31 Things In 31 Days: Bike the Entire Bike Path

I love my little black and gold BMX bike to death. And I love riding it everywhere I can. Before the weather turns bad I wanted to take it for a spin down the bike path that goes through my town. The beginning of the trail is really close to my house so I started from there and met Jacky at the next cross street. We stopped to try and find a geocache along the path but we didn't have any luck finding it. Jacky's sister lives near the end of the path so we stopped there for some water. All in all the whole trip was almost 9 miles and took about an hour and 45 minutes. I wanna do it again!

31 Things In 31 Days: Pull a Prank on Someone

Some of my best friends, Sky and Heidi, live in the same city as my sister Lori. So while visiting Lori I decided to do a prank on Sky. He loves the TV show The Office. A lot. If you're a fan then you know about the stapler in jello prank that Jim pulls on Dwight. I knew that would be the perfect prank to pull on Sky. My brother-in-law works in the same office as Sky so Lori and I knew their schedules and could pretty easily get into the office and steal the stapler and then just as easily sneak back in and place the jello. It did take a little planning, some lying and sneaking around, a bunch of jello and two days, but Lori and I pulled it off and it was awesome!

I watched a YouTube video for instructions on exactly how to do the stapler in the jello. It was really simple. 

The finished product in Sky's desk drawer.

How we left the office so it wouldn't be really noticeable.

From the thrift shop across the street you could see right into Sky's office. So we used it as our stake out location and to watch the whole thing go down.

Here comes the boys, walking back from lunch...

In the second window from the left you can see Sky sitting at his desk. He was on a phone call when he saw the jello and started busting up laughing. When he got off the call he called everyone into his office and they stood around laughing and starring at it. No one even touched it. Sky even left it in his desk the rest of the day and all night.

Another funny thing is that Sky put a device on my brother-in-law's computer hard drive the night before that would make Halloween-type noises every time he made a sound or movement. So Lori and I kind of avenged him with the jello prank without even knowing it. 

31 Things In 31 Days: Take a Nature Hike

My parents and I went to Idaho to visit my sister Lori, brother-in-law Kurt and niece Brooklyn. Since we were so close to Yellowstone my mom insisted that we go for a couple days. It was absolutely gorgeous. The weather was perfect even though it was the beginning of October in Wyoming and the last week of the season for the park. While we were there we went on many nature hikes. Mostly to see the thermals. They are my favorite. 

Kurt, Lori and me walking around the Fountain Paint Pot Trail.

Mud Pots. These were really interesting to me and almost mesmerizing. I could have watched them for hours.

Dad, Brooklyn and Lori walking along the boardwalk.

Mom and Lori consulting the brochure about the geysers and how often they erupt.

Biscuit Basin. This was right by the Firehole River and was incredibly beautiful.

Castle Geyser. Where we sat for 2 hours waiting for it to go off and then realized we did see it go off. Only it was a minor eruption instead of the expected major eruption.

Porcelain Basin. This place is other-worldly. Freakishly barren with loud steamers and colorful geysers. This photo is just a small portion of the valley.

This is only a snapshot of what we did while in Yellowstone. I have a ton more pictures and stories. Maybe I'll post more later. 

Girls & Boys

Signs on the restroom doors of a pizza place I went to in Montana. Took me a second to understand. Then I had to take pictures. 

31 Things In 31 Days: October Edition

Several years ago my sister and my mom and I all made "100 Things In 30 Days" lists composed of things that we wanted to accomplish during that time. On my list I had things that I had never done before or hadn't done in a long time. I decided that I wanted to try it again but on a much smaller scale. So I'm going to do 31 things in 31 days. This list is going to be kind of like my other one in that these are things that I've never done or haven't in awhile. I'm also going to try and take pictures and blog about each experience. 

Well here's the list.....


Watch "This Is Spinal Tap."

Bike the entire bike path.

Discover new music.

Put together a puzzle.

Do a guerilla art project.

Take a nature hike.

Build a fort.

Carve an elaborate pumpkin.

Burn stuff.

Geocache all night.

Play "Minute To Win It."

Go on a picnic.

Make and give someone a giant cookie.

Fly a kite.

Pull a prank on someone.

Memorize something.

Make ice cream.

Make a time capsule.

Learn a new computer program.

Put on a facial mask.

Go country line dancing.

Finish eye collage.

Go night swimming.

Photograph letters for name project.

Create a life sized portrait of myself.

Eat spam.

Get something for free off craigslist.

Make a "20 Things I Like About You" list and give it to someone.

Learn a magic trick.

Turn a book into a secret case.

Build a terrarium.

Polaroid Pictures

Images taken with a polaroid app on my phone while taking a walk on this 100 degree afternoon. 

I'm a geocaching fool!

I've been doing so much geocaching lately it's ridiculous! In the past 30 days I have found 126 caches, hidden 4 of my own, attended 2 events and made a ton of new friends. Here are a few pics from my adventures...

On my birthday Jacky and I attended an event in Modesto celebrating the end of summer. We met at an ice cream shop and ate and hung out for a while. There were about 50 people there but we went not knowing anyone but wanted to make the best of it anyway. One guy was there that we had run into at a geocache behind Target the week before though. But everyone was super nice and introduced themselves and sang me happy birthday and gave me hugs. It was awesome! After the ice cream shop about 14 of us went on an all night geocaching binge around Merced and Atwater. It was intense and crazy and exhausting but soooo much fun!!! I didn't stay awake the whole night (oops!), I ended up falling asleep in the back seat of someone's car. We ended the night with breakfast at 7am. It was a freakin' fabulous night!

Christina aka "Scarlett Pepper" and Jacky aka "PetiteLune"

R.J. aka "thejeffs" and Derk aka "deranja"

Chase aka "cjweiss06"and Katelyn aka "FaroFoxx" and Derk.

Over Labor Day weekend I went camping with my parents and sister Brittney and her husband Job and son Porter. I managed to convince Brittney to do some geocaching with me while we were there and we took Porter with us.

This geocache was really well camouflaged and it took us a second trip to finally find it. Porter is holding a little plastic Tigger that we traded from the cache.

This geocache was the coolest one I've found so far! It was in a secret tunnel/cave! We had to walk up a hill to get to it and then it was down in a little ditch. We traded some 3D glasses for a cool ball for Porter at this cache. He loved all his new play things!

Me with the ammo box, my GPS, pen and headlamp.

Jacky and I went to another event last week. It was a birthday party for all the July, August and September people. It was held at a fellow cacher's pizza parlor and we ate and talked and sang happy birthday and ate cake. After that 5 of us went geocaching in the area for a little bit, then lost some people and picked up some more people, then cached some more. Then picked up some more people then lost some people. Jacky and I were the only consistent ones. We cached from 2pm to midnight that day.

Jacky at Pizza Plus.

Me pointing to my "Hello my name is Scarlett Pepper" nametag.

One afternoon Jacky convinced me to go do a pirate themed multi cache by the river. It was quite a hike and really fun. We found all the stages really easily except for the 4th stage. We searched and searched with no luck. Finally we called a fellow geocacher and she told us where it was. If not, we would still be there looking for that stage.

We found this rusted out old car and took some photos.

Rusty, Jacky and I went tubing down the river on Saturday to get some caches known as the River Run series. The whole series consists of 40 caches and takes a couple days. We only went part way and attempted 7 caches. We found 5 of them. It was super fun and I want to complete the rest of the series. It will probably have to wait till next year because it's going to start getting too cold. I didn't get any pics of us doing the River Run but I wanted to include it because it was so much fun.

Froggie!

I have a FROG!!!! Sailor has turned from a tadpole into a frog. More specifically he is a Pacific Tree Frog. Here are some pictures and stories of him changing since the last I posted. 

In this picture you can see that one of his front legs has grown out but the other is just slightly bulging on the side.

The next day he had 2 front legs and was spending a lot more time sitting on the rocks than swimming around.

A couple days after that Sailor's tail was almost all the way absorbed and he was starting to attach himself to the walls of the fishbowl so he was up out of the water. I then knew it was time to drain some of the water and rearrange his home. After I did that I knew he could still climb the walls and thought he might try and escape. I thought about what I could do to cover the top but never did anything about it. That night I came home and checked on him but couldn't find him anywhere. I looked all over in the bowl like under the rocks and in the water but he wasn't in the bowl. I knew he had got out and was starting to worry. I looked all over my dresser, on the floor, under things, behind things. I was freaking out and about to start crying because I thought I had just lost and killed my brand new frog. But I looked down the hall and could see him hopping around on the bathroom floor! I scooped him up and put him back in the bowl. He got a good scolding and some plastic wrap with holes poked in it to go on top of the bowl.

He is a full frog now but still changing some. The dark markings over his eyes are becoming more prominent and his eyes are protruding more out of the top of his head. He's so tiny and I don't know how much bigger he is going to get. He still tries to escape but I make sure that plastic wrap is good and tight. 

Christina's Shortlist

1. Los Angeles Lakers - I've been forced to watch almost every Laker game of the entire playoffs by my boyfriend Johnathan, who is a major Laker fan. And I have to admit I am now a fan. They are just a great team filled with great players. Seriously, try and watch Kobe play and not drool over his athletic ability.

2. Cakesters - My friend Shaun introduced me to these awesome snack cakes from heaven. I've tried all the different kinds. Double Stuf. Golden. Peanut Butter. All are amazing but the peanut butter is my favorite.

3. The Spill Canvas - I've loved these guys for over a year now and have all their albums. My friend Jacky and I went to see them at Slim's in San Francisco last month and they were amazing! I even met most of them before they performed and had my picture taken with them. Basically we're best friends now. I just have to say that Nick, the lead singer, is incredibly sexy and I could watch him perform every night for the rest of our lives.




4. Hydrangeas - My favorite flower is in bloom right now. I even have a giant bush of them right outside my bedroom window. I love them in pink the best.

5. Sundresses - I love wearing dresses! I wear one most days even if my legs are not shaved. I bought these two at Old Navy recently. Except the one on the bottom is all black.

My little Sailor

Almost a month ago I acquired a new pet. A tiny little tadpole. I found him at Lodi Lake while hiking there with my friend Dina and her son Mateo. He was one of the littler tadpoles in the pond when I found him. We caught him in a plastic water bottle and I took him home. I got a big fish bowl and some rocks and made him a home. It took several days but I finally named him Sailor. 

This picture was taken a couple days after bringing him home. 

Sailor is such an active little guy. He swims around like crazy, eats so much and will even sit and watch me when I am close to the bowl. This picture was taken a couple days ago. He has gotten noticeably fatter and longer. Notice his little legs all curled up in his tail.

The day after the previous picture was taken his legs had separated from his tail and are long and free. It's so exciting to see him growing and transforming everyday.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

One Saturday morning Desirae and I went garage sale shopping. There were a ton of garage and yard sales in our town and the next. We both got some really cool stuff. I bought a gorgeous dresser, 3 mirrors and 4 rings. 

Here is a picture of 2 of the mirrors I bought. I got both of them for $5. They are really tall and really heavy. I had to nail in the backs to the frames and rewire one of the mirrors. Other than that they are in great condition. I decided to paint them a glossy black and hang them above my bed, kind of like a headboard. 

Here is a picture of the finished project. I even made my bed for the picture. That never happens. The mirrors add so much to that big, blank wall that my bed is against.

Here's a little piece of trivia: these mirrors now make 6 that I have in my bedroom alone. You can actually see part of 2 others in the bottom of the left mirror.

365 Updates

The past couple of months have been crazy to say the least. I am embarrassed to admit that my self portrait project has taken a back burner. I've still been taking photos but only sporadically and haven't posted any in several months. 

I've kind of decided that I'll still continue the 365 project but it won't be confined to a year. It will just be 365 photographs. I'm almost at 250, I just need to post them all. 

Now I am finally getting around to posting some of my photos. They are backdated to the day that I actually took the photo so you have to scroll down and go back to view the newest entries.