Summer Reading

I've had a thing this summer for books that are of the Utopian genre. I think I've decided that's my favorite genre, only took me 19 years. Whatever it's fine.

My 3 favorites I've read so far are as follows.

1. The Host-Stephanie Meyer

Now say what you will about Twilight, I don't really care. I loved this book, and I would highly recommend it.

2. Matched- Ally Condie

Ally Condie is an LDS author and this book was a New York Times bestseller.

3. Crossed- Ally Condie

This is the second book in the series and I loved it just as much as the first one. The third one doesn't come out until this Fall and I am definitely on the edge of my seat waiting for it.

If you have read any other Utopian books that you loved (or even ones you didn't) drop a comment. I'd love to hear any suggestions!

Employed

Good news folks! I got a job. I will now be working at my current job until the week of June 18th and also working at Jimmy John's! Woot woot.

It may not be the most glamorous job in the world, but it's income, and I couldn't be happier. 

A Blindside

Blindsides are funny...until they happen to you. Those are the infamous, or not so infamous, final words of Kat from survivor. (Do I have any fans out there? Congrats to Kim!) This past week I've had a blindside hit me. I work at a warehouse for Provocraft. This week I  found out that our entire warehouse is being laid off. Luckily, it's not due to our performance level or anything like that. It's hard to grasp that we all won't work together anymore in a short time. I've grown to love these people dearly. They were a great strength to me through my Freshman year, I don't know how I would have survived without them. 


At first I took the news pretty hard. I found out via Facebook that all of this was happening, I'm sure you can imagine my shock. Now that I've had a few days for the news to settle in, I've decided that maybe this will be a good thing. I'm very comfortable where I'm at right now. I'm good at what I do, but life isn't about just being good.


 I've realized that without this change I wouldn't be learning from new experiences. So while I wouldn't wish a blindside like this on my worst enemy, I am glad that it's happening to me. Granted that doesn't mean I'm always the most gracious when I'm talking about it, but I do know that it's good for me. Something is out there that I'm supposed to be doing and I'm going to find out what it is. 

My Best Friend

Today is Carolyn's birthday, in case you haven't heard.

This girl is pretty amazing. We have been through some tough times together.

 She knows all there is to know about me and she's still my friend!

She has sat on the floor with me while I've cried about who knows what.

 She talks me through those times when I'm so hard on myself. 

She is one of the most thoughtful people I have ever met. Carolyn is so sympathetic it's almost unreal.

I love being around this girl because she's always a ball of energy!

She has blessed my life more than I could ever say. I could go on and on and on and on. I don't think you could really ask for a better best friend than her! Happy Birthday Carolyn! I love you!

California girls...for a week

Last week I went on a trip to California with some friends of mine. We had a grand ole time visiting Disneyland and California Adventure. We also enjoyed a day at the beach. Are you ready for picture overload? Fantastic, here we go!

As we started to get farther and farther from home we realized that everyone started to get a little bit stranger. That theory proved true through the rest of the trip.

To loosen us up and get us ready for our fun-filled week Becca [sorry if that's not how you spell your name] led us in some Yoga exercises. There was one in particular that I was rather fond of, ask me about it sometime. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We decided if we were ever tired in line we'd do a little bit of Yoga...so we did.

The first day we were there we hit a large number of the major rides within the first two hours. We walked on to Splash Mountain and rode it TWICE in a row! We kept asking ourselves if it was real. Who gets to do that?

For some reason the right side of our boat took the biggest hits. As you can see in the picture below both Nicole and my right shoe are soaked while the left one is perfectly dry.

This was Becca's first time at Disneyland. We made sure we hit all the most essential things.

We had our times where we were bored in line, but Rochelle and Becca found ways to stay entertained.

Stephanie brought a backpack with straps and for some reason I liked taking pictures of her when she had it snapped. Isn't she cute?? :)

My two favorite rides ever since I was really little are the Carousel and Tea Cups.

I still love them both to this day. 

Stephanie loves the Chesire cat.

And speaking of things people love we saw this picture and had to take it for Mallory. We love you:)

Nicole's favorite ride was Tower of Terror. We rode it at least 6 times.

Star Tours and Toy Story were also highly popular with us.

I've also always loved Winnie the Pooh. When we passed by Tigger it was a BIG deal. After going on the Winnie the Pooh ride I decided that I want a Honey pot. I'll be making one this summer.

Nicole and I were twinners one day and wore our Star Wars t-shirts. We happened to run into some storm troopers. Pictures were obviously a must. 

Here are the rest of the pictures from our Disney adventures.

We were a little anxious

She is stylin'

I have a thing for fire hydrants...don't ask

Sending a letter to that one Missionary who loves Disneyland more than almost anything

We ended our Disney days with World of Color. This was probably my very favorite thing. For those of you who haven't seen it, put it on your bucket list as a must see!

 Let's just say, we picked the prime time of year for this trip of ours. We went for 3 days. In those 72 hours we maybe saw the sun for a total of 15 minutes. While it probably made the park less crowded, I sure did miss the sun. 

We enjoyed a fun day at the beach. We were there at the perfect time to see the Tide Pools. I saw a crab for the first time in person and was going a little crazy! We didn't manage to take any awesome pictures of some, but we did find a huge sea slug along with some Starfish. 

Naturally we were all a little, or a lot, bit sun burnt, but all in all it was a fun trip to the beach.

California you treated us well!