California

So one of my good friends and roommate from college, Michelle Condie, recently came home from serving a mission in Rancagua, Chile. Yay! I have missed that girl so! I got to go visit her this last weekend before she moves away to Colorado... :( All of my good friends live so far away. Or maybe I live so far away from all of my good friends? Hmmm.

We had a great time this weekend though! On Friday night Dan , Kalee and I drove down to Fullerton, CA and stayed the night with our friend John Mark Geiss and his family. They were so nice to let us come and stay with them last minute like that.

Saturday was a crazy day, even though we started it as lazy as lazy bums can be. It felt so good to sleep in. Michelle and another friend of ours, Luke Hanzon, joined us for the Cubs vs. Dodgers game that afternoon... damn those Dodgers. We lost. But it was fun anyway! We sat up in the nosebleed seats on the visitors side next to a bunch of crazy (and drunk, I might add) Cubs fans. I think they drink more in CA or something because I have never seen that many cups of beer sloshing around an AZ D-backs game. One guy was so drunk, he almost spilled himself down the stairs along with his beer. He had to sit down a couple times before he made it to his seat. Oh wow. But it was sunny, and warm, and a beautiful day for a baseball game!

Michelle's brother Scott had just returned home from his mission the week before so some of their family and friends met at Huntington beach for a BBQ. We had the yummiest shishkabobs (how do you spell that anyway?) and potato salad, yummmmm. Thanks Sister/Lisa Condie! I can never decide on what to call your mom, Michelle. :)

As soon as we got to the beach, Dan and I jumped in on a game of football with Michelle's fam... yeah, I've never really played football before so... that was fun. :) Actually Dan pretty much dragged me into it but I'm glad he did. And! There was another girl on our team that was as clueless as I was! So when we got into our first team huddle and Matt started throwing out different ideas and strategies... we could look to each other for that reassurance in knowing that we were not entirely alone even though we had no idea what he was talking about. Matt then asked me if I wanted to be the one to rush the QB... (at this point I still hadn't figured out that it was 2 hand touch and not tackle football) and I just looked at him like he was crazy. But all I had to do was hold my position for 5 alligators (counting 1 alligator, 2 alligator...etc) and then run as fast as I could at the QB and tag him. I liked that position except that I had to count the alligators out loud. I am not sure if anyone noticed, but most times I was concentrating so hard on the guy with the ball, that my alligators came out as algilator, agillator or even atilgator. Maybe that's how I managed to tag Michelle's dad when he was in as QB... he must have been distracted by all my atilgatoring and didn't know where to throw the ball. I will have to remember that strategy for future football adventures.

It was a good thing we played football before we attempted the waves because if I wasn't so hot and sweaty, it would have taken Dan throwing me in the water to get me all the way in. It was so cold!!!! I went numb after a minute or so and then I couldn't feel anything... which didn't help much as I was getting washed out to sea and trying to stay afloat. It was really fun but those waves beat the crap out of me. I survived for a while... and even enjoyed getting the crap beat out of me until the cold made it past my thick layers of fat and I couldn't control the shaking anymore. It was pretty much freezing the rest of the night until we got in the hot tub at John Mark's house later. We had a campfire and that helped long enough to make s'mores and have fun talking with everyone for a while. I wish I wasn't such a wuss when it comes to being cold. I hate being cold. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.

As cold as it was though, it was so fun to spend time with Michelle, Luke and all of her fam while we had the chance. I was really excited for Dan and Kalee to meet everyone and we had a great time! I was happy that we got to see as much of Michelle as we did. I wasn't expecting her to take that much time away from her family and I really appreciated that. :) I just wish we could have been down there longer! We went to church on Sunday with John Mark and then drove back to AZ in time for bed. Quick trip, but it was just what I needed!