West Coast - Seattle

In July I went to Seattle for approximately 24 hours to spend some time with close friends. When I arrived at the airport, I was glad to see that little Lucy had forded the river safely and made it to Oregon Washington. I have been worried about that ever since I quit in the middle of my Oregon trail game in the 5th grade.

Kim, Steph, and Me. I love these girls so much. So here is the back story - The two on the left are cousins and their respective mom and dad grew up in the same ward as my mother. Kim's family moved to North Carolina when I was 11 and she quickly became my best friend. When Kim's cousins came to visit, her Aunt and my Mom would catch up and so the first time I met Steph I was probably 12 or 13. Fast forward through years of living in Utah and being best friends still with Kim, I would see Steph around campus at Ricks College and other various things that we were both involved in. We were bridesmaids at Kim's wedding in San Diego about 3 years ago and Steph and I were both at a loss as to why we weren't closer friends. The rest is history. Sometimes I forget that they are related - and then they act like each other and it freaks me out. I was so glad to be able to spend time with Kim - the time we get to spend is far and few between these days. Boo to that.

For something to do on a rainy day in Seattle, we went to Pike's Market and ate donuts, crepes, and cherries. Oh, those cherries were amazing.

Every time that Kim and I see each other, we try and get a photo - that should be a post in and of itself. Now that I have a photo scanner, maybe I should get on that, eh? Here is our 2011 pic.

And anyone who can hula hoop, play the guitar, play the harmonica, sing, and dance at the same time deserves to have a photo on the blog.

And seeing Kim's cute little girl, Abby, wasn't so bad either. :)

And I will leave you with a cute pic of Steph and Marcus.

Greetings

So I am in the UK this week. For work.

All I've really done so far is work and sleep. I closed my eyes last night at 6pm and was awake from about 1am until 5am when I fell back asleep until almost 8am. I'm fairly sure my alarm went off at 7, but we won't focus on that, will we.

I think I've been doing a good job at being British so far this week. I've walked to the right passenger side of the car 3 times in a row, and used the following words correctly in a sentence as if I'm a local: rubbish bin, car park, loo, petrol station, and tonight at dinner I will make sure to say serviette instead of napkin. Even when I studied abroad here, I wasn't around that many locals except my teachers, so I didn't ever really pick up the local phrases and words. Working with the British is another ballgame. I think in an accent already and if I stayed here a few more weeks, I'm sure I'd be speaking with one.

And for the record, I have been taking photos to put up for my photo of the day, but I can't transfer them to my email since my iPhone has decided to not roam (even after I told it to). If you are lucky, I will remember to take the photos on my BlackBerry.

As a treat, here is a photo that I just took of my lovely frizzy hair - thank you, fog.

Out of the fog for the weekend.

This last weekend I went to LA. Some close family friends were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and since I had the chance to spend a weekend with my pseudo-family, I jumped at the chance. Their anniversary party was held in the same room that they had their wedding reception in behind the LDS temple in LA and the theme was a sock-hop. They arrived in a 1960 dodge and it was one heck of a party. Here I am with Christina & Becca. I can't believe my little Teeter Bean is going to be a senior in high school this year! And when did she get taller than me? Weird.

Nathanael was born when I was 15 and I am still convinced that no one but his own mother loved him more than I did. He's still my little Fano.

And since his first church dance is coming up in a few weeks, (!!) I attempted teaching him how to dance.

Remember the time that I told you I was a magnet for toddler girls? Still applies.

And Blythe cut a rug with Jessica's boyfriend.

Here is a pic of me with the Gunson gals. Rebecca, Blythe, Me, Eliza, Christina, and Jessica.

Congratulations to Roger & Maureen. 50 years! What a great couple.
Love them both so much.

I didn't take photos of the rest of my trip, but here is what happened:

1. I went to Huntington Beach to stay with Scott for the night.
2. He talked me into going to a party with him in Newport Beach.
3. I saw tons of people I knew at the party. Like these guys and this guy. I sure do love running into friends and people who just make you feel loved.
4. Got my hair lightened. Do you like it? Becca did it. I love it.

Zundelac Island Vacation 2010 - NYC

A few months ago, Zach emailed me, Scotty P, Uzi, and his roommate Mike to see if we would all like to go to New York City with him to see his girlfriend in Jersey Boys. The responses were all an immediate yes, but we needed to nail down a date that worked for all of us. One day, we all got an email saying that Zach and Mike had booked tickets for the weekend of July 31. Within an hour, everyone had tickets and we started planning our weekend.

Details are as follows:

Kristy and I flew into NYC on Friday morning and met up at the airport. My sweet cousin Beverly decided to fly in from Syracuse for the day and surprise me, which was really nice of her. We were all really tired from our flights, so we headed to Steph Bishopp's house (who was our VERY gracious host) to take a nap. Upon exiting the Subway right by Steph's house, I did some damage to my toe that left me barely able to sleep. I am fairly sure that I just jammed it, but it was not pretty, as you'll see in a minute. After getting some rest, we headed over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Beverly used to be an art teacher, Kristy graduated in interior design and at one time, I was an art minor. Needless to say, we all enjoy a good museum.

Here I am with Beverly outside the museum before going to dinner.

I made plans with two of my girlfriends from elementary school/high school who live in NYC now to meet up for dinner. It took some planning, but we went to Motorino's in Brooklyn and it was delicious. Brussel Sprout pizza! Two things that I love! Amazing. Here I am with Kristy, Beverly, and Steph.

And here I am with Courtney and Katie. I could write an entire blog post on them and how I could. not. stop. smiling. all through dinner but I'll spare you that. I will just say that it was more enjoyable than I can tell you to see two girls that I grew up with - who loved me in all my ugly phases - and see how they've turned out to be amazing, successful, and happy women. That dinner made up for me not attending my high school reunion last fall.

Then off to Prospect Park to see The Swell Season. By the time we got there, we couldn't get in, so we sat outside the gates and listened for an hour or so. Then we met up with these love birds for 4th meal.

And these two really started hitting it off as well. I couldn't have been more pleased.

And this is where the story starts to get exciting. So. .....

After 4th meal in Brooklyn, we got on the subway going back to Steph's house in Manhattan. We were on the train with about 10-15 other people in our car, laughing and talking about whatever. I specifically remember talking about our adventure hiking half dome last summer and how I'd rather die than do it again. :) We were a few stops outside of Manhattan still when some people got in our train car. I was facing Steph & Kristy and saw a man walking toward me. I was not prepared for what was about to happen. He sat down fairly close to us and was facing me. He sat for a second I think then proceeded to throw his bag down, walk toward me and get about an inch away from my face and start screaming that he was going to f*** me up over and over and over. Please keep in mind that this was a very large black man who was solid muscle and was not homeless and not dressed like a crazy person. This went on for a few minutes and apparently from what Kristy told me later, I had a look of sheer terror on my face. And he wasn't yelling at all of us girls - it was just me. He went back to his seat talking about slavery and how we don't respect him, and how he knows how to make weapons. All awesome, right? Then he'd get up and start doing the same thing again, inches away from my face. The entire time, none of the people on the train were moving, let alone looking at each other - especially us girls. At the Canal St. stop, Steph B made eye contact with me and said "I think we can change trains here. Do you want to?" I said "yes" and we tried to get off the train as quickly as possible. The worst thing was that we thought he'd try to follow us off the train based on how he was acting. I seriously thought that he was going to kill me. As we exited the train, we literally walked into 6 cops and 2 undercover cops who just happened to be getting on our same exact train from the same door we were getting out of. Steph B immediately told them what had been going on and within about 5 seconds, the guy who had been harassing me was being pummeled to the floor by 6 cops (it took 6 to get him to the ground) and handcuffed. Thank you, first degree harassment and resisting arrest. He was in jail within minutes. We, however, were in the police station until 2am with this dude:

I asked him if he'd pose for a picture with us and when he said no, I just took a photo of him alone. Take that! All the cops were thoroughly enjoying having 3 good-looking ladies in their subway police station and started calling us "Miss California, Miss New York, and Miss Utah." Then I noticed my toe and its awesome purple hue:

And I also want to add that there are very very few subway stations in all of Manhattan and the five Burroughs that even have police stations inside the subway station. God answers prayers, people.

On Saturday we slept in a little and then went for a jog through Central Park with Scott. who had flown in the night before. In the afternoon, we met up at the Manhattan Temple for an afternoon session with Mike & Zach who had also flown in on Friday night. What an awesome thing - to be at the temple with 5 of your closest friends. We had a little tour of the temple afterward and when Zach said to me at one point when he was kneeling at an altar with me "Please don't blog about this", I knew that I just had to. haha.

After the temple, we went to Magnolia Bakery, picked up some overrated desserts and then slowly but surely made our way to dinner at Land Restaurant. Oh my, the food was amazing. If you like Thai food, please go. And please get the mango sticky rice. You will not regret that decision. Ever. Then after dinner, we made our way down to see Jersey Boys, but mostly Heather, who is Zach's girlfriend. You may have seen her before here.

After the show, she took us backstage and we proceeded to take goofy photos.

Oh, this photo is amazing.

We were in such a good mood at that point, that we decided to take tuk-tuks through Times Square.






And since Serendipity's is open until 2am,...

The night ended very late. Shocker.

Church on Sunday morning. And of course we ran into random people at church who we know and who don't live in New York City. Leave it to me, folks.

Zach & Heather

The rest of Sunday was spent walking around New York City - and of course we had to pose for a picture at one of my all-time favorite New York sites - and the home of my favorites - the Rockettes.

And Kristy wanted to see St. Patrick's Cathedral, so we went.

Scott left us Sunday night, which was a very sad occasion. So on Monday afternoon, the rest of us went to see the Statue of Liberty. It was Mike & Kristy's first time there and it does not disappoint. I loved seeing all the history on it. I especially loved this poster:

We got pedestal access with our tickets to Liberty & Ellis Island, so when we got up to the top of the pedestal, this was our view.

This was her view - unedited and unscripted.

After seeing Ellis Island, we headed back to Manhattan to meet up with Steph and go to Brooklyn for Grimaldi's pizza. It was delicious of course. This time, instead of braving the subway ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan, we walked the Brooklyn Bridge.

And then jumping photos ensued.

We ended the evening in Madison Square Park with this amazing view of the Empire State Building during 4th meal.

Dear New York, your streets made me feel brand new, your big lights inspired me. Let's hear it for New York.
Love, Me

Dear Bev, thanks for making an effort to come see me.

Dear Steph B, thanks for hosting and for laughing with us. I've said it once and I'll say it again - please let your birthday hurry up so we can play again.

Dear other friends that I was there with, I miss you all. A lot.

xoxoxo

**Kristephanie Zundelac has taken a vow that every summer we will take a summer trip to an island within a state. That can be left up to interpretation obviously, but here is our 2nd year. Last year was Catalina.