Let’s just look at balloons…

Hey everyone! It’s me again! I’m filled with all sorts of conflicting emotions right now (such as 1) Cobalt and I just celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary=yay!!!, 2) Cobalt and I are getting screwed over by our apartment complex and might not really have anywhere to live in 9 days=bad!, 3) I set my date to defend my thesis (October 24th) so I can finally get my PhD = YAY but also SO MUCH WORK = :-/?). So instead of talking about all these various things, I am going to post pictures of balloons.

A few weeks ago, Cobalt and I wondered how many helium balloons it would take to make my stuffed sharks fly. We decided to buy 20 balloons and see which animals would be able to fly with that amount. Turns out – stuffed sharks are heavy! But tiny Micro Squishable dinosaurs are light! So Sir Chandler “Cornflakes” Montgomery III got to go on a fun adventure – see below!

Sir Chandler and the balloons!
Looking out over Boulder!
We had Chandler tied to Cobalt so he couldn’t escape… Here they are looking particularly epic.
Cobalt wanted this picture taken. It looks like they’re having an important conversation.

That was fun! Can we do it again?!
Gustav is too fat to fly… :( Any guesses on how many more balloons we would have needed to make Gustav fly?

Yay! Balloons! Are you feeling better because I totally am… Okay back to reality for me… More posts coming soon!

Celestial Seasonings and What Followed


Hello everyone! I hope you had a great MLK weekend! I had a lot of fun with my SIL, her kiddos, and Cobalt. We went to IKEA (I’ve got a plant project… more on that later… like when I actually do the project), Cobalt’s favorite record store, our favorite bookstores, the park (it was so warm this weekend!), the movies and to Celestial Seasonings for a tour of their plant. That is where the above picture comes in: we all had to wear hairnets to go on the tour but Cobalt and the other bearded guys also had to wear beard nets… hahahaha. It was funny. We giggled at him a lot. Regardless, the tour is really cool! You should definitely check it out if you’re ever near Boulder (also, you need to visit me… duh)! After the tour, my niece and I got matching shark and whale finger puppets. :D I named mine Rosabaya and Arpeggio after two of my favorite Nespresso flavors (I know…. super nerdy all of a sudden)!

The shark and whale finger puppets hang out…

Anyway, that’s all for now. Things are busy as usual. At least my niece and nephew got to help me set up for Monday’s experiments Sunday night. We all had gloves on and I taught them how to set up everything. It was kind of amazing. Made Monday’s experiments way happier knowing that we set it all up together…

In other news, I’ve been working on making our lab webpage super awesome so when I finally get time to work on this blog, I am kind of tired of typing… So I apologize for posting lags…

What are you guys up to right now? How are those new years resolutions coming?

Nine Lies and a Truth -or- Fortune Cookies and other Fun Wedding Stuff


Lots of fun in this post. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. First, the fortunes. So in case you are just tuning in to the “Recap of Potassium and Cobalt’s Wedding” Series, let me remind you that for our wedding, we made felt fortune cookies as our favors (pattern is here). The fortune cookies were prominantly featured on the blog mostly because Cobalt and I couldn’t decide what to put on the fortunes. We actually figured out the back first (It said: “Lucky numbers: 8 4 12”) and then finally, one day while visiting Cobalt’s family, we cranked out 10 possible fortunes: facts about Cobalt and me. Nine of them are complete lies and one of them is a very silly truth. Cobalt typed them all up to make them actually look like fortunes (he picked an amazing font and they printed out really great) and then Cobalt and the T stuffed each fortune cookie with one of the fortunes before the T and I set off to CA. All this work was put in…. and then we forgot to put the fortunes out for our guests…….

I think what actually happened was that it was a bit windy when the caterers were setting up the tables so they didn’t want to put the fortunes out and have them all blow away. In the end, it was Cobalt and me running around during the dancing part of the reception handing out fortunes (it was kind of funny…) and we ended up with a lot left (as you can see from that picture). Anyway, I am sure you are all interested in reading the fortune options (even if you received your very own fortune cookie at our wedding!) so without further ado, here they are:

9 lies and a truth

  • While living in Albuquerque, Potassium & Cobalt were featured in “Breaking Bad.” They were in plain sight.
  • To recreate the day they met, Potassium & Cobalt are honeymooning in the belly of a whale.
  • Potassium was impressed with Cobalt’s uncanny ability to sing like a capaberra.
  • Cobalt was impressed with Potassium’s uncanny ability to crochet 50 chickens in an hour.
  • Cobalt and Potassium are secret agents. They appreciate your discretion.
  • Cobalt and Potassium have a pet dinosaur named ‘Sinatra.’ ‘Dino” was already taken.
  • Potassium and Cobalt accidentally spilled yogurt on President Obama when he last visited Boulder.
  • Potassium and Cobalt once went to Amarillo, TX just to try on big hats.
  • The understudy for the groom is Nathan Fillion. If you see him, let us know.
  • The understudy for the bride is Amy Adams. You won’t see her. She is hidden.

Switching gears a little bit. I thought I could also talk briefly about my bridesmaids’ gifts. I got them each a necklace/earring set and… a stuffed Shark Banana. The shark bananas were a huuuuuge hit and all five of them plus mine showed up for the wedding (without any of us discussing this idea). We took some pictures of us pre ceremony and then our photographer found out and went to town with it. “Okay… have your banana shark kiss Potassium… okay make your banana shark a mustache… OHHHHHHH I SAW THAT! You dropped your banana shark on the ground! I am going to have to call BSPS – banana shark protection services…” It was a shark banana/bridesmaid/bride extravaganza. Can’t wait to see those pictures… But until then, here is a picture of all the Shark bananas in the bridal suite before the wedding started… :)

What is your favorite fortune? Any other requests for wedding Wednesday posts? I am kind of running out of topics…

Just like brothers…


So some of you may not know this, but my first animal love was not the shark. It actually started out with whales and dolphins (and I still love whales and dolphins too… don’t let my shark filled blog lie to you). I always loved toothy, grumpy things too though so once I got my first stuffed shark as a present, it’s easy to see how I was soon obsessed with sharks. Anyway, because of how much I love sharks, I decided that what better present to throw to my girls than a shark (instead of a bouquet) at our wedding (and you were wondering how this was going to turn into a wedding Wednesday post…)! I mean, my first stuffed shark is still one of my absolute favorite stuffed animals today and he paved the way for sharks being my new favorite animal! Plus, my friends told me they would much rather catch a stuffed shark instead of a bouquet so I say it’s a win-win situation.

Because Scrarmpl (scr-ARM-pul) was my first stuffed shark, I decided to buy the same stuffed shark to throw at my wedding (the gateway shark… hahaha). He arrived Monday and I am a bit embarrassed to see how “loved” Scrarmpl is compared to his little brother. They barely even look like the same shark! In this picture, Scrarmpl and “new shark” are reading the most recent Entertainment Weekly together… As you can see, “new shark” is much bigger and fluffier than Scrarmpl…

Anyway, “new shark” is going to be totally decked out for the wedding. I know I have pretty much zero time right now, but I still would like to at least make him a bow tie or something to wear for the wedding. I can’t wait to see who catches him!

As for the garter… that’s just going to have to be a surprise. Though Cobalt and I are super excited about that too (it came this weekend… we giggled a lot…).

As for the rest of the bouquet, I haven’t decided what to do – if I want to hold long stemmed flowers during the ceremony and then just throw the shark during the reception or if I want to have long stemmed flowers surrounding the shark during the ceremony and then throw him? Who knows…

Your task for today – tell me what you think I should do about my bouquet. I don’t really have any specific flowers in mind (had planned on anemones but I don’t think they’re in season that late in the summer). Recently, someone suggested that I use dahlias. They seem really pretty… I’m actually not very picky about the bouquet. I think I should probably be holding something but I haven’t decided what. I like the idea of a simple bouquet (just a few long stemmed flowers would be fine with me) but otherwise I am drawing a blank. Ideas? What are your favorite flowers to see in bouquets?

Taking our whales for a walk


Wow… it’s been a while since I’ve written. So much has been going on in lab recently that I have really only had time to eat, sleep, and think about science. Whew…. sometimes things get crazy with grad school.
Anyway, some of the craziness ended on Friday when we had a huge lab cleanup to prepare for the big lab move next month. It was ridiculously epic. I was sooooo busy taking care of all the old expired chemicals we found in the weirdest places (thanks to the student I inherited my workspace from… NOT happy with him right now). After all of that, A and I took our giant stuffed sharks on a walk. While we were out playing with my camera and the sharks, one lady walked past us and asked us if we were taking our whales for a walk. A and I just looked at each other for a second and nodded as we passed. Then we burst out laughing… they’re sharks, not whales! Geez! Anyway, we (and the sharks) had so much fun this past weekend so I thought I would share some pictures – up there they are both sitting in a pine tree (obviously). Down there, there’s Fernando trying to eat an out of focus Prius and Gustav and me doing a silly dance…


Did you guys do anything fun this weekend? Have you seen any fun sharks? (Thanks Natalie for the picture last week. Totally made my day!)

Shark Friday


These past few weeks have been super busy for me mostly due to things going on in lab. However, while I was away in lab, my sharks got to have a lot of fun this week. First Banana Shark got to have Orange Julius and pie on Pi Day and then yesterday five of my sharks had the pleasure of chasing me around the apartment complex when I got home early from lab. These pictures were super fun for Cobalt and me to take… I have been planning this shoot for a while now. Unfortunately the sun got in our way a little bit (hence all the crazy flares) but no worries. We just might have to do it again… I had originally planned the shoot to use three people and not just two so we’ll just have to try it again… perhaps we’ll take the sharks to the park! :) I love Banana Shark in this bottom picture…


I hope you have good weekends!

Snow Day


Last Friday, we got a snow day! Turns out that between Thursday night and Saturday morning, we got about 23 inches of snow. Craziness… I haven’t seen this much snow since I was a little kid! Anyway, pictures…

To start things off, at the top is a picture of my friend A and me and our respective sharks (Fernando and Gustav) in the snow when it just started on Thursday night.

Fast forward to Friday morning when I decided it would be a fun idea to go cross country skiing through my neighborhood (why not?! There was snow everywhere…). So here are some more fun pictures:

First we have the picture of my faithful skiing shark companions: Shark Banana and Scrarmpl (Cobalt was there too but he was taking the picture… that is what he is not in it).

Then we discovered that Shark Banana has a loop on the end of his banana that was perfect for clipping him to one of my gloves. It was hilarious having Shark Banana on my glove, especially when I fell down (not shown!). I am pretty sure Shark Banana snuck a bite of snow while I was struggling to get up…

There we are trekkin’ through the neighborhood!

Thanks Cobalt for taking these pictures! :)

Black and White: What’s that you see, Russell?


Sometimes I think that I shouldn’t be allowed to have as much fun as I do with my DSLR and its remote control. This picture (and the one below) were taken out of boredom and a huge desire to take a picture of me “lurking” upstairs. So I borrowed Cobalt’s tripod and set it up crazily on the stairs and then busted out the remote control. Russell the shark came along for the ride. These pictures were kind of silly not only to pose for but just to take in general. Every few pictures, I’d stop and run down the stairs to check out my results/determine if I wanted to change any of the settings/my poses or whatever. Ha… I am so weird. Anyway, I love this picture because it is just so goofy. I feel like I am on some crazy children’s network TV show and Russell and I have to solve some sort of crazy mystery before the evil guy gets us!
On a completely different note, check out the picture below. Here, I felt like I was going to sneeze and I thought it would be funny to have a picture of me sneezing with Russell just hanging out… So here it is.
          
FINALLY… on a completely random note, when I typed this post’s title, I typed “Blah and White.” I hope you don’t think these pictures are blah… :(