April 29

I don't even care if you judge me
I was 3 when Prince Charles and Princess Diana got married. I was 19 when she was tragically killed. I obviously don't remember the wedding, but I remember the sadness of her loss. When I visited London, I remember standing in front of Kensington Palace, where she lived when she passed away, and where all of the mourners left flowers and gifts.

 

I also visited St. Paul's Cathedral, where the 1981 Royal Wedding took place.

 

 Pretty sure these aren't the same angles, but the cathedral is the same. I promise.

When I heard about the woman who was strong enough to marry Diana's son, William, and be a part of that crazy life and be constantly compared to his mother, I thought, "Good for her." I didn't play into the hype of the wedding, I didn't even care to see it. I figured if I caught footage, that would be good enough. But then a few people were posting on Facebook about it last night and I thought, what the heck, I'll DVR it so that I can fast forward through the boring stuff.

When I got home from the gym and some errands this afternoon, I turned it on .... and proceeded to become freakishly involved in the mayhem. My heart was beating. I couldn't sit still. I could NOT wait to see her dress. I literally shouted, "Here she comes!" at the TV when she came out of her hotel and got into the car. When she arrived at Westminster Abbey, I got teary eyed when she got out of the car. She looked beautiful. And so composed. And I could not even imagine what was running through her head.

I proceeded to watch the [boring] wedding, still being blown away by the production and tradition of it all. This girl is 29. I'm 32. I would have passed out from all of that attention. And then I heard that Diana was 19 when she was married. How do these women do it?

A friend of mine (a guy) posted something on Facebook about how it was lame that people were going to watch it. He directed his status to the girls and how it would never be our wedding and so we should stop trying to imagine it's us. Honestly, I would never want this lifestyle. Ever. But I feel like the new Duchess handled it with such grace and poise. And for me (and others) to get so involved is not something that we should be judged about. Sure, there are many other tragedies that we probably should be focusing on. But why can't we watch and be amazed and feel mesmerized by the customs of other countries? To see traditions that have been alive for hundreds of years? To lose ourselves in another chapter in our generation of this royal family?

So to the haters: I feel bad for you. I feel bad that you don't allow yourself to get lost in the customs that are different than your own. I feel bad that your world is not open enough to be curious about how others might live. That you think that just because people watch things like this, it must mean that they only do so because they wish they could be that person.

I, for one, am glad that I DVR'd it.

April 28

I love where I live
No seriously. I do. I lived in my college town for a little over 8 years, where I was perfectly content. In fact, I was the girl who did not want to move back to my hometown. I've never been ashamed of it, I just liked my life in my college town. A little over 6 months ago, I decided that I was going to move back. I found the perfect little apartment and proceeded to move back. Since then, I've wondered why I waited so long. I have been so incredibly happy and at peace since I've been here. I feel like I'm home. Again. And I don't know if this is where I'll stay when the next stage of my life begins, but it's where I'm supposed to be now.
This is a view right outside my front door, as I'm walking down the staircase.

April 27

A clean bathroom = a happy B
So it's been about 6 weeks since I've cleaned. More importantly, since I've cleaned my bathroom. Listen, I'm not proud of this, but I have not had enough time or energy to clean it. It's gross, I know, but no one has been here. Well, that's a lie. People have been here. But no one has been here in the last couple of weeks when the bathroom has been evidently disgusting. So I broke down and cleaned it today. And it makes me feel glorious. Here's my sparkling clean bathroom.

 

Even a clean shower!!!

 

 What I decorated my bathroom around. Don't judge me.

April 26

Baby Cheeks and Aunt Brandi time
I got to babysit my Baby Cheeks all day today. We had fun and I only had to change two enormously poopy diapers. Bleckgh. Here's a diary of our day. Kind of.

 She likes to wear people's shoes. Mine are no exception.

 Seriously Aunt Brandi, I just woke up from my nap.

 We cruised through the neighborhood. She honked at people and said,

"doggie!!" whenever she saw a dog.

I gave her a piece of ice to play with. That was a hilarious 10 minutes. It kept slipping out of her hands and off her leg and she kept giggling about it.

April 25

Grand Canyon or bust. In June.
So it's official. I get to visit the Grand Canyon for my first time this summer. I've kinda always wanted to see it and just never have. There's something to be said about seeing the world, but there's another thing to be said about seeing things that are part of nature and basically in my own back yard. When I saw Yosemite last year, I knew I needed to start seeing more of the natural wonders of this planet. So my friend and I are taking a small road trip in June to see it. And I'm in charge of planning it. And I found a planner on TripIt.com to help keep me organized and a matching app for it on my phone. Yeah, this makes me really excited! Here's the beginning stages of me planning the trip.

April 24

Happy egg-hunting day!
I don't particularly believe in Easter as a religious holiday, but I do celebrate it as a part of Spring. My family has always done Easter baskets and egg-hunts. Well maybe not always, but we do when there are little ones around. And with Cheeks and Baby Cheeks, there are plenty of egg-hunting days to be celebrated now and in the future!
Here are the Cheekses egg hunting and looking adorable, might I add.

 Cheeks, helping out Baby Cheeks with the egg-hunting.

 Seriously. The face.

 Love these two so much.

April 23

Why do I always cry at weddings??
It never fails. No matter how little I know the people or how friggin cold I am, I always manage to shed a tear at one point or another during a wedding. And this time was no exception. It wasn't the ceremony itself, it was the father/daughter dance, where the bride cried the entire time. She was dancing with her step-father, because her father had passed away. I don't think there was a dry eye in the place. Or maybe there was and I'm just trying to make myself seem like less of an emotional pansy. Ugh. Here are a few pictures celebrating an old high school friend's day.

 An old soccer friend.

 The seriously happy couple who met on eHarmony. Yeah, I still don't buy that eHarmony 

makes good matches. My luck sucks on it.

 It was so friggin cold. I was trying anything to stay warm. And this was delicious.

 The bride's stepfather's best friend, singing an entire song to them, in Spanish. So rad.

I went to high school with all of these ladies. So good to see everyone.

April 22

Momma, I'm comin home!
Last day of camp. I was ready to go home and the kids had a blast. My job here is done. Thank goodness. Oh, and did I mention that I'm now on Spring Break???

On Friday morning it was two of our boys' birthdays. The camp celebrated accordingly. 

April 21

Skit night
The night before we go home from camp, we have dinner outside. We grill our hot dogs on a stick, we watch the sun start to set, and we eat s'mores. And then once the sun has set, the kids come out and perform skits on the stage. It's a fun night and a great wrap-up to the 4 days we spend there.

April 20

TOTS!!
Seriously, you'd think camp food would suck. And sure, it's not the greatest, but it's definitely edible. In fact, sometimes it's worthy of seconds. On this morning, we had tots.
I.love.tots.
The end.

April 19

It's that time of the year again!!
Camp. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Getting ready for it is a pain in the behind, especially because I need to be in charge of it all (because it won't get done properly, otherwise). But once we get there, I really enjoy watching the kids have a blast. Here are my principals the morning we left. The kids are all inside the buses and the parents are on the left waving goodbye to their babies.

April 18

Just a couple more...
I forgot to talk about the beautiful view I had from my hotel in Coronado...

.... and our other friends who joined us at the finish line. I love these girls and I love that I am part of a gym that has such amazing people who have become such great friends.

April 17

I love them
What a fun weekend. Our runners finished, we worked our overnight shift (I won't get into that), and we had beautiful weather in Coronado. Here's to this weekend and the other two ladies I shared most of my time with. We're excellent "support bitches."

April 16

It's still Ragnar, baby!
As volunteers, we were supposed to be part cheerleaders, which we kind of failed at in the beginning. But we promptly corrected that by dashing over to Party City for some window paint and attacked our car, along with the runners' cars. Here are a few pictures of our magnificent artwork. By the way, our team name was 21 cixelsyD srennuR (21 Dyslexic Runners... wasn't the volunteers idea...) so we decorated accordingly.

Some of the guys took over on the decorating.

 Honestly, you wouldn't get it unless you were there that weekend. Even then, it's confusing.

 We were known as the support bitches. We later earned our name.

April 15

It's Ragnar time!!!
So a few months ago, a few people from my gym decided they were going to run the Ragnar Relay, which starts in Huntington Beach and ends in Coronado. It's a 200 mile race, which is run by a team of 12, and lasts over 24 hours. Sounds ridiculous, right? But honestly, it was so much fun. I didn't run it (don't be crazy), I volunteered in it. Our team had to have 3 volunteers to do a shift at the race and I was one of them. Here's our team, volunteers and all, the morning it started.

April 14

"Who ARE you??"
It seems like my bowling scores are getting progressively better as each week goes on. I didn't actually bowl this day, but this was my high score the week before. As you can see, I'm leading the team.... nobigdeal. My dad can't stop letting me know that he's losing to me. It's kind of cute.

April 13

My student teacher is rad
No, seriously, she is. For some unknown reason, I've been pulled out of class a lot lately and she's been there to take over. I don't have to tell her to do things, she just does them. And she does them well. I'll have to say that we're just a really good team. Anyway, she did these posters with the kids during her volcano unit and then had the class make positive remarks on them as a studio walk type of activity. Super rad and I will be using it next year.

April 12

Oldies, but goodies
On my mom's birthday, I went to my parents' house to give her her gift. Both of my nieces were there so I hung out for a bit longer. In their backyard, they have a swing, which we all love to swing on. My grandma used to love to sit on the swing and water the backyard. Baby Cheeks was playing in the yard so I sat and starting swinging. She saw me and wanted to be on it. As soon as she got on it, she started saying, "Weeeeeee...," which was the cutest thing. Here we are, swinging.

April 11

I haven't quit on you
I know, it's been over 2 weeks. You would not believe how busy I've been. I'm finally sitting down during my Spring Break to catch up.

So for my mom's bday, the family went to dinner. And this is when I learned that Baby Cheeks knew how to give high-fives. Except when she gives them, she says, "Byyyee!" It's super cute. This is her giving Cheeks a high-five.

Apil 10

I'm sorry, what?
Needed to grab some money at the ATM and this was my welcome screen. I thought the verb choice was interesting. No? Just me?

April 9

Even with a giant headache
Bowling league update. For some reason, I am gradually climbing up in points each week. I don't know what I'm doing but I guess practice makes perfect. I led the team in this game...

April 8

Seriously, soul mate
I have this friend who seems to anticipate my needs. And when I was overflowing with stress at work this week, she somehow knew that talking about it after the gym was what I needed. And she somehow anticipated that by the time we got to dinner after the gym, I would probably have decompressed a bit and forgotten what I needed to get out. So, without me even saying any of this (and to make me laugh), she created an agenda for the evening's discussion. Seriously, she may be my soul mate. I now need her in guy version. Anyone have any ideas where can I find that?

April 7

Feel my wrath
Some my friends and I have this thing where if you leave your phone or camera somewhere unattended, we use the time you are away to snap some amazing pictures and post them as your wallpaper. The hits haven't been as frequent lately, so when I left my phone on my desk at work to go outside and do morning duty (heh, doodie), I didn't think much of it. Until I came back and saw the following on my phone's home screen. And because I can't be the last one being pranked, I took it a step further. Notice the support I got. Good times...