(11/13/11) Tahoe

Gee, this trip was quite the adventure. My family went as a birthday trip for my (now 18 year old) brother, Justice. It included driving two hours through the mountains with the new Coldplay album turned up loud (cause it's AWESOME, if you haven't heard it yet), hiking through ridiculously gorgeous forests full of colored leaves, eating garlic bread sandwiches that were delicious but had garlic that stuck to my thumbs all day long, and finally getting lost out in the woods as it was getting dark.

We started out by just driving along the west side of the lake, sometimes getting a glimpse of the water here and there through the trees until we pulled off to the side of the road and began hiking.

The light was just so yummy:

I hadn't seen fall-colored leaves in so long that it was a bit of a shock to realize how bright they actually are:

Emerald Bay:

Random moonscapeish rocks in the middle of a forest:

Random snow makes my day 32789432 times better than anything else could:

The last picture I took that day... before we completely lost our trail through the woods and got rather stranded! Next time we hike that trail, I think we'll be paying more attention as to where the trail is and where it isn't:

(11/1/11) Anytime: Claire

The weather had been cooling off for a while, raising my hopes of hot cocoa, scarves, and pretty red leaves to heights they rarely reach. Of course, on the day of the photo shoot, the sun quickly shot out from behind its previous hiding place (the formerly dense grey clouds) and was so intense that it felt like the beginning of summer again. Oh well, we made it work!

Returning to the purpose of this entire post, I shall now introduce you to one of the coolest, most hilarious, most talented girls I have ever met - Claire! I met her..... um, was it really only two weeks ago? I love those people who, right after you say hello, it seems like you've known for years.

I met her at a speech club, in which I had no idea what I was doing and she totally... did. I had no previous exposure to the whole "world of speech" and she explained it for me in a nutshell of about five minutes. She is ridiculously talented, which is a statement I say with utmost confidence since I've seen her performing her D.I.'s (that's Dramatic Interpretation for those of you who don't happen to have a friend who explains all of these ridiculous acronyms)... and working it in front of the camera. :)

So here's the proof -- she's pretty much really gorgeous.