and then we were like yeah, let's not go home. let's go to provincetown.

so five of the girls from the nantucket trip went back to boston that night while three of us drove to the tip of cape cod with the idea of camping for the night. 

we got in kind of late which was a bummer but the grapenut ice cream (almost as good as toscanini's!) and sickest/best greeting card in the world made up for it. 

i just want you to know that the table in the ice cream picture is foreshadowing what is up next. 

we were pretty tired and didn't really feel like leaving provincetown to set up a tent somewhere so we made a game time decision to just sleep in mel's suv for the night. 

..in a motel parking lot hahah

and then like real classy citizens we went to this gas station to get ready for bed and then used their bathroom to get ready the next morning too. thanks tedeschi food shops!

now. to tell you a little about provincetown i will read you a line from the town's wiki page 

"The 2010 US Census revealed Provincetown to have the highest rate of same-sex couples in the country, at 163.1 per 1000 couples" 

i am here to tell you that this statistic is real and i've never seen anything like it. take this "small temptations" antique store for example. below would be nothing but nudey gay drawings and this is only a small sampling of what the store had to offer hahah. it was crazy and maybe i shouldn't have taken a picture of it but i needed you to believe me that it existed. 

what also existed was this signed photo by regis and kathi lee for only 12 dollars!!! i'm still kicking myself for not snagging that treasure.

he was buying a small mermaid figurine for his boyf. cutes. 

pretty cape cod!

(i have a picture of a bunch of burly men peaking into the animal lover's boutique if you are interested in a private showing) 

pride for days 

i'd like to give a shout out for the newly laid asphalt in the main part of town. it was so bouncy and nice it made me feel like we were in disneyland. 

also, PLEASE LET ME LIVE IN THIS HOUSE OR ONE LIKE UNTO IT

 same ocean, same girls, different beach

and then since we never really used the bikes we brought with us we went for a bike ride to the boston public gardens after we got back to the city. everything was in full bloom and other than the moments spent mourning the decision to not bring my nice camera, i was in heaven.  

nantucket!

hi, hello.

a few weekends ago i drove down to hyannis with some lady friends, we boarded a ferry, and then 2+ hours later we were in nantucket! it was a little colder than i would have liked but we needed to go before friend mel moves so we went earlier than we probably would have done otherwise. for the first little bit i was kind of depressed that in still looked wintery in most parts (which you won't really see because i didn't like taking pictures of that) but as soon as we started walking around i quickly forgot about my sadness and became obsessed with all of the shops and homes and whale paraphernalia errrrrywhere. 

 i loved this back road so much

nevermind the dead trees LOOK AT THAT GREEN GRASS

 that little house in the background was a sandwich shop we ate at for lunch and the tiny little shed with a door next to it was the bathroom (cutest outhouse there ever was!) and they even sold nantucket nectars drinks! i looked down as i drank it and blurted out "hey guys, we're here!" (referring to nantucket) which made me feel kind of juice famous. also, i just noticed that little lighthouse on the label. it is the very same one in the first picture of this post! CUTE.

they had the best flower boxes 

(which is something the east coast is really good at in general) 

 coffin park. uncomfortable.

we perused so many fun stores.

 how about those doll chandelier things hanging from the ceiling? classy

 i spy tennis rackets

 i still mourn the fact that i didn't buy a whale plate

 i went to the second floor of a book store to find all of my friends just reading their hearts out. i had no idea half of them were even in the store, apparently one by one they went up the stairs and just never came back down. one even read the entire book "of mice and men" hahah weirdos

the world needs more cobble stone, brick, and flower trees.

 self-time fail/success

 kristin is way good at holding lots of stuff

 these guys and that sign!

 and then it was time to head back because the last ferry leaves at 5:30 in the off season. 

don't be deceived by amber's smile, we were sad.

then the "we realized we had not taken even one photo together the whole day" picture happened right before going home. so glad we snuck it in there! 

and then just like that our nantucket day was over. 

thank you for joining me! on a photo recap of this lovely day. 

birthday weeeeeeek

started out right with some nice facetime with my favorite frei's

(brynne even had her happy birthday sweatshirt on! which was probably just a coincidence but i like to think it was on purpose)

boston began warming up again and blossoms looked great on the trees and on the ground

i began my first full week of work, enjoyed the company bought mandarin oranges, and my new birthday earbuds from thoughtful christine! small eared girls unite. 

i went buck wild on the %50 off easter candy sale 

(and then bought a bunch of other junk which made me feel really good about myself)

the weather threatened to be sad again but got happy again pretty quickly

(can you tell that is the same tree? maybe the different angles have ruined the visual i'm trying to create)

i decided to randomly reconnect with my long lost elementary/junior high/sophomore year crush logan fast. side note: i wish someone would have told me in third grade he liked boys..that is definitely ten years of my life i'll never get back!

friday as i was getting on the subway i saw "april 13th" on the screen and i panicked. i feel like this happens every year. the day before my birthday i realize that i'm never going to be [insert the age i am at that time] ever again and i think about all the things i wanted to do that year that didn't happen or all the things that did happen that i wish hadn't and i get a bad case of the sads. luckily this was remedied fairly quickly as i sat down and saw the handy work of someone on the door inside the subway. i giggled right out loud i think. 

i am thirteen. 

after work i received this thoughtful little email from sister terry!

 i'd like to think this was the beginning of a very successful birthday weekend. 

john was sweet to humor me and take me to riverdance! so many childhood fantasies came true that night. some moments were a little iffy/awesome (depending on how you look at it) i'll admit, but overall it was a nice time. 

afterwards we watched singing in the rain while eating ice cream with grandma moon's hot fudge sauce (that i made and didn't ruin!). i called my mom to see when i was really born and she said it was some time around 1 pm on the 14th. this relieved some of my stress because i technically wasn't really turning 25 until like 1pm the next day! i felt great that i still had a good 12 hours to be 24. maybe this is a good time to tell you that i get anxiety to be a year older with every birthday i have..so this is nothing abnormal. 

the next morning i handpicked my favorite boy friend, roommate friend, and ward friend to travel back in time with me to some revolutionary war reenactments. (does it surprise you that this is what i chose to do on my birthday? if it does, it shouldn't) turns out i didn't really know where we were going so i accidentally told them to go to what turned out to be some sort of petting zoo for children/birthday party for a little boy. we laughed and laughed and felt like such pedophiles. 

after driving and driving and driving (and stopping to climb that tree for a minute) we finally found us some red coats! 

i creeped on those colonials so hard

jackpot!

this really was such a great afternoon with all of our friends! they were all so nice and just as thrilled as i was that it was my birthday. as stressed as birthdays make me - when the day comes i milk it for all it's worth and celebrate so hard. 

happy birthday to ME

after finally finding where everything was we realized we probably needed to go to eat something and get ready for our temple service assignment so we actually didn't see the reenactment but i still think our morning was very successful. my birthday could have ended at 2 pm and i would have felt satisfied. 

luckily, it really wasn't over so we went and ate at my new favorite place "A @time"! best thai food ever and only a mile from my house. while they were making our food we headed over to the russian store across the street and bought some chocolate. i have yet to eat that thing but i'm sure it is delicious.

a

look how happy we all are! 

that is what pad thai/drunken noodles/curry does to people. it makes them happy. 

something else that made me happy were all these surprise packages from people! i loved them all and feel so blessed to have such sweet and thoughtful people in my life. 

i love this tree at the temple. since we cant really take pictures inside these two photos above will represent that part of our day. the first one was taken as we arrived at 4pm and the other one was taken at about 8pm when we left. in those four hours we helped in the cafeteria and the laundry. i was so happy maren and john consented to sign up, i had so much fun with them and felt happy to be in my favorite boston place with some of my favorite boston people. 

my only other request on this day of birth was to head to little italy and get cannoli's so that is exactly what we did afterwards. CANNOLI IS SO GOOD. i just want to eat them every. single. day. 

okay so i guess i had one more request. i really wanted grace to have her baby on my birthday and guess what? SHE DID. so now little alta and i are birthday twins and i couldn't be more happy about it.

the weekend ended with *trying to face time with the whole fam at their monthly fhe. it didn't really work very well and i think we called each other about 15 times but it was still so good to see them all. i love my family, i love my utah friends, i love my boston friends, i love the fact that i've had a really good 24 years and that i have the opportunity to have many more! 

and that concludes my birthday week. thank you for reading.