"Summertime and the living is easy"

One tip another Navy wife gave me is to make the most of each area you live in and focus on the positives instead of the negatives! So here is a list of things I love about California.

1. The BEAUTIFUL weather! All week my fam has been telling me of how awful the rain is at home or how hot and humid it is and I'm just like, awww! How sad! :) It's been beautiful almost everyday we've been here, in the 60's, sunny, and just wonderful! The only thing I can complain about is the wind, which makes it a bit chilly but hey! Better than hot, muggy, HUMID Missouri! :)

2. Being minutes away from the beach! We've only gone a couple times so far but I plan on going lots more while we're here. Evelyn loves it! I wish the water was warmer so I could put her in it but I'm going to take a Mommy and Me swim class with her so that should make up for it. I'm so excited for that btw! I can't wait to see her in the pool! She LOVES water!

3. Along with the beach there is a lot of other "nature" things to do. One top thing I want to do while we are here is go over to the Channel Islands and hike around there and see all the wildlife and plants and such. It's supposed to be really cool! There's also LOTS of other hiking places around the area which I would love to go to as well.

4. I know some people wouldn't be interested in the "non-nature" attractions here in SoCal but I am! One of course being Disneyland! I DEFINITELY plan on going there while we're here! I've never been to Disneyland or World so I'm excited! There's a few other theme parks besides that one too which is awesome because Utah SUCKED for theme parks and I love me some roller coasters! There's also lots of "Hollywood" stuff since we're pretty close to Hollywood too :) The one thing I want to do in that area is go to the Grauman's Chinese Theatre and do all the touristy things there.

5. There are many, many shopping centers, plus a great mall, PLUS an awesome Outlet Mall, all within 10 miles of the base! They have every store I love except..........a scrapbook store!!! Well I found one but it wasn't open Monday so that sucked, and then they do have JoAnn's and Michael's but still....nothing like Archiver's. I guess that's ok though cuz I left all my scrapbook stuff in storage so I can't scrapbook anyway but it's still fun to go to the stores. So yeah...I've been spending a lot of my time getting to know the area and going to a lot of the stores, which might sound like I'm a bit of a shopoholic but I promise I'm not! I'm more like a window-shopoholic :) Mark's pretty good with money so I try not to buy a whole lot of stuff and if I do then it's usually something for everything so that's ok right?

6. It's been a loooooooooooooong time since I've been back in Cali which means a loooong time since I've seen a lot of my fam here! I'm planning a trip up to San Jose/Santa Rosa in June and am so excited to see everyone up there! Annie will be there by then so I'm excited to see my fav sister and of course her darling children :) Oh and of course Andrew as well :) :) :) Then we're going to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Fredrick and I'm sure see some of the Aunts. And then hopefully I'll get to see my sister Katherine and some of that side of the fam. In San Jose I'm visiting Grandma Rose and Grandpa Dan and Aunt Denise with her two adorable little girls, Raven and Sydney. I hear they are absolutely ECSTATIC to meet Evelyn :) So that trip should be lots of fun.

7. Hmmm.....well I had a bunch of thoughts running around in my head but that was earlier and now it's late so they've gone so I think that's all I've got today but I think you get the gist of it all. I'm excited to be here and I hope we have a fun few months!

What? Did you expect me to do a post without any pictures? Ha! Well if you did then you don't know me very well :) These are from today when Evelyn and I went to the beach. I put sunblock on her and a hat, as you can see, which worked out a lot better! And, as you can also see, she's still fascinated by sand!