, haha)

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas! We had a great day. Christmas Eve, we spent the night at Brett's parents. Spent a lot of time working on the Tall Ships myspace. We woke up Christmas morning to open gifts with Brett's parents. We got so many wonderful gifts from them.. truly a great Christmas. We spent the entire day on Wii and I spent most of my day beating The Sims: Castaway Stories. (so fun!) We ate dinner with them and Grandma Cook and later in the evening, went to see "Marley and Me". Loved it! All in all - perfect day.

(our third christmas)

Failed Ice Skating Attempt

We were supposed to meet up with Tim and Kristan to go ice-skating at Rosa Parks circle. Well we were supposed to meet at 6:30, but apparently they got held up at the mall and with the roads. Not many people were out on the rink, but Brett and I sat at Biggby waiting for them to arrive (which they never did.) So! Peter and Andrea came to the rescue. We chatted for a bit at the coffee shop, then rented a movie and ate pizza at Pete's apartment.

(us on monroe center)

The Last Hardcore Show at Skelletones

Saturday was the last hardcore show at Skelletones. Bands like Damages, Make it Clear, Crowley, Tall Ships & Brothers played. It was a pretty good show. Definitely memorable, considering the timing. Brett asked everyone who considered themselves to be "part of the Grand Rapids hardcore scene" to come up to the stage and take a huge group shot. (looks great, photo credit to mike mirza) I still can't believe Skelletones will be done in a few weeks. I'll definitely post a full entry come "farewell" weekend. Our lives have definitely been changed thanks to that place.

(my adorable husband)

(the hardcore scene)

The Dierolf's 2nd Annual Christmas Party

The Dierolf's 2nd annual Christmas party was a blast. The weather has been so crazy lately. But everybody made it there! We ate lots of food, played the white elephant game and took our annual Christmas photos. Then we bounced balls down the atrium of the Globe Apartments and watched "Scrooged" to finish the evening. It was a blast. I love our friends. Thanks so much for all of them for being there.

(top: damian, brett, ryan, matt, pete, andrew, mike, jeremy)

(bottom: lisa, jen, mani, brenna, kait, sarah, andrea, tieka)

Polar Bear Club in Chicago

Saturday, we headed out with Jeremy, Kait, Josh & Jessica to Chicago. We drove to Michigan City and took the train to downtown. We hopped on the red line and headed out to my favorite part of Chicago and stopped to Ragstock and bought ugly Christmas sweaters. We left shortly to head back out to Reggie's Rock Club to see Fireworks, The Swellers and Polar Bear Club! It was honestly a greattt show and I love Reggie's. It's the coolest place ever. If I lived in Chicago, I'd be there all the time.

(polar bear club & an outstretched arm of brett's)

Afterwards, we headed out to find some place to eat and had some difficulty. We finally ended up at Dick's Last Resort which was pretty fun. Jeremy got up to do a tambourine dance with the band. And there was this table of older adults sitting across the room from us throwing rolled up napkins at us, which was hilarious. Afterwards, we hopped the 11:18 train back to Michigan City. We finally got there and back into the van to head home. I fell asleep and we ended up getting home at 4:30 in the morning.

(brett + tieka on the train ride home)

Damian & Lisa's Wedding

Damian and Lisa's wedding was perfect. The snowy weather, the church, the food, the people. The whole weekend turned out great. I loved it and had a super great time. Ryan P Photography set up a photo booth at the wedding, and we got some fun pictures. I'm excited to see those. I love having more married friends. I'm so happy for Lisa and Damian.

(brett, me, lisa & damian)

I'm so thankful for our friends. Our table was a blast.

(andrea, peter, brett, tim & kristan)

Monroe Center

Well, I finished my last art history class of my college career, and walked out of the classroom feeling great and nostalgic. I remember nailing every single slide on the tests and feeling absolutely amazing about it. I remember getting a 100% on my first art history exam. It's crazy how fast college will fly by, especially when you're having as much fun as I am. Afterwards, I proceeded to walk around downtown waiting for Brett to pick me up. The snow was gorgeous, especially on Monroe Center. I sat at Biggby for a while, knowing so many people there. Walked around, took some photographs of the snow and lights, and realized how much this is my town. I love my friends here, I love my life here. Our group of friends are so absolutely amazing. I wouldn't change anything about it, except to be able to spend even more time with them. Anywhoo, I love this town. I love my life.

Punk Rock Key Players

I've recently been reading through browneyepie columns online, and Brett and I came across a article/post written by a girl named Cortnee. He spotted this first, but we just thought it was amazing.

"Before the show began, an acquaintance of mine, some older punk boy, took me by the hand and began introducing me to all the key players (ha!): Sock, Penguin, Mike Savina, Monkey Mike, Bryan Willits, Kris Wierenga, Andy Savina, Jimmy Wronski, Paul Fett, Brett Dierolf, Ryan Ruffener...etc, etc."

We just thought it was awesome that Brett is a key player in the punk rock scene! I'm glad I'm married to one of those old crusty punk rock boys.

[posted on facebook @ old skelletones show w/ steve schallert]

Total scruffs

We have been total scruffs lately. I blame it on the final two weeks of classes.

Finishing up Fall

Two weeks until fall semester is complete. It feels like it just started but I waited forever for it to end. Either way, I really enjoyed it. I definitely got back into the swing of things here at Kendall. I'm feeling better about my work. More than ever, actually. I'm contemplating changing my major to Graphic Design. I absolutely love working with Illustrator & InDesign. And my dream future career now is to do magazine layout, instead of design websites. But I'm too far along. I'd probably have to catch up on a lot of classes. Plus I'm sure I can get into a career designing magazine layouts with my digital media major. Plus, not to mention, a lot of magazines are going digital. So that might just run down my alley in the future. Nevertheless, I'm in love with Kendall. I'm in love with all my classes, professors and experiences so far. Grand Rapids is going great. (besides being sick, I'm great too.)