Birthday!

My birthday this year turned into a 4-day celebration. I hadn't even really planned on doing anything, but it just kinda happened that way. Thursday at work my office brought in cake. One of my little kids made me the cutest birthday cake too.

Thursday night I went to dinner with a few people at El Cholo.


The girls decided that watching the end of the NBA finals was better than sitting at the table with the rest of us.

Maybe that's why I like those girls so much. If it'd been college basketball I would have been right there with them. Yes the Lakers did win for me.
Friday night we had a rockin' party at my house. It was fun to see lots of friends I hadn't seen in a while! Sadly I forgot to get my camera out, so there's no footage from that night. Thanks girls for all the jewelry I got for my birthday!
Saturday I went down to Orange County to hang out with my dad who was in town for my grandparents 60th anniversary. We hit up the sporting goods store and did some birthday shopping. I now have a backpacking stove and a lantern to add to my other camping equipment. Time for a camping trip. After that we went to dinner and just hung out for the rest of the night.
Sunday we all got together for Father's Day and June birthdays. I was the only June birthday that was there from the family. Laurel made me a beautiful cake and dinner was amazing as well.

Camping chairs were also added to my camping equipment too. It was great to see the family and have a good healthy dose of medicine, politics and religion, the Evans family staple topics of conversation.

After 4 days of celebration I guess it's time to embrace being 26.

Happy Anniversary

Today marks my three year anniversary of living in LA. It's hard to believe it's been that long. But it may be even harder to believe that I feel totally at home here. I'm not saying that I want to live here forever, because I don't, but somehow LA is home for now. Shana and I have a 5 year plan and I'm not even sure I'll make it 5 years here. This year has been filled with ups and downs much like every year. But I'd have to say that the good has outweighed the bad. I got to visit my sister in North Carolina; take several trips with friends to Pismo Beach, Palm Springs, San Francisco; attend my first Indian wedding, go to Disneyland for the first time in years, find a job...twice, try sushi for the first time, get my first pedicure, cut 10 inches off my hair, make some great new friends, attend a bachelorette party on the Queen Mary, attend several cousins' weddings, spend the 4th of July in the Huntington Beach brothel aka Heidi's apartment, finish my first crocheted patchwork quilt, get my picture in the Deseret News, go rock climbing outdoors for the first time, weave a May pole, make waffle cones and ice cream with my very own waffle cone maker and ice cream maker, and so much more. Here's to year three. On to year four!

Camping

This past weekend I went on a camping trip with the Santa Monica and Glendale wards. Heather, Shana and I drove up to Malibu after work on Friday to meet up at the campground. We set up camp. Friday night we hung out around the campfire and then headed off for a midnight hike and to go geocaching. We found one of the two that we looked for. It took some hiking through many bushes and tall grass, but it was fun. Then we came back and 11 of us played cards in one of the tents. Saturday morning I woke up with the sun. The Hobitat was a great tent for us...spacious, ventilated, kept the bugs out. I'm happy with my purchase. Then we headed off for a hike and rock climbing. It was the first time I'd ever climbed outside and I didn't make it up all that far. But it was fun. When everyone was done climbing we headed off to the beach to meet up with the rest of the group. Too bad it was June gloomy and not very warm. I ended up taking a nap on the beach in jeans and a sweatshirt. Could have been a better beach day, but it was still a fun camping trip.

Hello Hobitat

The end of May marked REI's annual sale. Since I am a member of REI I got a nice 20% of any regular priced item coupon. Oh the things I could buy there. After already buying a nice camping pad that was on sale so I couldn't use my coupon I decided I needed to make another trip and use that coupon. I guess the marketing gimmick works on me! I have been wanting to buy a tent for a while and Memorial Day between tennis and the beach I made a trip to REI with Shana and Nick. Thanks to their help I was able to find my newest camping purchase...the Hobitat. No I didn't just purchase it for the cool name. No it's not small like a hobbit house, it's actually quite large, 6'3" to be exact. Yes I am super excited about it. My nice 4 man tent is going on it's maiden voyage when I go camping in Malibu this weekend. But feeling like a small child who has just gotten a new pair of shoes and wants to wear them to bed at night, I couldn't wait until then to set it up. It took up basically my whole living room. Had there been slightly more room I would have probably slept in it that night. But since I didn't want to take up the entire room I decided to take it down. Friday night=first night in the Hobitat.

Memorial Day

I figured I'd better get to writing about my Memorial Day weekend or it'd never be done. It honestly was the best weekend. Just what I needed after last week. The start of the weekend wasn't the greatest though. My number one rule at work is never be the last person to leave. Several times I've come close, but until Friday I'd never broken that rule. Then Friday came along and the month of June the OT department (all 2 of us) were in charge of setting up this loft that the kids play in. Every other Friday the other OT there doesn't work, so this Friday it was just me setting up the loft. Needless to say, I was there until well past everyone else. But I'll take having that as the worst part of the weekend.

Saturday morning I slept in until 8:30ish and hit up the grocery store which was surprisingly empty for a Saturday. Then I met up with Shana and we headed down to Huntington Beach via Cafe Rio to meet up with Heidi. We took our Rio and headed to the beach to enjoy a scrumptious lunch and catch up on everything aka boys. We finally got to meet Heidi's new man, Nate. Yes Heidi, I do approve. Best of all he liked Shana and I too (I mean who wouldn't). We hung out at the beach for 3.5 hours and then headed to Nate's house for pizza and the Laker's game. It was quite a relaxing and fun evening just chatting with friends and new friends.

Sunday I didn't even have choir before church so I had a nice long morning to myself. We had a really good lesson on prayer and promptings in Relief Society. Church was just what I needed that day. I caught up with some old friends and met some new people after church and then headed off to the airport to pick Emily up. We hung out at her house for a while just chatting, picked Nick up from the airport, and then chatted some more. It was just a chill night catching up with friends.

Monday morning Shana, Nick, Tony and I went and played a great game of tennis. It'd been about a month since I played, but it was a pretty good game. Tony and I won the first set and then Tony and Shana won the second set. Guess Tony was the key to winning. Somehow I didn't think to put sunscreen on before playing tennis, so my shoulders got roasted. After tennis we decided that it was lunch time and hit up the Rio again (yes I did just go on Saturday). But it served a purpose, because REI is right next to the Rio, and I had my 20% of coupon that had to be used by Monday. So while we waited for Allana to meet up with us Shana, Nick and I kicked it at REI and I came out with a tent (pictures to come, it takes 2 people to set up and I'm home alone right now). I'm excited to try out the Hobitat in 2 weeks when I go camping! After lunch it was time to hit up the beach. Nick and I parked a ways from the beach and he had 2 longboards in his car, so we longboarded to the beach. Or I should really say he longboarded to the beach while I attempted to. It's been a while since I've been on a longboard. He pretty much ended up pushing me along the beach. It was there I realized that my sunburn was bad because a perfect stranger commented on how bad it was as we rode by. We met up with other people from the ward who were already at the beach and had a most relaxing time. Then to top off the whole weekend I met up with Martha, Kaliska, Allana, McKenzie, and Annita for alternate FHE at BJs. Mmmmm more pizza and pazookies. It was then I realized that I'd eaten the Rio and pizza twice this weekend. I guess that's just part of making it great.

Thanks to all those who have served our country so that I could enjoy such a wonderful place to live (and a day off doesn't hurt either). What a blessing to live in America.