Day 307

Today I decided to try giving blood again, and it worked!  Very exciting :)

Day 306

Spent the day relaxing at Bryan's parents house, and watched Cars in preparation for my trip to Disneyland next week!  Then went to Target (very exciting), out to dinner, and headed back to Santa Barbara.  Good weekend :)

Day 305

Today was the concert!!!  Phillip Phillips and John Mayer in Irvine!!  It was so awesome, I loved every minute of it.

Day 304

This Friday was the best!  We had a little party at work for Pat's birthday, which was really fun, and then I headed home to the happy haven and had a little pool party with the roomies!  Complete with turkey burgers, courtesy of Steph.  Awesome :)

Day 303

Today was a blast!  We had our planning meeting for the JMT, and we magically all came together and had a lovely dinner and planning sesh, and it was so much fun.  Can't wait for the real thing!!!!!

Day 302

I've got 99 problems... and they are all candy bars!  In this drawer in my desk, gaaahhhh!

Day 301

Sometimes I like to torture myself by looking at really cute animals in the pets section of Craigslist... it's torture because I'm not allowed to have pets, and who knows if I ever will be with all the crazy landlords in Santa Barbara!  But today was particularly painful because I'm almost positive this is the cutest kitten I've ever seen.  Tears.

Day 300

So for the last couple weeks I've been getting back in shape!  It's pretty exciting, since I had almost totally given up exercise... ha.  And now I'm running 2-3 days a week, swimming 2 days a week, and hiking or doing something else on the other days!  It's going good.  Also my CSA box is forcing me to eat a lot of salad... but that doesn't mean I can't indulge in this giant ice cream cake, right?!

Day 299

Approximately a month from now, the Sierra Sisters will be embarking on the final leg of the JMT!  I am very excited... but also nervous because the part we have left is going to be really really tough.  So today Emily and I loaded up our packs and reluctantly climbed the 3.5 (THAT'S IT?) miles to Knapp's Castle.  Then went back down.  It was so hard.  We have a lot of work to do!

Day 298

Today Bryan's parents came to town!  We went boogie boarding, swimming, hot tubbing, out to dinner, it was great :)

Day 297

Had a nice lazy Friday night... and made this giant ice cream cake!  Courtesy of Smitten Kitchen of course. The only problem is that we don't have a spring form pan, so it turned into more of a giant bowl of ice cream than a beautiful ice cream cake, ha!  Intimidating.

Day 296

Today I got my oil changed!  And while I waited I went next door and got some delicious tacos at El Sitio.  Yum :)

Day 295

Bryan and Emily and I tried out a new Japanese place for dinner tonight!  My food was a little weird... but the miso soup was AMAZING and it was a cute lil place :)

Day 294

Met one of the neighbors today! Meow.

Day 293

My rubber band ball at work is growing...

Day 292

This lovely lady and I spent the day wandering around downtown Santa Barbara, and it was absolutely gorgeous!  Great weekend and so glad she came up :)

Day 291

Today Michele came to visit and we went for a really long hot hike - I took one picture, but it seems to have disappeared from my phone.  Then I heard the sad news about Cory... so this seemed like a good picture for the day.  I miss Finn.

Day 290

Awesome Friday evening watching Rear Window in the sunken gardens!  I have to be honest and say that I had more fun before the movie and slept through a lot of the movie itself... teehee... but it was gorgeous and the company was great :)

Day 289

I think this might be my favorite thing about the new house... okay maybe not but it's definitely up there.

Day 288

Today I went with one of my friends from work, Genette, to a trampoline fitness class!  It was really fun and super hard (I am so sore), but she fell and basically broke her ankle, YIKES!  Anyway, I still have 4 classes left on the Groupon... am I tempting fate?

Day 287

Today Pat helped move our couch to the new place!  We recruited him since he has a truck, but it's a big couch and a mini truck, so it was pretty hilarious.  Also it's the law that you have to have some sort of red flag on the back of things that are sticking out beyond your car (which the couch was, by about half actually), so we used a pot holder!  I followed and giggled.  Success!

Day 286

Today I came home to this lovely lady and a delicious nutritious dinner!  Yay :)

Day 285

Bryan's parents gave us a ton of oranges when we were at their house last weekend, and we've been making fresh squeezed orange juice for the last week... it's so awesome!

Day 284

The project of the day - Bryan's epic bike rack!

Day 283

Today I had a super relaxing day off at the new house :)  I unpacked, chilled out, and soaked my feet in the hot tub, then gave myself a pedicure!  Can't complain...

Day 282

Today was the 4th of July!!  I helped Steph make a red white and blue flag decoration for her work potluck, then I made the traditional McClanahannum flag cake out of Cool Whip and Sara Lee pound cake, then Bryan and I went to Stephanie's potluck on the wharf to watch the fireworks!  It was so beautiful, and there was even an American flag right in our view, too perfectly patriotic.

Day 281

The dogs at my work have a rough life... not!  So cute :)

Day 280

Today we had a run in with the law!!  Steph and I were driving Burt's GIANT truck, and of course a cop pulls up behind us and pulls us over... Luckily Stephanie is hilarious and she made the cop love her.  Also it wasn't our fault that there weren't plates on it!  Whew, we aren't criminals after all :) Late night of moving and excitement.

Day 279

Back to work... how weird!  Utah really made me feel like it was the beginning of summer and I had months of wonderful nothingness to look forward to... nope!  Really busy being back in the office, but on my way home I saw this ADORABLE kitten crawling around on the back seat of this persons car... I realize you can't really see it, but that's just not the point, he was the cutest.

Day 278

Today we made the final journey home to Santa Barbara!!  And ate way too many of these gummy beans in the car... wow those things are good!

Day 277

Our adventure ended today, sad! But we stopped in St. George on the way home for the famous frozen custard of my youth, and I was happy.  Yay.

Day 276

We took our time today since we decided to do just a day hike version of Buckskin Gulch.  We were nervous about even doing that, since there were lots of huge storm clouds looming pretty close by, but we just HAD to see it!  The clouds ended up moving off and we were fine, and I'm so happy because the slot canyon was really cool.

Day 275

Today was probably the part of the trip I was most excited for - the Virgin Narrows in Zion!  It definitely didn't disappoint.  We had an awesome breakfast in this cute little place called Cafe Soleil, and decided to stay another night in Springdale so we snagged a camp site before hitting the trail with our sweet canyoneering shoes and sticks!  This spot was awesome, we just floated down the river for a while :)

Day 274

Today we went MOUNTAIN BIKING!!! On the famous Moab slick rock!  We didn't take any pictures except this one since we were busy riding over giant rocks and getting totally dehydrated in the hot sun, but it was so much FUN!  Made it to Zion in the night time :)

Day 273

Today was our big Moab day!!  We wandered around town for a bit trying to decide what to do and looking in some shops, then we went to North Mill Creek swimming hole - it was SO gorgeous and perfect for the hot day.  Complete with topless lady, lol.  We hung out there for a while until a ton of crazy locals showed up in the afternoon, then we quickly exited.  After that, we got T-shirts made in town, got a campsite next to the river, and headed to Arches!  It was so gorgeous.  We looked at all the sites, hiked to double arch, landscape arch, and topped it all off with a super steep hike to Delicate Arch as the sun was setting.  It was a long day but so amazing :)

Day 272

Today we drove the long drive from Bryce to Moab.  Along the way we were planning on stopping to swim somewhere, but we weren't sure where.  Bryan got a speeding ticket which sucked, but luckily they are only $90 in Utah and the cop was super nice and told us about this sweet local spot!

Day 271

Today we drove all the way from Redlands to Bryce Canyon, and so began our Utah trip!  It really wasn't a bad drive, I think it was somewhere between 7 and 8 hours.  We got to Bryce with plenty of time for a gorgeous three hour hike, and we got to watch the giant orange moon rise over the ampitheatre!!

Day 270

This morning we had breakfast at Burger Town in Redlands!  This place is surprisingly delicious and sooooo cheap :)