Weekend update!

Hello folks! Guess where I was this last weekend? CALIFORNIA! Road Trip!!!
We spent an entire day just chilling on the beach for 7 hours. We laughed our heads off. Literally. [it was super uncomfortable.] We shared life stories - particularly dating stories. We bonded so very much. We played football and soccer on the beach. We got our feet wet. We didn't get enough sleep. We didn't do any homework. We played liars dice in a jacuzzi. We saw the San Diego temple. We ate delicious food. We played games. We sang songs. We got sunburnt. We did lots of driving. We had absolutely no plans at the beginning and the whole trip was so spontaneous. We remembered what it was like to see the sun and to be warm. We strengthened our friendships.
Yes, overall it was spectacular. I went with 3 of my wonderful friends and I just love them even more after this trip. The weekend was way too short for my liking.
Here's a quick pic of our beach partying:

And here's our tooth brush partying:

Now I'm back in school, and struggling. Ever heard of senioritis? Yeah, it's a real thing. I have not wanted to do homework EVER this semester. Bad news bears, if you ask me.

California. Here we come.

I do cool things in my life. Like take awesome road trips to Northern California.

I seriously have the best friends in the world. And we had more fun in those 5 days than most people have in a full year. We left Tuesday night, right after work and got back to good old Provo Sunday night. 4 solid days in California.

The initial reason we went on this road trip was to go see the wedding of dear Cebre and Hiram Jacob. And the wedding was INCREDIBLE. On top of that, we made it a full on vacation. We celebrated our nation's independence by watching many firework shows through the beautiful fog in Santa Cruz. We spent an entire day in San Francisco. We bon fired at the beach. We made more memories and inside jokes than I can count.

I love those girls more than anything. It was the 4 of us girls: Kaylee, Kaylee, Jenna, and Jennie. Yeah, we confused everyone that we met. And is was great! I learned so much about myself while talking to these girls this week, and I think we all reached a new level of crazy. Upon calculating it, we spent more than 36 hours in the car over that 5 day span, so it's a good thing I like these girls. We kind of took up some usual spots in the car. I drove. Most of the time. Jenna directed me. We sometimes got lost, but overall, she directed me exceptionally well. And the Kaylee's sat in the back. They cuddled, they slept, and they kept us entertained. We had a pretty good system set up. I was a pretty big fan of it. I really do love driving.

We stayed at Terra and Cebre's house the first night. We were SO excited to see them!

Best part of all of San Francisco: Tandem biking across the Golden Gate Bridge! It seriously was the most fun thing I've done in my whole life. It took me and Kaylee a couple of blocks to get the hang of it. Let's get real, those first few blocks were completely terrifying and we screamed our heads off and were plenty of free entertainment to our fellow tourists. But by the end, we were pros. And once we got to the bridge, we ate PB&Js in the middle of the GGB. It was so cool!

We went to China Town. It was radtastic. And I bought awesome things: a glow-in-the-dark Buddah, a mustache ring, and a wooden sword. I realized that I find great joy in incredibly random objects.

We went to Carmel-by-the-Sea, this adorably quaint town full of little shops and cute things. With a beach.
We went to a giant bon fire on the beach. And we wore our matching tourist San Francisco sweatshirts. That beach was beautiful. And the surfers were exciting.

Then we weddinged it up on Saturday. This is us and the beautiful bride. It doesn't get much better than this. Cebre and Hiram are so lovely and happy and perfect for each other.

Summing up the trip: We maimed the schmeagle Jack.

As of late.

Sometimes life can be a very surreal experience.
I can have a serious conversation with someone I hardly know. And the next moment I will have nothing to say to a good friend.
Maybe it's just me.
It's probably just me.
But life is weird.
Somedays your brother is a normal human being, and then the next he is a missionary in Provo, and the next day after that he is on a plane to England. Yeah, this is real life.
True that. My brother became a missionary last Tuesday night and it was amazing experience. I know that the gospel that he will be teaching is the truth and I'm so stoked for him to teach it. Then on Wednesday, due to the lack of visa-arrival, we dropped him off at the Provo MTC (missionary training center). It was sad, but it would have been way more sad had my family not been the most ridiculous and hilarious individuals in all of Provo. Then, blessings of the Lord, his visa arrived Wednesday afternoon and they threw him on a plane and shipped him off to the Preston, England MTC on Thursday
He leads quite a life. And because he is the luckiest person in the world, things just tend to work out for him.

So that's been an interesting adjustment without him. Thus far, I'm not a fan. Though I am a fan of him being abroad. Missioning and things.

Also exciting in my life: Spontaneous road trip to St. George this past weekend to the the solar eclipse. Yeah, it was sweet. My fabulous roommate, Jenna, and I were just sitting in our apartment on Saturday afternoon and within a matter of 30 seconds, we went from having no weekend plans to deciding to go on the 3.5 hour trip down to St George. SO FUN. We also went with some fabulous human beings. This is us looking at the eclipse (as stolen from Josh's fb album):

This is all 8 of us (Josh is in the picture via shadow). We were a little short on astro-glasses, so some of us went blind. Also, our names were a treat to list off: Jake, Jenna, Jennie, Jared, Josh, Kaylee, Halie, and Spencer. Someone stands out like a sore thumb...
Basically, it was an excellent 24 hour trip filled with laughter, games, banana stranglings, accent speaking, piano playing, singing, mission call opening, sun staring, driving, accent to apple inventing, and other shenanigans. I have good friends.

I'm a fan of the summer in Provo; people are always outside doing fun things, and craziness is always right on the brink of occurring. I don't even mind that I am taking a class right now. Though studying outside isn't nearly as productive as one would think.

Also, I love my job. We get some crazies up in there.

Pictures of Elder Lever departing are forthcoming. Prepare yourself.

This post was a random culmination of thoughts and events. Jumbled, it may be, but that's what my brain is like right now, so you're just experiencing my real life via blog.