Thursday Five!!

Wanna play along? List 5 things that make you feel: 

happy, giddy, joyful, excited, appreciative

 

{one} Shortened work day! Thursdays are always killer at work because we have 1/2 priced vaccines. I'm positively giddy to be home and getting fun things done.

{two} I am so so close to buying a bicycle, and am super excited to go biking with my friends (they've been going without me!) and brother.

{three}Having Glee music playing on repeat... Good music and amazing singers are filling my room with joyful music (go JOURNEY!)

{four} The weather has been gloomy lately, and I get upset because its supposed to be summer for goodness sakes! But when I look at the news I'm appreciative of our slightly gloomy weather. There is far worse happening elsewhere!

{five} This weekend I might be able to pull my hiking boots out of retirement! The prospect of being able to go see some gorgeous waterfalls is making me very happy :)

 

Don't forget to visit MannLand5  to link up!

 

Got Money??

Remember when I visited this majestic castle? Well, it got me thinking about money. Moolah, dollas, benjamins, dough, green...

I won't lie when the Mega Millions reached $190 mill early this year, I got hopeful (I was so sure I would win). I'll bet I'm not the only one who dreams of winning the lottery :)

But, what if I was William Hearst and actually had all that extra cash. Would I build a sprawling hilltop castle and have my famous friends over all the time??

Eh, probably not. First, of all I don't have any famous friends!

What would I do with a little extra "cha-ching?"

• Pay off graduate school- wouldn't it be nice to just concentrate on school work??

• Help pay for my sister's college and for my madre too!

• Give money to Care for Dogs in Thailand and go back every year to volunteer :)

• Donate to the MMCC in San Pedro- fishies for everyone!!

• Buy fun things for the familia- car (or RV, weird I know) for dad, cottage with a large garden for mom

• Travel, travel, travel (in style!)- Australia, all over Europe, Africa (I'm dyying to go)....well basically every where and anywhere

• Buy a nice home, maybe with a pool and large backyard for doggies! or pigs :)

• Clothes- of course, I'm a girl and love clothes, not super nice designer ones, but more than I spend at TJ Maxx or Marshall's

Looking at my list, I guess I'm not the most adventurous person.  Boooring! I really think that if I won the lottery, I don't think I would do a total personality change. I'm frugal now and like to save, so I'll probably end up being an old miser (Hello, Scrooge!)

Now doesn't that look like fun?

What would you do with some W.R. Hearst money?? I'd like to know!

   

Note to Self

Dear Self,

Please do not forget to go to work today. Today is Monday, not the weekend.  Even though lots of other people have the day off and it may feel like a Sunday, its not. Animals still need to be taken care of!

I know you want to stay home and try to cram as much information into your brain for tomorrow's test, but you can't.

Besides, who are you kidding? You love your job, and you already miss this trouble maker.

Love,
Yourself

PS-  Tuesday is your day off. Don't go to work on Tuesday!

Seals and castles and road trips, oh my!

I'm baaack! It was a fun, whirlwind weekend, and its taken a week to get back into the normal rhythm of things :) My dad and I ended up doing 4 cities in 4 days, clocking in about 1,000 miles of driving!

Here's a quick recap of our jam packed weekend!

We first stopped at Hearst Castle, a sprawling 250,000 acre state park in San Simeon. See it waaaaay on top of the hill (I had to use super zoom lens!)
William R. Hearst (an incredibly rich man) and Julia Morgan (an architect who was in my sorority!) built a house with 165 rooms, a zoo, airport, indoor and outdoor pool, and 127 acres of gardens.
The main house (above) and the neptune pool (below). I really wish I could have swam in it! Hmm, wonder what would have happened if I just "fell" in ;)
Its amazing what a lot of money and imagination can build, it was beautiful!

Since I love marine mammals, we drove a little further to Piedras Blancas to see elephant seals!

According to the docent, juvenile males are back to molt, fast, and practice "fighting." Luckily I was a safe distance away, or else I would have been smashed like a pancake. They really went at it!
Went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Why hello Mr. Sea turtle, having a nice snack??
I am now in love with weedy (or is it leafy) sea dragons! Who knew they looked so cool!
Saw more pinnipeds, those are sea lions, not logs!! Very smelly and noisy!
Plus we squeezed in some time in San Jose with my great aunt, and dinner in San Francisco with more relatives! (I took more photos of animals than people..oops!)

What a great weekend to cross things off my 101 list!
#3: Visit Hearst Castle
#1: Visit 3 aquariums (2 more to go!)
#8: Try 5 new restaurants (Cafe Yulong in Mountain View, haven't had Chinese in so long!)
#16: Read 50 new books (All the driving left me with plenty of time to read, I finished 206 Bones, by Kathy Riechs)

I'm so glad I was able to get away last weekend because all I'll be doing this weekend is studying! I have an exam coming up fast! Eeek!

Hope everyone has a safe and sparkly 4th of July tomorrow!