Summer So Far....California!

A few weeks ago I flew to LA to see Nick. * Side note, I got my ticket from Southwest like 2 months in advance and it was only $60 total for oneway! It was so nice to spend some time in California with Nick stress-free. He just finished his FIRST YEAR of MED SCHOOL at USC!! Woohoo! I'm so proud. We made it! Only 3 years left. We had a fabulous, relaxing time and the weather was AMAZING, except too cold to go to the beach, which is my favorite thing to do in Cali. Then we drove back together and he is here to stay for the summer. Anywho, enough rambling, I'll move on to the pictures now and just show you all the fun things we did.

First fun place was the Griffith Observatory in Hollywood. It was such a neat, pretty place way up on a green hill. The inside was really cool too, with lots of Greek artwork and solar system deal-ies.

The building looks like a mosque to me. Can you find me in this picture? "Where's Waldo?"

They set up a couple really nice telescopes at sunset and we got to see Saturn. The rings were perfectly visible, it was like seeing Saturn in HD. And, the sunset was beautiful up there, we could see the whole city.

View of LA up from up there. After a few days in LA, we headed down to Dana Point in Orange County to visit my Grandparents. My Grandpa is such a crack-up. I absolutely love to hear his stories. He seems to remember so much. He says, "the trick is to tell what you remember and make up the rest to make it interesting."

We of course had to make a visit to Disneyland and California Adventure. We had a "Zippidy Doo Da" time!

SPLASH MOUNTAIN!! My FAVE!! I said, "Let's try to look like we are bored." Nick said, "Nah! Let's make the most terrified faces we can muster." Here's what we came up with. The people behind us almost peed their pants when they saw our faces.

Ps. Nick's shirt has a shroom on it and it says, "I'm a Fun Guy". This lady in line was all, "Ah ha ha! I love your shirt." Then she tapped her friend and said, "Check out this guy's shirt."

It was pretty toasty outside after Indiana Jones, so we got those delicious pineapple floats!! MMM... refreshing. I could really go for one of those in this nasty AZ heat!!

Then we headed back to LA and went to the Getty Villa in Malibu. Such a cool place. It has Ancient Greek and Aztec art. The outside architechture was really authentic, I felt like I was really in Ancient Greece.

Nick immitating the statue
Me imitating a statue.

That night we made a stop at 21 Choices, the best frozen yogurt place around. All their ingredients are fresh. They have really yummy fruit and other toppings. The people there are so nice, too. They have you taste your yogurt after they mix in the toppings to make sure you like it. =)

Here we are outside of Nick's house, just before we headed back to nasty-weather AZ.

The End

Things troubling me lately...

I'm so happy with so many things in my life right now: I'm really happy with school, I love my major and I'm so passionate about it, I'm excited to start my teaching career, I have a great group of friends in the program who are inspiring to me, I love my job at the ASU Child Development Lab -- the two-year-olds that I work with surprise me and amaze me every day, and they too inspire me and help me to look at life in a different way--, I love my relationship and where it's headed, I love the relationship I have with my sister and my other family members. BUT, there's still something ,or rather someone -- someone so vital, so special-- who is missing in all this happiness, my mom. My sweet, amazing mom. All of these wonderful things are going on in my life without my mom. I want her to be here to share in this happiness. Whenever something good in my life happens I think about how my mom is missing out on it-- she's missing out on another milestone, another accomplishment. I KNOW she would be proud of me, but I want her to be here to tell me that. I want to tell her about all of the funny things the kids said to me or did that day -- she appreciated those kinds of stories in a way that no body else does. Oh how I dream of having conversations with her again. I HATE DEATH!! I hate it so badly sometimes. I don't want it to be a part of life! I don't want anyone to tell me it's all okay because I'll see her again! I want her NOW!! It's just not fair, and I HATE it! I hate hating something, but sometimes I just can't help it. It's too hard not to sometimes. Every girl (or most girls) have such a special bond with their mom, a bond that no one else would/could understand. I had a very special bond with my mom that can never be replaced. I don't ever want it to be replaced. I will NEVER stop missing her. It's a scary feeling. But it would be scarier if I ever did stop missing her-- it's just not possible though. Every girl needs her amazing mom to share that special, personal bond. I will ALWAYS treasure the WONDERFUL, AMAZING relationship my mom and I had.

This is a picture of my mom during our last trip to California. I think she looks beautiful. Her favorite thing to do on vacation was her favorite thing to do all the time, relax in a comfy, pretty place, and READ. She absolutely loved to read, she read predominantly mystery books. She was an amazing reader. She would read 6 books at a time, and finish a 700 page book in a week or less. She loved to just escape into a great novel. If only I could get that into reading. I like reading, but not nearly the way she did. Recently my sister and I have started to become interested in mystery novels and we wish she were here to discuss the books with us-- she would really love that. The best times spent with our mom was sitting and chatting. We had such wonderful, thoughtful conversations with her. She was such a great listener and advice-giver-- never judging. Oh how I love and miss my lovely mom.

It's WAY Better Than Ice Cream

Angel Sweet Gelato is my new favorite dessert. It's so rich and yummy. I'm not really a huge fan of ice cream- I actually prefer fro-yo and gelato over ice cream. They just taste more natural, and they don't make me feel sick and full afterwards the way ice cream does. The day before Nick went back to med school in at USC, we rode our bikes to Angel Sweet Gelato at Riverview. It was a pretty warm day, perfect Gelato-eating-weather.

BEHOLD the delicious flavors of Angel Sweet. My Favs are banana and chocolate.

Look how pretty it is.

We decided to take some silly pics while we were there.

My favorite actvities are always the sweet and simple ones: a bike ride on a nice day, and some yummy gelato. That's my kind of quality time with my sweet boyfriend. =)

Holly-Days 2009

I know Christmas is LONG gone until next year, but I still wanted to post about my holidays now that I have time -- now that I should be working on homework. =) We started off our Winter Break by going to San Francisco, but I don't have my sister's pics from that yet, so I'll post more about that next time. But I will say, it was a blast, and we all want to go back-- there's so much to do there. Anyway, onto Christmas.
*Warning: lots of pictures ahead, but that's the best part of posts anyway, right?

Here is the cute lil tree that I borrowed from my sister. It was just right for my small apartment. I went with a peace them for my Christmas decor this year. The owl and this ball are my favorites.
Our other stockings were lame and out of date, so I made new ones for everyone. (I didn't have time put names on them, but I might just leave them that way.)

See that GORGEOUS purple beach crusiser!!?? That was my Christmas present from my sweet Nick. We rode from my house to Tempe Town lake on New Years Eve. It was so much fun. We have the best winter weather in AZ. I LOVE my bike! Here are our self-timer-pictures. I think they actually turned out pretty nice.

Nick LOVES this one. He likes that it's off-center with the bikes in the background. And, I wasn't even posing in this one, the wind was blowing and I was trying to get my hair out of my face before the timer went off. But it made for a nice candid shot I guess.

I really like this one with the blue sky and deep blue water. =)

DEMON DOG!! Here's our lil family photo. Bender was staring at the blinking light on my camera so he ended up looking possessed. And, that's just how is anyway-- the camera knew the real Bender.

That night we had a Par-tay at Liz and Nav's humble abode. Here is Liz and my sista from anotha motha. I love them both! Steph has always been such a sweet friend/older sister! =)

Nick grilled up some delicious buffalo wings! My baby is a good cook! =)

Happy New Year everyone!