Hotel California Part I

Instead of telling you about my weekend, since I actually did absolutely nothing (which was marvelous, btw), I was thinking about telling you what I did last weekend.

When my cousin got married in California.

And my family and I went and did all kinds of California things.

Like listen to rap music in the car. 

I didn't realize rap music was the tell-tale sign that you're in California until we finally pulled into town and my husband was like, "We're in California now. We need to bump this shiz."

"It just makes you wanna like, get aggressive wid it, doesn't it?"

Sure thing Nate. Sure thing. 

We made the trip out with my sister, Audrey and her fiance, Adam

We left at 4:30...in. the. morning.

In the morning!

It's OK though, cause we got to Rendondo beach by noon and didn't waste any time getting the vacation started!

Our hotel was literally in the best spot ever.

If I were to have Googled "best spot ever" in Redondo Beach, 

the cross-streets of our hotel would've come up.

I'm sure of it.

 Everything was in walking distance, including Redondo Beach and the pier...so we decided to start there once we arrived.

We made our way to a fresh fish market where we picked out our lunch.

On the menu? Shrimp for me (duh) and thresher shark for Nate. 

Everything was delish.

My mouth is salivating just thinking about it...

After lunch, we took our time and just hung out on the pier, and checked things out.

We even ran into my parents kayaking in the bay

And then we decided kayaking looked fun.

So we made it happen.

And it was fun.

...Besides having Nate in the back complaining about how I kept splashing him with my oars.

It happens dude. We're kayaking.

We paddled out to this island-thing full of sea lions, and I've come to the conclusion that the life of a sea lion could probably be a good one.

Minus getting eaten by sharks and stuff.

But think about it, you just lay there in the sun all day, in the water, take naps, and yell at everyone who tries to roll over into your spot.

I could totally go for that.

Oh, and this is my sister and I chest bumping.

The life jackets made it cushion-y...you know, so the girls were OK.

We were pumped for kayaking.

After we kayaked we made our way over to the Fun Factory...cause they have air hockey. 

And I can never get enough of air hockey.

Nor can I ever beat Nate, but I don't even care.

I looooove me some air hockey.

Saturday we woke up early...not by choice...at least for me.

Nate and Adam are like old men and are up at like, 5 every morning.

I don't get it.

We decided bikes would be a good mode of transportation for the day, so we rented a few and rode down to Hermosa Beach, and Manhattan Beach stopping along the way to do, well, whatever the heck we wanted cause we're on vacation!

After our bike ride, Saturday afternoon/evening my cousin's family was hosting a picnic...somewhat equivalent to a rehearsal dinner, but way more awesome, with way more games, 

and everyone's invited.

There was a lot of cornhole, a lot of volleyball, a lot of food, and a lot of...well, fun.

My sister and I with Brittany, the bride-to-be!

Cousins

...would you believe me if I told you he's the youngest of us?!

The height will fool you every time...

Later in the afternoon the marine layer, or whatever you Californians call it, rolled it and suddenly it got cloudy, and windy, and quite frankly, really cold!

70s is really cold OK?!

So naturally, when you live in the desert you're not used to the marine layer, what do you do??

You freakin' bundle up cause it is cold up in huurr!

As Brittany says, 

"It's really not sunny all the time in California. It's just a myth perpetuated by Hollywood."

Preach guurl.

After the picnic, Audrey, Adam, Nate and I went back to our hotel room to relax and 

have a little dranky drank.

Audrey and I put our mini plastic wine bottles in the ice bucket and went to town.

Keepin' it classy, what can I say.

I thought I was gonna have this whole trip wrapped up nicely into one post with a bow on top, but I'm realizing that's just not gonna happen.

It's too much goodness.

Too much awesomeness to fit into one post.

...that and my computer is mad and won't work very quickly anymore.

Be sure to check in for Part II!

H54F

Oh boy it's finally Friday.

I've been daydreaming about Friday since Tuesday...when I got back from vacation.

Cause we all know sometimes we need a vacation from vacation.

Hashtag firstworldproblems.

And since I've been making an effort to catch things up on this blog (check out parts  one and two here and here) this week's H54F might include a few things from last week.

Hashtag sorrynotsorry

1.) Dbacks game with Julie

I went to the Dbacks game last week with my friend Julie from grad school, which made it my second baseball game in four days.

And I'm not even made about it.

2.) Tyler Skaggs

So Tyler Skaggs is a starting pitcher for the Diamondbacks...

...and I just so happen to post the above picture of Julie and I at the game on Instagram...

...and when I checked my Insta the next morning...

Tyler Skaggs totally "liked my photo"

Whaaaaat??

I won't lie, I was kind of freaking out a little bit.

Julie and I were blowin' up our Gchat at work the next day, Googling the crap out of him.

The dude just turned 22.

Whaaat?? 

That's OK though, the cougar look could look good on me.

He's also 6 foot 5.

Whaaat?

I told Julie since I already have a husband, she and Tyler should totally get married, since they both like baseball and they're both really tall.

We're gonna work on making that happen.

3.) Gift card to Francesca's

I entered my very first giveaway ever over at Kasey's blog a couple weeks ago, and I totally won!

And it totally arrived in the mail last week!

I love Francesca's, and you should love it too, so if you haven't shopped there yet..do it now.

And if you haven't checked out Kasey's blog...do it now.

You'll love that too.

4.) Diploma finally arrived!

Now when I say I have my Master's degree, I actually have my Master's degree.

It's crazy to think you pay all that money...scratch that...you get into all that debt and all it boils down to is a piece of paper.

A really expensive piece of paper.

I don't care though.

I feel smart.

5.) Redondo Beach 

My cousin tied the knot in Redondo Beach last weekend and it was a freakin' blast.

The wedding was amazing, and we made a mini-vacation out of the trip!

Can't wait to get it all up on the blog...so stay tuned for that.

Happy Friday everyone!

Mid-Summer Catch-up: 4th of July Weekend Cont.

I'm trying to catch you all up on the fun things going on around here that I haven't quite had the time to get up on the Blogsy...until now, of course.

Check out part one here.

And while you're at it, go check out Rachel's blog over at Rachel's Country Roots where she was kind enough to let me take over her blog for the day.

Love that Rachel. 

Friday I took the day off of work so I could enjoy a four day weekend (4th of July was on a Thursday if you remember...I know, it seems like a long time ago by now). 

I started the day with my mom and sister and we went to go see The Heat.

So. Freaking. Funny.

If you haven't seen it yet, go do it.

Now.

I'll wait here...

Friday night the Diamondbacks were back in town for the 4th of July weekend and were giving out free t-shirts to the first 15,000 fans, AND had a fireworks show after the game.

I just felt like I needed to be at Chase Field for all of this fun.

 AND I needed to be one of those 15,000 fans.

I like free stuff.

I like free stuff even more when it's a combination of my favorite baseball team (i.e. the Dbacks) and my favorite country (i.e. the USA).

Nate and I waited in a line that snaked around a few blocks in 110 degree heat, and it took foreverrrrr, 

but dang it we got a t-shirt.

And I was happy happy happy.

And sweaty sweaty sweaty.

When we got inside I put my new shirt on and was ready for some baseball.

Nate made an attempt to use the restroom and asked me to hold his t-shirt, and I was like

"Aren't you gonna put this on?"

He rolled his eyes at me, but bless his heart he took it and put it on.

He hates red.

He wore red too, the day before for the 4th.

He looked at me and goes,

"I've worn red two days in a row now thanks to you."

You're welcome Nathan.

Before the game, they had a beautiful tribute to the 19 firefighters who lost their lives fighting the Yarnell fire in Prescott, Arizona earlier this month; it included bagpipes, a 19 second moment of silence, and each firefighter's picture recognized on the jumbo-tron.

The Diamondbacks organization has done such an amazing job honoring those 19 lives that were lost. It is truly touching, and makes me proud to be a Dbacks fan.

19 seats reserved for each life lost. 

After the game they turned off all the lights in the stadium, opened the roof, and let the fireworks fly!

It was pretty cool, I have to say.

Oh, and I also got to say haaaaayy to my favorite 1st Baseman:

The first time he came up to bat Nate goes,

"Here comes your boyfriend."

You're right Nate.

Here comes my boyfriend

Glad we got that cleared up.

So after Friday comes Saturday and Sunday, which pretty much looked about the same:

dogs, pool, Sonic...more dogs, more pool, more Sonic (duh?)

...and I'm not even mad about it.

Next up: my cousin's wedding in CA! 

...although that might have to wait until next week considering I haven't even gone 

through my pictures yet.

It's gonna be a doozy.

A good one though.

A good doozy.

Slowly but surely, we're catching up people!

Mid-Summer Catch-up: 4th of July Weekend

Oh hey guys.

Remember me?

I'm the author of this blog, and holy cow am I way behind on writing on it.

Like, waaaay behind.

So for the next few posts I'm gonna do my best to catch you up on fun things.

Let's back up to the 4th of July weekend shall we?! 

For the 4th, we hung out at my parents house with my sister and her fiance, and a few of their friends. We BBQ'd, swam, drank sangria, ate watermelon, and took pictures with American flags.

So you know, the usual 4th of July fare. 

Don't be mad at all the pictures, I'm too lazy to upload them to PicMonkey and make collages, so you're just gonna have to scroll through all of them.

#sorrynotsorry

Btw I totally made these ice cream sandwiches.

Yes, I want credit for it.

After we had our way with the food and the pool, Nate and I headed out to watch fireworks.

I was glad we made the effort, because if we're being honest here, going somewhere to watch fireworks on the 4th of July is kind of a pain.

Traffic, crowds, it's freakin' hot...rinse and repeat.

It's so much easier to just crash at home after a day of swimming and gluttony, but what kind of a blog post does that make?

Not a very festive one I tell you.

We seemed, however, to stumble on the perfect solution to the aforementioned:

We got to the park early enough for Nate to pick out his preferred parking spot (he's picky about his parking spots, they have to have the "quickest egress"), and after a minute or two he's like, "Wait. I'm gonna do this the smart way," so instead of parking closest to the field where the viewing area was, he parked closest to the exit.

AND THEN 

right when we were about to turn off the truck he's like, 

"We could probably set up our chairs in the bed you know. Then we wouldn't have to go down by the crowds. And we could have the radio on."

And just like that, in a matter of 60 seconds my crowded, hot, inevitably traffic-jammed 4th of July got a million times better.

Fastest egress out of the parking lot, no crowds around, and our own personal seating area.

I knew I married the guy for a reason.

And the 4th of July just isn't the 4th of July without Sparklers.

So we made that happen too.

It was a fun day, followed by a fun weekend!

...That fun weekend will have to wait to make its blog appearance though, 

cause I'm yawning and it's bed time.

Laters.