California Adventures

This time two weeks ago I was driving to Becca's house for a weekend of fun and delicious, sugary food. For her birthday we took a little road trip back to her home state/town. It was a lovely affair.

We embarked on the 10 hour trip late Thursday afternoon. It was an epic drive, that's for sure. We almost constantly blared Imagine Dragons, singing along to every song and hanging on to Dan Reynolds' every word. A great number of my friends were seeing ID on Saturday in Salt Lake City so the best Becca and I could do was listen to their songs on a permanent loop.

Dinner Thursday night was from Domino's in St. George. We split a large cheese pizza, covered in parmesan, as we drove through the Virgin River Gorge. At this point it was pretty dark so we didn't get to enjoy its beauty until coming home on Sunday. Besides the pizza, Thursday night really was uneventful, though. I saw Las Vegas for the first time. It's such a strange place. We didn't stop there but seeing it from the freeway was sufficient enough for me. We rolled into Becca's neighborhood around two and promptly fell asleep.

We missed this sort of thing the first time around.

Friday was probably the most chill day I've experienced in a long time. I got up late, did some homework, and ate homemade bread and french toast. After we ate, Becca, her mom, her sister and myself went to some fabric store. Becca's sister is making her a TARDIS quilt. How neat is that?! We spent quite a lot of time debating over what the right blues were; Becca and I take TARDIS blues very seriously. After that . . . I'm not quite sure what we did. I think we just went back to Becca's and bummed around. Becca's dad and brother-in-law had the football game on so I watched that with them until it was time to go to Becca's friend's wedding reception. (It was pretty chill, though I certainly enjoyed the chocolate fountain, as did Lily, and getting to meet some of Becca's friends, people I've heard a lot about but only met on this trip.)

Friday night was probably my favorite part of this jaunt to California. We went and hung out at the beach for a few hours. It was a full moon so everything was lit up. It was just Becca, her friend Jeff and myself, which was really nice. We climbed on the lifeguard stand and sat up there for quite some time, just talking and enjoying the ocean air. It wasn't the least bit cold or breezy. Once we left the beach we drove home on the Pacific Coast Highway with all the windows down. That was awesome and so thoroughly collegiate. It was the kind of careless night you don't get all that often in college.

Saturday was Becca's 21st birthday! We woke up quite late, I think after 10 and maybe almost 11. We immediately went downstairs to enjoy a plethora of German pancakes. Right after that Becca was recruited to help finish up the pulled pork for that night's dinner and I was recruited to learn how to drive stick shift. Becca's dad taught all four of his kids and many of their friends as well. My own brother attempted to teach me about two years ago but things never really worked out. With my little bit of experience I seemed to pick it up pretty fast this time around. It was the first time I actually drove on city streets too! It's exciting to be able to say that I am completely capable of driving a car with manual transmission.

We spent most of the afternoon watching Community and in the late afternoon it was time to swim! I enjoyed that thoroughly, having not been swimming in a pool in a long time. We were there for a couple of hours and then it was time to eat. Becca and I had somehow not eaten since that morning so pulled pork sandwiches, salad, chips & salsa, raspberry lemonade and marble cake was just what we needed. Everything was delicious and I'm pretty sure Becca and I each ate at least 2.5 sandwiches.

That night was the real treat of the day. Becca's friend's Jeff's older brother is a manager at the Disney Hotel and so Jeff invited us to watch the fireworks from the lounge on the top floor of one of the buildings! Pretty epic to say the least. We got free snacks and drinks too!

Once the magic was over, the three of us walked around Downtown Disney for a while. That was also great fun and I almost purchased a $60 hoodie. IT WAS BUZZ LIGHTYEAR FOR PETE'S SAKE.

But I was a good little student and did not. We took plenty of random pictures in the big Disney store, though. Perhaps most importantly, I found out why those random spinning toys are so cool, but that's only if they're R2-D2. Those ones make R2 noises!

Sunday it was time to return to Utah. Becca and I enjoyed a very pleasant drive back. For the first two hours or so we listened to some nice church music, but after that it was basically all Imagine Dragons all the time. We seriously sang for about eight hours straight. We both almost lost our voices. Worth it? Most definitely.

The trip overall was a marvelous thing and I'm so pleased Becca and I get to have such adventures.

Last YouTube video I watched: Disneyland Halloween Party (We missed being at Disney at the same time as the Shaytards by a day! How crazy is that?!)

Accomplished: spring term

Today is the last day of classes. I am all done with spring term. Time is a crazy thing. When I got home from my last class of "junior" year, I went for a 15 minute run and then I did an ab workout for 15 minutes. There's this really cool app called Nike Training Club that has all sorts of workouts to do that focus on all different things. They last anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes, all depending on what you want to do. While doing my abs I started watching more Euro Cup! (This is what I've been doing every day before the past few days.) Ukraine and Sweden are plying right now. (Carson served his mission in Ukraine so I really hope Sweden wins so I can trash talk him.) I love Sweden. They were the first national team I ever saw play so I will always love the Swedes. Also, they are all very good-looking; well, except maybe Ibrahimovic. If matches were decided on how good-looking the players are, I'm pretty sure Sweden would win unanimously.

But since spring term is over now, not counting exams (I only have one so it hardly counts anyway), I am officially in summer. So I present:

Spring term in Utah (photos I haven't posted yet)

Finding "wetlands" in Provo

Watching Grant be a sea lion

Pondering life in Santa Cruz (This is my favorite
photo from the entire CA trip)

Riding the train to SF between these hooligans

Matching with Stacy

Being Trent's favorite, meaning I always got the front seat

Celebrating Maddie's wedding

Mik's bridal shower type party dealio

This week will bring more awesomeness since I'll probably see Matthew McKay soon(!) and Mikaela's wedding reception is Saturday(!) and the California road trip crew (Grant, Phillip, Emily and Trent) are leaving for Canada to run the Tough Mudder so I'm probably going to hang out w/ those boys one last time before we go our separate ways for the summer. At the very least Trent and I will be getting lunch like old times, and by old times I mean like we did three weeks ago and for most of spring term.

So eight days from now I will be headed home. That'll be lovely.

Last YouTube video I watched: The Green Bean Gelatin Plan

Fake spring break day 5

It's fitting that I finish this little series today since it was a week ago today that it ended.

The final day of the trip started off great: we all slept in well past the time we wanted to leave. Instead we got much needed sleep and ate a wonderful breakfast prepared by Grant's parents. There were pancakes, scrambled eggs, juice, cereal and milk. I sure do love pancakes, even though just two days before I'd eaten some as well. Breakfast food really never gets old.

Once breakfast was eaten and the car packed up, on the road we went. It's interesting to see how quickly we could revert back into driving mode. We all had our sort of designated places and roles in the car.

The drive took us a little out of the way since we intended to visit Lake Tahoe before heading back to Utah. It was the best detour/side trip I ever could have hoped for. The scenery started changing gradually and eventually we were driving up and down winding roads through incredible trees and rivers and mountains. It was absolutely breathtaking. Just going through South Tahoe and the area around it was amazing. Trent was having the time of his life with his head stuck out the window as we blasted the soundtrack to the movie Spirit. It really was the perfect background music. All the windows were rolled down as we drove into Tahoe itself. Phillip was having the time of his life and repeatedly expressed his desire to be in something like a small little sports car instead of his Subaru Outback. I can't really blame him either.

So we ate pretzels and Cheetos and smiled and laughed and marveled. We made our way down into the valley area and stopped by Phillip's old house. Yes, he used to live in Tahoe. We parked the car on the side of the road and played around a little in his backyard. Well, it was mostly the boys who played. (These pictures were taken by the wonderful Emily.) Yeah, his backyard literally had a river in it. How awesome is that?

I ventured onto a rock you could jump to from the grass.

Then it was time to actually get to Lake Tahoe. The drive to the actual lake took perhaps another hour or so, but we cared so little about time. It was just too great a place to rush through. We stopped off at a lookout place to see Emerald Bay before we actually got to the lake itself.

Is that not one of the most beautiful places you have ever seen? Pictures hardly do it justice.

Then we actually got down to the lake! We sat in the sun for a while, much longer than we had planned, and eventually got up the courage to do what we had come to do: run in, dunk our heads, and run out. We didn't get any pictures during the act but it was great, definitely one of those moments we don't need pictures to remember.

The boys literally ran back to the car & changed afterwards,
which left Emily and I looking way more hardcore than them.

And once Emily and I changed back into normal clothes, we departed from the glorious place that is Tahoe. (I was already planning a return trip in my head, that's for sure.) So then we drove. We stopped outside Reno and got In & Out since Emily was craving a burger and I'm sure glad we did. I'm pretty sure In & Out there is better than it is here in Utah. From that point on we only stopped for gas. On the drive back we also watched movies 3-5 of Harry Potter consecutively. Since we'd taken our good ol' time at Grant's house and in Tahoe we didn't arrive in Provo until 2 am. It was totally worth it.

This was a fantastic trip and I'm so glad I was able to go. Road trips seem essential to college and this was by far the most awesome one I've been on. I've done little trips up to Idaho and other places in Utah but this was pretty legit, the kind of trip I'm pretty sure I'll always remember. Everything about it was wonderful; well, except for the not sleeping too much, but even that was totally necessary in some ways. What kind of road trip involving college kids involves getting good sleep every night? With how much stuff we crammed in it probably would have taken something like 12 hours of sleep every night to make us not tired, and even then it might've been close. So I wouldn't change a single thing about that trip, except to maybe make it longer.

(Also, you can find even more awesome pictures at Emily's Flickr account. Some of the pictures from these posts came from her. She's a great photographer)

Fake spring break day 4

Sunday was not terribly exciting since all we did was go to church and eat lots of food. Literally.

We woke up and ate a lot of cereal before getting ready for church. That was interesting since there were four of us, two boys and two girls, sharing one bathroom and we were all trying to get in there to fix our hair and brush our teeth and such. And yes, I include the boys in the act of fixing hair because do they ever love making their hair look nice and spent more time on it than Emily or I did.

Church was lovely though, not terribly exciting, but nice. A boy who was leaving on his mission spoke and that is always entertaining to me because all my friends are coming home. 19 year-old boys seem so young now, even though they're barely two years younger than me. It's funny how time changes things like that.

After church we spent most of our time playing with Grant's niece before dinner. We hung out on the trampoline and acted, well, old. And his niece was just a little ball of energy and fun. If we'd gotten more sleep the last few days we probably would have been more lively but mostly we bummed around in the sun while she yelled at us to jump. The best part was when Phillip and Trent started holding down Grant so Clara, his niece, could start tickling him, though she didn't really get that. Instead she enjoyed stepping on him and kneeing him right in the chest.

Clara definitely wore us out a bit and then it was time for dinner. We had delicious barbecue chicken and cheeseburgers and fruit salad and just all this summery food. And then after that dinner we went over to the house of some of Grant's family's friends and ate a SECOND DINNER. That was amazing as well. We had steak and baked potatoes and more fruit and salad and for dessert brownies and ice cream. I had Thin Mint ice cream, which was delightful.

The thing about this trip and food is the fact that we never really knew when we would eat next so we just as much as we could when we could, hence two dinners not really being an issue. Even though we spent a lot of time in the car, we also spent a lot of time wandering around different places for hours on end so we worked up some pretty big appetites.

Sunday night we played Cranium. Grant and his mother were a team, Phillip and Emily another, and Trent and I made up the third. Suffice it to say, Trent and I did not have high hopes on account of how Cranium requires you and your partner/team to think along the same lines and have this sort of mind connection. It's hard to compete against a mother/son and boyfriend/girlfriend in the "thinking alike" category. Things didn't start off well for us either. Our worst suspicions were confirmed as Trent and I failed to spell the word "squiggle" backwards. Well, I could do it, he couldn't. However, our luck changed and it turns out Trent and I can get each other to guess pretty much anything once we get the right strategy; or at the very least he can get me to guess things. I managed to figure out he was drawing the phrase "animal magnetism," impersonating Adam Sandler, humming the little bunny Frou Frou song and acting out "free range chicken." When he was acting out free range chicken I even had him stop acting so I could put together each of the three parts. I literally yelled at him to stop and put my hand up, and it worked. That's pretty quality work on both our parts. So while Trent and I found our groove, Grant and his mother lost theirs. Grant went from guessing things like "truck," "ice cream," and "car" to "jail." When all was said and done, Trent and I absolutely demolished the other two teams, thus proving how awesome we are.

Once the game ended we watched Surf's Up which I absolutely adored. Penguins surfing. It's genius. So then the movie ended and off to bed we went, pretty early once again since we had the intention of leaving Grant's house at 8 for Tahoe.

Things did not go quite that way . . .

Fake spring break day 3

In the morning we bummed around in our sleeping bags for quite some time. Trent, Grant and Phil also spent a good amount of time wrestling when they got up. It was hilarious, especially because we were right in the middle of all these campsites and I'm sure plenty of people were weirded out. I'm not joking when I say we were right in the middle either. There were these two small dirt roads that formed a circle all around us. We weren't exactly being quiet either. Emily and I were, of course, laughing loudly and pretty much uncontrollably while the boys laughed and screamed and threatened each other with bodily harm. I love how crazy and loving those boys can be.

the view upon waking up

Waking up basically next to the ocean was pretty great, though. You can't camp right on the beach but not  too far from the campsites was the Pacific Ocean in all its glory. We walked there shortly after getting up. And by getting up I literally mean getting out of our sleeping bags because we were awake for quite some time before we summoned the courage to leave the comfort and warmth they possessed.

I love a good ocean breeze

Once we left the actual beach of Santa Cruz, we made our way into the actual city to find sustenance. And we found it in the form of Denny's. This meal really should've been documented but I'm pretty sure we were all too preoccupied with eating delicious breakfast foods to care about pictures.


After our meal, we went to Manresa beach in Santa Cruz. The boys frolicked in the ocean a bit and Emily and I laid on the sand where it was less windy and actually pretty warm. The sand kept our feet nice and toasty. Eventually one of Phillip and Grant's friends showed up and we made our way to another beach in Santa Cruz that he said was sunnier and less windy. However, that was not the case when we finally got there. It was at least as windy, if not more so, though it was slightly sunnier. The goal of this beach trip was to teach Grant how to skimboard. It was comical to say the least. And eventually it was time for all of them to make a gallant run into the ocean. It took about five minutes for all four boys to psych themselves up for plunging headfirst into the waves. Eventually it happened. They took a running start and off they went, falling and diving into the mighty Pacific. Once again, Emily and I had a great time watching from the sand. They played for quite some time in the water and Trent and Grant eventually got out the boogie boards. Once all was said and done, they were definitely worn out and pretty chilly.

Grant in his natural frolicking habitat

Once they got dried off and changed, off we went to Grant's house, a place we had only spent maybe 4 hours during the whole trip to that point. On the way back we stopped at WinCo, my first time at the store, to pick up stuff for dinner. We ended up having pesto and garlic bread and strawberries and bacon wrapped corn on the cob. Yes, you read that right: bacon wrapped corn. That was Grant's idea, something he learned on his mission in Kentucky. The boys made all the dinner and when I originally went into the kitchen to help, Trent shooed me away but did allow me to sit and watch them cook. All in all it was a pretty chill night. After dinner, which was probably around 9 or 10, we watched something on TV, though I cannot remember what it was exactly, and all of us fell asleep before midnight.


Stay tuned for more!

Fake spring break days 1 & 2

Here's the story of how I went to California for 4 days with 4 of the most awesome people ever.


On Thursday we left Provo at like six even though the plan was to leave at like four. That meant we didn't get to Grant's house until two in the morning. Needless to say, we were all pretty dead tired. The drive wasn't too bad. I was in the middle back between Grant and Trent for the most part; yep, I drove to California in the back, in the middle, with my feet on the hump. It was pretty nice all things considered. I fell asleep on Trent's shoulder two different times, mostly by accident and without the intention of actually falling asleep, but of course he's so sweet that he would never complain, even if it did bother him.

the best road trip buddies a kid could ask for

We listened to a lot of music, of course. And we also watched a Mission Impossible movie, though I mostly slept through it. Well, it wasn't so much sleeping as it was laying against the window with my eyes closed. I quite liked the drive, honestly. I love road trips. All in all it was an uneventful drive. Apparently some crazy stuff went down as we were going through Truckee but it was really only Phillip and Trent that know what went down. And Emily and I aren't going to ask about it anytime soon.

On Friday we left Grant's house bright and early to get to the Oakland Temple so Phil could go to the actual wedding in the temple. That was the reason for the trip after all, so we could celebrate the wedding of Wes and Hannah. While that was going on, the rest of us walked around the temple and went into the visitors' center. I haven't been in a visitors' center in a long time. The sister missionaries of course reminded me of Kelsey and soon enoug Sara. After that, Grant and I went back to the car to study. Grant got a lot done but I ended up taking a nap of sorts. Once the sealing was over we took some pictures on the terrace of the temple. It was very beautiful.

Then we made our way to a nearby BART station to take the train to San Francisco. Taking the train made me really miss London and the tube. Once we got to San Francisco we made our way to Chinatown. I say "made our way" but it was more like wandering around. Since Trent served his mission in Oakland and San Francisco he was our unofficial guide of sorts. He didn't really know where he was going but it seemed like he did. It took a while to walk to Chinatown but we didn't mind. It was just great to be around each other in a new city. We eventually found a really good place to eat, though the boys were not pleased with the size of the portions, though that was to be expected. After lunch we made our way to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 and Ghirardelli Square. We were on the bay and walked around there for another few hours. It started to rain just a bit but nothing to deter us. It was crazy windy by the ocean but once again we didn't care. I think the best part of the day for Emily and me was Ghirardelli Square. We shared a delicious and huge peanut butter sundae known as the "Gold Rush." It cost us a bit but it was most definitely worth it.

I also loved when we stopped at this random Thai restaurant. Trent spoke to the waitress all in Thai. It was awesome and I admire Trent so much for being able to do that. He's an incredibly talented and smart guy. Things are always great when you have a half Thai/half Irish friend who speaks multiple languages.

At that point we were even more tired and decided to take a street car to the Embarcadero BART station and then back to our car. From there we drove back to Oakland for the reception. It was beautiful. Wes and Hannah had their reception at a building at the Oakland Zoo. It was outside and a perfect night as the sun set over Oakland and San Francisco. The dinner was also awesome. They had a great buffet. (You'll notice quite quick that much of this trip revolved around food.) Perhaps the coolest part of the reception was seeing Wes and Hannah's friends give toasts. Hannah's Harry Potter fandom friends were there and they said some hilarious things I'm sure only a few of us got. It was neat to meet them especially because I've seen pictures of them for years and heard a lot about them from Hannah. Though by far the best thing about Hannah and Wes as a couple is the fact that they have known each other since they were about three years old.

We left the reception before the dancing which was kind of a bummer since I really wanted to dance with Grant and Trent, who were both my dates.

our fearless men

 So we went off to Santa Cruz then, heading for our campsite. By the time we got there it was sometime after eleven. We all basically went straight to bed, and by bed I mean we laid out a huge tarp, unrolled our sleeping bags, crawled in and didn't wake up for hours. I did sleep quite well and wasn't cold at all.


And that's the end of days number 1 & 2 of our epic fake spring break trip to California.

Road trip!

I still have 2 hours and 45 minutes until my next class, so I'm sitting in the library finishing up a presentation and talking w/ my dear friend Carson on Facebook chat. (He's the one in Italy, lucky kid.) And once I get through my evening class all I have to do is pack for my little road trip to California.

We're leaving tomorrow afternoon and all I have to do before we leave is go to zumba. What a lovely Thursday it will be. I absolutely love road trips, and road trips with a bunch of friends are even better. I plan to spend most of the 10 hours reading but I'm sure there will be plenty of hilarity. I also haven't taken many pictures this term, or even throughout junior year in general, and I'm sure there will be plenty to photograph. (The boys I'm going with are quite photogenic and ridiculous, but in a good way.)

It's going to be quite fun going to northern California. I've only ever been around southern. I think what I'm most excited about is being all touristy in San Francisco. Everyone I tell about this trip gets so excited when I mention San Francisco so apparently it's pretty awesome. Getting out of Provo will be so nice. Spring term hasn't been bad but Provo kind of wears on a person for a while, especially when you haven't really left since after Christmas.

So besides packing the only thing to do is create my road trip playlist. I make playlists for each semester, certain activities, and especially road trips. I'm not sure what the feeling of this road trip is going to be but as of right now it seems like the them will be freedom and irresponsibility. Not irresponsibility in the "we're going to make poor decisions" way but in the "we're all a bunch of twenty-somethings with no school and plenty of time to do whatever we want" way. Now I just have to find songs that fit that feeling. Imagine Dragons just came on shuffle and they feel very appropriate for such a weekend.

And as there are only a few weeks left of spring, here's another update on the 10 things I was most excited about:

1) Zumba class with Becca. Still awesome.

2) Gettin' biceps & abs with Lorraine. This has definitely not happened . . . Oh well. Maybe in fall.

3) Jordan & Matt coming home. This has been lovely. I went to Jordan's homecoming and we've gotten to talk a few times since then. Matt is home so soon now too.

4) Camping trips. It was lovely. Well, for me. Read about it here.http://wendtanna.blogspot.com/2012/05/night-under-stars.html

5) Imagine Dragons. They're still lovely as well. They'll probably make up my road trip playlist.

6) Legitimately learning to play a Julia Nunes song on ukulele and then recording a cover with Becca singing. This has not yet progressed beyond where I was before. Next week after I get home from California I'm going to apply myself.

7) More tennis and racquetball. Neither of these things has happened . . . Whoops.

8) Time to read the next Game of Thrones book. This weekend I plan to finish Clash of Kings. I had to take the copy I had back to the library but luckily Trent owns it.

9) Frisbee. I've not done this at all, either. Maybe I'll play some frisbee on the beach! Also, my friend Wade will be back in Utah in June right before I leave and he absolutely loves frisbee so I'm sure we'll play.

10) Starting my Chacos tanlines.  This has not progressed much, though I do wear my Chacos often. They are going to be one of my two pairs of shoes for this weekend so maybe I'll get lucky with some sun.

Last YouTube video I watched: Greg Holden - Home (Live)