Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Spring break and chirping birds.

Hello our dear readers.  Yes, I've missed you.  Yes, I am drowning in guilt because of my lack of consistent blogging these days.  No, I didn't buy you guys chocolate roses to say sorry.

In any case, this blog has been neglected, largely due to my increased lack of free time.  I hope you guys had a good time reading through Ashley's last blog and lengthy assortment of pictures.  While I haven't been anywhere as monumentally exciting as London, I have been at work far too early in the morning, I've fallen down a muddy hill in a white dress, I've attempted to climb a fence and completely failed, I've barely beaten Allie at "see who can swing higher", I've dreamt of playing Oregon Trail II, I began the epic re-watching of Scrubs, I've Googled pictures of Northern California because the whole homesick desperation bit has finally sunken in, my roommate has made me into a meme (picture below), I've learned that a large coffee at McDonald's could last for decades and never be empty, I've fulfilled my dreams of playing Oregon Trail II when I was recently back home for spring break, and I was in the Minneapolis airport at 5 am which was, in itself, a strange experience.  It's been PRETTY exciting.

And now I am entering the final phase of spring semester.  Pittsburgh went into extreme spring overhaul mode and it's now disgustingly gorgeous outside.  There were actually birds chirping after the sun went down last night.  It was AWESOME, and later annoying because chirping birds are only cute for the first half hour and they were chirping away like three hours past sunset.  It's like it was April or some shit.

So, spring break.  I arrived in California at 10pm last Saturday, but not before our plane felt like it was going to crash when it was going over Colorado or Arizona or Russia or wherever the hell we were.  I, for the first time in the history of ever, silently squealed when our pilot announced our descent into Sacramento.  Oh the places I'll drive to over spring break, I thought.  I had planned out an excursion to Oregon, San Francisco, and everywhere in between.  I never did end up going to either but I did make it to the in betweens and that was quite enough to satiate my driving thirst.  It was mildly warm for the first couple days and so I went wild with my spring/summer checklist (wear dress, drive with windows down, turn up music, feel free, laugh at people in the southern hemisphere, take pictures with a respectable amount of lens flare).  As much as I adore winter, I have missed summer a great deal.  We had maybe two months of actual warmth last year in Northern California so I think that might be why I am so desperate for warmer weather.

So I completed my checklist and half before the last half of spring break.  I deemed Wednesday as my "stay in pajamas and watch bad TV" day, Thursday as my "drive around nearby towns and take like 400 pictures lul sorry camera" day, Friday as my "hang out with Dad and drive up to Tahoe and take another 400 pictures really though I'm sorry camera okay" day, and the remainder of the weekend as my "hang out with Bub and eat all the things" day.  Somewhere in between those days was half a century's worth of Oregon Trail and Mario Kart playing, but that's just a given.

So I will end this with a couple pictures.  And by a couple pictures I mean just shy of 400.  Sorry.

Aforementioned meme.  And this actually happened.
I really want to know what park fees are.

 Because it reminded me of Parks and Recreation okay.
 Myself.
 "That's where they kept the bodies"
 Pretty green things and fences.
 You can't see it, but it said "Furniture and Useful Stuff".  My kind of store.
I am occasionally good at photography and get awesome shots.
 
 The love of my life.

 The love of Ashley's life.

 We spent that night on Chat Roulette.  It was also hat night.  I had a plastic fireman's helmet
 No explanation necessary.

The father and I in Tahoe.



 One out of a million different gorgeous mountains in Tahoe.

Aforementioned mountain.


 The view from our restaurant, which was technically in Nevada.







Apparently an alcoholic hermit used to live on this island and that was somehow awesome so they made a sign about it.

Until next month.
Just kidding I won't wait so long next time.  PROMISE.

P.S. We were awarded a Kreativ Blogger Award by one of our lovely readers, Rusty, so thank you! I'm not sure if we're supposed to also award someone so, uh, leave a comment.

P.P.S. I am intelligent and missed one of the rules of winning the award.  We are supposed to list ten facts about ourselves so I'll accept that challenge and share 10 things about Ashley and I.

1. We used to have "leg wars" which entailed laying on opposite ends of the couch and sort-of-kicking each other with our legs.
2. To keep cool from the scorching Sacramento sun, we would swim around our above ground pool and invent things.
3. Our inventions usually had something to do with toilets (one of them being Toilet Genie 3000)
4. When we were close enough in age to be at the same school, we would hang out on this one tree by the field and it was awesome.
5. One time she made me eat soap.  She thinks I'm making that up.  I'm not.  It was horrible.
6. Ashley has magical hands and gives really great massages.  But she never gives me one because she's horrible.
7. Before the hatred set in, I used to let her lay on my lap during road trips and stroke her hair.  It actually fills me with rage just thinking about it.
8. When she left for college (undergrad, that is) I was secretly sad about it and would call her for hours at a time.
9. We did Bloody Mary once when we were little and it scared me for years.
10. Ashley is majoring in creative writing and I in photography and neither of us really know what we're doing but, hell, we're doing it and it's made us pretty happy so far.  And bless our parents, they're happy we're happy, despite the fact we're not engineering majors.