It's that time again

I live down the street from a hang gliding park and all summer people are soaring.

today they were out and my heart was happy, as was my camera.

Happy thursday guys. I hope it's way beautiful. 

The way I feel is the way I write

I love when clouds look like paintings, and when the sky is more than blue.
Life has been teaching me a lot about priorities, and happiness. I need to get mine back in order.
I hope you had a good weekend and that your Monday is good too.

-rachel

p.s. title stolen from lyrics here.

Four eyes. Four eyes. I need glasses to see.

(if you don't get that cloudy with a chance of meatballs reference...watch it. now. and then 100x. its my favorite movie, btw.)

Story time.

I always thought I had great eye sight. It was something I was fairly proud of.  One day at UVU they were doing free eye screenings, as I had some time to spare, I said "Hey, I got some time to spare." I took the eye test, and failed on the last two lines. Failed miserably.

I took the time to go to the eye doctor to find that I'm very much near sighted. (things far are super blurry.)
I always just thought they were  blurry because they were far. Anyways, my glasses came in yesterday and I've been asked multiple times if they are real. (I guess I have that, I would wear fake glasses vibe. Probably because I do have fake glasses.)

I'd like to take this opportunity to show you 1 pair of my glasses (I have two). And some better shots of my new hair color. If you want to see how dark it was before click here.

also i just realized how dark my skin is compared to the link above...thannnnkkkk you san deigo. 

my hand just did that. 

and again. get over it. 

Happy Sunday Guys.

I'm going to marry the sequoia's.

So as most of you are aware I went California this week. For the longest time I've wanted to visit the Redwood forest and that was the plan, I"m like ..."this is my chance!" Unfortunately, come to find out, we were 13 hours away from the national park, so I compromised for the national Sequoia forest. It wasn't a compromise at all, but just the most beautiful time. Seriously I've never seen such large trees in my life. This park holds the "worlds largest living tree." General Sherman. It's 250 feet tall, 100 feet in circumference. Just such a big tree. Anyways, I was geeking out and nearly drooling at how beautiful it was. I spent half of the drive with my head sticking out the sun roof just awestruck. After we met general sherman, we attempted to climb up Moro Rock. Just this gigantic rock on top of this mountain.  There was a trail up to the top to overlook the whole valley, but my fear of heights got the best of me and I whimped out half way (it was CRAZY high), but the point is....my heart is full of love for that place.  I took about 200 pictures but, here's like 10 (0kay, 14) of my favorites.

part of the way up there was beautiful grassy hills and my heart swooned.

oh hi, i'm little. 

 general sherman next to tiny puny little humans

seriously they go on for days. 

i know right? 

just below where I pulled the sissy card. 

thats moro rock. if you were a human up there, you'd literally look like a dot.

It was the most perfect way to end my trip. As relaxing, beautiful, and fun California was, I'm so glad to be headed home. 

It was dolphinately a whale of a time.

(Hi. I'm Rachel and I love puns.)
(Also, sorry that my blog might be running at 2 mph cause of the picture overload,
but i can't just...not share.)

I went whale watching 2x.
If you knew my parents this would come as no surprise.

Our first trip we were able to see a few gray whales from a ways away, but on our second trip were right next to a group of common dolphins and pilot whales. It was seriously cool, they were really close to us and it helped we were on a smaller boat. Oh and also california sea lions. I want to take them home with me.

gray whales

common dolphins

rainbow (it was absolutely necessary)

 pilot whales

The dock we left from was seriously cute. like your classic "arcade/summer/california" dock. I was obviously geeking out.
We ended the day with a walk on the beach and a drive down the coastal highway. ohhh my heart.
*cue the cheese*

also necessary. 

when you don't have a significant you write your blogs name in the sand, trust me its a thing. 

seriously though ^^^

It was the greatest day.

(My) Love is for the birds.

I went to the San Diego zoo today. I fell in love with the Aviaries, they had about 4 of them.
I was just in awe of the sounds, and colors, and flight that was all around.

The birds were not behind cages, as much as the other animals, they were flying right over our heads and right past our faces. 

It made it much more fun to photograph them without having cage wire between us. 

My mom was geeking out a bit and was like "Rachel you're such a good photographer..."
On that, it's not too hard to take pretty pictures of the beach, the ocean, beautiful animals,
but it's raising my photo self esteem so no complaints. 

im obsessed with these creepy beady eyed pearlescent birds. 

 love dove

if this bird was a dress i'd wear it every day. those colors are amazing. 

(update: i'm not a bird poacher.)

seriously what animal looks like that. (obviously that one, but it blows my mind a little...)