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weekly blog!

florida trip!!!

sept 29-oct 4, 2024

bryce and i had the epic opportunity to spend a week in tarpon springs florida with my family who were house sitting for my dads uncle! it was so awesome to rest and hangout for the whole week.

vacay summary!

the first two days kylie and cobey came down from pensacola to visit and hangout. we rode on electric bikes and watched movies and chatted a whole bunch. quinns birthday was on the 1st of october and we went mini golfing and ate ice cream cake. we swam almost everyday in the pool. due to hurricane helene all of the beaches were closed which kinda sucked but we did visit the beach on thursday where quinn literally got stung by a jellyfish so we left early. it was still a lot of fun! a lot of the tourist areas were closed because of the flooding from the week before. it was really sad to see all of the furniture and stuff on the side of the road that people were having to toss because of the flood. we went an ice cream shop called twistee treat a few times and that was super yummy. we went fishing a few times and that was great too! on our last day we went to rainbow river and took a boat up river and layla, dad and i did a float dive! the water was sooooo clear so we could see so many fish and stuff. i collected a few shells along the way too. bryce, mom and the girls snorkeled along with us and it was fun to see them up at the surface. every day felt so incredibly long and all around the trip was amazing! Thanks to my parents for paying for us to go down and have such a fun experience.

pictures!

(i totally didn’t delete everything and have a crying breakdown trying to get these pictures… my lovely bryce figured everything out so its okay!!)

feeding baby gators at the mini golf course ^^^

layla scared that i am entering her room ^^^

big shark at the bait shop ^^^

me eating 1/2 lb of shrimp ^^^

quinns jellyfish rash and her sad face ^^^

dinner at the crusty butthole/busty bass ^^^

horrible bruise from falling down at rainbow river ^^^

    sept 1st-7th, 2024

    my very first blog!

    sunday, 1st:

    my sunday started off like the majority of all my other sundays, church! i think that a good sabbath day is a great way to start off my week. a few months ago, my bishop said something along the lines of ‘if you're starting your week off here, at church, you're starting your week off right. you're in the right place.’ and that really stuck with me for some reason.

    bryce and i serve in the nursery with another sister. we take care of the smallest kids from like 18 mo-3 years i think. it’s quite the party. sometimes we have 8 kids and sometimes we have 3. this sunday was what you'd assume to be the better option of the two. we had 3 kids and the other sister we serve with, anna, was gone that day. but her son was there. he usually has a difficult time in nursery but this sunday he did great and i was really proud of him.

    after church i spent some time working on getting this site up and running. it has been very fun to figure things out and see what works. around 4pm we left for my parents house for family dinner. my old coworker and friend jasmin and her boyfriend steven were also going to family dinner so i was pumped. i used to work with jasmin and another friend of mine jinsey at dreadfullhippie and i miss them a lot of the time since i got a new job. so getting to see them is always a treat!

    for dinner, my mom made carne asada tacos with the coveted ramey's beef and chicken from my dads hometown of brawley, ca. everytime they’re visiting california, they tend to pick up the meat in bulk because it is such a delicacy to our family. the tacos were so good especially with the slaw that went with them. my mema made banana and lemon zucchini bread for dessert and those were also so good. jasmin brought ice cream sandwiches as well.

    after dinner we sat around the table and played some board games with everybody and it was such a great way to end the night. whenever i am with my friends and family just hanging out and having a good time, i can't help but think that this is how heaven will be. together with all the people i love!

    monday, 2nd:

    monday was labor day so i didn’t have to go to work which was awesome. bryce and i got up early and we met his parents and siblings at salem pond to go kayaking! we got there about 9:30 so the sun was up but it wasn’t too hot. it was super nice. my three nieces were there as well being all cute in the sand. bryce and i went out on the kayak and rowed along the bank to see if we could spot anything cool. we saw a few big fish and a little turtle sunbathing. it was a really peaceful way to spend my morning.

    sweet juliette

    after kayaking, bryce left with his dad to go help his brother jeremy pick up some exercise equipment. i headed home to finish up the work i needed to do on the site to get it finally up. the long weekend was the perfect time to start this project. eventually bryce came home and our friends alex and davy showed up! they all worked on color grading a video they had started making about 1 year ago, but they finished it! i just sat around and chatted with them as they worked. we got subway and made hot chocolate with homemade whipped cream. at the end of the day, bryce and i drove davy home because alex had abandoned him at our apartment to leave with his family to paris for the week.

    tuesday, 3rd:

    the week was back to normal and i went to work. it was incredibly busy due to the long weekend and the large quantity of orders that came in on the previous friday evening. we had a total of around 4000 orders that needed to be processed and filled so that was really fun to do. i wouldn’t say it was stressful but i definitely was busy the entire day. we weren’t able to ship out all 4000 orders but that was expected.

    after work, bryce and i went with our friends tremaine and liv to topgolf for tremaine’s 21st birthday! i had never been to topgolf before so i was pretty bad at it but it was still super fun. there was a wasp that kept bugging us and we caught it in a cup. our poor waiter was so baffled when i asked for a new drink because there was a wasp in my cup.

    for dinner we went to dairy queen because it was close and i was really craving ice cream. we got to the restaurant and i saw that the french silk pie blizzard was on the menu. this is my absolute favorite blizzard that my mom showed to me. it’s a seasonal flavor that i have honestly never seen on a menu before and every time i would ask for it, it was a gamble on whether or not the person taking my order was going to give it to me or not. so when i saw it on the menu i had to get it. and it was just as great as i remembered.

    wednesday, 4th:

    we finished up the remaining orders at work and got everything shipped! before everything went crazy with the orders i had a lot of free time because i’ve been training my coworker karen for the past few weeks. i just sit with her and make sure that she’s doing everything properly and answering questions. so after we got caught up on everything, i continued training with her.

    karen is a great woman despite her name. she moved to the us from venezuela awhile back with her husband and son. she is very funny and we have a lot of fun banter. i’m kinda studying spanish right now and she is studying english so we often talk about language and teach each other new things. i try to speak spanish at work but it’s difficult because i still don’t know enough.

    after work i headed to the post office on my way home to buy stamps. last week at work i made a bunch of stickers using the labels from the label printer because of the immense amount of aforementioned freetime. i decided to send the stickers to my friends out in florida and some to davy, hence the trip to the post office. karen also needed stamps so i got her a few as well.

    after the post office, i took a nap with bryce and we made dinner together. we made mexican rice and chicken in our new rice cooker. it was a little bit of a learning curve because the rice didn't cook all the way initially but we figured it out and it turned out pretty good! when we finished eating dinner i still had that french silk pie blizzard on my mind. so we took a quick trip to the nearest dq. it was a fun little outing and a very delicious one too.

    thursday, 5th:

    work was finally back to normal completely and i was back to just watching karen do my job. i gave karen the stamps i got from wednesday and she really wanted to pay me back for them but it would’ve only been like 2 dollars. i told her she should make me a treat instead. she is a very talented baker and made the best tres leches cake i’ve probably ever had. so i kinda hope she follows through. cake or no cake, i’m glad i could get her the stamps.

    it was the first day of my period so i’m on day 1 of my new cycle! i’ve been tracking my cycle for birth control with a method called fam (fertility awareness method), for over a year now and it’s been a really cool experience. if you’re interested in learning more about it, i go more in depth on my cycle blog! my last chart was really cool so i would recommend checking it out. (once i get it up and running haha)

    after work, i went with bryce to d.i. to drop off some clothes that we didn't need anymore. i felt just a little sad because i kinda wanted to keep some of the shirts for crafting or something like that. but i know that’s just the hoarder part of my brain talking so i ended up being okay. in the line to drop off clothes, the lady in front of us was donating a really cute, vintage looking side table and i almost asked her to just put it in my car instead. but i didn’t. i guess we will see if i regret that later.

    before going home, we headed to the mall to get a birthday present for karen. both her and my other coworker, fernanda’s birthdays are in september so i’ve been brainstorming ideas. i got karen a cute little stress ball in the shape of a gummy bear. i have a similar one at work that she really enjoys. i’m planning on making fernanda a necklace for her present.

    once we arrived home, i watched bryce play his new video game for a bit before we headed out for dnd night at his brother, jeremy’s house. bryce has been playing alien: isolation and it's pretty spooky. i’m not super into horror or suspenseful media but it was fun to watch.

    my sister in law kiai is the one who is running our current campaign for dnd and it’s been pretty fun. she pretty much wrote the entire story herself which is crazy. my character's name is thatcher bronn and he is a bard. this is my first time playing as a male character and it's just a little silly. dnd consisted of going to quailshire and discovering that my ex-fiance was trapped in a tower, my evil almost-ex-mother-in-law was turned into a toad and there was a plane-shifting demon sigil underneath an old pigs house. so, good stuff! pictured is some yummy bread kiai made for dnd.

    friday, 6th:

    i spent a lot of my time at work making little origami projects as i helped karen through some new training stuff. she’s almost ready to be left alone to work. i leave at the end of this month for a vacation to florida. so i’m hoping she will be all the way ready by then. i’m very confident that she will be. if i was leaving tomorrow, i think she would be okay, though i’m glad we still have a few weeks to solidify some things.

    at work we have a company lunch every first friday of the month where they provide food and do prize drawings and stuff like that. we had strange sandwiches in boxes that looked like they were for shoes. i won a $25 gift card which was epic. i think i win a prize literally every month. before they started the drawing, my manager rio mentioned something about my name getting drawn every time and how i need to not get drawn this time. and then, it got drawn.

    after work i went home and watched bryce play some more alien: isolation and i worked on getting everything typed up for this blog. tremaine and liv showed up shortly after and we went out to buy groceries to make some friend dinner. we bought a big frozen lasagna and rolls and it was a pretty yummy dinner. while we waited for the lasagna to cook, which took like an hour and thirty minutes, we played some card games and watched the bee movie. it’s a great movie and you should watch it. my friends went home after dinner and games and bryce and i ended our night with watching my favorite movie: juno. that is also a great movie and you should watch it the same day you watch the bee movie like i did.

    saturday, 7th:

    i slept in a little bit with bryce before we had to get up on time to go clean the church at 10am. i had honestly forgotten that we signed up to do it but i got a text the night before reminding me. we were 2 of 6 people that showed up and our assignment was to clean the kitchen. cleaning in a quiet and peaceful building in the early hours of the day was a really good way to start my saturday. i felt super happy and accomplished after. our friends from the ward, eve and michael, were also there cleaning so we got to chat with them for a bit over some chocolate milk and donuts before we left.

    earlier in the week, bryce decided that we were finally going to hang some shelves that have been sitting in storage for the better part of almost a year. we had two more shelves that were still hung at his parents house so we stopped by there to grab those as well. i had been really nervous to hang things in our apartment because i was afraid of fees and stuff when we moved out. but we resigned our lease recently so i decided that i wanted to go for it and just hang the shelves. we got a few hung but we still need to put three more up. i’m a little unhappy with where the record shelves are, but that's where the studs were so it was the easy thing to do. it doesn’t look bad at all, i am just picky.

    we ate ramen for lunch/dinner and i walked to the dollar general to grab some pads while bryce was recording a video for a job interview. on my way home i picked some flowers off the side of the road and made a little bouquet.

    at 8pm we went to eve and michaels house and play board games with them along with some of michael's cousins. it was super fun! i met a lot of new people but i think we all got along very well. we played a dice game called bank that bryce an i have been playing with tremaine and liv. we also played a game like mafia called avalon which was also pretty fun and simple. we finished off the night with some jackbox games and we headed home. before bed we made hot chocolate with pumpkin spice cold foam! i ahve never really been the typr of person so be very excited for fall but recently i have been getting pretty hyped.

    this week was really great and i can't wait to continue this and having this little blog/journal (: