A few Numbers

Miles biked to/from work: 112.5
Hours worked: Approximately 146
Times getting thrown in the lake: 0
Times I've been called "Camel": Infinity
Money made: Not enough

I definitely need a new summer job.

Since I don't need another excuse to waste time...

I'm obsessed with the movie "Despicable Me". It was so cute, and I would gladly go see it again... Then I found this website. Heaven help us.

Hmmm.

Few things on my mind:
-I've really changed a lot, even in the last few months. Only for the better.
-I think I'd actually prefer high school drama to working in a real work place, with people and their disgusting problems.
-I need to run more. (But I did ride my bike to and from work twice this week.)
-I'm going to have no friends with me on my 20th birthday. Sad.
-My brother is making 3 times the money I do, and he is just washing windows.
- I wish I spoke better Spanish.
-I love my family. No really, they're pretty cool to be around. I'm not just saying that.
-I have so many letters to write, and I don't want to get started on any of them.
-I should read more good books. But "the Princess Bride" translated into every day English is kind of like if the Bible were translated into surfer.... anticlimactic.
-My life is on the verge of changing a ton, I can just feel it.
-I still don't know how to register.
-I REALLY don't want to be poor in the fall! Or work during school. Shoot.
-I wish I was good enough for "America's Got Talent". Or "American Idol". Or any talent show... they're so cool.
-A long distance relationship makes me feel like a whiny high school girl.
-I miss my friends, and wish we were ALL back together in Tuscany 424 like before.
-How did I put up with the crazy people that I DON'T want back in my apartment for so long?
-Shoot. I'm REALLY going to be poor. For the rest of my life, basically. (This is really bothering me.)
-I'm getting more and more excited for Gabrielle's wedding as time goes on. This will be a PARTY!!!!!!
-I've found that I am more likely to use an overload of exclamation points than ever before.
-Why don't some people realize their hair is just NASTY. Not that I'm one to talk-- it goes down to my elbows and is never quite controlled. Haircut at the end of the summer.
-I am far too tired to be making lists right now, I'll probably look at this tomorrow and think "Hmm, these are all really stupid".

4th of July Weekend

 

So this past weekend was a really fun one. It was actually quite heavily anticipated, and thoroughly planned. I'm talking about, of course, the weekend Brandon came out to visit.
It started July 1. The poor kid had traveled for 12 hours to get here-- a 2 hour bus ride at 2:30 AM (something I hope he doesn't expect me to reciprocate) to the Boston airport, an hour and a half at the airport, then an 8 hour flight. I had originally planned to take it easy Thursday evening, but my dad said that was silly, since we only had 3 days together. I told that to Brandon, and he agreed. Maybe he was just trying to agree with my dad? But so we went to my house, and played with Murphy. Murphy LOVED him, which everyone knows is weird. Murphy doesn't like boys. But Murph jumped right into his lap. When Bethany, Cole, and my mom came home, I took the kids to Cafe Rio. Austin and Dallin met us there. I told them to ask Brandon any question they wanted. Dallin instantly said, "What's your most embarrassing moment with Camille?" Brandon and I looked at each other, and we knew what it was. I told them to ask a different question, but they insisted. If you really want to hear it, ask Brandon to retell it.
After Cafe Rio, Brandon and I took two bikes down to Balboa Island. If we had time, we would have ridden the "Mountain to Sea" Trail. But we didn't, and we still had fun.

Later that night we went to Yogurtland with Bethany, Cole, and Austin while my mom and Dallin went to Dallin's Eagle Scout Board of Review. He passed, so we have another Eagle Scout yay! After Yogurtland, I decided to finally let Brandon go to bed, because he had been up for almost 24 hours at that point.
Friday was the day we were spending in San Diego. First we found a kayaking place that would take us out into the ocean. We brought a disposable camera that was waterproof, so we could take pictures. We took a double kayak, which was good because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get out. We had wanted to go snorkeling too, but the visibility wasn't good so they just refunded us the money and said we couldn't go.

Brandon's really good at taking pictures apparently...

And these next few pictures are proof of what happens when you let Brandon take control of the camera for a while...

For the record, I was totally making sound effects while I was paddling the entire time.
After these pictures I decided to take over.

Note our tour guide in the background.

SEALS. That's the  best picture we got of them.
On the way back, the motion of the waves was making me pretty sick. So I was glad to be  going back. Some little kid threw up on the way back, so I could relate. They told us we were going to get wet and most likely tip over riding the waves back in, so I tried to brace myself for it. We were going just fine until some wave caught us from behind. Brandon yelled to lean back, but it was too late. We spilled out into the water, and it was COLD. And about up to our knees. So we stumbled out, and I was shivering a ton. We asked someone to take a picture of us, and as she was getting ready she said "Awww, she's so cold!" I laughed, but seriously. I was.

After that, I had to show Brandon something he had never tried before-- In-N-Out. Please. So we trekked back to the nearest one (Carlsbad), and I felt like a proud parent watching her child take his first steps or something (not that I know what that feels like):

He loved it.
Then it was time to show him my favorite part of San Diego, the temple. Unfortunately, I forgot that it was under construction... but it's still pretty.

Ok that one not so much.

 We enjoyed just being with each other and talking for a long time in the shade of the temple. Nobody was really there, since it's under construction, but we had an older missionary come up to us and ask us if we were aware of the Mormon Battalion visitor's center. Why yes sir, that was where we were off to next. On the way to Old Town San Diego, Brandon fell asleep. He was tired for some reason.
First we were off to the Whaley House. We had watched a special on it on "America's Most Haunted Houses", so we were curious to see how haunted it really was. Needless to say, we were disappointed at the lack of friendly frights.

Not quite sure why the pose was necessary for the house.

When we got inside, the lady working the front of the house gave us a brief list of rules, and told us to take our camera, because "sometimes the camera can catch things the eyes don't see." I gave her a slightly incredulous look, and she apparently caught it, because she said, "Oh, you think I'm kidding. There's a whole book of otherworldly sightings in pictures right over there." Ok, she was a creepy old lady, let's be honest here.
Here are a couple pictures we got in the house:

(No ghosts.)

(No ghosts.)

Where one worker swore she saw Thomas Whaley one night after closing up shop... I was very disappointed that he did not make an encore appearance.

Potential ghost to Brandon's right.

I'm thinking about sending this to the Whaley house and telling them to put it in their back... it's the reflection of my shirt in the plastic barrier between me and the room.
As you can see, I was really amused by taking pictures and proving that there were no ghosts there. They said Regis Philbin saw a ghost there... and told the National Enquirer.
After that, we leisurely strolled around Old Town, looking in some of the shops. Unfortunately, most of the things in the shops were completely obscene, which we unintentionally found out. So we cut our souvenir shopping to a minimum, and wandered down an alley. We found a type of Olvera Street there, with tons of awesome stands and artists performing. We saw a caricature artist, and asked him to draw our caricature. Well, he drew me looking like a beaver.  He was trying to accent my big smile, which I don't mind. But what I do mind is when he does it wrong (if that's possible, in a caricature), and makes my teeth about 4 inches long. So I'll scan it into the computer and put it on here, it's pretty funny. As he was drawing us, he asked how long we had been dating. We said 3 1/2 months, and he said, "Wow, what's your secret?" We laughed, and decided to not say that this was the first time I had seen him since the beginning of April. He was super nice, which made the overpriced piece of paper he was drawing on worth it. His friend came up, and was told that we had been dating for 3 months. He said, "Wow, so when are you getting married?" I choked on my water, and they took that for an answer. But the friend was persistent. He said, "So if you got married, where would you get married?" I said, "Ummm, well I've always wanted to get married in the LDS San Diego temple just a few minutes away."  They both looked at Brandon, and said "Do you always let her make the decisions?" He laughed, and said if it made me happy then yes. They figured out we were LDS, and asked how old we were. I said 19 and he was 22. They said we're just babies. Yep.... They were nice, but I was glad to get away and stop all the awkward questions.
We found a little shop of unobscene souvenirs, and I kind of wanted this hat.

As you can see though, it didn't fit on my head. Or, most likely, in the car.
We went to the Mormon Battalion Visitor's Center after that. It was pretty... small. But I liked it, as much as the sister missionaries were disappointed that we were not investigators. They probably thought we were after the pictures:

(My mom probably recognizes that face from a lot of tours of historic landmarks from the past.)

 

After the tour of the visitor's center, we decided we were hungry enough to eat something after our splurge at In-N-Out. We were originally planning for Coyote Cafe, but then for some reason we chose Fred's. The name should have given us the hint that it was not a super authentic restaurant, but we ignored the fact that it was named "Fred's" and the fact that it had a parrot mascot in front of it. Then the parrot decided to invade my personal space.

He grabbed my arm, pulled it around him, and started trying to touch my ear. I'm surprised Brandon didn't drop kick the creep. For the record, he took a normal picture with Brandon:

 

The food wasn't even that good, steak quesadilla.

On the ride home, Brandon fell asleep for about half the trip. I set the camera on the dashboard and snapped this... He's really happy that I'm putting it on my blog as well as Facebook.

 

Later, we went to visit my friend Jenna Mettra. They got along really well, as I knew they would. I'm glad I got to see Jenna, because she just went into the MTC and I didn't know when I was going to be able to see her again. After that, it was bed time, to prepare for our final full day of adventures.

I had looked through the "Orange County Guide to Hikes" in preparation, because Brandon likes hikes. Go figure. I had found one that seemed appealing, the "Crystal Cove" hike. Crystal Cove is a gorgeous part of Orange County, so I was excited to show this off to the extranjero.

Crystal Cove is right along this beautiful stretch of the PCH that I love to show off to anyone who comes to visit, and this was no different.

As much as I liked the hike, I wanted to take pictures more... so we only went about halfway, then stood there looking at the ocean.

Then, of course, Brandon saw a rabbit and got really excited. Typical. But we asked someone to take a picture of us.

After that, it was off to my other favorite spot to show people in Laguna Beach- Top of the World. It's a place with a gorgeous view of much of Orange County.

 

We have other pictures, but since we're matching they look kind of planned and chessy. So I'll spare you.

After that, it was off to see the Wizard... Literally. Cole's play. He's sooooooo cute in the play. He's in the lollipop guild in "the Wizard of Oz", and he cracks me up.

That's him with the little fohawk going on. We got pictures with him afterwards.

 

I warned you, we were matching.

For dinner, we got my dad's favorite... papusas. If you haven't had them, chances are you will on your first visit out here. They're an El Salvadorean food, the best way I've found to describe them are a type of pancake, with meat inside. Sooooo good. I like them a lot, and Brandon had never tried them. We always find a random place where they don't really speak that good of English, it's better that way.

Afterwards we tried to go on the Orange Balloon at the Great Park (the beginnings of it-- it's a park that won't be finished for 2 centuries), but it was already full with reservations for the night.So this is about as close as we got to it.

 

It was worth a shot, anyway.

We sat there for a while, watching the balloon filled with all the happy people. Brandon told me a story, which is always exciting. His rendition of "This little Piggie went to Market" was 15 minutes long.

I don't have many pictures of the rest of the night, because we took them on the waterproof disposable camera and they didn't turn out. But we went to the pool with Bethany, Dallin, and Cole, and played there for a while. Then we made homemade pizookies (as opposed to going to BJ's and buying one), and Brandon fell asleep while we were watching "Dateline: Real Life Mysteries" while waiting for the pizookies to be done:

Busted. That was the extent of the excitement of our night.

The next morning I unfortunately had to work (I know, on a Sunday.) Brandon was a brave soul and went to church with my family for an hour, instead of going to watch me run a parade. But we got a picture before I left.

 

It was weird to watch everyone get ready for church, while I was in my work uniform. But Austin was nice and brought Brandon over to say goodbye to me before he went to the airport.

Sooo, that was my weekend. Finally finished the blog post on Thursday, not a big deal. I also said goodbye to Jenna on Sunday, which was sad. I had literally 30 seconds, because she was running late for her flight to the MTC.

Life's pretty good right now though.