Half of me is the gasoline but the other half's the surf

Hello Friends! 

I have not really posted in a long time.

This semester was NUTSO.  Crazy classes with tons of work and tons of planning to get ready to go to Germany (which is unfortunately still going on...I really hope I can get everything settled soon!!!) and generally not much time to maintain sanity.

So as soon as we finished finals, we took off to sunny California to regain some sanity! 

You can't tell it from this picture, but we're actually much more sane here than we were 2 days prior! 

While we were there, we went to Disneyland and California Adventure!!! It was my first time, and it was just as magical and exciting as I hoped :)   Above is us waiting in line to ride the teacups.  I am very obviously freaking out excited. 

And there's the teacups! They were just as exciting as I'd always hoped they'd be :)

I attempted to take pictures of us while we were spinning.  This was the best one.  That tells you how great the rest were.... ;) 

We ran around in the park like crazy, walking as fast as we could from ride to ride so we could get to everything in one day! At one point Jesse pointed out some roses that we were walking past and urged me to look at them. Basically, he was telling me to stop and smell the roses.  So I did. 

On most of the rides, they had these signs. 

But to me, they looked more like they should say this: 

And they pretty much made me want to dance the whole time. 

I ate a pastry in the shape of Mickey Mouse's head! It was amazingly delicious! 

There is a gigantic ferris wheel with Mickey's face on it in California Adventure.  Jesse sat on a bench in front of it to prove just how relaxing and awesome California is. 

This is one of those optical illusion things where the sidewalk blends into a painting of the sky and makes it look like you could keep on walking even though the street really ends! And for the record, I am actually wearing shoes, they were just tan colored sandals and look invisible in this picture. 

We even took an obligitory picture in front of the castle! We were too fraidy-cat to ask anyone to take one of us though, so this is just a really awesome stick your arm out there shot.  But honestly, I expected the castle to be a lot bigger so I wasn't that disappointed that we didn't get a good one.  

It's cool though, we're going to see the castle it was based (Neuschwanstein) on this summer, so it's all good.

It was still very lovely though!  

And of course we paid homage to the ride of my favorite story, Peter Pan! 

And before leaving the park, we ran across this awesome print! We bought it! Don't you love how peaceful their faces look?  They're just so blissful as they fly away to the Neverland. 

 We also went to see World of Color in California Adventure and we didn't get pictures cause it was dark, but it was AWESOME! They project film clips on sheets of water and shoot laser lights on jets of water and such, and it was basically a recap of every awesome Disney movie ever, which was really enjoyable :) 

All in all, I LOVED Disneyland! 

The next day we were in California, we went to hang out with my awesome friend MEGAN!!!!!!!  She lives there and this was the last chance we'll have to hang out for awhile, so I really wanted to go see her! We went shopping at a bunch of awesome vintage stores (and I got a super awesome yellow peplum-style dress) and got gelato and then got chinese food with her mom.  And the next day, we went to the beach! 

It was probably only 65 that day but the water was surprisingly warm and we were able to get in! 

Mostly, though, we sat on the beach and enjoyed the sunshine. 

This is Megan.  She is the coolest ever. 

In part because she draws giant bird foot prints in the sand. 

And finds baby footprints! 

Yup.  We have fun. 

So there are these plants in California called Birds of Paradise that have these flowers that look like bird faces.  I could not resist cawing at them.

(This is my cawing face)

After the beach, we went to Megan's house and dyed easter eggs! We dripped hot wax on them before we dyed them to get cool patterns, and I took pictures of the candles in the process.

This picture was just too perfect to not post.

Look at that flame! It's my favorite shape! 

Again, Megan is awesome. 

And this photo, as Megan aptly surmised, sums up our marriage well.  

Catherine: kind of insane

Jesse: is amused and loves her anyways 

And this is one of the eggs we dyed! 

And then we sat around for awhile being vaguely crafty but mostly enjoying each other's company.  And we all took turns typing on Megan's awesome typewriter. 

This was definitely a trip we needed.  At first we weren't sure if we should go cause we didn't have any real reason and we're not exactly rolling in the dough so a vacation seemed a little extravagant, but we decided to do it anyways and while we were there we realized how glad we were that we had gone! It was great to get out of Provo for a little while, to see a new place and to see Megan! Hurrah for vacations and getting back some sanity!