The Return to Florida 2015: Day 1

So I know I should have put a blog post about my new apartment first, but I delayed a little too long in that, so I thought it'd be a fun idea to try and blog every day of my Florida trip!

Backstory for those not fully in the know; my friend Audrey got back from serving her mission in Orlando, Florida, at the beginning of February. She told me she and her brother were planning to make a return visit the last week of May, and asked if I wanted to come along. How could I say no? Best part; some of the people in one of the wards Audrey served in worked for Disney World and Universal Studios, and said they could get us tickets for a day in each place for free. A chance to ride Kilimanjaro Safaris again?? I definitely couldn't refuse that :P

Audrey's brother ended up not being able to come with us, so we recruited abother girl in our ward, Haley, to help with gas and driving.

We left Saturday morning at 5:30, with plans to not make any overnight stops on our 31 hour trip.  Audrey went first in our driving rotation, and we decided to switch off every four hours. This worked out really well, and we had a smooth trip until we reached that terrible wasteland of Texas....

Nah, I'm kidding. Texas was fine....during the daytime. We were about halfway through our 12-hour drive of the trip, when it started to rain a little. We stopped in the adorable town of Fredricksburg for some food, then returned to start driving again. But it had started to rain even harder, and we were beginning to pass sections of road that were partially submerged.  This made for some tense driving, as you can imagine, but it was just the beginning of our trouble.

We had been making our way towards Austin (a slight detour made by the GPS; we had planned to drive through San Antonio instead) when we found the highway blocked by two police cars. We couldn't tell exactly what the issue was, but they were redirecting all cars to turn around and go back the way we came.

Obviously this was a problem for us...we had no idea how else to get through, and it had been raining for the past four hours. Eventually we were able to find a different road to get us back closer to San Antonio, and we got back on our way! It only set us back about 45 minutes, so it wasn't too bad.

Eventually it stopped raining around Houston, and I was able to sleep for about an hour and a half before I switched to drive. This is where it turned into Sunday, so I'll have to pause for now, before I regale you with my tale of driving solo through Louisiana and seeing....nothing. :P

A zoo-nique experience

So, I knew before starting this entry I hadn't written in a long time, but it was a little embarrassing to realize exactly how long it's been!

When we left off, I had just gotten a job at the zoo! As I'm sure you've all seen on Facebook, it's a lot of fun. Lots of interesting animals, interesting experiences, and weird people.  Most of the pictures I've taken of the animals are already up on Facebook, but here's a few newer ones :)

 I've learned a lot already, but I'm learning new things every day! Did you know that river otters are highly effective hunters? They catch a fish, then immediately pull off the fins, so if they drop the fish (or decide they don't want to eat it right away), the fish isn't going anywhere. Because they're such good hunters, they have a lot of free time, so they're actually one of the few animals in the world that, as an adult, will play just for the sake of playing. Cool, huh? I have all sorts of useless facts like that stuffed in my head now. I bet I'll be really good at trivia games from now on.


Nothing much has happened, other than that. I'll be going back to school at MCC in the fall (nothing but science and math classes....I can hardly contain my excitement), so I'm sure that will take up a lot more time! I'm hoping to go back to Deseret Book for the summer as well, since the zoo closes much earlier in June and July, as I'm also going to move in with a couple of girls in my ward fairly soon!

Their current roommate is married, but her husband was in basic training for a while, so now she's finally moving out to join him. They're not sure exactly when she's moving out (it could be two weeks or two months), but they're definitely planning to have me move in when she goes, so that's exciting! I'll make sure to blog about it ;)

Also, another friend in my ward got back a few months ago from her mission in Orlando, Florida, and she invited me on a road trip to go back the last week of May! There's three of us going, and we're going to drive (ugh), as we need a car and all of us are under the age of 25 We're staying with some members she knows, and other members of the wards she served in are getting us in to Universal Studios (!!) and Disney World (!!!!) for free!

We'll only be going to each of them for a day, as we're also planning on going to Cocoa Beach and a few other areas, but I'm very excited :) I'm sure I'll post photos on Facebook before I blog about it, but I'm planning on making a log of each day so I can blog about it when we get home.

Of course, I'm also very excited for the family reunion, but there will also be four family bloggers there, so I'm sure you'll read their reports of it before I write mine :P

One Trip, Two Trip; Red Trip, Blue Trip

Last month Bryce and I took our first solo trip together (that wasn't to Disneyland)!

San Francisco!

I didn't take a lot of pictures because this was my first time in San Francisco without any actual adult supervision and I was too nervous about making sure we got everywhere in a decent amount of time so we could make it back to the airport. We had roughly four hours there, and I want to say most of it was spent in public transport, so that was fun.

Later in October, Bryce, Becca, her boyfriend, and I decided to go on a ghost hunting trip to Tucson. Becca had found a Groupon deal for couples to go on this "haunted buildings in Tucson" tour. We toured around (and by 'around' I mean 'the outside of') some of the old theaters, a Masonic lodge, an old hotel, and more. We didn't get to go inside any of the buildings, which was kind of lame, but it was still a cool tour! 

Again, not a lot of photos. Too busy looking for ghosts!

When it comes to these day trips, Bryce is definitely the more spontaneous one. When we hadn't gone anywhere for a couple of weeks, he insisted we try and find a city that sounded interesting. A couple weeks ago, on a Wednesday, his original choice of Denver wasn't looking good, so we opted to try for Portland two days later. 

Despite some drizzly rain, the weather was beautiful! We visited the largest independent bookstore in the world, Powell's City of Books, where we found some fascinating reads:

We also visited another arboretum! 

I think we like visiting trees in other states since we don't have them in Arizona.

This was another short trip, but it didn't feel nearly as rushed as San Francisco (probably because we didn't know what we were doing at any point). I'd definitely like to go back to Portland!

We also had a pretty fun Halloween last week! We decided to dress up as Toothless and Hiccup (from How to Train Your Dragon), and despite my original, elaborate plans, I ended up rushing my costume due to lack of time and ability to get materials in time. It's hard trying to dress up as a dragon, you guys. But I did manage to make Bryce's costume within a couple of hours, along with my own. Yay procrastination!

Reenacting awkward movie scenes

We found a much nicer Toothless 

BUT I almost forgot, earlier that day, we went to the State Fair with his parents!

Why.

Yay fake dinosaurs!

I ALSO PET A CUTE GOAT. (the video doesn't want to upload apparently, so you'll just have to take my word for it.)

Which leads me to my next train of thought...I got a job at the zoo! Unfortunately, it is just seasonal, but the guy who hired me said there is definitely possibilities of me staying on. I'll for sure be there until at least May. I'll be an "Experience Guide lvl 1", which means I'll be supervising/answering questions at the stingray petting area, the petting zoo, the squirrel monkey enclosure, and occasionally the giraffe feeding area! I'm excited!

Creative Titles are Hard

I've been sitting here for ten minutes trying to figure out what I want to write, but I'm not really feelin' it. Anyway, I went on a camping trip with some friends and then flew to Seattle so here are those pictures!

 We went hiking to a place called Fossil Springs Creek. It was a beautiful hike, except that it was four miles downhill and the return trip was the worst thing ever.

Becca's brother about to jump off the waterfall

Getting some sun! 

There was lots of cliff jumping, and a little cave partway down the river where you could ride a current around and around inside. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it; when it got later in the day the sun hit the water inside the cave and made it super blue. We even saw a bat fly around inside a couple times!

As you guys know, Benworth flies for free with US Airways, but it's his last year to do so, as he turns 24 in January. He's been wanting to take advantage of the benefits as much as possible, so since we both have Friday off, we've decided to try and take as many day trips around the US as we can. Two weeks ago, his parents, Benworth, and I, flew to Seattle for the day!

First we visited Pike Place Market!

Gigantic bouquets EVERYWHERE

It's basically a gigantic farmer's market. It's also the site of the original Starbucks! Which had a line out the door even after the morning rush so we didn't bother.

Later, we visited the Washington Park Arboretum!

We saw sooo many little spiders hanging out in the trees, but this guy was ginormous. Like the size of a large grape.

We took a little detour to Fremont to visit the troll under the bridge.

And the Center for Wooden Boats.

As we were flying home, we passed right by Mt. Rainier! Pretty cool.

Seattle was beautiful, and I think I'd like to go back sometime. We're next planning to visit San Francisco (tomorrow, actually!), and I'm very excited for that!

Two weddings and a trip to the ER!

I think it's been established that I am the worst blogger of the family, but I think I just like waiting until a lot of exciting things have happened and then I can unload them all at once like a tsunami of events to make my life seem more thrilling. Otherwise every other blog post would be like, "Today I worked at Deseret Book. We closed two minutes early" or, "Today I worked at Deseret Book AND Guthrie. The kid I worked with got mad at me when I refused to sing the same song eight times in a row". Not very interesting stuff.

BUT this summer has been full of exciting family things, as you guys already know. People got married! I think I've attended five wedding receptions in the past two months alone. Obviously, the only ones I really cared about were Ashley's and Jared's!

I don't think I took any pictures at either of them, unfortunately. I'm sure they're devastated :P

Anyway, the day before Ashley's wedding Bryce had an interview for an engineering internship the hour before we were supposed to go, so I drove him out there so Dad could just pick both of us up when he was finished and we could drive up to Prescott. What was expected to be just an hour-long interview at most turned into an hour and a half, but we got out of there fine and made the journey up ok. Prescott had some beautiful weather, and the club where the ceremony took place was beautiful!

It was a beautiful ceremony and I think I ate my weight in cream puffs, which is always a plus. Congratulations again Ashley! :)
The night we drove back Bryce and I attended the reception of a couple in our ward, and I WISH I had gotten pictures, because it was the most absurdly fancy wedding reception I have been to yet. It was held at the groom's dad's house, (which Bryce and I have both been to once before for a party, during which the entire time I kept thinking, "It's like we're partying at Gatsby's."), on their front lawn/circular driveway thing. We arrived a little late, where we were greeted by a valet service, and I was handed a paper fan and parasol as the catering people directed us to where they were just finishing the ring ceremony. There were assigned seats, and a three-course meal, and we left before they even cut the cake because they played like four wedding games and I was exhausted. It was kind of a weird experience.

But we managed to get a nice picture out of it so there's that.

And of course, a month or so later, Jared and Cate got married! I did take a lot more pictures here, as we walked around the Bellagio/ Caesar's Palace for a while before we went to eat pizza. 

The garden inside the Bellagio changes for the seasons and this time they had a glass greenhouse with a bunch of birds inside! Look at this guy's tail!

And the world's tallest (also largest? I don't know.) chocolate fountain

This is the spiral escalator inside Caesar's right outside of the makeup store I had to hunt down.

Fancy Chihuly glass ceiling in the Bellagio lobby

I just really like flowers, I guess.

The reception was also super cool, and the arboreum (natural history museum? Park?) where it was held was awesome! I've never seen so many donuts in one place in my life.

Other than multiple wedding receptions, I haven't been doing much; working, deciding what classes I'll need for ASU, working, etc. However, I did have a very interesting Monday night earlier this week. For FHE our ward was having a pool party at one of the member's parents house, where they had a trampoline and a DJ, and we played watermelon football. This house also had a two-story zip line. I had been to that house once before, right after our ward boundaries got rearranged and about two weeks before I left for Florida, and I remember the zip line had a harness that held your legs and then metal handles overhead to hold on, with a rope dangling beneath so you could run the zip line back to the next person in line. This time, there wasn't a harness, just the handles, but everyone was going down the zip line fine; my bishop's wife, my RS president, several girls and most of the boys. I figured I would be fine, despite my nerves. I'm not very good with heights, but my RS president was shouting encouraging things to me and she had done fine, and I didn't want to make the people behind me impatient. My hands were a little sweaty but the metal handles were textured for better grip and some of the other girls were saying that there was just a little dip at the beginning when the line took your weight, then it was easy the rest of the way. 

A few people have suggested that my hands were probably slick from the Vaseline that they coated the watermelon with, but plenty of other people who had played had gone on the zip line before me. Whatever it was, the moment I slid off the edge of the platform, I lost my grip and fell about 20 feet to the ground. 

Afterwards, a lot of people asked whether it felt like time slowed down as I fell, but I remember feeling like everything happened very quickly. It felt like I hadn't even been holding on, despite the cuts on my hands from the textured metal that prove otherwise. I remember trying to grab for the rope, but then quickly closing my eyes, and then landing on my back very hard and immediately feeling like my ribs had been compressed by a giant vise. Then I felt like I couldn't breathe and I started gasping like a fish and I heard someone say, "She's going into shock" and another girl in my ward (Kariann, who I later found out works in physical therapy) saying I needed to try for deep breaths and that two of the men were going to give me a blessing. During the blessing, I could still move my fingers and toes, and the most of the overall pain had started to fade into specific pains on my pelvis and my neck. I think that blessing helped a lot; I found out later there was less than a foot between where my head landed and the concrete porch. Someone called the paramedics, and while I was lying there Kariann made sure I could move my feet and checked my pupils before the paramedics even arrived. Anyway, the paramedics arrived, put me in a neck brace and a stretcher, and I had my first ever ride in an ambulance! Not super fun, especially since the lights in there are very bright and they never turned them off. They tried to put a plastic thing (a catheter?) in my arm so the people at the hospital could give me an IV if they needed to, but I said I'd really rather wait until we got to the hospital.

We got in the hospital, where they covered me with some blankets before destroying my swimsuit so a doctor could push on my spine so they could make sure nothing was wrong,  and then I had some x-rays and a CAT scan. So exciting! Except hospitals are very cold when you're just wearing a swimsuit and especially when you're not. Anyway, the results came back, and there was absolutely nothing wrong; no bleeding or fractures or anything. They didn't even give me an IV, so I have a lovely blue/purple bruise where the catheter was for no reason.  Ah well. I definitely have more to be thankful for than to complain about.

Also don't have any pictures from the ordeal, but I did take a picture of the sunset right before going to the party 

WORTH IT
(I'm kidding. Mostly.)