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.

My crafty side

A couple of months ago I had this idea to take all the scraps of yarn I had and my roommates had and crochet a patchwork quilt. I made lots of granny squares and then just pieced it all together and used whatever random yarn I had. Yesterday I finally finished the border around it. Yes I realize that it's not perfectly rectangle and beautiful, but it's a bunch of scraps that now look better than they did 3 months ago. I rather like the finished product.

San Francisco

Back in January or February Heidi, Shana and I had a planning pow wow and made all these plans to take trips and do fun things before Heidi graduated and leaves or doesn't leave us. Last weekend was the last of the vacations that we planned. At Christmastime my uncle Glen who lives up in the Bay Area told me I should bring some friends and come up for a weekend. So we took him up on it.

Friday night we met up after work and flew up to Oakland. After a pretty quick flight (but long enough for the guy in front of us to eves drop on our conversations and answer the questions we were asking several times) and we got in about 8:30. Since we had already eaten dinner Glen took us to Fenton's Creamery and we got some amazing ice cream. I had a blueberry cheesecake ice cream that was fantastic. And the servings were HUGE. But don't worry I ate all of mine.

Saturday we took our time getting ready and headed out to San Fran about 10:00. As is typical for the three of us, we hadn't planned a thing we were going to do during our vacation. My feelings are as long as we have a place to stay and some way to get around, we're good. Glen was nice enough to let us use his truck to get to the BART station. We took BART in and got off around this great statue.


Then we walked from Pier 1 all the way to Pier 39 for some delicious clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls for lunch. (I must be related to my Dad, he remembers every vacation we take by the food we ate) We watched the sea lions for a little while and even saw a few fights.


After that we rented bikes and rode through San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge and into Sausalito. It's quite a hilly ride and it was super windy. There was one place where we had to turn straight into the wind while we were riding on the bridge and I literally stopped moving because the wind was blowing so strong.

But despite the wind, it was a beautiful day and we had a great ride. In Sausalito we checked out the one and only ice cream place there, along with everyone else in the town. We stumbled across this photo gallery that was just amazing. It was from a photographer named Rodney Lough who's work is absolutely beautiful. Check out the website for amazing pictures www.rodneyloughjr.com

The last ferry back to Pier 39 left at 6:00 and we weren't about to ride 8 miles back in the wind, so we jumped on the ferry. We were all so tired that it was great to sit down for a half an hour while we rode back over. After we returned our bikes it was time for more food. We rode the cable car to Chinatown and found the first restaurant with a menu in English and went in.

Dinner was good and we were just cold and tired. After dinner we headed back to the BART and made out way home. It was quite a fun day.

Sunday we hit up the singles ward for Sacrament meeting since Glen is in the high council over that ward. Then we had a great salmon dinner and headed off. We stopped by the Oakland Temple before heading to the airport because Heidi had never seen it. it was a beautiful day and a great way to end the vacation.

And here are just a few other action shots from the weekend:

Anniversary

It's been a year since I graduated from USC. And what a year it's been. I can't believe that it's been a year in some ways and in others it seems like forever ago I was taking tests and writing papers and wishing I could be done forever. I haven't reached the point that I'd want to go back to school right now, but it would be nice to be able to just skip work sometimes when I don't want to go. But when I look at my savings account going up and think of the fun things I've done since having a little more flexibility and income I can't complain too much. So here's to year one and may year two be even better!

May is My Month

After finally getting off work Friday at 6:30 after being there for 11 hours I was beat and just tired of life. Then on my way home my check engine light went on. Oh Red Velvet, why must you fail me again? I got home and just wanted to take a break from life for a while. Too bad you can't really do that. So instead I watched the Lakers and the Jazz win their respective games and fell asleep at 10:00. I think that was the best thing for me to do. Usually when I feel like life is not going well it's because I don't feel in control and I really do like to be in control. But after a great night's sleep I woke up this morning and realized it was May. While I was lying in my bed looking at the May calendar picture of Bora Bora I decided that May is my month. 2010 hasn't been my year so far, but May is going to be my month.
Already is has begun to work out. I decided to check my gas cap just on the off chance that it was loose and that was why the check engine light was on. Good news, it was. No more check engine light. Hurray for May!