Awesome weekend adventures

Last weekend my new LA friends and I had some grand adventures. First thing Saturday morning we met up and headed down the coast to Newport for phase 1: whale watching. It was a bit cloudy but beautiful in the AM as we headed out into the open ocean.

Our first visitors were these guys! A whole pod of dolphins.

Some of them surfed the wake in the front of the boat.

Some of them preferred swimming along side with their babies. So cool.

I was really loving the adventure of it all, the sunshine, my new peps, and my new coat.

Before heading back in, with no whale sightings on record, the captain got a call. There was a whale in close range who had been caught in a fisherman's net and was dragging them along. We headed out to watch the rescue.

We all enjoyed the view through the handy binoculars I rented.

The rescuers had to keep moving and we had to stay away so we wouldn't scare the whale, but, we got some great views of him when he surfaced.

On our way back in we caught this great view of these sea lions....apparently sea lions can jump but seals cant that's how you can know the difference….however I’m not sure how accurate that information was since one of the crew kindly informed us that you “don’t get this job by going to college”.lol.
The salty sea air made us all hungry so for phase 2 we headed to a Mexican restaurant that looked out on the beach. Of course, since we are all young single persons witty banter & some flirting tips were exchanged. Did you know you can get what you want by a simple hair flip? I'm going to practice that one.
After lunch came phase 3: half of the group had to head back while Amy, Chris, Brent and I made the roughly 6 miles (each way) along the coast from Newport beach to Huntington Beach and back. It was such a beautiful day and a fun way to get to know each other and soak up some sun.
After the bike ride was phase 4: Frisbee and treats on the beach before heading to Cafe Rio for dinner and driving back home belting some awesome tunes (by the likes of Alanis Morissette and Jimmy Buffett), playing the question game, and laughing until I was hoarse.
Sunday only extended the adventure with church followed by a BBQ in the rain, more chatting, laughing of course cause that’s our style, and some really great games. It was the weekend to start it all....time to get my social life ON.

Wedding weekend

My sister Brianna got married last weekend. The festivities began Thursday night where we met at the Temple apartments where we ate dinner and got caught up with family and friends. At 11:30 Hill (bestest friend) and I headed for the airport to pick up my little sister Callie and BFF Myriah. As we were leaving we noticed a security guy waiting to lock the gate. We stopped and asked him how we could get back in since we wouldn’t be back for awhile. He told us that we could call the phone number on the gate and he would come and let us back in. So we went to the airport, made a spectacle of ourselves as we displayed our excitement over Callie and then Myriah arriving. We had a great time visiting all the way back to the Temple where Hillary called the number on the gate only to find it was disconnected. “WHAT?” we tried several times and each time the tone and message that the number had been disconnected. I tried calling my Mom. I found a button that says push and wait. I pushed & waited. Nothing. Luckily Myriah had chocolate and we munched on that while we waited to figure out what to do. Thankfully just then the security guy come around and we honked and flashed our lights at him and he came and opened the gate. It turns out even though he is the one that told us to call the number…he didn’t know it was disconnected. Wheww. We headed to our apartment for a few hours of sleep before waking up to get ready for the wedding the next morning.

Here's Grandma, Me, Grandpa and Ross ready for the wedding. The sealing was beautiful and it was great to be there with my sister on this special day.

Myriah, Me, and Hill after the sealing. LOVE these girls they are wonderful and supportive friends. I dont know what I would do without them.

I think Hillary took this pic of Adden. It's adorable and I think he looks so happy cause he's looking at his favorite girl.

Here's the immediate family after the sealing. Cal, Me, Adden, Dad, Brianna, Cameron, Mom, Matthew, Benny, Carrie.

The siblings: Me, Callie, Brianna, Cameron, Matthew, Carrie.

It was so great to have so many entertaining friends nearby to keep me from getting bored during the between pictures times. A big thanks to these 4 who were quite entertaining. Mike, Ben, Lindsay, Myriah, Me.

Skinny faces. Cal, Brianna, Me

After the pics were over we went to the luncheon where we ate yummy food and I got this pic with my poopsie, my cousin Ross. Love him. :) He asked me if he could be in my wedding party someday. I told him of course. He's such a sweetheart.

The next day we spent most of the day at the church setting up for the reception. We made sure to enjoy ourselves in true Griffith style. Then came the dinner which was catered by our friends the Smiths. Amazing food & wonderful friends. Here I am with my lovely mama ready to get the party started.

Aunt Debbie, My Mom, and Aunt Lisa took this pic with a space open for Aunt Laurie. Showing their sisterly love.

Aunt Debbie and I always ready for a good time.

Cousins photo at the reception. Benny, Callie, Brendan, Me, Tiana, Christina, Ross.

My precious baby sister and I at the reception. LOVE her. I had such a great time with her over the weekend. It made me wish she didn't go to school all the way in Idaho.

Bridesmaids and the bride and groom. Addie, Sadie, Callie, Brianna, Cameron, Me, Christina, Katie.

We took some silly ones of all of us laughing and talking. This one is my favorite. I'm pretty sure we were all real laughing at our fake laughing.

Me with 2 of the besties at the reception. Shayla, me, Mary.

My Mom did an amazing job with the decorations. This was my favorite part. It says a "legacy of Love" and the hung pictures of ancestors, parents, grandparents, and siblings. It was really cool.

Me, Brianna, Hillary, Candice at the reception. Sisters and friends all grown up.

The Pic with my Mom's side of the family. Matthew, Carrie, Benny, Uncle Brian, Aunt Lynn, Addie, Sadie, Mom, Dad, Brianna, Cameron, Callie, Katie, Adden, Me Grandma, Aunt Jean, Solveg.

After the pics came the party!!! Mary, Courtney, Me, Ben enjoying the party. As the maide of honor I had to give a toast at the reception which went really well in spite of my nervousness. Score 1 for me.

Our good friend Bekah made it to the reception. I freaked out I was so excited to see her.

All the brides mades at the end of the night. Looking pretty hot inspite of some pretty serious time on the dace floor. Katie, Addie, Me, Sadie, Callie, Christina. LOVE that I got to hang out with these girls all weekend.

The next day after church I had to head back to LA to drop people off at the airport. Thankfully Myriah didn't have to be there til 9:30pm so we got to go check out the hollywood sign. Here's myriah ready to hike up to the sign viewing place.

Here I am with sign in the background.

M-dawg and I with the Hollywood sign.

It was a great end to a fun weekend of celebrating.

I'm so LA....

I decided recently that I really need to do the things that would make me feel like I'm really taking in the whole experience of living in LA. I had a free weekend a few weeks ago so I decided to get out and enjoy some sunshine Santa Monica style. Here I am with my friend Valerie enjoying a bike ride along with beach. It was amazingly beautiful weather.

Here we are looking oh so LA on the Santa Monica pier.

The Santa Monica pier includes a built in fair.

And who knew the end of route 66.

We also took a walk down the beach. Underneath the pier you can find this...it looks kind of creepy in the pic but it was beautiful in person.

We even finished off the day with classic fair food. I Love me a good corndog.

It was a beautiful day and it made me see there's alot I'm going to love about southern California.

whirlwind weekend

This past weekend I went home to throw a bridal shower for my sister Brianna.
Turns out I haven't really gotten down this whole working full time while trying to get something else done. I had a plan of attack down which had to be modified on Thursday night due to the fact that I discovered buying paper goods at Costco isn't cost effective when you only need 50 or so of each item. So Friday after I got off work a bit later than I planned I had to run by Target to pick up paper goods and a few other things before heading home to pack up my car. Anyway I didn't get on the road until 8...which put me at my parents place around 11:30 pm. By the time Brianna and I went over their wedding play list and got to bed it was 1 am & being the calm, cool and collected type I fell asleep sometime after 2am. The next morning I was up early and off to the church to set up for the shower.

Tiana, Grandma, Aunt Lisa and I working together we got things set up super quick and were ready by 10:30 when Brianna and her guests arrived. Here I am displaying the beautiful table of food. Cantaloupe soup, muffins (made by the wonderful Sadie & CC), fruit platter (thankfully Hill arranged that for me, they looked beautiful), Egg casserole, and juice. Happy Bruch.

So many wonderful friends and family came to help celebrate. Aunt Lisa and Tiana did a great job on the decor.

Brianna was quite pleased with her piles of presents as well.

Aunt Lisa, Brianna, Tiana, Me- we threw the shower for her.Tiana made that amazing banner in the background, so crafty of her, no?

Carrie made it down for the shower as well so we took a Sisters pic.

I had to post this pic cause I'm so proud of the fact that I got them all smiling, especailly Grandma Shirley. This is B with both of our grandma's.

Missing Callie we had to take an empty hug pic. Me, B, and Mom.

Of course we needed an updated besties pic. Rachel, Shayla, Me, B, Mary (sporting her cute new hair).

The shower went beautifully, everything looked great and everyone had a great time and B came away with quite a bit of loot. :) What a relief.

That night was the bachelorette party at a hotel in Avila. We ate, we soaked in the hot tub with some rather creepy old men (other guests at the hotel who were super creepy) and had lots girl talk time. Lots of fun.

Our cousins came and it was so good to see them. Me, Sadie, Brianna, Katie. It was another late night after Hill and I spent a few hours after we got home catching up but well worth it. What a great day.

The next day after packing up, spending some time with my parents and with Sadie I was off to church. After and visiting with some home ward peps I got to celebrate the 2nd birthday of my favorite 2 year olds! Such a great weekend and so much fun. Hill and I talked each other home thankfully otherwise my sleep deprivation may have made it impossible to get home. Thank heavens for bestest friends. I came wiped out but happy.