Oakland and San Francisco

This last Thursday Richie and I flew to Oakland to go visit his parents before they come home. It was such an amazing weekend. Clay, Ashley and cute James (his brother's family) came with us as well. It was so great to spend time with his parents. We crammed so much into one weekend. I couldn't believe how much we did. Here are some pictures from the trip:

We had such a great time visiting Carmel and walking along the beach. If you look closely you can see Pebble Beach in the background! It was so beautiful!

We had so much fun going to an As' game and loved seeing the first firework show of the season. 

Even though the ferry was super windy, we still had so much fun on our way to San Francisco.

We had a great time wandering around San Francisco.

Lombard Street was incredible!

The Golden Gate..

Guess what we saw?

Solitude

This last weekend we took advantage of the great skiing weather. Richie and I both wanted to go explore a new resort so we headed up to Solitude. Richie had not been to Solitude in a long time, and I had never been. It was so much fun and I really liked Solitude a lot, I think mainly because it wasn't very crowded. 

St. George

We took a quick trip down to St. George this weekend because my cousin Dan got married. We left Friday afternoon, went to the wedding Saturday afternoon, then went on a quick hike to Slot Canyon and then headed home. It was a fun weekend and so good to just get away and see the warm sun for about a day.

Good Times

As we were walking up Main Street, we saw Adam Duritz from Counting Crows! Annie was so excited and literally screamed when she saw him.

Over the break we got together to have our annual Christmas brunch and gift exchange. It was so fun to have everyone together again. I can't believe how old we are now. Some are getting married, others on missions, graduating from college. It is so weird being this old, but I am so grateful to still be so close to all my high school friends!

a little update...more to come.

I feel bad because I never have time to really blog anymore because of school. I had a great weekend skiing up in Park City with my family and Richie over Valentines and Presidents Day weekend. Unfortunately, Richie had his nice North Face jacket stolen out of the dressing room at Polo. We did all we could to try and see if we could catch whoever it was, but we didn't have much luck. There was not too much that could be done about it. I felt so bad. He went in for one second and then came out to show me and we walked around for a minute, then the next thing we knew, it was gone. We came home and quickly ordered a new one for very cheap off of a great website. Those five years at Sports Den paid off. We are just crossing our fingers that it will all work out!

TAG

I have to give Ashley full credit for this post because I pretty much just copied and pasted it from her blog even though I wasn't tagged. There were a few things I changed..I'm not a big American Idol watcher, but for the most part it is the same. Thanks Ashley!

• something that makes me happy right now: a long weekend coming up
• favorite item on my Valentines menu: fondue
• looking forward to: a ski weekend in Park City
• something I don't want to pay for right now: Gas
  
• something I dread: the many tests and quizzes coming up in the next week.
  
• currently reading: textbooks...I wish I had a free moment to read a good book. 
  
• Favorite trip in the last year: London/Ireland/Paris.
• something I wish I could master: a foreign language.
• best hair conditioner: Pureology Color Care (purple bottle)
• best thing in my mail today: a late birthday card from my Grandparents.
• Love or Hate Valentine's Day: LOVE it.
  
• I am on a kick of: the stair-master at the gym and peanut M&Ms.
• a luxury for me would be: a spa day once a month.
  
• time of day I look forward to most: depends on the day. Today?...going to the gym.
• current favorite song : You Found Me by The Fray
• if I could go shopping right now, I'd buy: a pair of jeans, a fun dress or skirt, some cute tops and a nice pair of boots.
• something I want to do more of: ski
• least favorite thing of the past week: a weird rash that only lasted a few days luckily.
• glad that: our house is almost finished. NO MORE WORKMEN!
• love: hint of lime chips...forgot about those till recently.
• TAGGED: Annie, Ann, Betsy, Candace, Kaitlyn and Meg.

Happy 21st! Happy 22nd!

I know I'm a little late, but here are some pictures from both Richie's birthday and my birthday. Thanks for all the birthday wishes from everyone. It was one of the greatest birthdays ever, especially because Richie took me on the most amazing date. He surprised me by taking me up to the Canyons ski resort to take about a 25 minute sleigh ride up to a lodge. At the lodge we then put snowshoes on and snowshoed up to a yurt! We then had a delicious Norwegian 5 course meal. They also had a live piano music for us while we ate. It was such a great night and I had so much fun! See the pictures below...they don't go in order unfortunately.

This was right after dinner in front of our giant sleigh.

We are at the Viking Yurt..so we had to try on the viking hat.

We had a great dinner.

This is the main entryway of the yurt. So beautiful and charming!

You can barely see the yurt in the background.

Snowshoeing!

A little late, but this was from Richie's birthday! 

The cake is a lot better than it looks...

I promise I wasn't the only one at my birthday party. Thanks mom for the two cakes!

Thanks everyone who helped me celebrate and make it such a great birthday! I have the best friends and family!

Italy 2007

Sallee and I beginning our hike through the five small villages in Cinque Terre.

So beautiful!

After our hike, we had to get a few pictures before we went swimming in that blue blue water.

One of our favorite things to do was to ride around the wall on bikes in Lucca.

The three little pigs and the big bad wolf.

I was the brave soul who went first.

Paradise

Leaning Tower!

I think the ward we attended in Pisa was a little overwhelmed to have such a large group.

Romeo and Juliet anyone?

Feed the birds...

So beautiful!

Venice

This looks more like Switzerland than Italy to me. We loved Castelroto.

Gelato...twice a day.

We found Elder Castleton! Going to church in Lake Como was such an amazing experience.

We took a ferry around Lake Como.

This was such an amazing trip and I am so grateful I had the opportunity to go. Italy is one of the most beautiful countries I have seen and I am just dying to go back.