Spring Break It Till You Make It

*Warning: Long Blog Post Ahead*

I've been sitting on this blog post for a while. I didn't know what kind of approach to take. Just recap the events of spring break, write about my feelings, or write about lessons I learned. There were just so many angles to take and I didn't want to make the longest blog post ever. But it is long anyways. I wanted to give this Spring Break the justice it deserves considering it is my last one (hello graduation!!).

Melissa and I had been planning a Spring Break trip since she got hired on at JetBlue. Our original plan was to go to New York. In February our plans changed. Melissa wanted to go to Puerto Rico and I just wanted to spend time with Melissa. So naturally I said yes. I was so excited to travel and to not have a plan (ha ha. I love making plans). This trip was unlike anything else I have done. I am that person that packs the entire week leading up to the trip. But this time I didn't do that. I made a list but I didn't actually pack until Saturday night/Sunday.
Melissa was in charge of the flights, so I just knew to be ready by 10 PM to go to the airport. 

Melissa and Heidi SLC Airport

We were on our way to the airport talking about boys (naturally) and also talking about the possibility of me not making it on the plane since we were flying standby. Melissa said she was 60% sure I would get on and she only had 40% of doubts. I could live with those numbers. As we pulled into the airport, Melissa checked the list to see our chances and she noticed that everyone on the standby list had loaded the plane. That was everyone but us (ahhhhh). Our plane was leaving an hour earlier than we thought. It made my heart race and my brain crazy. Luckily Melissa keeps her cool, and we had Whitney help us get onto a flight to JFK instead of Orlando. We ran from security to the ticket desk back to security and to the terminal. It was an extremely eventful 30 minutes. 

The actual flight to New York wasn't eventful. I got some sleep which was good and watched a few Friends episodes. Once we landed, we tried pulling up our boarding passes for our next flight. Turns out our flight was still booked for the following day. Which means we had to go out of the terminal to change our tickets and then check back in through security. No biggie, expect security gives me anxiety. But I got through security in SLC with no problem, so I should get through security at JFK. Which I did. Little victories worth dancing about.

The flight to San Juan wasn't exciting. I watched more Friends and slept just a little bit more. Once we landed, everything turned Spanish. Of course there was still English everywhere, but we definitely were not in the 50 States anymore. We got in a taxi and turns out the taxi director person (new official job title) gave the wrong directions to our taxi driver. After talking to him a bit, and after talking to our AirBnB host, we figured out the direction we were supposed to be headed. We drove through some interesting neighborhoods. The entire ride I kept thinking to myself "we aren't in Utah anymore." I could feel myself going into culture shock, which seems so silly but you can't stop it. Believe me, I tried. Back to the taxi ride, we were driving through a street and there were two teenagers riding their bikes in the street. Since all driving laws go out the window in Puerto Rico, the driver got close to the kids riding their bikes trying to get them to get out of the way. But the teenagers thought they owned the street so they got upset that this car (which is 50 times larger than them) is trying to run them over. As we passed them on the road, they started hitting the car. I'm not going to lie, it totally freaked me out. But wait, there is more. We get to the bottom of the street and we got stuck at a red light. The kids catch up to us and start hitting the car even more. So what does our taxi driver do? He gets out of the car and chases them down. It's cool. We were just chilling in the back of a taxi with the driver's door wide open. A minute later our driver came back and just resumed driving like nothing happened. I was dying on the inside. I was laughing at what just happened but also couldn't believe what I just witnessed.

When we got to our apartment, we met our host, who was totally adorable, and then we ran to the SuperMax for food. After we picked up a few items, we went back to the apartment and took a short nap with the intention of going to the beach once we woke up.We were exhausted from the emotional roller coaster we took just to get to San Juan. When the timer went off saying our nap was over, neither one of us moved. I felt like I was hit by not one, not two, but ten semi trucks. I haven't dealt with extreme jet lag before so this was a first for me. I woke up a few hours later and I stood up and the world was spinning (more that normal, ha). I walked into the other bedroom to check on Melissa and she was knocked out on the bed. I turned back to my room and totally ran into a wall. Yep. Not my proudest moment on the trip.
I was texting my mom and snapping my sister. I was slightly freaking out. My anxiety was through the roof and I couldn't reel it back in. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and never come out till it was time to go home. I felt stranded because it was dark outside and my "translator/travel companion" was asleep. I knew it was silly to freak out. This trip wasn't going to kill me. But it felt like it was. So what did I do to make myself feel better? I watched Frozen and more Friends episodes. A few hours later Melissa woke up and watched Friends with me. Eventually we went to bed and promised each other we wouldn't spend the next day in bed.

Old San Juan was my favorite part of this trip. The city was so cute. It was the perfect mix between New York City (for me) and Argentina (for Melissa). First off we took the bus into the city. I think this was a bigger victory for me than it was for Melissa. Once we reached the city, we started walking up and down the roads and taking pictures everywhere. We walked to the edge of the island and followed it up to the El Morro Fort.We spent a few hours exploring the fort. We decided it was time for food so we exited the fort and we saw a tram heading back to the city. We thought it belonged to one of the cruise ship tour groups. We thought we were rebels jumping onto someone else's shuttle. Turns out it was the free shuttle that drove through Old San Juan. We lost our street cred as quickly as we gained it. After we found some food, we walked through souvenir shops until our feet couldn't handle any more. We headed back to the apartment with the intention of going to the beach. Except I had six blisters that begged to differ. We we called it a day and watched Friends, talked boys, and had one of our great midnight conversations at 9:00 at night. 

Old San Juan Street

Old San Juan Street

El Morro Fort. Built in the 16th Century

El Morro

Melissa playing on the edge of El Morro

Melissa and the fun look out at El Morro

hashtag tourist

No filter peeps. Old San Juan is just that pretty.

I love the water against the rocks.

I spy our initials. ME + HEA '17

Melissa found her new boyfriend

Our cute AirBnb Apartment

The walkway to the street from our apartment. So many geckos on these walls.

  We finally made it to the beach. I guess you can say third time is the charm. The beach was about a 10 minute walk from our apartment. Since we went in the morning, we basically had the beach to ourselves. Occasionally other tourists would pass by but it was mainly just us two. Since there was a storm moving in, the waves were fairly big. That made Melissa upset because she wanted to swim. It made me happy because I love listening to the waves and taking pictures (obviously).

Seaweed is gross. but the view was pretty.

I love standing right here ^ and letting the water wash my feet.

Okay. We are just adorable.

Bye Puerto Rico. It's been real.

  On the way home we lucked out by sitting by each other on both plane rides! On our way to Orlando we watched Charly. I knew the ending before we started the movie, yet I still bawled like a baby. The flight to Orlando was so smooth that once we landed, we figured something was wrong with our boarding passes. Melissa wasn't able to pull up the standby list to see our status so we left the terminal, went to the ticket desk, they fixed the priority of the list and then we went back through security. It seems so silly now, but we just didn't want to chance it with our luck. So we figured better safe than sorry.
I got my ticket for the flight and I was sitting on row one. By the end of the trip I had sat at the very back, middle, both sides, and the front of the plane. We had a super cool flight attendant named Joel. I had an empty seat by me so Joel asked if I wanted Melissa to come sit by me. Of course I said yes! Joel gave us so many snacks and drinks. At first we thought Joel was treating us so nicely because we are cute ;). But really he is just great at his job.
The turbulence once we hit Salt Lake City was a little rough but if you look at it like a ride at Disneyland instead of your plane wiggin' out, life is a little happier.
This trip was definitely one for the books. I learned so much in so little time. I am excited to see what travels the future brings.

Alternate blog post titles:

-You Can Never Watch Too Many Friends Episodes

-I Didn't Eat Geckos In My Sleep, I Think

-Humidity Hates My Hair

-The Empanadas Smelt Funny

-How Many Memories Can You Fit Into Four Days?
-20 Minutes Into The Trip We Missed Our Flight

Spring Break 2017

This is me being spontaneous and fun.

I am going to Puerto Rico for Spring Break and I am PUMPED.

See you later! Hopefully a little tanner ;)

Girls Night Out

A few weeks ago, I was at my night class. I was feeling downtrodden. It was just after midterms, and I was exhausted. I needed a break. A moment to get away. So I texted Jennie asking if she was down to leave the city with me. She quickly responded yes. I started planning, during my class. Months ago Jennie and I talked about doing a night at Snowbird. This seemed like the perfect opportunity. I looked up the deals they had on their website. We booked a room at The Inn. We spent roughly 22 hours on a mini vacation. No homework. No responsibilities. Just the two of us, food, and lots of Netflix.

When we arrived, we checked in, got settled, and off to a photo shoot we went. Since we were in between summer and winter, it was a ghost town. Most of the people we saw were workers. It was a huge contrast to when we go up with our family (during Oktoberfest). I kept nerding out over the lighting. We didn't have a lot of time to play since the sun set so quickly but I still got some of my favorite images.

For example:

  Once the sun set, we got hot chocolate and went back to our room.

The lighting was interesting, so I told Jennie to sit in the car and just chill. This is what happened:

Of course it isn't a perfect photo, but I was just playing. It was so much fun to shoot for fun. I don't get the opportunity to just play with my camera. So this weekend was needed for my mental health but also to help unleash my artistic side.

 Back to being outside, look at the views.

Nature is seriously amazing.

The world around me is a huge testimony builder. (Side track to our first snow storm this year. The mountains being frosted with snow is my favorite! They look majestic and the snow gives them dimension.)

The rest of the night was spent watching Netflix and eating a lot of food.

The goal was to spend the night living like a Gilmore. I think we lived up to that goal.

The next morning, we had breakfast at The Forklift.

Holy it was delicious. And because it was the off season (look at all the empty chairs), we got our food with very little wait time. I think I am still dreaming about the French toast and bacon that I had.

After breakfast, we went back to our room and started watching Christmas at Cartwright's on the Hallmark Channel. Even though I could guess the plot line, it was still cute and I am slightly sad we didn't finish it. But I got a new pick up line that I am going to have to try ;).

All in all, it was the perfect 22.5 hour vacation. I wish we could have stayed longer, but we are adults and have to act like it. Hopefully we can do another getaway soon.



A Sunday Mini Road Trip

Melissa came home from her mission!

If you need a Melissa refresher course, she was my roommate my freshman year.

She is originally from Smithfield, so this meant a mini road trip for her homecoming. I asked Jennie to go with me so that I didn't have to drive that entire way by myself. It is always more entertaining to go with someone. We listened to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for the entire drive. There may or may not have been Christmas included in the music selection.

We hit some heavy rain traveling both ways, but with a prayer in our hearts and MoTab on the radio, we kept driving along.

Of course you can't travel up north and not visit the Logan Temple.
(One of these days I'll actually do a session there).

Jennie & Heidi

Heidi & Melissa

Beautiful fall colors across from the Logan Temple

Logan Temple

Jennie & Heidi ft. Logan Temple

Logan Temple on the hill

Labor Day

 Now that Labor Day has come and gone, I figured I should probably blog about it.

Savanna (SJ) bought a new car! So she texted asking if I was interesting in going for a drive on Labor Day. Of course I was down for a drive.
We drove to the Alpine Loop Scenic Byway. Drove passed Cascade Springs, into Midway, naturally taking the long way home through Guardsman Pass, and down Big Cottonwood Canyon.
We stopped at a few different spots for photo opportunities.

SJ and the new Jeep

Savanna & Heidi

 

 To end the day, we had some family friends over and played volleyball, pickleball, and ate Disneyland Copycat Corndogs. I didn't get pictures of the festivities, but I did get one of the sunset.

Snowbird

Another Anderson Family Tradition!

My Grandparents have a timeshare at Snowbird.

We go swimming, hang out, and celebrate birthdays!

It is always a party when the Anderson clan gets together.
Our Snowbird weekend typically falls on the first week of school. So Snowbird is the official closing of summer. Kind of sad, but also a nice transition into fall.
Now if I could only get up into the mountains more often.

Jennie & Heidi

fun pano of the trees

Dad, Brandt, Meme, Keshia, Joe, Heidi, & Jennie

Shaelee is Married!

My best friend is married!!

(Those are the weirdest words to type.)

Shaelee is my first close friend to get married, and I am so excited for her and what the future has in store for her. I have loved watching her love story unfold over the past year. I wish her and Carson every ounce of happiness.

I was lucky enough to take her bridals, which you can see HERE!!

Marnie, Shaelee & Heidi (Bridals)

Shaelee was married in the Payson LDS temple. 

We had a yummy wedding luncheon at a Country Club in Farmington.

To top off the day, there was a reception at a cozy barn in North Salt Lake.

Marnie, Shaelee & Heidi

Shout out to Marnie for driving across three counties for all the wedding festivities, including a pit stop at the Salt Lake Temple for another sealing. 

Carson + Shaelee

♥July 30, 2016♥

Park City

I have been looking forward to this weekend since November.

I think it is safe to say we all needed this 24 hour getaway.

Marnie, Shaelee, & Heidi

We stayed at a condo we found on Airbnb. It was a cute little place that served us well. We played games, took pictures, and watched Netflix.

We explored Historic Main-street, twice.

Park City's Main-street is my second favorite Main-street.

 (Disneyland Main-street USA being the first)

We stayed up laughing and jumping on the bed. There is a video but it isn't in my possession. Also, we spent a good hour looking up random Disney facts. Obviously these girls know what makes me happy.

Heidi, Marnie, & Shaelee

To finish the weekend getaway, we bought matching sweatshirts and drove around trying to get the best picture.

Marnie, Heidi, & Shaelee

AND BONUS: POLAROIDS!