Lowe-Volk Park

Yesterday Joel and I went to Lowe-Volk Park for a nice little walk.

And the flowers at Mike & Linda's house are looking really great!

California

Two weeks ago Joel and I took a much anticipated vacation to California. I hadn't seen my family in a year so it was really great to see them. In addition to seeing my family we went to an amazing music festival called Coachella (as posted earlier). Mostly I took photos from Easter and then walking through the desert preserve with my family. Easter started off our trip really wonderfully. We went to Joel's grandma's house for an Easter lunch. We also enjoyed walking through the garden and playing cards as well. Grandma and grandpa have a really great cat called Lumpy -- a fantastic cat name if ever there was one.

Then grandma Becky showed us around the garden.

They have these wood-boring bees that coexist with two different kinds of wasps under their eaves. The perfect drilled-looking holes are where the bees have made their homes. They're really big black bees too.

It was a really wonderfully sunny and warm day and we all reveled in it.

That night we drove to Columbus with Andrea and Will (Joel's sister and our brother-in-law) and stayed at a hotel since our flight was headed out the next morning from Columbus. We left drizzly Ohio and arrived in sun-bathed California, hurray! The day after we arrived we all went to the EFBC Cat House on a really lovely day. We got there just a couple minutes before feeding time which was very exciting.

All the cats were prowling around their cages, some of them growling or making other similar noises of anticipation. They were so excited about lunch!

Then we went to the desert preserve (a family favourite) that has a bunch of walking trails. We saw plenty of wildlife -- including a rather large gopher snake (a first in the desert for me!).

On wednesday we got to meet up with my best friend from MICA, Alissa, which is always really great. Then thursday we took off for Coachella! And these are the only photos of Coachella that I took -- which aren't even of the festival. We got to stay in a condo which was really great.

It was a really wonderful time though it felt like the time with my family was too short. I didn't realize how much I missed them until I saw them. It's can be really hard to live so far away from your parents and brother. The first couple of days back in Ohio were really hard for me but I'm getting better about it now. On a brighter note: I have officially accepted UW-Madison though we're still waiting to hear from Financial Aid before making the decision to do on-campus or a distance program (the distance program tuition is comparable to in-state tuition making it a really desirable option). We'll see what happens, we'll know in a couple months where we'll end up, we just have to hang on until then!