Lake Life

My weekend started off awesome with a spur of the moment trip to Bass Lake.

A friend and I decided to make the hour drive up to meet his brother and friends for a night at the cabin on the lake. Watching the boys wake board at sunset was the perfect way to balance out an otherwise boring weekend.
Every time I go to the lake (any lake) it just confirms my LOVE of lake life.

P.S. I snapped this picture with my iphone. I got skillzzzz right? =)

Memorial Day Weekend: Vegas

Here's to the latest weekend update ever.

A bit over a week ago I headed down to sunny southern California to meet up with one of my best friends in order to spend the first weekend of summer in Las Vegas.

After about three hours from Fresno to Burbank, and another 5ish from Burbank to Vegas our little group of girls talked our way in to an upgraded room with a view and set about to get ready for our first night out.

We spent most of our night at Surrender, where Afrojack was the celebrity DJ on hand for the night. One mark of a successful night in Vegas- not buying ourselves a single drink =). Night one was definitely a success by that standard.

       
 

Night one also began a long string of pictures in which I preferred to give the camera some of my favorite cheer facials rather than simply smile.

Based on these pictures I clearly have two go-to faces if I'm not smiling.

We woke up bright and early Friday morning to make sure we got ourselves a good breakfast before hitting the pool. We hit up Grand Lux Cafe (basically Cheesecake Factory but Vegas-y) for some bomb.com breakfast food then headed back to Wynn/Encore to hang out at Encore Beach Club.

This place was over run with girls all looking for the cute guys (who were probably still asleep in their beds) but its always fun to hang out by the pool, drink(s) in hand. We found a few interesting characters to chat with and had ourselves a pretty darn good time.

Fast forward through more exploring, dinner at Earl of Sandwhich, getting ready, and some club struggles- we ended up spending the bulk of our night at Tryst. I have to say I am NOT a fan of clubs, but I somehow always manage to have a darn good time at Tryst. And hey any night spent chatting and dancing with cute boys from Texas is a good night in my book!

Having fun OVER doing the "skinny" pose. You know, chest up, butt out, hand on hip, and lean in. Haha

Pre-Pool

Fat Tuesdays Love- No I will not smile like a normal person =D

The only pictures from night number two...

Day 2 did not greet us with the same loving welcome that Day 1 did. After sleeping in, lounging around the room, and eating some lunch we started getting ready for the afternoon's highlight- the UCLA 8-Clap at the Bellagio fountain!

Just like last year I had a fabulous time meeting up with hundreds of other bruins at the fountain to loudly display our UCLA pride in front of one of Vegas' most famous sights. Of course, I did not take pictures with my fav adpi's nor any of the other friends I ran in to... but here's the couple of pics I did get there.

8 Clap Amazingness

 The rest of the afternoon/evening consisted of exploring the Cosmopolitan, napping, and another evening out. Overall it was quite the experience. I had no intention of returning before my move to OH, but I've recently been informed by my best friend and fellow buckeye (omg that still sounds so weird!) that she may be making her first trip to Sin City in July. I could not possibly miss that... so Vegas- it looks like I will be seeing you one more time, very soon.

Props to you if you made it all the way through this post. I love you, you're awesome.

Kickin Off The Summer

For many people Memorial Day weekend is the first weekend of summer (even though summer doesn't officially start until June 20th...) but this year I kicked off my summer early with an amazing trip to Lake Havasu City, AZ. Myself and six others made the 4+ hour trip from LA across the CA state line to spend an amazing weekend at Lake Havasu on the Colorado River. We spent the majority of the weekend out on the boat maximizing our time in the sun. And word of advice to any of you lake/river go-ers out there... If you wanna make friends real quick, bring a floating beer pong table =)

Here's the photo evidence of our fabulous weekend on the water.

Floating bp =) so much fun

 

Day 2

In-N-Out For Lunch =)

I know I already used this pic but it's definitely one of my favorites.

My only cute pic of Day 3. The rest of the pics from this day are all from tubing.

We've got literally 150+ pictures from this weekend. Most of those pictures are far sillier than these posed pictures I'm sharing with you all (see an example below) but let's just say that it was too much fun and I really hope I get the chance to repeat it before I move to Ohio!

Beer pong. Picking the perfect song. Blowing the whistle. Dancing on the beach.

May 15th, 1851

Happy Founder's Day, Alpha Delta Pi!

Via

On May 15, 1851 the Alpha Delta Pi sisterhood was founded.

I am so incredibly grateful to those founding women. 

Without them I would never have become the women that I am today.

One of my all time favorite "diamond" pictures (circa spring 2009)

ADPi Seniors c/o 2011

Because of Alpha Delta Pi, I have an amazing group life long friends.

I had the opportunity to meet and connect with women across the country.

I learned what it means to be a sister, a leader, and a difference maker.

My time as president of my chapter at UCLA will forever be one of my most important learning experiences.

Via

Good Times With Good Friends

Since I failed at blogging last week, I'll give you guys one Monday post with the two big highlights from last week. 

Those of you that read my blog Friday already got a lil preview.

Last weekend I took a trip to LA to hang out with a few of my best friends and celebrate Brittany's birthday. Of course, the weekend started out with seeing The Hunger Games for the second time with Karissa. 

Then a day of mani/pedis, enjoying the beautiful LA weather (before the rain set in) and, of course, good times dancing to Call Me Maybe getting ready for Britt's bday dinner and night out.

Here's a few pictures.

At Dinner

And...

Overall it was a super fun night and we all had a wonderful time celebrating the first bday of bday season. I have a ton of friends who were born in April (like me!) so Britt marks the beginning since her bday is March 20th.

I also finally go to put the concert tickets I won to good use! My amazing former roomie, Jo, drove down to see Lady Antebellum, Darius Rucker, and Thompson Square with me! Our seats were awful (hey you can't argue with FREE) but we had an awesome time.

Here are some pics from that:

And of course, all three artists.

And just for good measure... Here is one of the MANY videos I took. I turned it in to a little slideshow of pictures at the beginning since the concert footage is mid song (the concert footage starts a little less than halfway in to the vid). Check it out.

Lady Antebellum- We Owned The Night

VEGAS

Do you guys remember that song? You know... "Patron, tequila. I'm drunk on margaritas and Patron, tequila...." Well we brought that song back this weekend in Vegas and although I did not drink any tequila this weekend, that song was certainly heard blasting on multiple occassions from the speakers in our hotel room.

I took a half day from work and began the drive through the middle of nowhere to Barstow, CA (where I was meeting the rest of my group) around 1pm Friday afternoon. Look up the route from Fresno to Vegas, you will literally see long stretches of highway- The 99, the 58, and the 15. Those highways... not very exciting. Farmland, then desert, then more desert.



The center pic was the crazy sunset while driving home. The others were on the way too Barstow. Typical desert.

 Anyway, four hours later I was leaving my car in a semi-sketchy Holiday Inn parking lot in Barstow and jumping in the car with one of my closest friends, Karissa, and her two friends Tanya and Caitlyn (who I had never met before). A couple hours later and we were checking in to our awesome hotel room at The Encore.


Our hotel room (my favorite was the couch area) and the view, during both night and day.

 Lots of texts to sketchy promoters were sent and it was decided that we would go to Tryst and XS since they are both in The Wynn (which is connected to Encore). I love that if you go to the "less cool" clubs you get free drinks. Apparently Tryst qualifies as a "less cool" club because we got to skip the line, grab some free drink tickets and were in super quick.

I'm not a club person but I actually thought Tryst was super fun. They played great music (it was actual music that I knew, not dubstep/house beats) and the dance floor was right in the middle with a huge, very picturesque waterfall behind it. We had a great night out at the clubs, and once we left we made friends with a couple of bartenders in our hotel for some more drinks. These two guys were hilarious, I wish we had gotten a picture with them.

Day Two began at 10am with varying degrees of hangover manifesting themselves in each person, but a delicious breakfast at XXX cured that right up. We headed off to walk the strip, take lots of pictures, and do some shopping. It was a BEAUTIFUL day in Vegas. 70 degrees and sunny with no wind, so perfect for walking the strip. We met up with Tanya's brother and hit up the buffet at the Bellagio for an early dinner. Multiple plates of delicious food later we headed back to our hotel to prepare for night number two.

Treasure Island. Typical ADPi Diamond Pic. Elvis Impersonators. Fat Tuesdays!

 Night two held big plans to hit up a new club then head to Toby Keith's I Love This Bar (three of the four of us are huge country music fans). Unfortunately, we got slightly sidetracked because we decided to meet up with one of Karissa and Tanya's friends from their study abroad program. This guy was staying in an AMAZING tower suite in The Wynn. OH EMMM GEEEE this room was so cool. My favorite part was the mirror ceilings and personal bar in the living room.



Mirror ceiling pic.

 Those guys had a table at Tryst, so we headed back there with them. Then ended up being there super late because Holly Madison was hosting and we had to see her! Sad to say we didn't make it to the Toby Keith bar... There is always next time!

Anyway, I must say this was probably my favorite Vegas trip to date. Although last years memorial day weekend trip is a VERY close second. We are already making plans to go back in April to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of Karissa and my 21st birthdays (aka our 23rd bdays).

LA In The Wintertime... 70+ and Sunny!

I completely failed at taking pictures this past weekend in LA (hopefully I will do better this weekend in Vegas!) but I'll update y'all with the pics I do have.

After a long Friday of work, I took off for LA and arrived just in time to start getting ready to go out! Friday night, Karissa, Britt, and I went out to a bar called The Hudson in WeHo (West Hollywood). I had only been out in WeHo one other time- Halloween 2010. That experience was exactly what you would expect of West Hollywood- flamboyance EVERYWHERE.

Halloween 2010

This experience was much more normal. The Hudson was super packed with lots of beautiful people, and we had a great time. We even made some friends and went out to eat at Denny's after last call. Late night Denny's is always a good choice =)

The only photos I did take on my camera this weekend

Saturday, Britt, Karissa, Jamee, and I all met for lunch at Porto's in Burbank. Porto's is an awesome Cuban inspired bakery and cafe. I should have taken a picture of all the delicious treats (seriously it was overwhelming...)! Because I told the guy it was my first time there, he let me try their famous cheese roll. Sadly, I'm not a cheese person, but I tried it anyway (he was really excited about me trying it!) and it wasn't bad, not my style, but pretty good. I ordered the Cubano- a sandwhich with pork, ham, cheese, pickles, mustard and mayo, on Cuban bread. It was delicious!

The cubano- YUM!

I then took off for Westwood in order to meet up with my two former roommates at our sorority house (which we all affectionately refer to as the HOP or House of Pi). One of my former roomies- Katie- is the current president, the other-Jo- is getting her master's in Public Health from UCLA. The three of us headed west down Wilshire to Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade, my personal favorite place to shop in LA. It was a GORGEOUS day, warm enough for shorts and a zip up sweatshirt so we walked the street and stopped in on our favorite stores.

This is the HOP- where I lived for three years!

Saturday night we went to 800 Degrees, Westwood's new (SUPER popular) pizza restaurant. We waited about 45 minutes in line, but it was so worth it. This place is a create your own gourmet pizza place. You order, they make it in front of you and its done cooking by the time you pay. The pizza's are so delicious. I love that they decided to build this place in Westwood.

Delicious PIZZA

After a failed attempt at Diddy Reese (100+ USC people were in line, no joke it was like an entire dorm floor bused over), flirting with the cashier at Malibu yogurt to get discounts, and a stop by Redbox, we were back at the HOP and ready for a movie night. Unfortunately, we all passed out less than 20 minutes in to The Ides of March.

Sunday I went out to brunch with another former roommate (and fellow former ADPi pres). I had not seen Meredith in over a year! It was so nice to catch up and reminisce. It's funny how hanging out with an old friend can make you remember things you had completely forgotten about!

After brunch and coffee it was back to the HOP for the Super Bowl. Then sadly, it was back to Fresno.

Beautiful LA Weather- Windows down, music up!

I had an AMAZING time with all my friends this weekend! I am already trying to figure out when I will be able to make my next trip back.

I Would Be Lost Without My Friends!

Happy Friday lovelies! 


Before I jump in to things I just want to thank everyone who has taken the time to stop by my blog, and especially to those who comment/follow etc. It means so much to me that anyone takes the time to read my silly little thoughts =)


And to those who wondered- the GRE went sooooo well! I was so pleased with my results. I actually did better than I expected to do! I am now one step closer to getting my grad apps in. This time next month, everything will be out of my hands and in the hands of the admissions folks!

I had so much fun linking up with Neely, Amber, and Casey's Valentine's Day Challenge on Tuesday and today's topic fit in perfectly with my planned post anyway that I decided to do it again! Today's topic is Love My Girlfriends.

Before you read this post put on the Britney, Spice Girls, Katy Perry, Ashlee Simpson... cheesy girly music that you can rock with your girls while acting like total dorks. That should set the tone. Got it? K. Moving forward.

Here is my disclaimer: I LOVE LOVE LOVE reading about wonderful boyfriends, dedicated husbands, and (especially) rambunctious babies and toddlers, however... 

My google reader is bombarded daily with posts from awesome girls out there gushing about the equally awesome men in their lives, and it can get a little depressing for those of us who are unattached.

But when that depression sets in I remember that I have the most AMAZING friends a girl could ask for! My girlfriends are my constant source of support, encouragement, laughter, real-ness, inspiration, CRAZY, and love.

I wanted to show you guys some older pics of us being ridiculous. All of these pics (except the two big ones) are from our freshman year. 

In college I joined a sorority and I found a huge group of sisters who have always got my back. I made some of my best friends, and found girls who I know will be in my wedding one day. My life would not be the same without these girls.

Nor would it be complete without my best friend. I've known this girl since third grade! We have been through so much together, and even though we went to college in different states, we are closer now than we've ever been!

Long story short I am incredibly blessed, and I love my friends more than anything (even though we don't get to see each other as much as we would like to now that most of us have graduated.

I also had WAY too much fun looking through all my old photos to find these gems.

Welp, I am off to LA for the weekend to visit some of these wonderful friends of mine! Happy weekend everyone!

Oh and if you're interested in my friends who also blog...

Bethany

Jo

Katie