Hikes and Boats and Friends

I'll be honest, most of the time I've been living in Santa Barbara this summer I feel somewhat like a waste of space... seeing as I'm doing nothing but watching movies, reading, going for walks on the beach, etc. But, despite my lack of purpose, I've been having a totally fabulous time.

A few weeks ago when I first moved in, we decided to build a new coffee table for our living room... we even sanded it and stained it and the whole shebang! I'm pretty impressed by our handy work, and I think it looks very "college chic."















Upon my return to Santa Barbara, Bryan gave me this awesome book with all the hikes in the surrounding areas. Since our initial plan to hike half dome was foiled by the impossible Yosemite permit system, we decided to do one of the more epic-sounding hikes in the book. The Matilija Creek Trail in Ojai took us pretty much all day and was a nice easy hike, and we even saw two rattlesnakes and possibly the scariest spider ever. Also there were these awesome waterfalls!



















The next day, Saturday, after a little overnight camping at Wheeler Gorge, Leigh planned a boat ride of epic proportions for about 25 of our friends... we took the bus from the edge of Isla Vista to the bus depot downtown, and essentially ran from there to the harbor (not a short walk!). The sailboat was awesome, and we saw a ton of dolphins along the coast... mmmm :)















This past weekend I went with Bryan down to his house in Redlands, and we went on a hike in the forest falls area, which pleasantly surprised me as a gem on the outskirts of LA! We also raided his mom's cupcake recipe book, so be expecting some photos that might make you salivate in the next week or so...















So that's what I've been up to here, more updates to come when we do something other than sit and read on the hammock :)

Home sweet home

Finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Colorado

My annual family trip took us across the west coast to Colorado... it was beautiful! Definitely weird to go from sleeping in a tent every night and eating top ramen on a camp stove to being in hotels and eating out, but we did some pretty fun things. I think my favorite moments were going to arches national park, and playing chinese checkers in my dream backyard.

Making up for lost time...

So I went to Belize for 6 weeks... craziest six weeks of my life. I know that many of you (aka Aaron) have been anxiously awaiting my return to the blogging universe - here I am! And here are a select few of my favorite photos from the trip.

June 29

Belize!! Way too hectic for long posting and all I have is the wifi on my iPod, so here's a list of the more amazing things we've been up to so far... Dying of heat and Mosquitos obviously, canoeing down the Belize river, getting licked by a jaguar, seeing howler monkeys in the jungle, double rainbow, lighting storm night search for crocodiles, wild horse stampede through the campground... Quite the 4 days!!

I almost forgot...

Here's a great video of some spectacular dancing skills... my sister in particular, HA!

June 23

I can't believe it's been more than a year since I started writing this blog!! Another year of college is over, my hair is getting longer, and I've started to forget the wonderful stench of elephant poop, so I think it's time to leave for another adventure. Summer has been great thus far - here are a few of my favorite photos from the various festivities :) My plane leaves super early tomorrow morning for Belize, so expect sporadic updates and maybe a few photos every now and then if we're lucky!