Disneyland with the girls!

About two months ago my little sister called me and asked "What're you doing September 9-12th?" and I was all like "Why are we going to Disneyland?!?!?"

Yup!

It seems like my family can't go more than six months without a Disneyland trip. Which is a-ok with me. I love Disneyland.

On the plane!

Once arriving in California we headed down to Laguna. Ok, hilarious story about this picture, my aunt went up to some lady to ask if she'd take the picture and the lady kind of hesitated and looked really unsure and was all like.... "Well I'm in the middle of Pokemon...." but in the end decided to help take our picture! Haha. I guess she must've had some really important Pokemon battle going on or something.

First day at Disney began with a trip to Mimi's Cafe next to our hotel. A tradition.

Number one priority was running over to the Car's ride before the line got too long! My mom forced us all to wear these ridiculous mustaches for the picture and it paid off because when we got off the ride one of the castmembers gave us all free fastpasses because she liked our mustaches so much.

Yup. There it is.

This trip was especially awesome because my best friend Shelbster got to come! We have been to Disneyland together a multitude of times over the years but the last time we went together was after high school graduation so it has been a little while.

It was great having Shelby as my Disneyland side-kick because she is one of the rare few who will go to Disneyland when it opens and stay until it closes with me. We are hardcore.

Literally got the highest score possible on Astro Blasters. Proud moment.

And if the mustaches weren't already enough my mom made us all wear shower caps on Splash Mountain! Sadly no free fastpasses came out of this one, haha.

What is more magical than riding King Arthur's Carousel when it's all lit up at night, riding past Sleeping Beauty's castle around and around again, the sounds of Fantasyland in the background? Nothing. Nothing I tell you.

No Disneyland trip is complete without some Mickey Mouse pancakes.

Wish we never had to come home!

Groovy

I bought myself a pair of bell bottoms yesterday and I looove them! I've always loved 70's style and have been wanting a pair of these forever. Flared jeans do things for your hips that skinny jeans could never accomplish.

Whenever I have a bad day, I just go to the Puppy Barn and it makes everything better. How can you not be happy while holding a St. Bernard puppy, I mean just look at that little guy! They are all so precious, fluffy and cute.

Shlebbbyy and Scott. Nathan and I went and hung out at their apartment last week and tried to walk across their new slack line. Or balancing strap as I like to call it, haha. I don't think I will be joining the tight rope walkers league anytime soon, needless to say. We did all have a handstand contest as well which is something I can at least somewhat compete in. Pretty much it looked like we had a circus going on their front lawn all night, it was fun.

In all my years of riding I have never been bucked off, I've had some close calls but have never actually been ejected from the saddle. This little son of a gun however thought he'd get wise and try to kick me off, but I am proud to say I held on for dear life and managed to stay in the saddle. My heart wouldn't stop pounding for about 10 minutes afterward. I don't know how those rodeo bronc riders do it.

Whelp. This post was mainly just a jumble of complete random thoughts, but I felt the urge to document. I'm about to start my three shifts for the week and so I'll be MIA from all human contact outside the rehab for a few days. Here's to hoping you all have a good week!

Kauai

My parents are obsessed with Kauai. They've probably been 7 times in the last 15 years. This summer my mom decided to rent a beach house and bring along the ENTIRE family. Like there was seriously 18 of us in one house, sharing two bathrooms and only four beds, hahaha. My uncle and sister's boyfriend slept outside in their hammocks strung between palm trees and my brothers slept on the couches and Nathan and I had an air mattress so it all worked out pretty good. Plus who the heck cares when you're in Kauai anyway, right?

The first thing we did upon arrival was stop at L&L for a little late night Hawaiian BBQ. This is my brother's favorite spot. It is kind of sketchy but we like it. There's actually an L&L in Provo, which is weird because seriously the only L&L's I know of are in Hawaii... and then Provo? Interesting. Fun fact, I ate Christmas Eve dinner here when I was 16 years old on our last trip.

Our beach house was on Anini Beach which is just BEAUTIFUL, and it was only like 100 steps away from the ocean.

Here it is, Anini Beach :) it is protected by a coral reef and so the waves break about 200 yards from the beach, so the water is always really calm.

And this, my friends, is the view from our bathroom. Isn't that incredible! It looks like a scene from Jurassic Park, or like the Garden of Eden. Probably more Jurassic Park though because they actually did film those movies on this island!

So many beautiful sights to see! Kauai is so diverse, one side of the island is completely tropical, and is one of the top ten wettest places on the planet. Then on the opposite side of the island it's like a desert, more hot, dry and brown. You can drive around the entire thing in 2.5 hours. I think I would get island fever really bad if I ever lived here. It may be paradise but I think I'd feel kind of trapped just driving around the same island around and around all day.

We boogie boarded all day, e'rrrry day. We went around to as many different beaches as possible. There's this one place called Polihale that has these incredible waves! In the winter time when the waves are bigger they seriously get to be like 20 feet high. In the summertime they're not quite as high but man they are powerful! I pretty much got eaten alive by this one wave and it dragged me across the ocean floor, filling my swimsuit with all this sand, and then it sucked my goggles off! Then as I washed onto shore, face down, legs all scraped up, another wave came and got me! I felt like I was in a washing machine, getting spun around out of control by the power of this wave.

Here's me after getting eaten by the ocean. My hair and swimsuit were soooo full of sand it was ridiculous. Don't mind my legs, apparently I only believe in applying sunscreen on like two spots on my legs, haha.

One day we went on this very muddy ATV adventure with my sister and her boyfriend! The tour was on this ranch where they filmed Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park, so we got to see some of those sites!

Here's one of those monster waves I was telling you about! Hahah this video cracks me up.

This was the view from our favorite smoothie stand! Can you imagine this being your view at work everyday?

No trip to Kauai would be complete without eating at Bubba's Burgers. I think we ate there like 5 times. It's too delicious to miss.

Me and Mo.

Boone on the plane ride home. All those hats have got to go somewhere, and they weren't all fitting in the suitcases, sooo....

Plumerias! Oh how I wish we could grow these trees in Utah, aren't they so beautiful? One thing about Kauai is there are flowers everywhere. It seems like everything has a flower on it.

My favorite part I think was the beach by our house! I loved just sitting in my Tommy Bahama chair, toes in the sand, reading a book and watching all the little crabs scurry around.

It was a shame we had to come home! I did miss our air conditioned apartment though, so in that regard, it is good to be back. Nobody in Kauai believes in air conditioning apparently.

And that concludes our Kauai adventures! Thank you and goodnight.