Pretend

A professor once told me that it is a great talent to be able to live in two realities, 

one inside and the other outside of our heads.

Sometimes I still like to play pretend.

Images courtesy of Pinterest.

What's been on repeat so far this summer. A couple old & a couple new. 

Everything In Between

I'm getting all caught up... I promise!

I've been all over the place the last few weeks (what else is new)

and I'm excited to share some of the things that have been happening around here.

I treat my blog a lot like I do my journal... with only a few secrets left out ;)

So here is a bit of what I've been up to.

Zoe and I went with some friends up to their cabin near Strawberry Reservoir.

The boys were way excited to take us shooting. I had only been once before when my cousin Chris was leaving on a mission, which was when I was in middle school. It was way fun, and I must say I am somewhat of a natural... who would have thought? Uncle Myron will be proud.

Then we played a game of Soccer by the reservoir. Madison was a good sport having Zoe and I on his team... We are not exactly the best soccer players in the world and our non-competitive nature didn't help either. Somehow we managed to loose by only 2 points... and by somehow I mean that Madison was good enough for the two of us.

Afterwards, we watched the sunset from the deck and prepped for dinner. Then we drove back down to the reservoir to light off flying lanterns. Like every other girl who saw tangled, I was excited to try it! It was elating to watch them take off into the dark and follow the light until it eventually was too small to see.

It was a fun trip before finals and a great way to relax a little... I absolutely love the outdoors and it made me giddy to start planning camping trips for this summer.

The week after finals I had a visit from my dearest friend Michael!
I hadn't seen him in two whole years! He was serving and LDS mission in Florida speaking Haitian Creole and we had only kept in contact through a few letters here and there. It was great to see him standing on my doorstep after two years, really surreal, but amazing. Its weird how after two years of growing up, it can still feel like nothing has changed at all... I'm excited for more of my friends to start coming home! 

During finals week, my parents and sister came to visit! My dad was just recently made President of the Alumni Association at BYU (you can read an article about it here) and his first order of business was to speak at graduation! We couldn't sit still while watching him sit on the stand with Elder Oaks. We were hoping to get a laugh out of him, but we sufficed with his little smirks here and there as we maturely made funny faces at him. 

Now I'm just hanging out at home for a couple of weeks. We've celebrated birthdays, mothers day, band concerts, swim competitions, and my little brother just moved up from primary into the young mens program... lots of exciting things for my family and I'm glad I got to be here for it.

Here are some little snippets taken from Instagram. 

High School nostalgia... Prom dress and letterman jacket.

Little sister's Swim finals and a good old fashion car wash.

Little brother turned 12 and graduated from the Primary!

 

Visiting friends in town.
 Farryn and her fiance came down for a weekend and we took a trip to Balboa Island and ordered a few of the famous Hippo Cookies. 

Spencer road tripped with some friends to California, so we met up for a day at Disneyland. We went to Jerusalem together and it was fun to catch up and talk about our favorite memories. In case you were wondering, yes we did match on purpose.

Celebrated having this wonderful lady as a mother. If it weren't for her, I would have had no basis for picking up a fake british accent.

 

Went to my little brother's band concert. I only have ears for you Scott. Go trumpet.

Getting excited for this bride to be... I took her bridal photos just the other day and I can't wait to post them. I'll have to hold my mouse until june though since we want the groom to be surprised. She posted a photo of the gorgeous floral crown, so I figured it'd be alright if I did too. I really couldn't help myself.

I got to play with these two cute babies for a weekend (post to come soon). 

Calling my self Auntie Kate from now on.

Other than that, I've just been picking up goodies and soaking in all the beautiful colors of summer.

Famous Feet Pictures

Books and Baseball

And last but not least... the ever so popular "You're so vain for taking pictures of yourselves" photos.

I'd say it's been a pretty great summer so far. I can't wait for all of my adventures that I have planned. I can not get over how blessed I feel... sometimes it just seems like everything is just going my way. 

Bon Voyage!

Girls Week

After a grueling last couple weeks of school, we were more than ready to head off to California for a week. Ashley, Zoe, and I were able to score a cheap flight into Long Beach with one catch... it was at 6:30 in the morning. So Farryn, being the angel she is, came to pick us up late the night before so we could sleep at her place only 8 minutes from the airport (yes, we timed it). So after trying to fit suitcases for 4 people (with carry-ons, purses, and backpacks) into her baby car, we were able to magically fit for the ride to SLC.

When we arrived at the Long Beach airport that morning, we decided that we needed to get to the beach as fast as possible. We stopped at the rainbow outlet and then headed right to the beach. We were all so tired that as soon as our bodies hit the sand we couldn't help but to fall asleep right then and there. Clothes and all, we woke up about 2 hours later with a lovely sunburn.

The next day, we slept in a little and hit up the afternoon showing of 'The Lucky One'. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I mean, who doesn't enjoy Zach Efron? After a surprise visit from our friend Preston, we packed up all of our things to head up to the beach house for the next couple of days. The BYU mens volleyball team was in LA playing Stanford that day in the Semifinals, so being the dedicated fans we are, we decided to stop along the way to watch the game. I'm still amazed that no one had to be taken away in an ambulance considering how close the match was and how involved we all seemed to be; I almost had a heart attack myself. After the game, we picked up Erik and headed down to Santa Monica for dinner. Then the boys headed back down and the girls took PCH all the way up to Oxnard. I couldn't have been happier than I was driving up my favorite highway and watching the moon reflecting in the ocean. Seriously perfect.

On our list of things to do in California, laying out on the beach was definitely at the top. What I love about the beach house is that we have it all to ourselves. The girls and I took our towels out and shared the beach with the birds. All the sun to ourselves. We stopped by the strawberry man, grabbed our books, and did what we had been dreaming about all during finals week.

After getting even MORE sunburnt than the first day (seriously I couldn't even walk), the boys gave us a call and said that they were going to the Dodgers game and wanted to meet up with us at the beach for the next couple of days. We had a blast eating fish and chips, going geo-caching, and even watching a magic show by the great Q-Dini!

After the boys headed home, we spent one final day getting over our sunburns and eating oreos for breakfast. 

Monday, we checked off another item on our list and decided to go visit the tide pools in Corona Del Mar. It's one of my favorite spots on earth. It's amazing to walk around these small worlds, trying to spot the lives inside of them. We found crabs, fish, urchins, slugs, and all kinds of life. We were even able to spot a group of whales off of the coast. It was then that I decided I want to be a marine biologist. I was in heaven there on that little beach, and I never wanted to leave.

On our final day, we decided to hop in the car and head to Disneyland. Zoe had never been before, so Ash and I were more than happy to show her all of our favorite parts. Needless to say, we went on Space Mountain more than once. It was a pretty slow day, so we had the park to ourselves. We ate dole whip, dominated the buz ride, petted some goats, and took lots and lots of photographs... what's the point of going to Disneyland if Instagram doesn't hear all about it?!

Now I'm missing my dear friends. I say we plan for round two? Who is down?