Spring is Blossoming All Over

I came home early from my Spring Break with my family (who are not LDS) to watch General Conference with all my Mormon friends in DC. My coworker Sandra says I brought the sunny warm weather from southern California back with me because spring finally arrived in DC! (Ultimate irony: this pic was actually taken in "rainy" Seattle on my trip!)

In case you don't already know, General Conference is an extremely exciting weekend every April & October during which our beloved president & prophet Thomas S. Monson, his counselors, apostles, and other Church leaders share gospel messages they have prayerfully prepared for us. It is widely accessible to anyone anywhere through live cable/internet broadcasts, and is available in Church magazines and on its website to review and ponder.

Everyone prepares for and experiences General Conference a little differently depending on their current spiritual needs, questions, preparation, and desires. I didn't have any specific questions this time - mostly just a hope that the inspired messages would increase peace in my life, help me find more "joy in the journey", and have a brighter hope for the future. I feel extremely lucky to not have homework (see end of last blog post) or job obligations to bar me from watching each session live. The weather all weekend (and week!) turned sunny and bright, reflecting the outpouring of light and truth from General Conference, so that I couldn't help but feel warm all over :) I got to keep my tradition of watching each session with a different group of friends!

Saturday morning - cozy @ home with Victoria, Karlie & Heather

Saturday afternoon - @ Cory's house with Cat, Ben & Katie.

We had an awesomely random potluck, as potlucks are wont to be :D Cory's lemongrass tofu & pork, Katie's rotisserie chicken, and my grapes.

Saturday night - I joined about 30 other ladies on a "Girls Night" while the men were empowered and instructed during the Priesthood Session. The amount of estrogen and the volume of happy chatter was staggering. I loved catching up with all my girl friends! Our mini army of Mormon women rode the metro to the waterfront to watch fireworks for the Cherry Blossom Festival; here's part of our company :D

Then Britt & I recruited as many as we could to Good Stuff Eatery for their seasonal cherry blossom milkshake. Mmm I love milkshakes...

Sunday morning - crossed over to C2 and went to Bishop Istook's breakfast party because I have so many good friends in that ward :)

Then I caught a ride to the church building for the Munch and Mingle in between sessions.

I enjoyed asking the guys about Priesthood Session and their favorite talks hehe
Sunday afternoon - @the church building.

There were so many powerful and touching talks but I think my favorite moment of Conference was when Apostle Quentin L. Cook mentioned the hymn "Where Can I Turn for Peace", which I performed in church the day he paid a surprise to our ward 2.5 months ago. His talk in Conference was called "Personal Peace: The Reward of Righteousness". What a tender mercy :)

Monday - finally got to use the class pass I bought at Fuse Pilates 2 months ago (I have 1 month left to attend 5 classes)! I went to my first class after work and found it a pleasantly short walk from the Dupont Circle metro on a beautiful afternoon. I learned some new moves like this harder version of a glute lift, but was disappointingly NOT sore the next day...

Also, I stopped procrastinating and filed my own taxes for the first time. It took 3 grueling hours, way longer than I thought due to annoying things like adding up all my untaxed online purchases, but at least I got a small refund!

Wednesday - the famous DC cherry blossoms finally bloomed! They were early last year and I missed them (moved to DC 1st weekend in April). They were late this year and perfectly timed between my Seattle/California and Boston trips. God loves me :) I met up with Britt after work to soak up the beauty. We ran into Michael, who was photographically enjoying the blossoms too.

I even wore pink flowers in my hair :D


Then I rushed back to Crystal City...remember when Tali bought my dance lesson that I donated to the ward auction? (see blog post) She wanted an encore, and I gladly obliged. Luckily Cory is still in town and willing to be the TA again. We did more waltz & foxtrot. I forgot to take pictures but both of them improved alot within that hour!

Friday-Sunday - Roadtrip to Boston! Stay tuned...

Hello, Hollywood!

This past week, I had the wonderful opportunity to spend Spring Break with my family in Seattle & California. If you think I take alot of pictures normally, wait til you see how many I took this week! And these are only the highlights...

I flew into Seattle a day early so I could hang out with my best friend, Kaeling, who recently moved there for her job. We hadn't seen each other in 2 years and it was a sweet reunion. It was also a great irony that she knows the city of Seattle much better than I do (I grew up in a suburb 30 minutes south) and gave me a tour of what is now her city!

It was a GORGEOUS day and the Seattle blossoms bloomed before DC's did. We met up for brunch at the charming Rusty Pelican Cafe. I was starving cuz I missed my bus and ordered 2 dishes haha, ate about 3/4 of it - corned beef hash and french toast. Mmmm

Then we went on a walk through the University of Washington campus (my 1st time). We were both impressed with the landscaping and architecture :)

Afterwards, we drove to my hometown and I got to take her to my favorite place - the boardwalk at Redondo :)

When we got back to my house, Steph (who introduced me to the Church in 11th grade) came over :) I was SO happy to have 2 of my closest and oldest friends with me!!

But Steph had to go and couldn't join us for dinner at my family's "2nd kitchen" (a Pho place down the street). It was fun to have my family and Kaeling get to know each other while showing her an important part of my upbringing :D

We started driving to [southern] California right after dinner - for 19 hours through the night. It was brutal. Got to my [step] brother BJ's house Saturday evening and unloaded/rested. The next day was the huge Easter party at my cousin Melanie's house. This was not your typical American Easter - my [step] Dad's side is from Guam so it was mostly Pacific Islander food.

Alot of my uncles, aunts, and cousins (all on Dad's side) live nearby and they all came, along with their family members.

The kids got their egg hunt and we played alot of fun games like Water Pong (haha!), Left Right Center (dice game of chance), and Spoons.

We also celebrated BJ, Ryan (Melanie's husband), and Ellie Kate's (cousin Melva's daughter) birthdays by eating cake, singing "Happy Birthday" and spraying them with silly string haha.

Monday - we drove about 5 hours to get to Hollywood. We finally got to The Strip and went to Grauman's Chinese Theatre first.

It was surreal for me, an abiding Old Hollywood (1920s-60s) movie buff, to see the hand/foot prints and signatures of so many of my favorite stars. I took tons of pics but here are my 2 favorites - Doris Day and Judy Garland :)

Then we walked up and down the Hollywood Strip - went in the theater where they host the Academy Awards, pretended to have my own Oscar award ("World's Greatest Dancer", what else?) in a souvenir shop, had BBQ for lunch, and took pics of some of my favorite stars on the Walk of Fame.

Then I convinced my family to go into Madame Tussaud's wax museum (they ended up loving it too). I've been to the one in DC (see blog post) and had so much fun posing by all the figures hehe. These were only a small portion of their collection. My favorite pic is the one with Michael Jackson. Can you name all of these celebrities??

We stayed Monday & Tuesday night in a motel in Hollywood so we could save on driving time.
Tuesday - The whole day was devoted to Universal Studios Theme Park!! I last visited on our family vacation in 2000 and I enjoyed it way more than Disneyland. It turns out this is their 100th anniversary! :D

My 2nd cousin Paul has a premium pass (his family goes all the time) and was a great tour guide. Had a blast on the studio tour - lots of special effects and rides along the way. Also saw the sets for various movies like The 3 Amigos, Grinch, War of the Worlds, Jurassic Park, and Jaws.

We went some fun rides & shows - Jurassic Park, Waterworld, House of Horrors (didn't like that one; I don't like being scared), Special/Visual Effects, and The Transformers (My favorite!! Even tho I had never seen the movie haha)

Universal Studios is really cool at night. We ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company for dinner; my family & I are huge fans of the movie Forrest Gump haha.

Paul gets all the theme park pics for free :) Here are the best ones -

Wednesday - Went on a Warner Bros. "VIP Tour" where we saw the sets for lots of movies & TV shows such as Hart of Dixie, The Music Man, James Cagney's gangster movies, Annie, Spiderman, Friends, etc. Turns out this is the studio's 90th anniversary!

I have to admit - seeing all these sets that look so plain in real life stripped alot of the Hollywood glamour for me, which made me kind of sad :( We also saw where they build & store some of the props -

On the way back to BJ's, we got a flat tire. Thank goodness for the Good Samaritan who helped us fix it!!

Thursday - We were all tired of driving so we mostly chilled at home. I indulged in Jerrianne's (BJ's wife) Food Network magazines muahaha. Then we went to watch The Croods - a fun and very creative movie. See my other blog for my analysis :)

Friday - my awesome parents & brother BJ woke up at 5 a.m. to drive me to the airport. It was great to catch up with family and explore Hollywood but I was so ready to get back to what finally feels like "home" in DC. Here are some final thoughts on the trip:

- LA traffic is as awful as they say. I estimate we spent about 1/3 of our trip in the car. See flat tire above for proof!
- My favorite part of the trip was bonding with my little brother Chris, like during the many hours driving in the van and random moments like when he wanted to show me a cool song on his iPod :) He makes me laugh like no other and he's growing up way too fast!

- After seeing NYC (see blog post), Seattle, and LA, I realize that DC is definitely the city for me right now in my life. NYC is glamorous and exciting but too expensive/dirty/big/noisy/busy...at least it seems so now. Seattle is beautiful and clean but doesn't have the career/education/marriage (aka young single LDS population) opportunities I need right now. LA has amazing weather but I hate having to drive forever to get anywhere. In comparison to all these cities, I have a whole new appreciation for DC (see reasons in last blog post).
- In other MASSIVELY EXCITING NEWS, I got into GW's American Studies masters program!!! Also, I have hated the Higher Education Administration masters program since I started last fall and got my withdrawal approved by the dean! I found all this out late Tuesday night and screamed like a Justin Bieber fan at his concert. My life is about to change majorly, and so much for the better! I was going after my Plan B because I was too afraid to fail at my Plan A. But true to this year's theme of being true to myself, I am finally taking a risk and pursuing my passion. I'm excited for school again :) and that's the way it should be.