Nightmares

So my life has been going pretty well during the day time... but lately I've been having a rough time sleeping.

First of all, I'm a worrier. When I hear about one of my friends or family being sick or hurt (i.e. Brandon having to go to the ER and get 2 bags of fluids from an IV from being so dehydrated from mono), I worry about it for a long time afterwards.

I have had a problem with nightmares lately. Ones about awful things happening to the people I love the most. Things that make me wake up in tears, and things I can't tell anyone about. I'm not quite sure why it happens, but I wake up and try to sing Primary songs, or pray out loud until I can get the feeling of darkness away from my mind. I'm not quite sure how to take care of it, but I know that's why I usually don't sleep through the night, even if it's not a dream that I can remember. I'm so grateful that I have the Gospel, that can help me through these awful episodes. I'm grateful that Brandon knows by now that when I wake him up and say that I had a nightmare that all I need is for him to put his arms out and hug me. And most of all, I'm so grateful when I wake up and realize that those dreams are not true. Because man, they're pretty bad.

I'm guessing this is Satan's way of trying to get to me. I've been really trying to do what is right, and it's when my subconscious takes over that I'm most vulnerable.. So that's why I'm up right now even though I'm so tired. I don't want to sleep.

I just needed to get that out of my system... If you see me and I'm super tired in the mornings, it's probably because I didn't sleep for the entire night. I'll be excited to get these dreams out of my system, but who knows how long that will be.

Spring Break 2012 Part 2

Ok, so as promised... The San Francisco pictures.

 Taken from the ferry... I love that skyline!

 Golden Gate Bridge.

 Alcatraz

 Fisherman's Wharf.

It was cold in San Fran... even in the spring.

Checking the map at Ghirardeli Square.

We had just hiked up that hill... ugh.

Lombard Street.

The view from the bottom... I love it!

We got to take a tour on the trolleys, which I've never done before. I loved hopping on and off the trolley.

The hill down to Chinatown.

NOTE: We passed the intersection from "Princess Diaries", where Mia was trying to learn how to drive her Mustang and crashed into the trolley. Luckily that didn't happen to us!

We were walking around Chinatown looking for a fortune cookie factory that I had found last time we were here. However, to take a picture cost 50 cents. I was able to sneak a picture last time, but this time the angry Chinese man had his eye on me.

On our way to Union Square!

We discovered that Union Square was actually a place with a lot of high end stores that we will never shop at... but we did find a Cheesecake Factory inside of the Macy's that we had lunch at.
There were also 3 or 4 men protesting outside a hotel with a megaphone... They said the same thing over and over again for over an hour.

On our way back to Fisherman's Wharf!

The view from Lombard Street, looking out over the city. I really can never get enough of this.

  We had another cranky public servant, so we could only get this not-so-good picture from my phone before we had to hop off the trolley.
On our way back to Pier 41 to catch the ferry, we passed all the crazy people. I didn't have time to take as many pictures as I wanted to, but here's what we saw:

• A man saying "My wife got kidnapped by Charles Manson, I need a quarter to get her back!"
• The Bush Man (Who hides behind branches and jumps out at people)
• Some guy standing on a bench with a sign that says, "I need a Dollar for Weed! Hey, at least I'm being honest."
• Some guy who must have been on crack, because he was playing a violin with a bow that had no strings. He was holding the violin between his knees, and just playing away in the most awful way possible.
• Two men, dressed in silver and gold paint, with a windup key on one of their backs, acting like robots and asking underage girls to come dance with them.
• Someone who pulled Megan and Taylor aside and said "You guys are too good looking to be this serious. I'm going to write you up for not having enough fun!"

On the ferry back, we saw all the seals on Pier 39. Apparently it's a big deal, because there's a sign in the background that says "Happy 2nd Anniversary Seals!"

No trip is complete without a picture of a squirrel!

Even though it wasn't Brandon's birthday yet, we celebrated it early. We had some friends of Steve and Karen's over, and played a dice game with them. We also enjoyed a delicious Almond Joy cake that Ashlee made for Brandon. It makes me want to take a cake baking class!

The next day we got up early to leave, which was sad, because we didn't want to come back to school the next day. We stopped by John and LaDawn's humble abode before getting on the freeway with Mikey.

A funny story about when we stopped for dinner (in the middle of nowhere). We went to Subway, and I ordered an Oven-Roasted Chicken sandwich. The guy asked me if I wanted the sandwich toasted (no), and then asked, "Do you want the chicken heated up?" I gave him this look of total confusion. If I wanted a cold chicken sandwich I would have said so. Brandon says the way I responded was pretty funny, because it sounded pretty confused.
We made it home safe and sound, and now we're back in the swing of things!

So Proud of my Hometown

Many people ask me what it was like to grow up in Irvine.
Well, I finally have an answer.
I was definitely not part of this statistic, mainly because I don't want to spend all my money on one outfit that I'll wear for a day. But I do know people like this!
http://www.businessinsider.com/youll-never-guess-the-most-fashionable-city-in-america-2012-4

So, apparently I'm a Creep.

So Brandon and I had a funny experience the other night... I decided to have Brandon write it in his own words, in order to truly capture it...

It was a dark and stormy night (literally).  Warn out from the long, studious day I quickly fell into a deep sleep.  Snort..Snort.  What?...what is a little, tiny, creature that resembles a pink behooved animal doing in my bed?  It wasn't a pig as I described, it was my wife Camille!  Her impersonation of a snorting pig was impeccable, spot on!  Soon after the snorting faded away, my mind drifted back to a deep sleep and visions my best friends and I celebrating my victory of the Tri-Wizard tournament with some good, old-fashioned, non-alcoholic butterbeer.  The festivities were rudely interrupted by some creature from the underworld.  I awoke to a large set of slender paws lifting up my pillow and digging around for a lost item.  "Where's my whiteboard?", "I need my whiteboard!" screeched the piercing voice of this ravenous creature.  Frightened and confused at the scene unfolding before my eyes, I was left only to think, "Why would I have this beast's whiteboard, and why would it be under my pillow?"  As my eyes acclimated to the darkness I saw a blurry image of Camille kneeling at the head of the bed looking for her whiteboard underneath my pillow!  "Oh...now I understand...this was no ravenous creature...once again it was my wife Camille!"  As I learned the true identity of interrupter of my dreams I softly said, "Camille, just go back to sleep."  She obeyed without response.  I slowly fell back asleep with a large smile on my face knowing that in the morning she would be oblivious to the happenings of this night.  One thing is for sure Camille is a weirdo in her sleep!  However, she is so cute and funny that I can gladly put up with it.

Disclaimer:  I am in know way, shape, or form saying the Camille is a pig...she simply sounds like one at night sometimes haha!

Spring Break 2012 Part 1

So as mentioned before, Brandon's family moved to Oakley, California. While we are sad to see Cienna go, and to not have New Hampshire as a vacation destination anymore, we're SO excited that we get to be closer to both of our parents! Brandon's thinking of UC Davis (near Sacramento) for PA school, so if we go there then we'll be only about an hour from Brandon's parents house.

Anyways, we decided to help bring Taylor out to California, and spend spring break there. It was great! Here are some of our highlights, in chronological order.

Monday was our driving day... mercifully we don't have any pictures. It was a LONG drive.

Tuesday we went to the Jelly Belly factory. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me so all I have is from my cell phone and off Facebook from Megan.

This was before we got our awesome hats.

Two great sisters-in-law

Harry Potter made out of Jelly Bellies!

Hahaha this is my favorite. The guy who was taking the pictures looked like he hated his life, so we just tried to make it a little bit better...

The tour was cool.. we only got 3 free Jelly Bellies out of it though. The tour took us straight to the gift shop, where I wanted to buy Alyse's baby a "Bean in the USA" onesie. But I refrained. We tried some "Bean-Boozles", which are Bertie Bott's every flavor beans. There was Baby Wipes (Not too bad), Skunk Spray (nobody even dared try that), Centipede (Taylor tried it), Vomit (Megan tried it), and Moldy Cheese (Megan also tried that one). Eww.

The next day, Brandon and I drove down to visit my family, who just coincidentally was in San Jose for the week! They were there with the Rasmussens, who had driven from Reno.

Our first stop was to a part of the Redwoods forest, which was near Scott's Valley.

 I was amazed that the trees were actually RED.. I thought that was just a name for whatever reason.

 On the tram driving around all the trees.

 

Stone and Mateo love playing with Dallin.

 It reminds me of the Sacred Grove.

 Props to Brandon for this picture.

 Mateo and Porter climbing on a log...

 Cutie little Ninna

 I love that face!

After that, we headed down to the Santa Cruz boardwalk. This helped with my homesickness a lot, because I felt like I was in Newport Beach again. It reminded me a lot of the place by Balboa Island.

I found a funny place... if you've seen Princess Diaries you'll recognize this!

(Hint: "Stupid Cupid, stop picking on me!")

There were lots of old-school arcade games and attractions around the boardwalk. I loved walking around it, even though many of the places had creepy marionettes in them. It was fun to walk around, and see many of the places. It was also funny to watch Cole be such a typical 11 year old boy around his boy cousins.

Afterwards we got yogurtland with my dad, who had just gotten out of his business meetings for the day.

Thursday we started out by going to the Oakland temple... this is a picture I got from my cell phone on our way in. How pretty is it?!

It was amazing to be inside... I have now gone through 6 temples since being married. And I love it. Per keeping with tradition, we took some pictures outside.

 We're the little dots in the front.

 This one's my favorite.

Afterwards, we went to get some Chicago style pizza at Zachary's.

It was delicious.

Later that day, we went to go play Frisbee, and this is how my dear husband dressed up for it:

I think headbands are his thing.

Friday started with us having breakfast with my dad in Oakland. He's always there for work, so it was nice to see him in his element. We passed the place of Occupy Oakland. It was a little bit too close to my dad's hotel for my mom's comfort.

We got on our way, and took the ferry from Oakland to San Francisco. As this post is already long enough, I'm going to finish the pictures and posts on Part 2!