it's official. i'm a california resident with a california drivers license. how weird is that. the best part is that i made an appointment at the DMV for a certain time and in a matter of 45 minutes, i was in, did the paperwork, took the test, got my picture taken and i was done. funny thing is, when i was done, they hand me this piece of paper and said, "here is your new id," a piece of paper. i looked at the guy like he was crazy and he said, "oh yeah, you're not from here, we mail it to you, you'll get it in 6-8 weeks"

WHAT??? a) 6-8 weeks? are you kidding me? and b) a sheet of paper with my name on it is now me new id?? and people think indiana is a little behind the times...at least they hand you your id card while you're standing there. i mean honestly.


here is another really funny picture of my dog. she's so funny. her new favorite thing is to walk down to the school and chase some bunnies. poor bunnies. at least they will be in better shape. my dog is a little out of shape right now so the bunnies can run faster, but they better start training cause cali is getting better.

so i watched oprah last night, now that i have tivo, and it was about finding the right pair of pants for your figure. i'm ready to all out, throw out everything in my closet and start new. or at the least, go buy some new pants. now, to buy the pants that were recommended by oprah, i'm going to need someone to send me some money. $250 for some pants. all i can think is one bad day with laundry and i've lost $250. but thats just me.

the other thing. i have to go put gas in my car at $3.40!!!!!!! a gallon. this sucks.

one more thing, i check out my friends blogs every once in a while, and by that i mean daily, and i just have to show you how fabulous my friends are.

my friend amber is absolutely gorgeous. we've been friends for 20 years. which is so funny to me. and if you saw her comment a couple posts ago, it was, "birdbath?" let me explain. when we were in seventh grade, we had mr. rice for math. he was a very large and sweaty man who perspired more than average humans. when you weren't paying attention in his class he would walk by and slam his clipboard into your desk to make a horrible sound to scare you back into paying attention. he got amber and i both a couple times with that trick. in my head it seems as though it was daily even though i'm sure it wasn't...maybe. anyway, we had a class together before math and we were trying to mouth something across the room trying to tell stories or something and we realized it would have to wait until we could actually be within five feet of each other. it is at this point that i mouthed, "i'll tell you more in math." to which amber gave me the classic confused look that only she and her father can pull off and mouthed back, "bird bath?" to which we both started laughing and i'm sure got in trouble. i don't remember the trouble, i just remember the laughing and from then on, "bird bath" has been a constant joke for amber and i. so funny. i can't believe we've been friends for 20 years. we're only 25. if our kindergarten teacher ms. wetzel could see us now, who would have guess all my torturous acts against amber and her "go for God" sweatshirt wouldn't have driven her away. i seriously used to glue things to her. sorry ambs! This picture is of her and her wonderful husband ryan. i always here the crazy med school stories from amber and i don't know how he does it but i'm sure it has something to do with having a very encouraging wife! i love, LOVE their marriage!
i also love that they tried to go apple picking in chicago. chicago!


my other friend sara is also very funny. i think we're more friends now than we were in high school but we all went to penn. funny how it all works out like that, huh? anyway, due to a random third party connection through the neely family, we found eachother again back in southbend, after college. and i think i've seen her twice in the past four, is it seriously four??, years. i love that none of my friends take themselves too seriously. they are the kind of girls that they can literally fall on their face and they will just laugh at themselves and move one. sara is going to be my excuse to visit spain. (when sara gets married, i'm hoping it will be in spain so i can actually go. of course, i'm also hoping that i would actually be invited) anyway, as she lives in spain, she posts different stories an such on her blog. i checked her blog earlier today and i LOVE this picture. i think it's so funny. you'd never guess that she wasn't spanish. i love it. so cool! i just thought i'd share. she's stunning. i couldn't pull off a dress like this, i love that i have friends that can!

so every day, i have to leave my sad little dog. the other day, i go to get in my car and i hear a little dog whine. so, i look out my car window towards the balcony of my apartment, and what do i see? my sad little dog had gotten up on her hind legs to be able to look over the edge to watch me drive away. it was so sad. and now, this is what i see, every day of my life, or at least the days that i work.

While my mom was here, we headed south and hung out in Mexico for the day. On our way home, we drove along the coast so I could find one of my favorite spots in southern California. In a little part of San Diego, there is a town call La Jolla, and in La Jolla cove, they have this beach that's dedicated to seals. You can walk down there but you can't get too close, the seals have security guards. It's pretty stinking funny actually. You can hear them barking and swimming in from the ocean, it's so fun. Plus, I log onto yahoo today, and what do i find? A story about the seals at La Jolla click here



On the tuesday while my mom was here, we drove up to LA and went to the dr. phil show. After the dr. phil show, which by the way was about how not to get married too fast, which if you know me well, is pretty stinkin funny, we drove up to hollywood blvd. I showed mom around the kodak theatre, and the walk of fame and a bunch of other fun stuff.

This next picture is one of my condo complex. not too shabby. every day, i walk my dog about two to three times a day, since i don't have a yard and there is a neighbor hood of new dogs and new smells, it's always an adventure. and every day, during my walk, my thoughts always go back to, "i can't believe i live here." it's the oddest sensation to me. it doesn't feel like home, yet. i don't know that it ever will but it's kinda nice that right now it feels like i'm on a really long vacation. on my days off, i get to go to the beach. how odd is that? i could do that in january which was the strangest sensation. i have new-to-me furniture, so it doesn't feel like it's even my stuff. i have my dog, my car and my computer. i am pretty much my own country-western-meets-technology song.

again, this is one of those things where i think, holy cow, i live here. this is a little south of me. in san diego. right north of la jolla cove. very cool view though. and only an hour away.

while mom was here we went whale watching and my mom was so excited to just get on the boat. i on the other hand was a little freaked out that the boat we were getting on, wasn't as big as i felt it should be. it was big, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't as big as i had hoped. i mean honestly, there are things in this water larger than my car. i need to know that push come to shove, i'm safe. it took some getting used to. i kept telling myself that if i could see land, i was safe, i could swim back. then it occurred to me that we were more than eight miles out into the ocean and there wasn't a chance i'd make it. but i had fun none the less.

the first part of the trip the captain (is someone who drives a sightseeing boat considered to be a captain?) took us out to a pod of dolphins. i was thinking, 20 maybe 30 would be out there. i was wrong. it was well over 250! i was amazed. i quickly forgot about how deep the water was beneath me and watched these amazing dolphins jumping and swimming. it was so cool! plus, they all had their babies with them so they had tiny little dolphins trying to jump and follow through. such a cool ride. i was lucky enough to shoot this picture of the dolphin. i don't know how i got it. i'm still using my canon rebel **non digital** and i got a pretty good shot. i haven't replaced my digital camera yet. other things take priority. i highly recommend the whale watching, very very cool!

which brings me to my next picture. okay, they don't really tell you this when you're buying your ticket to go whale watching, but there is a law that you have to stay a certain distance away from the whales. it's common sense really but we couldn't get so close we could really see them that well. but, as you can see in this picture, that's a whale! we saw a whale! actually, we saw a whale and her baby. so cool, in this picture you can just see the water being sprayed up when they surfaced. absolutley amazing. i was quickly reminded that this whale was probably the size of my apartment.

this is my dog, cali. who now lives in cali. poor dog. she's having fun though, we have a lot of neighborhood dog friends that we meet at the dog park. it's so funny. she has a little puppy friend that is a dalmation named domino. domino can just smoke cali as they run through the field and cali doesn't really know how to pace herself. so cali poops out and domino continues to body check cali until it looks like my dog is about to die. it's extremely entertaining.

this is meredith and mike. i'll go into more detail about them...later



this is a really funny picture of my neice tori. i haven't seen her in over six months. and i'll keep my opinions to myself there. she's so funny, i love the evil eye she gives in this picture. this part of her personality, she certainly got from her father. love it, she has the holt eyebrow thing going!

this is adia. again, haven't seen her in over six months. and it's not just cause i live in california. i miss this kid. it's so odd.


i don't have any recent pictures of abby and jacob. i've been waiting to get some from jacobs birthday party. i missed jacobs birthday. i'm a bad aunt. i haven't even sent him his present yet. i'm sure he's thinking i've dropped off the planet but if he'd ever been to california, he would understand how true that really is...

hmmm, what else is new....

i work monday through friday now. which means i can actually start going to church again. i've gone the couple of weeks that i've had either saturday or sunday off but it's hard when you work all weekend. i think i might start going to mosaic, which is the church that irwin mcmanus speaks at. i love that church, even just the building where the meet is so non-church that it's perfect for the LA crowd. it's incredible. they meet in a club. how funny is that. i love it, talk about thinking outside the box. so great

quick overview of what we did while my mom was here
she arrived saturday afternoon: we had lunch and i took her by the store where i work and then home

Sunday: my 2nd cousins - son's birthday party. did you follow that? my grandpa bob (moms' dad, it's his sisters - great grandson's birthday, and for those of you who know the family, it's aunt illene--->paulette--->heather----> jacobs' birthday) not easy to explain. so we went to a birthday party in the park

Monday: tiajuana! we drove down to the border, parked our car and took the bus over. then went all day trying to avoid tequilla and find really cool glasses...then went to san diego, la jolla and then home





Tuesday: Dr. Phil and hollywood, then drove home in a really, really bad rain storm a---in the carpool lane

Wednesday: we painted my apartment----my mom was a good sport about being put to work while she was on spring break

Thursday: dinner with the family, the one i tried to explain above

Friday: Whale watching & dana point and then dinner at downtown disney

Saturday: garage saleing and then dropped mom at the airport. very sad to see her go but it was a fun trip.

here's one for the books...

i met one of my neighbors. she mentioned she was excited that we were living here now. she then mentioned that the previous tenant was a porn star. hmmm. okay, that's odd enough.

i met the next neighbor today. he mentioned that not only was he a porn star but he was a gay porn star. pretty stinkin funny.

only in california
k