Crescent City

My dear friend Meridith is from the little town of Crescent City, California. She was headed home for the summer and since I had a week of no babysitting or work I decided to tag along. We started the 14 hour drive on Friday and luckily made it to our motel in Winnemucca, Nevada despite a few car problems.

 

Scenic drive through the Salt Flats

 We continued the drive on Saturday through the not-so-beautiful desert landscape of Nevada.
Once we got to Oregon the drive became more cloudy, green, and beautiful. 

After 9 hours of being in the car we were finally in California and minutes away from Crescent City!

Monday night we had a barbecue on the beach.

Roasting Starbursts!

On Tuesday we did some shopping, went and saw Men in Black III, went to the pier and babysat Meridith's adorable nieces and nephews.

Wednesday was the Fourth of July so we went to the Crescent City Parade.

Sometimes we wear mustaches

After the parade we headed over to the city's festivities and waited in line for an hour for curly fries which turned out to be a waste of time. I bought a cute owl purse from the little boutique shops that were set up.

Later in the day we went to the beach to have a bonfire and watched the fireworks off the pier. 

A tad sunburned from the parade.

It was really hard to get a good picture of the fireworks

Thursday was my last full day before heading home. 

First we went to Ocean World which is like a mini Sea World...but smaller. :)

Playing in the tide pool.

Sea Slug

Petting the shark

Shark Egg Sack a.k.a. a Mermaid Purse

After our exciting visit to Ocean World we went to the Light House 

but since it was high tide we couldn't walk out to it.

One last shot of the ocean

After dinner we went on a walk through the Redwoods. I could have stayed there for hours, it was so green and peaceful.

 

On the way home we stopped by the lake and I caught the beautiful sunset.

On Friday Meridith and her sweet mom drove me to the Medford Oregon Airport where I began my trip home. I had such a fun and relaxing week! Thank you Walch family!

Oh and don't even worry... my flight from Portland to SLC just so happened to be the same flight that the Portland Timbers Soccer team was on. And my seat just happened to be smack-dab in the middle of all those attractive athletes. I didn't mind those 2 hours one bit.

Oh, hello there.

I'm still here.

My life has been filled with momentous occasions and I had the best of intentions to post them to this little place. I will just share some pictures, mainly for myself. 

I have lots on my mind and lots of big things happening soon in my life that I don't want to forget the moments I have experienced in the last little while. 

Here goes...

Graduation was on April 27th. It was so rewarding to finally walk and get my diploma! My brother Brady graduated also so it was a big family celebration and I loved every minute. It feels awesome to know I have made it through college and have accomplished so much along the way. 

The last month of school was so much fun with my students. I sure do miss them!

 My family was a huge help when it came to cleaning out my classroom. 

 

I have to remind myself that I really was a teacher this past year because it went by so fast that 
I can't believe it even happened. 
~

I started off my summer with a nap.

It was heavenly. 

Then I began 2 weeks of tending for a family in my ward. I got to hang out with their rad 6 kids while their parents went to adopt their brother. They were so excited when their parents were finally coming home so we made lots of decorations to celebrate. We made cupcakes, decorated the car windows, drew on the drive way with chalk and each of the kids made an adorable poster to hang on the garage.

It was so good to get to hang out with them especially since I was really missing being in my classroom with my adorable students.

June was a good month for many reasons. One being that I got to go with my family to St. George for a weekend during which we drove to Las Vegas to see Phantom of the Opera. On the way down Jeff and Rachel gave me an awesome graduation/mission present!
I love my new camera!

Phantom was simple amazing!

After I finished babysitting I did a mini Craft Camp with 4 sweet little girls in my ward. We did crafts for 3 hours each day and had a good time.

 

The week after that it was our ward's Girl's Camp so I did some more babysitting, 

because that's just what I do! 
I took the little kiddos to Neptune Park in Saratoga, which is AWESOME! 
If it wasn't 97 degrees outside we would have stayed all day.

And the week after that... will be on my next post. 

In other news... it is less than a month till I enter the MTC! WOW-SAH!