Snow Patrol!

On Saturday Cami and I went to our first ever real Vegas concert. Cami had a coworker that was trying to sell some Snow Patrol tickets so she bought them as an early birthday present for me! She is the best. We absolutely loved it! It was awesome venue (at the Cosmopolitan pool), it had a great view, we were surrounded by tons of British people with British accents (which made me feel right at home), and it wasn't very crowded... so we were able to get pretty close to the stage! :) All the singers sounded AWESOME. They were so so great live. I was really impressed. We came away liking them more than we did before. It was great!

Wooo! Ready to go! 

Eiffel Tower in the background.  We had a great view. :) 

Snow Patrol! 

Haha. We loved it! All smiles. :)

At the end of the concert we hoped we would get an encore. And we did! The band played one song and right when it seemed like they were done.. and that they would not be playing the song my sister and I had been waiting for....they did! "Just Say Yes" was the last song they played and it was AWESOME. We were so happy!

Thanks again Cami!!!! 

....

BOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Isn't this picture soooo awful? bhahahahahaha. I just love my new Mac. My family and I crack up over the pictures we can get from it.

Like this one...

Cone head Carli 

Alien Cami...or Tim Burton Character Cami...haha. 

And Elvish Cami...haha 

Creepy! But funny...

Postgrad fun!

So...I graduated!

Woohoo! 

All of my family came down...which was awesome! I loved loved loved having everyone there. While it feels really great to be graduated I am a bit sad to leave BYU. It has been good to me the past five years...haha. I just love BYU!

But life is great! And kinda crazy since graduation. Right after graduation I moved home all of my stuff in good ol' Fishes and then headed off to San Diego with my sister and brother-in-law. I was so excited they asked me to come. Sooo fun! We stayed in this awesome cabin at a KOA in San Diego...and we were so close to all of the good stuff. I am now bff with my nephew Eli. I just love that kid. Here are some fun pictures of our trip!  

Eli hanging out at the playground!

San Diego! 

This old but classy/gorgeous hotel...Hotel Del Coronado. Beautiful! 

Eli at the Hotel Del beach. This kid is going to be a swimmer. He LOVES the water! 

Isn't this just gorgeous? 

Hotel Del. 

We visited Old San Diego and saw a lot of cool stuff!

Uh...a cool tree. haha 

An awesome old Victorian home! 

                           

My tour guides. :) 

                                    

Ships in the harbor. 

Eli eating lunch. :)

We also visited this awesome cove where we were so lucky to get a parking spot. We walked around the beach, saw some old people playing bingo, saw and smelled seals (they stunk bad even from way far away. barf. haha. ), took pictures, got stared at by people that thought Eli was the cutest thing they had ever seen, soaked in the sun, heard tons of other languages, splashed around in the water, and just relaxed. It was such a gorgeous day!

I love the ocean. 

Casey and Eli. 

Birds of Paradise 

Hotel Del Beach 

Me in front of Hotel Del 

AND...I learned how to rip-stick. It is basically a much cooler, but harder version of skateboarding. Haha. I loved it! Super fun. 

I just loved hanging out with Casey and Eli. We had this awesome swing on the porch so we could just chill and talk...or battle on Fruit Ninja...or laugh. And we got to go to Ruby's for Casey's Birthday dinner...where we had the nicest waiter ever. Seriously though. I LOVE Ruby's. It is a tradition to eat there whenever we go to California. And Eli just cracks me up. He is seriously THE happiest baby ever. He just laughs and talks and smiles. :) Oh...Casey and Jayson also introduced me to this awesome show called "The Middle". I loved watching and laughing with them...or just watching the show as they laughed. I really did think it was funny! Thank you Casey and Jayson and Eli for letting me hang with you guys! I had a blast! 

After San Diego I left BACK up to Provo the day after we got home in order to interview for jobs. I am officially sick of driving in a car...haha. It feels great to be home. :) 

Things that make me happy...

My family. They make me smile and I love them soooo much!

London. I will always love it.

Falafel. I made this today with Hannah and Shannon and it was DELICIOUS. Love love loved catching up with them while we ate our favorite London meal ever.

This sign. I saw it in a park in Seattle over Spring Break. It makes me laugh.


My hair. It is getting loooonger!!! :)


My students. They really are THE BEST! I miss them sooo much!

Good Life

Don't you just love the song "Good Life" by OneRepublic? I feel like it has become a life theme song for me...."Woke up in London yesterday...". Good times in the past and good times ahead. :)

So here is what I have been up to in my good life. I went to Seattle for Spring Break. I was so lucky to actually have a Spring Break this year because I am student teaching. BYU doesn't ever get a Spring Break. :)

We drove like crazy to get up there! 12 hours one day. The first day we got there we visited Pike's Place Market. I LOVED it! It was like a cook's dream....haha. Tons of fresh and exotic foods. I tried calamari, kumquats, and a jazz apple for the first time. It was exciting!






































I also got to eat a macaroon for the first time since London. I love these things.


















We picked up some flavored orzo from the market and I made it up into this!








While there we went furniture shopping!













And London found me. As usual! :)




I also went to IKEA for the first time and loved it! Sooo cool!

The rest of the break was full of walks and trips to the park, a trip to visit a whole foods store in Bellevue, fixing up Brad's house, working on my Teacher Work Sample, lesson plans, and applying for jobs, and eating lots of delicious food. :)

On the way home I watched a little Downton Abbey. I think I got the parentals hooked as well. ha. And played one of my favorite new games, thanks to my wonderful roommate Abby.






















It was also great because we got to visit with my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew on the way there and back. I see them on a regular basis, but my parents don't! He is walking now, it is sooo crazy! Isn't he just the cutest?

St. Paul's Cathedral

You guys, I absolutely LOVED St. Paul's Cathedral.

I had never seen the picture below before my tour of the cathedral. I love it! I have learned that St Paul's Cathedral is one landmark that stands for London, and kind of represents the UK. During WWII and the Blitz, with fires raging around London, Churchill fought to save St. Paul's. Workers stood on the different balconies on St. Paul's throwing bombs down to the ground if they landed on the roof (crazy) and putting out fires with hoses. Apparently when it seemed St. Paul's might have been lost, the winds changed and pushed the flames away from the cathedral. Is that not amazing or what? Now St. Paul's is thought of as a testament to hope, and is very symbolic for British people. I find this picture so chilling but glorious at the same time.



The genius that it took to build a cathedral of its magnitude is totally insane. Christopher Wren, a mathematician was commissioned to build it after the old cathedral that was there kind of fell into ruin. He was able to use his math skills to become an architect. Pretty cool!

When we got to the cathedral we were led around by a guide named Elaine. She was extremely nice, one of the nicer British guides we have had (they can be kind of harsh). She showed us the staircase where they filmed Harry, Hermione, and Ron coming down from Trelawney's classroom in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and where bits of the recent Sherlock Holmes movie was filmed. Apparently St. Pauls' runs separately from the government and so relies on outside funds to help keep it going. I really enjoyed going down into the crypts where all the old burial stones and memorials were to people like the Duke of Wellington, Horatio Nelson, and Christopher Wren himself. Another area I really enjoyed seeing was the Winston Churchill memorial. Apparently Churchill could have been buried in the crypts because of his honorable service to Britian but he refused saying, "I never let anyone walk over me in life, why would I let them do it in my death." Instead he was buried on a family lot. Smart guy!

After our tour we were allowed to head up tons and tons of stairs to the three different levels/lookouts of St. Paul's. After the first long flight of stairs we reached the first lookout, called the whispering gallery. You could whisper and people all the way across the dome would be able to hear you. I loved this lookout because it was the first and only lookout still in St. Paul's, just at the base of the huge dome. Plus, it was super fun talking to people in the group! Also, from the height we were at, the whole building almost seemed unreal. It was just so HUGE, and beautiful!

The next lookout took us out on a balcony looking over at the city. It had tall stone walls with slits that you could look out at. It was cool, but we were really excited to just get to the top. The next set of stairs took us up through the workings of the highest point of the cathedral, on metal wire staircases. I felt like the Hunchback of Notre Dame navigating up through the large beamed interior. I loved it! A bit before we got to the top we walked over this slab of metal with a circle of glass in the middle that looked straight down into St. Paul's below. It was soooo COOL! I couldn't really get a good picture of it...but you guys will just have to take my word for it. It was crazy.



It was so fun climbing the last bit! And all the stair climbing was totally worth the view on top. It looked like this:





St. Paul's was absolutely incredible! Loved it!

Hampton Court

In the middle of June we got to take an overland train to Hampton Court. This place was amazing. Henry VIII took it over from one of his advisers, Cardinal Wolsey when the cardinal made him mad. It was seriously like a little town. It was huge. And it was all in the Tudor style which was so fun.

I loved...

The architecture! I am always amazed when I see these old castles and homes. The architecture always just blows me away. The stone cutters and laborers that worked on Hampton Court back in the day must have been pretty awesome. It is really amazing that places like Hampton Court have been able to survive things like weather and time. I guess they were built really well, and taken care of really well. Neat!





The gardens. Like all gardens here in the UK, they were big, green, and really well manicured.I especially loved seeing the royal tennis courts, and thought of the tennis scene in Ever After when I saw it. TOTALLY wished I could have played in it! How awesome would it have been to say that I played there....next time I guess. :)



I almost went in this maze, but decided against it. I heard it was pretty awesome though!



The flowers there were absolutely gorgeous too!!



The State rooms.

The state rooms were really beautiful, and decked out with the best furniture, drapery, pictures, paintings, etc. I loved walking through the grand rooms of the court and imagining what life would have been like in Henry VIII's time. It was really fun!



Awesome gallery with statues!




Lovely painted ceiling.



Beautiful room with a huge staircase and painted walls.



Room that housed the military men that defended the court.

I really liked Hampton Court. It was so fun to experience a little bit of what life was like back in the Tudor era.



I especially loved the live entertainment that was going on there. Such a fun experience!