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.

I Need A Little Extra Motivation Today

It's Thursday, Friday is only a day away (and now I'm singing Tomorrow from Annie in my head... great) and I need a little extra something to give me the motivation to push on through to the fabulous weekend that I have planned. I decided to look back through my favorited photos on my Tumblr (it was like my Pinterest before I had Pinterest!) and here's a few that made me smile for different reasons. 

I love this girl. I want to look like her, sing like her, dress like her... Basically I just want her life.

Floppy puppies make me happy

Yes.

How could these lil cutie pies not make you smile?

Doesn't this seem even more appropriate considering the current Dair situation that Gossip Girl has goin on?



Watch out!

Well I feel better now. Ready to take on the next two days of work. Hope y'all do too.

XOXO

LA Friends, I Love You But...

... please stop posting about the beautiful, warm, southern California weather! It is making those of us stuck in colder temperatures very sad. I can't even imagine how sad I would be if I lived somewhere that is actually REALLY cold.

                                 
 In other news... HAPPY FRIDAY! And congratulations to all who survived their first (almost) full week back after the holidays. Here is a little of what my iPhone has been up to recently.

Never Turn Your Back On The Ocean!

Happy 2012 everyone!

I hope all of you had an amazing NYE! I know I had an amazing final week of 2011, and I am going to share all that excitement with you all this week. 

As you may already know, I spent a few days up in Sea Ranch with my best friend at her parents beach house. We were so sad to have to leave on friday after, because it was a fabulous couple of days full of exploring trails, watching movies, drinking wine, a little bit of blogging, and just simply relaxing! We took about a bajillion pictures but I'll try not to overwhelm you with too many. With out further ado, I'll just let the pictures do the talking (at least for the most part).

The drive to and from Sea Ranch is not particularly easy but it is beautiful. Driving slowly along the twisty turny Highway 1 can be a bit scary (especially when goats randomly decide to run in front of the car!) but it also lends itself to some beautiful views.

Some shots from the drive to Sea Ranch

The views at the beach house did not dissapoint either. Although it was very cloudy, misty, and foggy (our hair and clothes were wet like we had just walked through the rain when we got home) we enjoyed every minute of walking the trails along the beach.

We also got really good at using the self timer on my camera, and finding creative places to set the camera to get a good shot of the two of us together.

And of course who could forget our couple of pics to document our evening in the house. Alex cooked. We enjoyed yummy wine. We played Mancala and Scategories (board games are still fun even at 22 years old!). And we watched a ton of movies- the highlight of which was definitely Mary Kate and Ashley's gem, Our Lips Are Sealed.

"BIG TIME FUN!"- Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson

And of course, here are a few of my favorite pictures.

And last but not least here's a couple of awkward/funny, candid shots Alex got of me.

Overall, it was an AMAZING trip, but it was just the beginning of my NYE weekend. Still to come are stories from my time in San Francisco for the UCLA bowl game and NYE in the city! Stay tuned =)

Life According to My iPhone

So much for consistent posting... And I had been doing so well!

Oh well... I apologize for the week+ long abscense, but I have been a horrible combination of busy and lazy since Thanksgiving. I just wanted to stop in and say stay tuned because I have a few posts cued up that I have been waiting to post. In the mean time, I just stopped in to say hello and offer up some of my life recently according to my iPhone pics.


I just had to share this first photo. Bethany and I (along with a few other friends)went out while she was home in Fresno to the most amazing, worn-down, country, hick bar in town- Jimbo's. While at Jimbo's we were all having an amazing time people watching, and we could not help but enjoy watching the hilariously adorable old man who was trying to dance with all the cute young girls in the place. That old man turned out to be "Captain Jack"- apparently a well-known guy in the Shaver lake fishing circles... My friend Keith had met him before and apparently formed some sort of bond with him because Captain Jack was very excited to meet us, and give us a couple of his Captain Jack Trucker hats.

The other big thing that happened recently is detailed below. A wind storm in Fresno wreaked its havoc on the town and caused PGE to have lots of work to do restoring power to people all over Fresno.


1 and 2



3 and 4



1. Foggy Mornings- I LOVE the fog in the mornings. It makes it seem like we're living amongst the clouds.

2. Power lines down behind my house.

3. The cause of the downed power lines... A wind storm hit Fresno and brought trees all over town tumbling down. This tree fell from my neighbors yard into the street behind our house.

4. Fire and candles during our night in the dark ages.

If you're curious to see more from the recent power outage, here is a video I sent to my former roommates telling them about what happened and showing some of the damage. Also my dog makes a random appearance. And check out all the leaves in the wind dumped in the pool. My dad had a GREAT time cleaning that up.

Fall Fashions With A Non-Fashion Type

I am by no means a fashion expert. In fact I don't even claim to be fashionable in my every day life. But I have been making a bit more of an effort lately to take advantage of the colder weather and put some fun fall outfits together. As such I played around this past weekend taking some photos in my backyard showcasing a few of my favorites (and some of my recent purchases!). 

Any season that allows me to fully indulge in my passion for boots is THE BEST in my book. Other than the boots I've been wearing lots of sweaters and scarves and attempting to get better at accessorizing with jewelry. Clothes in these photos were purchased at all kinds of stores- Urban Outfitters, Brandy Mellville, American Eagle, Target, Forever 21, Banana Republic, and Macy's just to name a few

I actually had a lot of fun finding places all over my back yard to take some pictures. It made me realize that you can get some surprisingly cute backgrounds out of little random corners that might not initially look like anything special.

Here's a couple more random outtakes...

If you want to check out someone with real fashion sense, there are a ton of great fashion blogs all over the internet. But I would recommend starting out with my sorority sister Melina over at The Caffeinated Closet! Don't forget to tell her I sent you! And let me know what your favorite item of clothing is this fall!

October Picture Rewind

Aside from Saturday's AMAZING Bruin win over Arizona State, this weekend was a tad on the boring side. That being the case I decided to do a picture re-cap of October (before we get too far in to November). Basically I am going to take a look back in my iPhone and pick out some of the best/most random picutres from last month and throw them all up on this one lil post. I apologize if there are a few repeats from prior post.Without further ado... Enjoy!

Pics from both the Stanford game and the Cal game!

Random pictures from the Fresno Fair

Random Shots. 1. Pet store mice loving their wheel. 2. Awesome barn off highway 41. 3. Another pic from my random drive through the country (I'm actually pretty proud of this one, I think it looks really cool). 4. My dream car (okay maybe not dream... but I really like it!)- Hot pink toyota 4runner (older model). 

That's all for this week. This weekend I am off to EL LAY once again, to take advantage of the three day weekend and celebrate my former roomie's 21st birthday! This week seriously can not go fast enough!! Leave me comments and let me know if you guys liked this post =) Have a wonderful week!