Redwoods, Santa Cruz, and Alice's Restaurant!

I know my life is incredibly exciting since 97.23% of the time it consists of studying, studying, and more studying.  But... little known fact: I do get out and have fun every once in a while!

Last weekend I went on a hike through the beautiful Redwood forest with two of my classmates, Liza and Jay.  There is something so peaceful and inspiring about the giant redwoods that I just can't put into words.  Trust me.  The trees tower over you for what feels like miles into the sky.

And then there's the smell of the forest.  Love.

My favorite part of the hike was when we were walking along and Liza all of the sudden gasps... It took about 0.0239 miliseconds for me to go into "freeze-in-place-and-look-frantically-around-me-for-a-Grizzly-bear" mode afterwhich Liza calmed me down and showed me a cute little Banana Slug on the ground. Apparently it is normal to gasp at the sight of a Banana Slug in California.  You can't the the Alaska out of the girl.  :)

This weekend, between hours of studying, I got to have some fun too!  Saturday I drove to Santa Cruz to visit my bestest San Diegan friend, Carrie.  She was visiting her parents for the Easter weekend and since she was so close, I HAD to go see her!  An hour down a twisted, foggy road and I arrived in misty, beautiful Santa Cruz!

We went on a nice long run in the rain along the coast, followed by a delicious breakfast at a local cafe.

It was so good to catch up and see my favorite girl!  Luckily I get to see her again in just 3 weeks when I go visit San Diego for Becca's wedding.  Cannot wait.

My Easter Sunday consisted of early morning mass, studying for 6 hours at a bakery, then... the fun began.  We drove to pick up Nana, the Griffin's amazing Irish Grandma, and we all headed into the hills for an early dinner at Alice's Restaurant.

Best sweet potato fries I've ever had.

Dinner was a phenomenal Fish Salad and more of those yummy sweet potato fries.

After dinner, I had a big task waiting for me back at the Griffin Household. The Easter Bunny's Alaskan assistant had come and visited the Griffins early in the morning on Sunday while they were all sleeping, so they had an exciting Easter egg hunt when they woke up.  Somehow, the Easter Bunny's Californian assistant decided to come back and rehide all of the eggs so that I could find them too!  After searching high and low, I finally found all of the eggs and proceeded to overdose on Starburst Jelly Beans and Whopper mini eggs.  To complete the night, we watched a marathon of Disney movies.  I don't know if you remember, but I have an obsession with Disney songs.  Is it just me, or does your voice sound spot on when you sing "Be Our Guest" (especially when you haven't sung it for 12 years since the last time you watched Beauty and the Beast.)  It was the perfect Easter.