Coming soon: photos from Fort Collins, Ben & Jen’s wedding, San Diego, the Bay Area!

I promise!
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*click images for full view (please!)//kodak 200//canon eos rebel k2

We spent our final day in Seattle packing up boxes, clearing out the fridge and pouring perishables down the drain, and napping on the floor between trips to load the moving truck. It was clear, sunny, and warm – an exceptional send-off from a city we’d long berated for always being so glum. We climbed into the truck, heaved a few final sighs of excitement and anxiety (“Can you believe we’re really doing this?!”, “Yeah, we’re doing this!”) and hit the road. We stopped at my parents’ house a few hours down the freeway to rest for the night and enjoy a big O’Connor family goodbye, then hopped back in the truck and continued on our way.

Our decision to start the final 12-hour leg of our journey at 11pm probably wasn’t the smartest, but we made the most of it with frequent, giggly visits to truck stop gift shops (think sleeveless, frayed jean-jackets and biblical guides to money management), and high-volume pop songs. The sun finally broke just as we crossed the border into California, so we stopped for breakfast in the small, nostalgic town of Yreka. I wondered what it must be like to live in a place that people are always passing through on their way elsewhere.

We passed through so many towns so different than the one we were leaving and the one we were heading to. America is a vast and varied place, and it’s easy to forget that it means such different things to different people when you spend your life in small pockets of it.

The stretches of grain that went on for miles, punctuated only by the occasional gas station or dairy farm, made us feel small, distorted our sense of distance and time. The hills looked like they would continue rolling forever. Nothing does, though, and soon we saw what we were looking for: the traffic signs directing us to our new city. With heavy eyes and weary hearts, we turned the corner onto our new street, hurried to unload the truck, and once again fell asleep on the floor, surrounded by boxes. The sky overhead clear, sunny, and warm.

Home, sweet home.

*click images for full view//canon eos rebel k2//kodak 200

I thought I had finished posting pictures from SF a few weeks ago but there were a few photos on the roll of film I had developed this weekend. What a pleasant surprise! One of the many reasons to love film.

Aren’t Michelle, her brother & Avalonne gorgeous? I love taking pictures of people and need to figure out ways to take more! It’s always a little awkward to ask people though, don’t you think?

*click images for full view//kodak 400//canon eos rebel k2 + 50 mm lens

**Michelle took the photo of Avalonne & I

Here are the last of my photos from sunny San Francisco…for now. You know it won’t be long before I’m back there again ;)

I had the most wonderful weekend, did you? I actually brought my camera out with me today but of course the battery died within minutes. Oh well, I guess I just wasn’t meant to take photos today!

*click images for full view//kodak 400//canon eos rebel k2 + 50 mm lens

**Jacob took the photo of Michelle & I

Here are a few more pictures from around Berkeley and San Francisco. As you can see I got to meet up with the lovely Avalonne Hall again! She’s such a character, I find her really inspiring and I wish you could all meet her too. I remember once she wrote on her blog that she dresses up everyday, even if she’s staying in because its just her philosophy. It stuck with me because I think it says a lot about living in the moment and being the person you want to be. I hope I get a chance to visit her again before she moves to New York…although I suppose it might be even better to meet up with her there!

What’s new with you guys? Lots of changes around here for me!

*click images for full view//kodak 400//canon eos rebel k2

**2nd photo by Avalonne, 6th photo by Jacob

Michelle and I went to San Francisco for the weekend because her brother CJ, who’s an English lecturer at the American University of Iraq, had an exhibit of his photos from Iraqi Kurdistan at Berkeley! His photos are incredible and we had so much fun wandering around Berkeley for the day of his opening. Jacob, my uncle Brian, and Avalonne came out too. I’ll save the rest of the photos for next time though, don’t want to overload you.

Jacob took those last three photos. I had been admiring a gigantic aloe plant and it stabbed me! I got a splinter that started bleeding immediately and it was such a ridiculous moment there was nothing to do but laugh :)

*click images for full view//canon eos rebel k2//kodak 400

Can you be in love with a place? Because I think I think I’ve fallen for San Francisco.

I went for another short visit earlier this week (that was the small adventure I was referring to in my last post) with my lovely friend Michelle and it was the B.W.E.

I’ll share more next time :)

*click images for full view//canon eos rebel k2 + 50mm lens//kodak 400

What an incredibly nice place. Paul & I went to visit my Uncle Brian in Berkeley while we were in San Francisco and it was gorgeous. The day we went SF was windy and cold and gray but as you can see from these pictures Berkeley was warm and sunny. He took us to this really cozy little tea place first, then we bought some sushi to go nearby and brought it to eat on the UC Berkeley campus. It was really nice to walk around and see what another university is like and it made me miss being a student (even though I did only graduate a few months ago…). Anyway thank you Uncle Brian, I’d definitely like to come back and spend more time around there!

Happy Friday guys!

*click images for full view//kodak 400//canon eos rebel k2

What I wouldn’t give to be laying in the grass & soaking up the sun with them right now…it’s getting so gloomy here! If you follow Virgin America on twitter they always have these crazy cheap sales that make me SO tempted to fly down to SF spontaneously for a weekend. I swear one of these days I’m just going to do it! I really ought to be saving up for Hawaii and Japan though…

*click images for full view//kodak 400//canon eos rebel k2

Ben’s showing you a picture he had just taken of me in that first photo – turns out he took my picture right next to some sign that had “nice face bitch” scribbled on it. Haha, thanks Ben, you’re so sweet.

Well happy Halloween guys! Did any of you dress up? I was just me for the weekend : )

*click images for full view//kodak 400//canon eos rebel k2