West coast update from the east coast: celebrate the holidays

As promised, I have another massive update. This will take you right up until I left for Pennsylvania.

We had a big, pre-Thanksgiving party to get a bunch of people together who are not locals. Many were our age and work at Dreyer's with Jeff. It was potluck so we took care of the turkey. Jeff didn't want to grab the insides so I saved the day!


For actual Thanksgiving, I took a flight over to Kentucky to see Marc. I hung out in the studio while he worked, we made Thanksgiving dinner, and at the end of the week, we hung out in Nashville, TN.

I LOVE playing Guitar Hero!!!
Downtown Nashville.
I can't get Yuengling in California.
Flight back to CA: The space between the clouds.

At the beginning of December, we took another trip to Las Vegas. We stayed right on the strip at the Flamingo and had a great weekend. We were also able to go to the Bodies exhibit which was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. When we returned, we decided to get a Christmas tree for the apartment. That was fun getting it up the stairs.

Penn State Christmas tree!!

I finished up my last week of school by giving finals for three days. We had shortened days and I was able to leave Friday night (Dec. 21st) on a direct, red-eye flight from LA to Philly. Now I'm just taking it easy and trying to relax before I have to begin the 2nd semester! Hope the holidays are treating everyone well, and all are in good health. My new year's resolution is to update this blog more often, even if it's just a blurb. If you are someone who reads this, please know I do appreciate the little notes you leave me. Knowing that people care to read about my adventures helps motivate me to keep doing this. Happy new year everyone!!

- Carol

West coast update from the east coast: San Diego trips

Hello everyone!

First let me apologize for my lack of updates the past two months. I've been well but extremely busy, as I'm sure you can understand. I flew back into PA last Saturday (the 22nd) and have been trying to see as many people as possible while I'm here. I am here for another week yet (the 5th), so I still have some time.

Before I left, I saved my life in photos from the past two months so I could share when I had a moment to sit. Well, now is that moment! As usual, all photos are taken by me, unless otherwise noted. I borrowed a couple from my roommate, Lindsey, when my camera was on the fritz. Enjoy!

At the end of October, Lindsey and I took a visit to San Diego. It was my first time there and the massive forest fires were still going on. A lot of people told us we were nuts to go down at that time but we had no problems. Here are a couple shots from that weekend... the first two are mine, the rest were taken by Lindsey:
Click on the picture above to make it larger. Note the writing and the reflection. The man in the wheelchair has one leg. This was not planned.
Above is Pyramid Lake which is on I 5 on the way back to Bakersfield from San Diego. It is a man-made recreation spot.

I took this photo at 7am when I came into school on October 29th.

These are some of my students working on a Poe project.

We took another visit to San Diego on the weekend of November 10th. My camera decided to cooperate this time around.

The following are photos of our ride back on the 101... also known as the Pacific Coast Highway. We took the train up the coast. Very cool.

Here is a video I took with my camera of Turkey playing with his slinky. Sorry for the poor quality. I knew he would stop if I turned on the bigger light.



Hope you enjoyed this long awaited update. I'll do another round tomorrow. :)