MALIBU ALPACA FRIEND!

I made a new friend at the Malibu beach the other day! 

We were just laying out basking in the sun when an older man came over with his pet alpaca and two dogs. She was very sweet and kept making a purring type noise when I pet her, so hopefully that was a happy noise! The owner wasn't quite sure what her various noises meant yet because he hasn't had her very long. 

Miss Alpaca was so sweet and adorable, and I'm just now realizing I never asked her name. Oops! Anyway, just a silly unexpected experience on a beach in Malibu!

OH, HELLO AGAIN

Guess who totally forgot she had a blog? This girl! 
I mean, it's 2019, nobody really reads blogs anymore anyway, but I really enjoyed documenting life through here.  

Birthday week is upon us! I'll be 27 this Thursday and that's so crazy to me! No matter how much I don't want to, I just keep getting older and I really don't know how time is flying by so fast! Didn't I just turn 26 like 3 months ago? Wasn't I just 22 last year?

This year I'm going to Disneyland for my birthday because I'm truly still an 8 year old at heart. An 8 year old with a credit card! :)
I'm excited! I love Disneyland and although I was just there in the Spring, I'm excited to go back! It will already be decorated for Halloween and I've never been there while it's decorated for a holiday so I'm excited for that! 

So here's to my last few days being 26! It was a really good year and I'm extremely grateful for it and the adventures I had! 
Here's to making 27 even better than all the others combined! 

WANDERING HEART.

My wandering heart has been aching to go out on a road trip again. I've been really reminiscing about the road trip I went on in the fall and it's making me want to head back out again. I didn't get to explore pretty much any of the South so I think it would be fun to do a Southern U.S. trip this time around! 

I would love to see Florida, New Orleans, Georgia, the Carolinas, and those swampy mossy style trees! I'm absolutely terrified of alligators but it would be kind of neat to see those too from the complete safety of a tour. :)

On my last trip, I pretty much just went as far south as Virginia Beach and then I cut back across the U.S, stopping to see my dear friends in Nashville, and then my brother's family in Oklahoma.

And as crazy as this may seem to some of you, I kind of really miss sleeping in my car. I know that sounds insane, but it was just so oddly comforting! I never thought I could ever sleep so comfortably and peacefully in my car, in the middle of some random city, in a parking lot, but oh man was it just so cozy! Don't get me wrong, I love my queen size bed too, but there's just something about the adventure of it all that my heart has been longing for lately!

A little Spring road trip may be just what I need... :)

HAPPY 2019!

This is the second year that I've picked a focus word for the year. My dear friend Phillip introduced me to the idea last New Year's Day that instead of writing a typical New Year's Resolutions list, to choose one word that you want to be the center focus for that upcoming year. I really love that sentiment, so together at brunch, we all picked our words. 

Last year my word was DELIBERATE. I wanted to really focus on being intentional with my time and just how I spent it, and to really focus on being present in each moment. 

This year I chose the word COURAGEOUS. 

I feel like there are just so many things I want to do in life but fear sometimes stops me from attempting those things. I want to focus on being more courageous in life, and realize that it really is okay to fail. It's okay to take chances. It's okay to try new things and be bad at it the first time around. It's okay to be apprehensive about life changes, but I never want that apprehension to stop me from doing the things I want to pursue in life.

So, 2019 will be a year of courage, a year to try new things, a year to live my life fully! As cliche as that may sound. I never want to look back on my life as a "what could have been". I want to take chances, and make changes, and be courageous.

THE EAST COAST IS WILD.

The east coast is so wild. In the past two days I've been in 10 states with hardly any driving! Maine. New Hampshire. Connecticut. Massachusetts. New York. New Jersey. Pennsylvania. Delaware. Maryland. Virginia.

I've also paid waaay too much in tolls to get across all those states! $19 in total yesterday and $24 in total today. I don't understand the point of toll roads. Isn't that what taxes are for? 

Anyway, it seems nuts that in just a few hours of driving you can be in so many different states! 

Goodnight from Virginia Beach! 

DAY 1: DEVIL'S TOWER

Day 1 of my trip started off so great! I went to Devil's Tower, Wyoming which is truly kind of spectacular! 

I walked around the entire rock formation, which really isn't that far of a distance but it seems like it will take such a long time to walk around when you're initially looking at the size of it! It's misleading, I suppose. I asked a cute couple at the beginning of the trail how long it took and the husband said "Oh about 15-20 minutes!" It definitely did NOT take me 15-20 minutes but I also did stop a lot for photos and videos. It probably took me closer to an hour and 20 minutes to get around it after all my side exploring off the main trail. Homeboy either lied, or that cute old couple just booked it around the tower!

It was such a beautiful walk, and so incredibly quiet in the trees. I love those purely peaceful moments when it feels like it's just you and the trees. There's just some particular moments in life that stick out as being truly peaceful and completely content with life. This walk was one of those moments for me.

I bought some little souvenir treasures from the gift shop, and then continued on to Deadwood, South Dakota and then Rapid City, South Dakota. Deadwood is a really cool old gold mining town in the mountains. Maybe it's because I was raised going to all the gold mining towns in the California foothills, but I've always really loved gold mining towns! They will always have a sentimental place in my heart, and this one was no different! Deadwood is cute! 

Deadwood, South Dakota

My grandparents (Schultz side) are both from Rapid City so it was kind of lovely to see where they grew up and met. I drove by the house my dad lived in for the first few months of his life before they moved to California. 

I went to Dinosaur Park which has a really fun view over the city! Not to mention some cool dinosaurs! ;)

On this trip, I sleep most nights in my car but if a place is particularly cold that night I get a hotel. In Rapid City, I got a hotel and met 3 girls in the lobby who were about my age from Australia doing the same thing as me! They flew into the east coast and were road tripping across the United States until they got to San Francisco. It's just really fun to meet others doing the same sort of thing! 

Even when you're alone on the road, there's always familiar feeling people to share moments with, and I think that's beautiful.

I'M ON MY U.S. ROAD TRIP!

I'm currently on my cross country U.S. road trip! I'm finally doing it and it's so beautiful! I couldn't have picked a better time of year to do this trip. The autumn colors have been so incredible everywhere I've been! I'm really in love with this season. 

I left on Monday, October 15th so it's been about 2 and a half weeks that I've been out on the road and it feels a lot shorter than that while simultaneously feeling so much longer! 
I've had a blast so far and this trip is exactly what my heart and soul needed. I needed to be wild, to explore new places, to get out of my comfort zone, to experience new things, to truly live my life. And I've been doing all of that!

So far, I've essentially done the whole northern half on the United States and a little bit of Canada too! I want to do separate blog posts to go into more depth about each beautiful place I've explored so those will be coming soon! 

I'm just overwhelmingly happy. It's hard for me to put into words, but it truly just feels so freeing for my soul. There's something so therapeutic about traveling down little unknown roads in states I've never been. About meeting new people who are also on the road by themselves with the sheer intention to just explore. About seeing other walks of life. About approaching kind strangers every step of the way to ask them to take a photo of me. About learning to be truly content with myself.

This trip is something I knew I wanted to do for a long time, but I guess I didn't realize just how much I needed it. 

Until next time. 
Goodnight from Portland, Maine!

LAKE DAY!

I went down to Nephi with Jeremy to visit his family and have a lake/boating day at Mona Reservoir! 

Our boating trip got off to a silly start because after we had just launched out into the reservoir, we noticed there was water at the bottom of the boat. After his dad reassured us he had just checked and made sure he put the plug back in before we took off, we noticed the water was rising. We drove back to the shore and pulled the boat back on to the trailer, and sure enough, the boat didn't have the plug in it! We were essentially sinking in the middle of the reservoir but telling ourselves we weren't! It was funny.

I just laid out and relaxed in the front of the boat, but the others rode on the wake board, and water skis and things. I just felt like being lazy. :)

We had a picnic back on shore of sandwiches, cantaloupe, chips, and oreos (which I don't really care for normally, but they were soooo good that day!)

It was such a fun, relaxing day on the water under the sun. I love a good boat day!

I just love summer. :)

A NEW VLOG!

SUMMER VACATION IS HERE!

You guys! Summer vacation is officially here! I had my last day of work last Friday and now it's easy breezy fun summer vacation ahead! I'm seriously so happy about it!

It's so funny that as soon as I stopped working I quickly reverted back to my teenage years. I instantly started staying up late again and feeling how I felt when I was a teenager! Just a few months ago, I was totally falling asleep on the couch while watching TV at 9:00 p.m. and Jeremy would have to wake me up and help me to bed. Now I'm just reverting back to my old night owl ways again, but I secretly really love it! I feel like a creative part of my brain gets turned on at night, and I really like that side of myself!

I think I just love the idea of having a summer vacation again! I haven't had a summer vacation for a few years so it's been a blast so far! I finally get to work on the creative side of my life more. I get to blog more, start up my vlogs again, schedule more photoshoots, and work on all the things I've been meaning to be better at.

I'm also so excited to be able to work on my garden more, travel around the country in my Fit, have more time for people, and just focus on the things that really matter to me. 

It's so easy to get stuck in the routine of life and a full-time job, especially when it's one that isn't really fulfilling your dream, so it's nice to have that moment to re-evaluate your life and what's important to you. I'm re-assessing how I spend my free time, and what I truly want out of my life and it really is so refreshing and invigorating! 

I've only been unemployed a few days, but I already feel so much happier and lighter! I know it won't last forever so I'm definitely soaking it all in while I can! 

Yay for summer! And yay for refreshing life re-evaluations! 

I'M AT A LIFE CROSSROADS.

I'm at a little bit of a life crossroads lately. My last day of work at my job is this Friday June 8th, and then... I don't know what to do next!

I've been thinking about going back to school to get my teaching credential. I've thought about moving to Los Angeles to work for a movie studio (granted I need to get hired first). I've thought about trying to really give my Etsy shop Confetti Heart all my energy to make that more lucrative. I've thought about pursuing photography full time on my own. I've thought about starting a cookie/baking business. I've thought about buying land and making my own wedding venue business.

I just have no idea, you guys! I'm at that crucial moment where I just need to decide on something and run with it with all my time and energy, but I just don't know what direction I want to go yet!

If it's going back to school, I need to decide pronto and apply to a program for the Fall semester. I've been looking at CSU Channel Islands and CSU Northridge for the credential. The idea of going back to school sounds so fun to me, but I also only want to do it if I'm sure that's what I want to do, even if just for a few years.

Regardless of what I end up doing, I'm for sure going to take this Summer off! I haven't had a Summer vacation since I was in college so it just sounds so nice to take a little time off for myself. I want to travel. I want to swim. I want to lay out under palm trees in the sand and be a bum. I want to photograph everything I see. I want to roadtrip in my new Honda Fit and sleep in the back. I want to visit family and friends. I want to play, and explore, and be happy! I really just want to slow down to truly enjoy my life.

So although I have no idea what I want to do after my little Summer vacation, I'm so excited for what's to come! It's nerve-wracking, and intimidating, and exciting all at the same time!

Here's to hopefully an enlightening Summer to help me realize what passion to follow next!



My Etsy shop:  www.etsy.com/shop/confettiheart

THINGS I LOVE LATELY.

A little list of things I love lately! Because sometimes you just have to be grateful for all the little things. 

THINGS I LOVE:

1. This lovely little drink I've been making myself everyday! It's such a refreshing summer drink and it makes me so happy! Plus, I put it in my Rain Forest Cafe glass I got from my last trip to Las Vegas and that is a cute little reminder of my fun trip there in April! The drink is so simple. You just mix a can of Dole Pineapple juice and a can of Fresca. Add some crushed ice and a straw and you have a little piece of delicious Summer happiness!

2. Oprah's Super Soul Conversations! Her podcast is so uplifting and inspiring and helps me feel a little bit more lifted when I listen to it. 

3. Taking time for a little something small I enjoy. Lately, it's been sitting on the porch swing. Everyday when I get home from work, I put my things inside, change into some comfy clothes, and sit out on the porch swing to unwind. Sometimes it's just for 5 minutes and sometimes I'm out there an hour. I realized it's something I personally need to get back in tune with myself, and I've been loving that!

4. All the flowers in bloom everywhere! They're all so pretty and brighten my day. I love all the different blooms in everyone's yards when I go on my walks. I especially love stopping to smell the yellow roses and the yellow/orange ice cream mix rose bushes. Ooh so yummy!
 

4.The OC! Yes, that OC. The silly TV show from the early 2000s that we all secretly loved! I'm re-watching the seasons right now, currently on season 4, and it still holds up, you guys! It's just such a silly, entertaining show and makes me feel like I'm my 15 year old self again! Oh the drama!

5. All the little mid-day thunderstorms we've been getting these past few weeks! I love a good thunderstorm! I love just going out on the porch and watching the lightning light up the sky and the rain run down the street. I love the rain! Especially those quick little storms that show up out of nowhere with such force!



LINKS:
Oprah's SuperSoul Conversations:  www.supersoul.tv
Cookies from:  www.thirstdrinks.com

A TRIP TO THE HOGLE ZOO!

I went to the Hogle Zoo for the first time Sunday morning! I had been there once before for the Zoo Lights but you can't actually see any of the animals during that; I'm not even sure if the animals are there in the Winter actually. So this was the first time actually seeing the zoo and it was so fun!

For being a relatively smaller zoo, it's still super fun, and it's laid out nice so it feels bigger than it really is! About 10:00a.m. it started to pour so we hid out under the awnings next to the elephants who were also hiding out from the rain. It was fun to just sit for 15 minutes or so and watch the rain, but especially watch the elephants play with each other and hide from the rain too. 

We went to the bird show at 11:00a.m. and I'm so amazed you can train birds to participate like they did! They fly in from all over and have their little markers they know to go to for their treat. I especially love all the beautiful tropical, colorful ones; they're just so pretty to watch!

After the bird show, we had lunch at the Beastro. Clever name huh? We got pepperoni pizza slices and some macaroni and cheese to share. After lunch there was a little ice cream stand outside the Beastro that serves Dole Whip so of course I got that! I've been on such a pineapple kick lately so my little heart flutters when I see pineapple treats. :)

Okay, gorilla hands are so fascinating to me! This cute gorilla was laying on her back in the straw, staring up at the ceiling, picking at this log next to her and I couldn't help but just admire how human-like her little hand was! It really just looked like my hand in a gorilla costume glove moving about. It was fun to watch her be bored lying on her back just picking away pointlessly at this log.

This is the closest I'll ever be to a polar bear and it was so cool to watch him play in the water just a foot away from my face! He had a red little plastic pool that he kept trying to climb up on but it kept flipping over each time he would try. It's just nice to watch animals so closely while still feeling semi-protected. I probably shouldn't feel too safe though because I'm 92% sure a tiger got out at that zoo like a year ago! 
Okay, I just looked it up, a leopard totally got out of it's habitat last year when a guest found it sleeping!

We ended our zoo day with a ride on the carousel of course!
Go to the zoo, you guys, it's so fun! Unless you're against zoos, then just know in your heart that they looked happy. ;)

HOME.

As much as I love traveling and being out and about, there's nothing like being home. I love home! It has all my favorite things, and it's such a comforting, safe place. Lately I've been adding more plants to my indoor plant collection, and all the ferns and moss really brighten my day!

There's something fun about coming home to your house after a trip because you get to experience your house how guests experience it. It's fun to walk into the space with fresh eyes, and see all those things again that make you happy. I love seeing all my plants all over the house, and my two fish, Kristofferson + Mordecai, swimming about their tank!


I'm so grateful for my home, and for Salt Lake City being my home for the past (almost) 4 years. Thanks for keeping me safe, and happy, and feeling ...well, at home.


*Plants from the beautiful Cactus & Tropicals!
www.cactusandtropicals.com

And Paradise Palm:
www.paradisepalm.com
Bonus, you can save 20% on your purchase at Paradise Palm if you mention "crazyplants"!

LIFE'S TOO SHORT.

Sometimes I get caught up in my dreamer thoughts. Lately it's been the same one thought that keeps creeping up in my mind. I just keep thinking how short life is, and how in the grand scheme of everything, finding your own personal joy throughout life is all that matters.

I also keep thinking how sad it is that we have this one life on Earth, and the majority of us spend that life working jobs we don't enjoy. It seems so crazy that we have all decided that's okay; to spend our life working 40 hour a week jobs that we don't enjoy. 40 hours each week is a long time. So many people I know just live for the two fun days of the week that we're free to do what we really love doing. It just all seems so bananas to me!

I don't know what the solution is besides just working for yourself. Or being a famous Instagramer who gets paid to travel and promote hotels and products! haha. I just wish life was still a little simpler. I wish we all didn't have to work so much at jobs we don't enjoy just to buy stuff we don't really need. I'm making it a point to spend my money on trips and experiences rather than just stuff, but I also need to find the time to go on these little adventures I'm saving up for.

I just want a job that pays me to:

• Go to the beach
• Go to Disneyland
• Travel
• Eat
• Swim in rivers and hot springs
• Go on roadtrips
• See movies
• Go to Lagoon
• Play at the water slides every Summer
• Visit my family and friends

Once I figure out who's paying for all that, I'll let you guys know too. :)
I just think back to the older days where everything was simple and families worked their land, planted and sustained themselves off their farms, and traded their handmade goods in the markets. Granted their lives weren't as fun as we have it now, and they probably ended up working way more than 40 hours a week in the long run, but at least they weren't stuck indoors in little cubicles stuck at their desks. There's just something about that simple 1850s life that I romanticize a little. 

We're only on Earth once and it's hard for me to believe we should be spending our lives doing anything other than what we love and what brings us happiness!

I need to find a way to break out of this cycle and pursue all the things that bring me pure joy. I want to travel and see the world. I want slow days of swimming and hanging out in the Merced River. I want days filled with playing at the beach and looking for sea glass with my mom, Anti, and Sophia. I want Disneyland, Lagoon, and waterslide days. I want driving around the Pacific Northwest in the rain days. I want roadtrips around the United States. And I want my family and friends there alongside me.

MY TRIP TO DISNEYLAND!

You guys! Disneyland is the BEST!! 

I always sightly roll my eyes at all the crazy Disney fanatic people out there, but I get it now. It's just such a happy place! It instantly makes you feel like a little kid again and it truly does feel so magical.

I've only been twice before. Once when I was 5, and then once when I was 18. We didn't go that often growing up, but this time makes experience number 3 and I loved every minute of our 16 hour Disneyland day! Yeah... we stayed in the park 16 hours, but it still felt like it flew by!

We got to Disneyland about 40 minutes before it opened so we were near the front of the lines at the gate to get in. When they opened the gates, we decided to head to Space Mountain first since we figured that would only get busier as the day went on. As we were walking there, all the characters were out waving to everyone as we walked by; it was the cutest thing! Eeyore actually really startled me because I was walking along some hedges looking past at fairy godmother waving to Jeremy + I when I realized Eeyore was standing just on the other side of the hedges looking right at us. He was literally like 3 feet from me and I didn't see him until he shifted a little! It made me super laugh at the idea of Eeyore just hiding behind some hedges watching everybody walk by. I said "Oh, hi!" to him in a way too high pitch of a voice because he really startled me!

We got super lucky with an overcast, pleasant day! All my memories of amusement parks usually involve being super hot all day, so it was nice to actually wear my sweater for a good part of the day! We planned to put them in the lockers when it got hot and get them for the fireworks, but we ended up needing them more than we thought we would.

 

I'm such a fan of these Dole Whip Floats! Oh man, that was the most refreshing, yummy, mid-day treat! I could seriously have one of those everyday and not get sick of them! Thanks to the suggestion of some of my friends, Jeremy and I bought Maxpass with our tickets and let me tell you, that was the best decision we made! It's only $10 extra and lets you cut in front of all the big lines! I don't know why everyone doesn't just buy them? They must not know about them. Every time we waltzed right by a huge line I kept telling Jeremy I would have totally paid $10 each ride to not have to wait! It really was so worth it.

Some of my FAVORITE moments of the day:

• Space Mountain! We rode it twice and it was so fun!

• Seeing all the characters wave to everyone as we all entered the gates in the morning.

• Indiana Jones- that ride is so fun and just designed so well!

• My Mickey Mouse pretzel and cheese. Yum!

• Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room. What a cute little bunch of birds!

• Jungle Cruise- our boat captain was so un-enthused by her job and did not deliver her lines with much pizazz and it made me laugh.

• Fantasmic! Thanks to a really sweet employee, he saw us leaning against the walkway rail trying to figure out where we could watch the show when he told us he could get us under the rope to the VIP viewing area if we wanted. He was such a kind older man and a real lifesaver in that moment. More on that later.*
• The fireworks! We ran over right before they started (because we watched Fantasmic) and another super nice employee helped us find a nice spot to watch.They really start to herd you around like cattle during those busy moments and that stresses me out.

• It's A Small World. I absolutely loved it when I was little and still love it now. I didn't realize how long it was though! It really makes me appreciate my family even more for going on it so many times when I was 5! Such a catchy little song. :)
• Storybook Land. What a cute little water ride! I love any type of boat ride really, but especially when there's cute Disney stories involved.
• Getting pizza at Pizza Planet from Toy Story! It's expensive and doesn't fill you up at all, but it was fun.
• Riding Matterhorn early when there was still a perfect crisp chill in the air and no line!
• Haunted Mansion, that ride is so fun!
• The train ride around the park. It was a perfect way to rest and see all the sights. I always love the train rides at amusement parks. That's one of my favorite things at Lagoon actually!
• Walking up to the gates in the morning with the different Disney songs playing over the speakers. That was the perfect way to set the mood for the day!

 *Back to that moment above, I don't consider myself an anxious person in the least bit but I do have weird moments that sneak up on me sometimes. I I was on the verge of a weird anxious moment when we were looking for somewhere to stand/sit for Fantasmic because the parade earlier consisted of a lot of rude Disney employees telling us we had to move, couldn't stand where we were standing, had to keep walking, couldn't stop, keep moving. Literally when we were so far out of the way from foot traffic and the parade an employee still came up to us to say we couldn't stand where we were standing. We seriously couldn't have been further out of the way of everybody, but she still told us to move. I just wanted to eat my pretzel in peace! I didn't want another experience like that for Fantasmic so that's why that older man was such a sweetheart to help us. Maybe he could sense the anxiety? haha

I just really love the overall feeling in the air at Disneyland! It's just an entire day of being truly present in each moment, and feeling like your 5 year old self again! I love the characters, I love the amount of detail that goes into each ride, I love seeing the happiness on everyone's face, I love all the cute little ducklings following their mamas around the park (are there always that many ducklings?). I just love how fun it is! From the moment you're walking up to the gates with all the Disney music playing over the speakers, to the moment you leave so sleepy, and full, and truly content, it's just a magical place. :)

It was such a fun day and I can't wait to go back! We got there at 7:20a.m. and didn't leave the park until about 10:50p.m. and I still feel like we didn't get to do everything! I tried to meet Mickey and Minnie Mouse twice back in their houses and each time they were gone! What the heck kind of errands do those two have to run? Next time, I'll figure out what times I should try to meet them. I also have never been to California Adventure and I want to go there soon! Pixar Pier is opening this June so maybe I'll go sometime this summer to explore that park!

 

I love Disneyland! I can't wait to go back!