Friends: how many of us have them...?

I have spent the past two weekends with friends and it got me thinking about friends. In grade school, high school, and college making college was no big deal (at least for me) I gravitated towards people who had things in common with me and I always enjoyed the friends I had. Never any drama, just about hanging out, having fun, and being supported.

As I have gotten older I am happy to say that I have stayed pretty close with a few of my friends from high school and several friends from college, but how do you make friends in the real world? Are your friends your co-workers, friends of spouses or partners, parents of your children's friends, how do you do it? I think all of those ways are true, I have friends that I became close to through RSlo, and I am really happy to say that I have had some great luck with meeting people and connecting with those that I work with. I have made some really close connections since I have moved to SLO and it feels great to have a social circle that makes me feel appreciated and I have fun with. Because of these connections I know that there are people across the country that I can visit and spend time with, which makes me feel incredible. For example, I spent Thanksgiving with some people from work that I have grown very close to and have become really good friends of mine in a short time. The weekend was filled with funny stories, lots of laughter, and really good restaurants. Spending time with them as well as my two great friends that I visited last weekend in LA makes me thankful for the awesome people I have in my life and that I need to work on cultivating and preserving the great friendships I have. I am not always the best at calling and keeping in touch but it is something that definitely plan on working on because it is always so sad when you think about that great friend you had a long time ago that you lost touch with. It's never to late to reconnect!

A very Disney Birthday!

I just got back from the most amazing vacation/birthday! RSlo and I spent my 25th birthday in the happiest place on Earth and I was definitely happy!  We took off for Disney on Monday morning and headed down south, we decided to first drive down to Santa Monica and spend some time at the beach.  RSlo loves the water, so he got into his bathing suit and played in the water, I knew the water was going to be way too cold for me, so I sat on the beach and read my book and then eventually fell asleep (the sound of the water always does that for me).  

We left Santa Monica and made our way back to Anaheim.  One of my good friends Emily was in Anaheim for a conference so I was so excited that we were able to grab dinner with her over at Downtown Disney.  We had a great dinner and then had the opportunity to walk around and catch up.  The weather was amazing for walking around and we went into one of the many Disney Stores and walked around, it definitely got me excited for our day of fun!

My birthday was Tuesday and I woke up so excited. It's the way I used to feel on Christmas morning when I knew that I was about to open my presents.  RSlo and I got to the park at 9:30 got our tickets (and my awesome birthday button) and stood outside of the park waiting for it to open.  The park opened at about 9:45 and we got to walk through the gates.  While the rope drop didn't happen until 10 (this allows you to get to the rides) we used our down time to take pictures with the characters.  I can't believe how excited I got to see Mickey and Minnie and Goofy I felt like a kid again and not the least bit embarrassed or silly, just fun! 

We had made a plan of attack the night before (with a great deal of help from lots of SoCal friends), and so we got some maps and got ready to go!  Thankfully the park was not as crowded as I expected it to be so our plan worked really well and we got to do everything we wanted.  We started at Space Mountain which we thought would have a really long line but didn't.  We proceeded to go on all of the big Disneyland rides: Pirates of the Caribbean, Matterhorn, Haunted House (which was so cool since it was the Nightmare before Christmas), and the Teacups.  

We were able to get through all the big rides at Disney by 12:30 (so surprising!) and we headed over to California Adventure.  I think that's when we had the most fun.  We went on the California Screamin' ride 3 times, and the Tower of Terror 2 times.  We definitely both enjoy roller coasters so we definitely got out fix and Cal Adventure.  We spent most of the afternoon there doing everything we wanted to do as well as partaking in some culinary treats : turkey leg and corn dogs!  

We ended our day at about 6 and headed back to our hotel.  We spent some time laying around before we went Tony Roma's for dinner.  It was such a great day and really nice to talk and have drinks with RSlo at the end of it.  I had an incredible day, this by far was the best birthday I have ever had and it took the sting of turning 25 away and made me feel like a kid again!   I have also included some sweet pics of our day! I think I am still glowing!