Employment

Before I left for Europe I finally decided that I'd had enough with my job and quit. I decided to take another job at a clinic one of my friends worked at in Culver City. I am still working with kids but now I see kids all the way through high school. We contract with the Inglewood School District so in the mornings I see kids in the schools and in the afternoon I am in the clinic. It's been almost 3 weeks there and I'm starting to feel at home. I really like the people that I work with and things are going well so far. It has been a nice change of pace from where I was before.

Europe

Now that it's been over a month since I left for Europe I guess it's time for me to catch up. My brother-in-law spent the summer over in Norway and in August I met he and my sister for 10 days. I booked the flight earlier in the summer and my first thought after booking it was anxiety over the flight. I really do not love flying and the thought of flying for 18 hours by myself was a little more than I wanted but it's the only practical way to get the Europe. So once again practicality wins over my irrational fears.

I left LA early Friday morning and flew threw Quebec and Frankfurt before ending up in Stockholm. Luckily I managed to make all my connections, barely, and after watching 4 movies I ended up in Stockholm on Saturday morning. The airline lost my luggage in one of the quick transfers and it was kind of stressful the first day. It ended up being a blessing because instead of lugging my stuff around Stockholm all day I just got it about 9:00 that night. The first day was hard enough to stay away without having luggage to drag around. I didn't know that it was possible to fall asleep standing up until spending 34 hours awake topped off by going through museums. I really don't remember anything about those museums.

In Stockholm we were the typical tourists and hit up all the museums, the royal palace and grounds, a cool cemetery, a 1700s salvaged ship, and many more things. After exhausting ourselves through Stockholm we rode the train to Oslo, spent the night there and then took the train from Oslo to Bergen. It was a gorgeous ride. The scenery was absolutely beautiful and I found riding the train was much more pleasant than flying. Then we spent the rest of the time in Bergen.

We did less touristy stuff in Bergen but still hit up a few things like Bryggen, an old Hanseatic village, and some more museums. We also took a cruise through the fjords which was incredible. We also took a 15 mile hike through the mountains surrounding Bergen which was a little exhausting but totally worth it. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip. It took me about 2 weeks to finally get back on the pacific time zone when I got back. But I had a great time and would totally do it again.

Here is the link to my photos from the trip rather than trying to post all of them or trying to pick out my favorites.

Europe Photos

Summer in 5 minutes

Somehow it has already turned into August and I feel like the summer is rapidly slipping out of my fingertips. It's been a busy summer for sure, but a fun one too. I had some time off work the second half of June and took a few little trips to pass the time. First I headed down to Gilbert, AZ to visit my cousin Melanie who was one of the only other people I knew that had time off during the summer (she's a teacher).

It was ridiculously hot there with a high of 113 one of the days. But it was great to see her and just relax. I also got to see my friend Courtney who used to live in LA but moved down to Arizona a couple of years ago. We just hung out in the pool all day. It's either the pool or the air conditioning there.

I was in Arizona from Monday-Thursday and then on Friday Ali and I headed up to Sacramento for her state hearing aid dispensing exam. She had to bring a subject with her so I volunteered since I didn't have to work. It was a lot of driving in one week but it was kind of fun to be back near my roots in Northern California. We walked around Old Town Sacramento, checked out the mall (LA ones are better, no surprise), saw X-Men, and even made it to a Rivercats (the As minor league team) game. The weather was gorgeous.


For the 4th of July weekend I spent all day Saturday at the beach for Whitney's birthday. Then Whitney, Karen, Ali and I went to the Hollywood Bowl to see Hall and Oats and see the fireworks.

On the actual 4th of July Shana and I went to the beach in the morning and then I headed down to Orange County to hang out with my family. John was still in town so it was fun to see him. We ate a ridiculous amount of food and the not so little cousins gave us a good fireworks show in the street at Brad and Carol's house.

Since then I've gone camping twice, gone to the Wiener Dog races, been to a Dodger's game, celebrated our ward victory in the watermelon eating contest, pie baking contest and tug of war at Pioneer Day, and signed up for another triathlon. Soon I need to start preparing for Norway and Sweden which I will be visiting at the end of the month.

80s Awesomeness

Once upon a time 27 seemed old. I remember my first home teacher when I was in the singles ward at Oregon State was about to turn 27 and I thought he was ancient. Hopefully not everyone thinks that about me (particularly because most of the people reading this blog are older than 27).
For my birthday my lovely roommates Jessica and Ali decided that I needed to have a party. I was less than excited for my birthday but we decided that since I had come to possess two rather 80s looking jumpsuits it would be the perfect opportunity to have an 80s party. The girls decked the place out and then we went to work on making ourselves the epitome of 80s awesomeness. I guess you'll be the judges to whether that actually happened. Getting ready with the crimper, large can of hairspray, neon nail polish and bright pink lipstick was almost more fun than having the party. The neighbors maybe didn't appreciate the 80s music jammin' from our place last night but we sure did. It was pretty fun. Complete with furry slap bracelets, fingerless gloves, pixie sticks and pie. We almost never have birthday cake at my house and almost always have pie so the girls carried that tradition on for me.

So what does a can of hairspray, a crimper, 10 shots of pixie sticks, and all the neon we could find give you...



John is staying with the Grandparents in Orange County and even made it up for the party. It was great to see him too.

Memorial Day in San Diego

This weekend 7 of us spent the long weekend in San Diego. The lovely Karen's parents were kind enough to let us stay at their house. Her mom even cooked for us. We drove down on Friday night and got there in time to check out Karen's house and hit the sheets. Saturday morning we all went to the San Diego temple.

It was the first time I'd been inside. It is really beautiful. After that we hit up El Indio, the birthplace of the taquito, for lunch. It was pretty good. Then we went to Old Town and sampled the taffy in the candy store and learned how to throw a tomahawk.


We then went to the Mormon Battalion site. It has been recently redone and was pretty fun. I even struck it rich panning for gold there! Then we drove down to the border and went shopping at the outlet mall.

Good thing we didn't take a wrong turn here!
Sunday we went to church and then went to the La Jolla cove to watch the seals and take in the beautiful ocean views.






After that it was back to Karen's house for more candy than I should ever consume and lots of games. We even threw in MASH for a while where I ended up getting married in 2015, having 77 kids, living in a portapotty in Tijuana with a batmobile for a car. Man am I going to have an interesting life. Monday morning we headed back up to LA so we could be there for our ward activity of slip 'n slide kickball. Since I never made it past 2nd base I did not partake in the slip 'n slide which I wasn't that sad about since it was only 70 degrees. Not quite warm enough for me to want to get wet.
My resolution after this trip is to take more.

Welcome home Elder Evans

On Friday I flew home because my little brother Thomas came home from his 2 year mission to Colorado Springs. It was great to see him. He flew into Eugene which is the best airport in the world, only 2 terminals. The place was like a ghost town at 10:30 at night. It was fun to be home with most of the family and to see Thomas. Really it was just nice to be home and not think about any of the stresses of real life just for 2 days.

Cinco de Mayo

For Cinco de Mayo we had to go out and celebrate so we headed to Olvera Street for some stuffed churros. They were amazing. I'd go back every week.