today i fell in love with sacramento...

...granted, I got this new artsy photo app that makes my pictures look 10 times cooler than they are in real life... but serious, sacramento is super neat. I walked around old town, stopped in lots of cute shops, got lost on a semi-creepy street, walked to the Capitol, found Capitol Park (which is BEAUTIFUL), found the biggest orange tree in the universe, and stumbled upon a free latino concert downtown. It was awesome. I really do like it here, maybe I should come for an extended visit sometime...

Happy Birthday, Jennilee

This is my best friend, Jennilee, and today she turns 25. Its kind of a big deal, and so is SHE. If you have had the chance to talk to this girl for even a few minutes, you know that she is a pretty rad chick. We met seven years ago (crazy that its been that long!!) at BYU Hawaii and our lives haven't been the same since. I'm so lucky to have her as a friend.

Jennilee is FUNNY, smart, beautiful, kind, loving, forgiving, patient, thoughtful, considerate, selfless. She is an amazing listener. She's always been there for me when I needed someone to talk to. She is supportive, encouraging, and lights up every room she walks into. She has an amazing testimony and has always been a great example to me of love for our Father in Heaven and faith in Jesus Christ. She is an amazing wife and mother and a great friend. Oh, and did I mention she is FUNNY?! Like seriously, funny.

Jennilee, Happy Birthday!!! I hope today is wonderful... I love you!!!

st. thomas

So, I finally took advantage of my flight benefits and went somewhere I had never been before:

St. Thomas

...

it was awesome!!! My mom and I went out together (my poor dad didn't get on the flight... thanks to the disadvantages of flying standby) for a couple of days and had SO MUCH FUN.

st. thomas is beautiful (almost as pretty as my lovely mother)

this was the view from our hotel

they drive on the other side of the street there... and my mom and i only had ONE near death experience :)

we found the best beach on the island... hardly anyone was there and we got to snorkel, and lay out, and swim and read under the beautiful caribbean sun.

we ate lots of good food,

saw a lot of really beautiful beaches,

and we even found a house we wanted to buy...

so that we could do THIS all day :)

we ate pizza on the beach

sunburned our white white bods,

and had a brilliant time.

getting home on standby turned out to be a little tricky... silly me, forgot about memorial day weekend and lots of flights were full. it only took us 24 hours to get home, no big deal...

ha ha! but it was worth every second of it! Mom, thanks for sweating in that hot humid air with me... and dad, we were really sorry you couldn't be there with us :(

Anyway, we had ourselves a great time, but are happy to be home. And we LOVED St. Thomas!!!