HI! 🙂

WARNING: I’m not entirely sure where to even begin this post, so it may possibly be all over the place and it will be picture heavy and kind of massive, because it was so hard choosing just a few pictures out of hundreds. It’ll be fun though! Lots to look at! 😀 Lauren (author of Shattered Blue) was having some book signins out in California and she invited me, Maren, Kristen (author of Blonde Eskimo), and Zoe (she makes amazing jewelry and did some pieces inspired by Shattered Blue) to come out! I was totally down, because I never been to California and I love Lauren, her book, and we’ve become such great friends and I wanted to be there to support her and help her out.

I left to California on March 4th and I was so stoked about it! The flights there were good. They actually seemed to go by pretty quickly most of the time. I actually enjoyed flying. I think the only scary parts were when the plane turned, because I had window seats every flight and you see the plane tipping to the side and that was scary LOL! Other than that I actually loved it and I love window seats. I was obsessed with taking pictures.

Goodbye Florida

My first flight landed in Phoenix and then from there we left to the San Jose airport! Lauren and Ninja (her pup) picked us up at baggage claim and she was holding the best sign ever LOL. This below picture was taken when we were flying over Phoenix and about to land at the airport to catch our next flight to San Jose.

The sign. 😛 It says “Shattered Blue Book Rides. The Comedian & The Pizza Criminal” and then the other sign is one that was on our bedroom door when we got to the house. Funny & cute. Lauren scored a bunch of Supernatural swag for Maren and I from the CW since she works with the CW. Kristen also gave me some Supernatural stuff for my birthday!

Can we please just appreciate the awesome-ness of my Dean Winchester pillow? It’s actually even bigger, because you get all of his legs too. LMAO 😛

Oh just cuddling with my boy. 😛

I thought it was going to be kind of awkward meeting her, but it turned out fine. I’m sure talking every day since November helped with that. We also waited for Kristen too since she landed shortly after I did. They were both so nice. We got there a couple hours earlier than everyone else. Maren and Zoe showed up later and that was fun! We ordered pizza and they all got me birthday cakes! Two ice cream cakes, which was so nice of them and a nice surprise. My birthday was the day before the trip. We also played Cards Against Humanity, which was fun. That was basically our first day there. Andy (the fiance – I need to get used to saying this now since I’m so used to “the boyfriend” LOL) was sick the first night, so he went to sleep early.

The next day (a Saturday) we went around San Francisco. The weather was kind of crappy the entire weekend (rainy and cold). It was still really fun though. We walked around San Francisco and we did the Alcatraz tour, which was cool. It was awesome seeing the prison and taking the tour of it. We got to listen to a tour and things all about the prison on little old school headsets, lol! We also went out to eat at this really cool cafe called Buena Vista Cafe. They are known for their Irish coffee and they have this cool thing where they sit you with strangers, lol. We talked to some cool dudes at our table. Well it was their table until we all took it over, but they were really nice.

Alcatraz

Sunday we visited the Stanford college campus and walked around there. It was actually pretty awesome and the buildings were amazing. They even had little totems all over the campus, which I loved.

Stanford

After that we walked around Menlo Park for a bit before Lauren’s book signing. We ate lunch and went to little older book store to look around. Sadly I did not find any books that I wanted, but there were so many books that I think I got overwhelmed, lol. Lauren’s book signing a the book store Kepler’s. The turn out was awesome and it was fun seeing her talk about her book and sign some books for everyone. We all helped out with that and were there to support her. Zoe showed her jewelry that she made inspired by the book. After the signing we all went home to get ready to go to dinner. We all went to this really nice Chinese place and the food was so amazing. That was everyone’s last night, so that was sad. It was so amazing being able to hangout with everyone and meet everyone.

Top right: Maren, Lauren, and I.
Ashley & Maren selfie thrown in there too.

Group picture from dinner on everyone’s last night.
Left to right: Ethan (Maren’s husband), Zoe, Lauren, Kristen, Andy, Me, Maren.

Andy and I stayed a bit longer in California. We helped Lauren and Zoe a lot on the rest of Lauren’s book tour. She talked to kids at a bunch of local schools. Andy and I helped set things up, pass out swag, and took videos and pictures for her. We went out to eat at this one place that gave me a HUGE chicken pot pie, lol. It was so good! Zoe, Lauren, Andy, and I also played Scatagories and that was fun.

Book signing fun!

The day before we left (March 9th) we spent the day in Monterey Bay for Lauren’s birthday. We walked around sight seeing, taking pictures, and we reenacted some of the things from Lauren’s book since it takes place in Monterey. We also go to go to the aquarium, which was so fun. I love aquariums. We seen lots of otters, fish, and penguins. I was a huge fan of the jellyfish. I also got to touch a stingray!

Exploring Monterey

Monterey Bay Aquarium

ANDDDDD….as you guys know, Andy asked me to marry him at the aquarium! 🙂 I was pretty surprised and didn’t see it coming. I had thoughts about it a couple weeks leading up to the trip because he was being weird before the trip, but then I just pushed them aside, so I wasn’t really expecting it at all. Later I found out that I almost ruined it a couple times LOL! The first being there was this whale watching tour and I really wanted to go on it. I guess his plan was to ask me at the aquarium and taking a whale watching tour would have ruined it. And then Lauren was telling us that she had to go Skype one of the lady’s at a school she was doing a signing for, so I told Andy that we could go look at the gift shop. Turns out the outside Skype call was code for us to go outside too, so he could ask me. LMAO! So yeah, I almost ruined it. Andy talked me out of the whales and the gift shop. HAHA.

Lauren and Maren designed these shirts for Andy and I. So nice of them!

That was our last day in California. At 4am the next day we got into a car and went straight to the airport. Our flight was at 7am, but we wanted to get there early.

Goodbye California

I already miss California so much and I miss everyone! We definitely need to make it a yearly thing, haha. Here are some miscellaneous pictures that I took.

The Comedian – Me
The Eskimo – Maren
The Author – Lauren

Flowers & Things.

Close to arriving in Florida again.

That pretty much sums up my trip to California. It was one amazing and epic trip. Made so many new memories and got to meet some awesome people that I know I will be friends with for a very long time. I have to thank the blogosphere for this too. If I never created a blog, I would have never met some amazing people and gotten this chance! Taking this trip also made me realize how much I love traveling and I need to make an effort to do more of it! There are so many places I want to go and see. 🙂 I know this is a pretty long post, so big high five to those of you that actually got through it all! 😛

I have a busy weekend of cleaning and wedding stuff, so I better get to it! I also hope to go see Allegiant today. I am so stoked for it even though I wasn’t too thrilled with the trailer and what it looks like. I still hope it’s a good movie.

I hope you all have an amazing weekend!