Feelin' 22

I had my wedding blog post last week so I didn't have the energy to do a weekly update last week either, but I will give you a quick synopsis of the week before we get into my exciting birthday things:
1: It was my Moms birthday on the 6th! I was lucky enough to be in Mesa on her birthday so I was able to go to dinner with her and my dad and Avery. We of course went to Joe's Farm Grill as we usually do for birthdays, but this was our first time going since it was renovated so it was a very exciting experience! We tried all their new sodas and the crowd favorites were cherry cream and the cola.
2: I went to dinner with the Steph Shaw since I hadn't seen her in lightyears. It was wonderful catching up with her and all her elementary school adventures. It was not wonderful that Native POISONED me. I knew the chicken tasted a little different, but I thought it was the sauce since the chicken didn't seem undercooked. Well sure enough I woke up on Wednesday not feelin too hot, so I opted out of going to work, and because I was too weak to drive to Tucson, Zach came all the way to Mesa to pick me up and drive us right back to Tucson. He's the best!
3: I went to a basketball game with Derrick, Kenzie, Brittany, Jenny & Jacob. Brittany also caught me up on all the wedding things I have been missing out on since I rarely see my homies in Tucson. This was also the first real game of the season, and I am just so pumped! I can't wait until we get to the PAC, that's when things get real exciting. Thanks to Abby for letting me use her catcard to get into this game.
4: Also thanks to Abby AGAIN for the catcard to get into the football game on the 11th! It was the worlds latest game and I honestly didn't think I was going to get through all of it, but by some stroke of luck I stayed the entire game.
5: I had two photo sessions over that weekend, one graduation and another one family. I am super grateful to everyone who has booked me for these sessions! I love meeting new people, and especially everyone's cute kids! Here are a few of my favorites from those sessions:

6: Work is really freaking crazy, we have hit the busy season hardcore! I find myself going in way early and leaving late... I can't wait for January honestly haha.

So that brings us to the start of my birthday week!
November 14th was my birthday celebration with my family. My mom believes birthdays should only be celebrated on or before birthdays, and since I was going back to Tucson right after work on Wednesday, that meant Tuesday was my family birthday. After work my mom had a table full of sweet presents for me, which of course included takis and Salty V's haha. For dinner since we went to Joe's the week before I decided to go to Oreganos. We picked my Dad up from work and went to the Oreganos in Tempe. Real question: why do all Oreganos have the worst parking lots in the world? Is that like their fun thing they can advertise? Even though their parking lot sucked, we, for the first time in my life, did not have to wait for a table! It was pretty magical. And our food came our pretty dang quick, it was a nice birthday gift from Oreganos. We were so busy talking and eating that we all forgot to say the things that they like about me, so we did that when we got back home.

Since I do not work in the office on Thursdays and Fridays, and since my birthday was on Saturday, it was my work birthday on Wednesday! I have the sweetest co workers who treated me with delicious drinks, boom chicka pop, a jaw dropping image of my face photoshopped onto my queen Dolly Parton's body, and homemade raspberry lemon cupcakes. Oh and a whole lot of balloons. It's always a struggle stuffing my car with balloons haha.
After work I drove right back home to Tucson and then went to dinner with Zach and then went over to 1320 to "watch" Riverdale. I put watch in parentheses because we didn't even start the show ha. I spent pretty much the entire night watching Abby edit her photos haha, photographer life.

Thursday was the start of my birthday adventure. If you haven't caught up by now, for my birthday I prefer to go on a big road trip somewhere. It started with my 20th when I was traveling all around AZ, and I thought that was way more fun than my friends giving me gifts that end up in a memory box haha. Due to some unfortunate circumstances, but maybe also fortunate? it was just me and Zach on the trip this year! I love going on trips with a big group of people, but my number one favorite person to travel is Zach. And traveling alone with him is top notch. This year's trip was to the Channel Islands in California. We were also planning on going to Six Flags when other people were coming with us, but since it ended up just being me and Zach and I have been making a lot of money on the side with photography, we said SCREW IT it's my birthday we are going to DISNEYLAND. So that was what the trip was consisting of.

The original plan was to drive to Huntington Beach on Thursday afternoon and go right to Zach's grandparents. Then on Friday morning we were going to wake up early to drive to Oxnard to hop on a boat to go to Anacapa Island. Then Saturday would be Disney day, and Sunday we would drive home.
Well we got the first part right. Once we got to Zach's grandparents house I wanted to check the boat departure time to Anacapa. Well I did all this research a few weeks ago about the island, but I did not realize that you needed to make the reservation for the boat ride at least 24 hours in advance. Sooooo we would not be able to go to Anacapa in the 8 hours we had before dock time. Luckily there was still availability on the rides to Santa Cruz island on Saturday so I booked those reaaaal quick. So now Channel Islands were being moved to Saturday and Disney was being moved up to Friday.
I couldn't have accidentally planned this any more perfectly because Disney is less crowded on Fridays and the traffic to get to Ventura to get to Santa Cruz would be waaaaay less if we went on Saturday. So it was perfect. The only down side to it all was that Zach and I would literally get like 4 hours of sleep before we went to conquer Disney for 16 or so hours.

Oh but conquer we did. Zach and I are PROS at Disneyland and have never had a bad day there. We have been there by Christmas, in the middle of Summer and now right by Thanksgiving and we have totally been lucky! On Friday we were able to get on every single ride we wanted to by pretty much noon without a single fast pass. Are we super humans? Yes, yes we are.
It was just all so surreal that we were even there! We seriously didn't think we were going to Disney until the Wednesday before, and then we were there!! It was so magical. This was our first time there since they brought in the Guardians of the Galaxy ride, and people I am TELLING you that this is 10000000% better than Tower of Terror... but I never had an emotional attachment to Tower like other people seem to have. I'm just saying the music is killer and the fact that the ride is synced to the beat is just too cool to me.
We went on so many rides, we walked so fast, we rested so hard when we watched the Frozen show (it was actually incredible), we ate dang good food (For lunch we had corn dogs and for dinner Zach had his clam chowder bowl that could possibly bring him more happiness than I do, and I had my chili bowl), and enjoyed everything that is Disney! It was an absolutely perfect trip, and that could have been the end of the entire weekend and I would have been waaaay satisfied.

My only regret is going on Grizzly rapids so early because my beautiful hair was destroyed. But seriously best birthday present to myself ever haha. We proooobably would not have been able to go to Disneyland with a giant group, so I was super happy it was just me and Zach conquering the park together.

We stayed until past midnight, we got onto Zach's favorite Buzz Lighyear Astro Blaster ride right at midnight! I was honestly so shocked we made it, but I sure am happy that I was in Disneyland on my official birthday!

That night was another night of very little sleep haha. We woke up early on Saturday to drive two hours to Ventura. We picked up some Subway Sandwiches and some snacks before we hopped on the boat ride. The boat ride is about an hour and 15 minutes to get to Santa Cruz. We were kind of towards the end of the line to get on the boat, so we sat on the back of the boat and enjoyed the ride. Luckily neither of us get sea sick so it wasn't an awful trip, but it was prettttty chilly haha.

When we got to the Island we were greeted by a nice Park Ranger names Bethany and she gave us the rules of being on the island. One of them being that you can take NOTHING off the island (besides your trash and yourself), not even a single rock. It's a very isolated and unique habitat on each Island so the NPS does their best to maintain it's natural state as much as possible.
After our little orientation we ate our lunch and then joined Ranger Bethany on a guided hike. Along the hike Bethany provided us with wonderful facts about the island and it's history, and it was all very interesting. I can't even believe that people first of all found this island and wanted to live so isolated from the world. It's crazy to me! Just the thought of traveling to the mainland in a small boat seems like a nightmare to me. The ranchers on the island were pretty dedicated.
During our hike we ran into a few of the greatest creatures that walk this glorious earth: THE ISLAND FOX. The island fox is found exclusively on the Channel Island, and they are are the largest native mammal on the island, so they are the predator. They're the tiniest little guys and as of a couple years ago they are no longer on the endangered species list! Please enjoy this fox who got a little tired:

I am pretty much obsessed with these guys now

Besides the fascination of the foxes the tour was awesome because there was this hilarious little boy on the hike with us who acted like he knew everything. Zach and I bonded with Ranger Bethany over this kid and how hilarious he was.

Here are some other photos from the hike:

It felt pretty cool to be so isolated from the world for a few hours. We had pretty much no service on the island, so there wasn't any temptation to even look at our phones for updates on social media. It was just, nature, cute little island foxes and that one smart kid. I love national parks and how they make me just feel so cool to live on this really dope planet with so much diversity!

After the hike we relaxed along the shore before it was time to get on the boat ride back. We were one of the firsts in line this time so we got a spot on the inside of the boat, so we were much warmer. This boat ride was much more entertaining because we ran into a pocket of THOUSANDS of dolphins! It was incredible:

This is Zach sleeping before the dolphins arrived

It was the cherry on top of an awesome trip.

Once we were back on the mainland it took us FOREVER to get back to Huntington Beach, but Zach's grandpa was super sweet and waited for us to take us out to dinner for my birthday to Mimi's Cafe!

After dinner we hit the hay preeettty quickly to actually get a full nights sleep on Saturday night.

We left around 7:30 on Sunday so that we could make it to Mesa in time to take the Brunton/Couto/Whitmore Clan Family photos at Coon Bluff. AND IT WAS THE BEST BECAUSE SADIE AND PARKER WERE IN TOWN!!!! Is this family my most favorite family in the world? Easily yes. They are seriously so fun and the best to be around, FULL of personality:

After taking their photos the Fam got together (plus two new honorary members since they are dating members of the Fam) to play Hand and Foot before Sadie and Parker left back for Utah on Monday morning! I live for Fam game nights, we were only missing Trev! And we were playing a game he would actually like HA.

Monday was a nightmare day at work because my counterpart called out of work.... on the busiest day of the week... I'm not salty. I only had to do the job of two people. But luckily today was much better and he did indeed show up to work! It was good too because I needed to leave slightly early from work to get all the way to Lost Dutchman for yet another family photo session! Luckily I somehow get the families with the cutest kids, so I can never complain with my busy schedule!

So there we have it people, my birthday week! Thank you to everyone's warm birthday wishes, but most thanks to Zach for joining me on all the adventures and always keeping up with my speed! Couldn't do it all in hand with anyone else!