It's been almost a month...

Oh my goodness guys. The semester is finally over. I never thought I'd be so excited to have foot surgery again (simply because it marks me the end of the semester finally!! My ecostore team did not win the competition but we struggled for the majority of the semester so it wasn't all that surprising. In any case, I did pretty well in my other classes despite neglecting them for ecostore most of the time. Yesterday Brian took me to the hospital and I got my right foot all cut up :) It's back to piggy back rides and laying around doing nothing. which is actually nice this time of year (as opposed to last summer....BLECH!) Anyway, Brian and I had our Christmas last night so you get to see all the gooodies!! Enjoyyy and see you all soon! :)

the whole graphic design senior crew
my ecostoreusa team workin hard (and jess giving me the finger ;) )
Brian and I before Noel Night
Alex and Brian who were in the same ecostore team decided to have suit and stache day for our final presentation
should i be worried?
but before that Brian did No Shave November. full bearded man!
When I was packing I realized I only had to bring left shoes home for break!
SCARVESSSS! This is the shibori dye one I made
I forgot what this style is called but we used tabby
overshot weaving sample, cool looking but I don't like the feeling of it
lace weaving sample...love this
lace weave scarf
his and hers scarves. made for brian for christmas (the blue one) and the red/brown is mine. they're woven on the same warp (color inside is the same)
mah foot is back to casted
brian's "crafty gift" to me was a glass companion cube he made! It's from the video game Portal that we've played together
a few hours post op
brianrachelchristmas! presentttttts!
He got me every owl necklace in existence, and a portal necklace!
he also got me a TANGLED PLAYSET.
and an agnes doll! and CALCIFER!!! (fiery creature from Howl's Moving Castle)
and another purse!!! the loot :)

brians loot from me! a sweater, a t-shirt, a plushie and patch from his favorite anime, a captain america bobblehead and a memory card that transfers your pictures to your computer automatically with wifi!
more detail :)

Haircut....

Herro family. So I've returned to my 10 year old roots and got bangs. Also, I got probably 5 inches cut off the length of my hair. It rests about an inch above my boobs now.

In the spirit of me trying to look like cute animated characters, here's me lookin like Agnes from Despicable Me. You should see it if you haven't....it's pretty cute.

Hugs and kisses....can't wait to see some of you this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Halllloweeeen!

I've been trying to wait for Halloween pictures to come out from the venue we went to but they seem to not want to put them up so I give up and here are the pics I do have! We went to Stacey's work party (all the pics not in our apartment) and then to MOCAD the next night (no pics). It was fun!

Copying the poster..but you can't really see :p

Alex was bomberman and Mary was sailor moon!

at O2 creative's party. stacey was a mummy and lauren was a skeleton that night :)

Justin was a creepy creepy bumblebee

Black swan gets revenge

rapunzel, black swan, lumberjack and sookie from true blood

Stacey made a roommates collage!

awwww snap!

Halloween Teaser

More to come!!

BIG update....

Hey guys, I know I've been terrible and haven't posted since school started!! What the heck Rachel? Anyway, I have some FABULOUS news so I'm going to jump ahead in time till today...then go back and fill you in on my school year so far.

So.......we WON the Adobe Design Achievement Awards Installation Category!!!!!! Will (my classmate) is in Taipei with my professor and they accepted the award just a few hours ago. Pretty incredible!! It was a worldwide competition with over 4,600 total entries (over all categories). Anyway, we're super pumped and while there is a small prize (some much needed software and 3k to split amongst 11 of us....so $272.72 that goes straight to tuition next semester), the best reward is the recognition and the resume padding. We've all gotten probably 40-50 random friend requests from people on social media stuff from the awards so I'm sure that will only increase now that we're 11 among 33 total winners this year! Pretty awesome stuff!

Here is the link.....

http://www.rachelariyavatkul.adaagallery.com/

Here's a picture of the award.....Yayayayy! :)

and a picture of all the winners this year (will is in the front in the brown suit)

edit: update--- We (Brian and I) just skyped with Will and he showed us the award again and also he has all of our official winner certificates so we got a teaser.....

So anyway, let's go back in time now.....

So....I went to Chicago the like second week of school for the annual Bushwalla LRC with my mraz friends :)

One night, Brian and his roommates John and Alex and Alex's girlfriend Jacyln and I all decided to play around with some glowsticks. They have nerf guns and we broke open glowsticks and dipped the bullets in it so when we shot them sprays of glowing goodness bursted out everywhere...(before you say anything...it's non-toxic and it all disappeared by the next night)

glow fingers!

carpet glow drawings

glow beard!

the shot!

I bought some rhubarb at the market and made strawberry rhubarb pie......

Brian playing around with toys at meijer.....

My loom!! I love weaving!!

Brian and I went out to lucky strike which is like a bowling alley/club/restaurant/arcade and we had dinner and played arcade games. He won me a Domo stuffed animal and we did a photobooth which I have yet to scan but have a blurry webcam picture of....

We've had a lot of presentations for our main studio class so Brian decided that one day after it we both looked cute and should take a picture :P

The only real party I've been to this school year....it was super super fun!!

Cute drawings while in class supposed to be brainstorming....

I've been going to Brian's parents almost every Sunday to do homework with Brian and have Sunday dinner with them. Often there are games played after dinner....this game of jenga was particularly stressful hahahha

so like my 5 year old niece, I'm being rapunzel for halloween!! here's my wig!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and last but not least....kelsey (my roommate) is organizing a halloween dodgeball event...she took pictures of lots of kids at school in costume with dodgeballs....here is cousin patrick's lovely portrait :D

I register for classes for my last semester of college in two weeks! That is CRAZY.

hugs and kisses

xooxoxoxoxox