californ-i-a

now on to our trip to california. tacy, nikki and i decided we would take a spontaneous trip down to california for the weekend. it was quite a fun weekend. tacy flew on her first airplane, we went shooting at the shooting range, spent some time at the beach, got henna tattoos that turned out horrible, had a bonfire at the beach, went to the newport beach temple, went to the long beach aquarium where we went on a sea life cruise, went to the museum of tolerance, made dry ice bombs, and lots of other fun excursions.


yep - we made matching blankets


shooting at the shooting range


henna tattoos that looked like poop on our feet


bonfire at the beach


at the long beach aquarium


embarking on our cruise


the only sea life we saw on our sea life cruise...

Round-About-Campout

i have a lot to catch up on. i'll start with the illegal sleepover that i wrote about in my last post. so the undisclosed location was a roundabout in provo. yes - we slept in the middle of the roundabout. it has a bunch of trees and bushes and rocks around the outside, and there was a small space just big enough for the 4 of us to squish in there. and i'll tell ya - we were squished. there was a huge rock that i was laying on, so i went to move it and what did i find?? oh, just a HUGE spider...

we slept right behind those rocks that i am standing in front of


o yes we did


the 4 of us

40 days...

Ok, so I've been horrible at blogging lately. I got so caught up in school and work that this just had to wait a while. Now I'm just trying to figure out if there is anything worth blogging about... my life gets kinda boring sometimes. And what I mean by that is that I haven't taken pictures of anything in a while. But that will all change soon...

My biggest news right now is that I leave for Africa in 40 days!! Yep - 40 days. So crazy!!! I am so excited to go. It has been a dream of mine for years, and it's finally happening! I have almost everything ready to go - I just have to get a few random things - a mosquito net, some clothes, fill my malaria prescriptions, along with some other things.

More exciting news. I am coming down to California for a weekend with 2 of my best friends. We just decided to take a trip, and the beach was on the top of the list. We fly in Friday morning and fly back Tuesday night. It will be much needed trip for all 3 of us.

And last, but certainly not least: we are sleeping outside tonight in an undisclosed location - which is probably illegal. So my next post might be all about being bailed out of jail. But hey - makes life interesting right?? :) Pictures to come...

Birthday Fun!

Monday afternoon, Tanna took me to lunch at California Pizza Kitchen for my birthday. I hadn't been there in forever and it was soo good! It was nice to just be able to sit and talk for a little bit. Even though we're roommates, we both have pretty crazy schedules and hardly ever see each other.

Tanna and I


I haven't cared much about my birthday this year, so I wasn't really planning on doing anything too special. But I have some pretty stubborn friends who didn't think that was such a great idea. So Melissa took me to lunch (sorry, no pictures) and then later that night, Tanna planned a little dessert night and had everyone come over. She made a cake and we had some other little snacks out. It ended up being way fun and I was able to see a few people I haven't seen in a while! I don't have pictures of everyone, but here are a few from the night.

Rachel, me, Nikki and Tacy


Dave, me Chad and Rod


Taya and I


Milinh and I


It was way fun, and even with only a few hours of sleep I still managed to make it (almost... only 4 hours left) through a 12 hour day of school and do well on my test today!!

Birthday = Girl's Night Out :)

Last night, some of my friends from work and I went to dinner and a movie to celebrate Tacy's birthday. A few of us have gotten to be pretty good friends and we try to do stuff together outside of work, so a birthday was the perfect excuse :) We went to the Pizza Factory for dinner. I had never been there, but it was SO good! The breadsticks are to die for, and the pizza is amazing. Then we went to see the movie He's Just Not That Into You. It was a little different than what I was expecting, but it was a cute movie. I don't know that it will be one that I watch over and over, however. But it was a fun night. After 4 long work days and one long school day, it was good to go out and take a break!


Nikki, me, Tacy (the birthday girl), and Rachel

My First Sticks!

I tried to post a picture of a needle, but for some reason it was just showing up as a bunch of random letters... so nevermind. But I did my first needle sticks at work today! It was the longest day I've worked so far - 14 hours - but it was so fun! I am only 3 sticks away from being completely trained and able to do everything on my own. It has been an extensive training process, but I have really enjoyed it and have learned so much! My trainer told me today that I was going to be sticking and I felt like I was going to throw up... I was so nervous! But she talked me through it all and I did it! I was able to get in 8 of them. It really isn't bad at all! A totally random post, but I was pretty excited about it!

Thanksgiving

So I should be asleep since I have to be at work at 6:30 tomorrow morning, but I am doing this instead....

Last week, Kelsey, Nate, and I were able to drive home to California to spend Thanksgiving with our families. The trip went really well. We wanted to leave at 3 AM, but as it was, Kelsey and I didn't go to sleep until 1:30. So we slept until 3, woke up and threw a few last minute things together, got gas, picked up Nate, drugged up on some caffine pills and hit the road. I will NEVER take caffine pills again. They were lifesavers on our trip, but I have never felt so jittery and hyper in my whole life. It did make the trip more interesting, however :) It really is amazing to me that in less than 12 hours we can drive through 4 states and be somewhere totally different. And it's crazy that in 18 days we will get back in the car and do this again... Anyways.

Kelsey and I at 4 AM... don't look too close

Thanksgiving morning my dad and brother went and played in a Turkey Bowl over at Country Hills. Megan and I went to watch. It was pretty fun to see everyone play. They even had a little kids game goin off to the side. It started raining pretty hard for a few minutes and some of the guys got pretty muddy. I was bummed we didn't have a soccer ball. That is one of my favorite things to do - soccer in the mud/rain.

Turkey Bowl

That night, we drove up to my aunt and uncle's house for turkey dinner. I unfortunately don't have any pictures of that, other than this one of me and Paige, my cousin's daughter. She is a riot.

Paige and I

Friday was just a day to relax and hang out. Kelsey and I babysat for a couple hours that night, which again, I don't have pictures of right now. Saturday, Kelsey and I were able to go to lunch with the cute Bailey family - thanks guys, we had a blast!!

Brynn and Kelsey

Brynn, Braden, Christopher

Brynn and I

And Sunday we were able to go to Sacrament Meeting before hittin' the road again for the drive back to good 'ol Provo.

If any of you went to college, you probably either had, or a least heard of a "quote wall", or in our case, a "quote dash". Notice the BAND-AID sticking the NAPKIN to the dash... probably the most white trash thing ever. But it served its purpose.