And Then I Fell In Love

Who's late on their blog again? I am, I am! This week was a nice calm week. Work went surprisingly not too frantic upon Meghan's return. I went through all of the companies past patterns and organized them by garment type fighting the other intern's lack of understanding of organization the entire time. I also got to style a photoshoot this week which is always lots of fun and low stress. Paul always takes these opportunities to take creepy stalker, paparazzi like pictures of me. He is compiling a whole file of them by now and they all consist of me making pissed off faces, closed eyes, mouth open, or looking high. I told him I was NOT photogenic! He loves to make strange comments asking me if I want to sell books "Don't I?" and "Won't it be fun to tell our kids we met through a camera". He's funny and Vanessa ( the model and fellow intern) and I laugh as we try to keep him on task in our shoots. I have spent Meghan's return preparing items for Meghan's new Fabulous Home Line! I spent lots of time revamping these skull candles to look super chic, and after petal and jeweled eyes, studded heads, earrings, giant feathered head dresses with hanging gems they could no longer be safe to be sold as candles and have been named Lola Cocoa Cabana, shes a dead show girl! With each completed step I kept thinking, "Ok, she's awesome, she's done!" and then Meghan would say "She looks awesome, now lets take it to the next level!" and I was off on another stage of add-ons! It was a HUGE on going process the whole week! Thursday night I went to the Art Walk. The Art Walk is held once a month in downtown LA just about 5 or so blocks from my loft. All kinds of local artist of different sorts come together and fill all these empty spaces in a 2 or 3 block area. My girlfriend from church, Ashley, had asked if I would like to go with her and since I had missed it last month I really wanted to go and see what it was all about! She got of work late so we knew we were only gonna get like an hour in since it was supposed to end at 9. She arrived and we drove down the the walk to find some parking...big surprise...NONE! So after lots of looking and realizing we would have 15 minutes tops to see the Art Walk we headed back to my loft were there was $5 parking next door. This is cheap mind you, real cheap. I will be so baffled when I get back to Oklahoma and can park where ever I want and not pay for it! We headed down to the walk and realized after a bit that artist don't follow the rules of time. Time doesn't exit in their world. I we walked in and out of spaces observing all the different forms of art I admired the way the whole thing simply flowed from street to building never noticing were one began and another started. It all just felt so open and free. People everywhere were dressed wonderfully and my eyes were feed well! Walking through allies we would stumble across random little bands in the streets playing their music to small forming crowds and free spirit dancers. It was at this moment with a small 80s funky looking group of guys about my age singin and dancin their hearts out that I realized that I was in love. I was in love with LA. What a wonderful time and experience I am being so fortunate to have! At work the Resort Collection at work has to be ready in about 2 weeks and when some of the garments for it arrived on Friday around noon we needed to get some first specs on them so that they could be fitted and sent back to China for any necessary changes. I started to get some specs taken and then we head out to lunch. When we got back to the office from lunch everyone was quick to work on the computers finishing designs and shipping orders and I got back to work on my specing. About an hour into our work suddenly all the lights and computers shut off! One of our assistant designers breaks into a song of curse words and the announcement that she hadn't saved all of her work! Everyone waited a few minutes for the typical power outage to go away and everyone to get back to work. After about ten minutes our accountant went to find out what was going on and he came back and told in his quite Turkish accent that the power is out on our whole block and would be back on in an hour of two. What! That's crazy! The only time I have ever been in power outage that last more than a few seconds are when crazy ice storms swoop through Oklahoma and the power is out for days, other than that its always a quick on and off. With the office at a complete stand still since everyone had been working on the computers in burst Meghan, whom had been at a meeting all morning. She says in her quirky voice "Hey guys! The powers out!" We all laughed a little at the obvious observation. She called to one of the designers that she had picked up some children's books that reminded her of Cali (the designer). Eames and some of my other co-workers began to make jokes about Cali reading to us and us just having nap time since the office was dark. "Can we all just sit in a circle and have story time?" "Yeah, and with out legs crossed!" After lots of laughs and kindergarten suggestions, it was agreed. It was story time in our office! Cali set in one of the desk chairs as the entire office including Meghan sat in a circle around her. She began to read Hop On Pop. Eames was quick to cue the soft classical music for story time. We all had the giggles as she began to read and we all realized what was happening. Here we are a group ranging in age from 20-32 sitting in the middle of a dark office having story time! As Cali continued to read we started to make jokes about the cover quote "Seuss' easiest reader", which makes you feel like a big tard because its so easy to trip over the words...which she did and then got pissed and demanded we go around the circle reading. Then the game was to read in different accents going around the circle. Erica read first but only in a sweet teacher voice, then I read "RED, NED, NED'S HAIR IS RED!" in my Alabama Southern bell accent. It was just about the funnest thing EVER! Once the book was done we all chanted "Again, Again!!" common in the kindergarten days. We all kept laughing and slowly moved pointlessly back to our desk and all began conversations with one another. Paul found this of course the perfect opportunity to come and stalk me with the camera. He snapped away getting his usual blurred, angry shots of me before we settled into a conversation ourselves. After realizing that we were just wasting payroll we all decided to head out 2 hours early! I grabbed a Meghan sample dress (the first one for myself since my first week of work) and headed home! One Saturday we had a giant craft fair we had been planning to attend for about a month now. It was only a few blocks away from us at the Cal Mart and would be the first weekend we had stayed in LA since our first weekend out here! We went to the craft fair early in the morning as soon as it started and had planned to go bead and component (for jewelry) shopping after that. The craft fair was HUGE! I had never been to one so big...nor so expensive. With darling bracelets at $30 dollars, amazing sweaters at $75, and yarn made beards for $40, I was having a hard time saying yes to anything. Then, I ran across something I just had to have. A man's stand where he took old books and cut and rebound the edges and adding paper making them into amazing journals/sketch books. They were the neatest thing! As the journal went on, so did the story book pages, with a few placed here and there. I knew I had to get one for my little sister Alissa as her souvenir, and I couldn't resist I had to have one too! But all and all I came out pretty cheap for that craft fair spending $23 on Alissa and mine's journals. After that we headed out to the bead shops and realized real quick that we much prefer to buy at wholesale prices like we get to at work with our companies credit card. I managed a few fair buys and grabbed up some beads for the upcoming years sewing projects for school. Later that night my friend from church, Andrew, asked if I would want to watch a movie with him and I was so down for some movie time! We decided that we would do the theater since we both really wanted to see UP. It was gonna be playing in Santa Monica so we headed out a little early so we could get tickets and watch the street performers. Before the movie started Andrew ran into a book store to grab a book that he had been wanting. We then ran to a organic soap store that I had fell in love with in Pasadena. I ran around the store looking for the soap. One of the girls that worked there came up to me and I rambled out the type on soap that was looking for and they pointed it right out and told me that I was also going to get a free body buffer with it! Yay, I was so excited! The guy went off to bag the soap with me and the girl helped me pick my new scent of body buffer. I was so excited jabbering with the girl about this soap and how much I loved it that I didn't realize the guy had rang me up for the big bar and I just payed $20 for a huge-A hunk of soap. Great Leslie! The movie was adorable and it was really fun to see one in 3D! Went to church on Sunday and was asked to give a talk in sacrament in 2 weeks....my last Sunday there. I excitingly excepted, as for some strange reason I had been hoping to do so since week one in my new ward. Well that's it for week 6 and crazy enough I only have 3 more weeks out here! Its flyin by!!

Xs and Os

~Leslie

A Shock To The Heart...

Wowie! What a week I had last week! So I am late on my post but I have been in a daze for a few days. So this week at work I spent a lot of time doing random not too fun jobs. Lots of organizing to prepare for Meghan's return from China. Luckily Sacha was super awesome and decided that the office should get Friday off, so we got a nice extended weekend! So this is where the real fun comes in! Since I knew I was gonna have to be up early on Friday for work I went out Thursday night. I went with my girlfriend from church named Ashley and her husband, N.H., to a Reggae concert on Santa Monica Beach! It was awesome! The concert was free so that was great and all the hippies just dancin to the music...I was in Heaven! Ashley and I rocked it out to some Reggae remixes and some amazing singing for change. Santa Monica Beach was super cool with its street performers, authentic wooden pier, Farris wheel, and roller coaster! In the middle of the concert another friend from my new ward, Andrew, called me and wanted to know if I wanted to go out with some other people from the ward for a hike. I was super thrilled at the idea of seeing some of Cali's nature and environment and getting to spend the day in the great outdoors. As we struggled to hear each other over the blaring reggae I told him not to worry I have hiked a ton and that "I'm from Oklahoma, I'm an outdoorsy girl!". Needless to say all I got out of the description of the hike was that I should bring water and some dry food snacks, they planned to leave at 8:30, and that they would pick me up. That morning I got up and started getting ready at 6:30 am so that I could make sure to get down to Ralph's and get some good trail snacks. I got ready and pumped up and was waiting an extra 30 minutes past expected time as the boys drug around getting ready. We were finally off and the boys had a great plan of parking one car at the end of the hike so that we could drive back to the other car at the end instead of having to walk back. I realized this was a great game plan when I saw the expected 4 hours time estimate on the hiking map. Andrew had mapped us out to hike through the narrows of one of California's National Forest, one of which he had never hiked before; part of the reason why he wanted to go! The hiked started out with an incredibly steep incline downwards. I realized quickly that hiking in California is very different from hiking in Oklahoma or Arkansas. You see California has mountains, and their forest are very dry and dessert like. So as we started our trek we all more or less rolled down a slippery slope of loose unreliable rocks and sand. Of course not but half way down I choose a bad rock and much like an MXC blooper real I took a slide on my butt and suffered my first injury of the day on my wrist. It didn't look bad just a small scratch not even really bleeding so I brushed it of and kept going. I came to the conclusion that this hike was going to be a great challenge to me and began to look at the hike as 4 hours of torture as opposed to 4 hours of awesomeness! I have never rock climbed and I realized that there was going to be a lot of that today. I also came quick to realize that I didn't hear all of the previous nights details and that we would be wading/swimming water several times and I wore NO swim suit and a white shirts...great. It was a hot day though and luckily I never went in water over thigh deep and the sun dried us in less than 5 minutes each time. After getting to a really "narrow" part of our trail we started looking for alternative routes around the area. Andrew hoped up the side of a rock and headed higher up for a new course and another one of the guys, Rob, had decided to to just climb up the side of a rock wall cause he saw many foot holes and thought it would be easier. His climb up started to look a little shaky and the last of the guys I was with, Scott, ran up the rock path to help him up. Things were scary for a few minutes as Rob really lost his grip and began to fall and I came to the shock in my mind that I may really have to seriously help here and I doubted my very small and extremely weak muscles (I had seen a personal trainer at my gym two nights before and its always day two for me that I really start to feel the burn so that made the hike EXTRA difficult). Luckily Scott was fearless and knew just what to do and hoisted Rob right up the rock side after some initial troubles. The phrase "We're gonna have some awesome testimonies for Sunday" was said multiple times. About 15 minutes after that we realized there was not really any good trail leads from here and with our morning scares perhaps we should just have lunch and then head back, which was the popular consensus! I came home and went straight to the shower in my tennis shoes that needed a good rinse of after the continuous water to sand pattern. I was trying to slip into what was sure to be an amazing nap when I got a phone call from Andrew asking if I wanted to go to a Los Angeles Angels baseball game with him and Scott. This sounded like an awesome idea and I love baseball so despite my tired body I drug my weak body out of my bed and dressed in some red to represent to home team! I guys picked me up and we were off! The game was so fun and we got some super cheap seats with I great view! We watched the Angeles loose and learned about the Rally Monkey and watched an amazing choreographed firework show to music at the games end! The next day was the 4th of July and I had planned to hit Newport Beach for the night where there were going to be lots of people our age and a ton of fun I was told several times by co-workers. Caroline's boyfriend Chanze was in town and they decided to join me on my 4th of July journey. We got out to Newport pretty quickly surprisingly and spent almost an equivalent amount of time just looking for a spot to park. There were people EVERYWHERE as well as body parts! There was certainly no dress code in any area. The whole "No shoes, No shirt, No service" rule could never apply here. Streets were filled with people and traffic laws no longer existed. Once finally parking we walked out to the beach and realized it was way colder than it was in LA and I was super mad I had wore my swimsuit all day for nothing! We walked the beach for a little bit and then wondered off for some dinner. We ate at an awesome restaurant with the friendliest service ever. After that we headed back to the beach and found a good wind block behind some tents to watch the fireworks. A group of random people, around our age, came running up beside us with a giant teddy bear and plotted down less than a foot beside me. They were laughing and began a quick conversation about smokin some weed or coke. I just tried not to hear then and focused on the amazing sunset in front of me. Later the group all got up and ran off leaving behind a girl and guy of the group. Which quickly advanced into the two of them basically having sex ON ME! I freaked the ef out!! When I heard some things I couldn't take it anymore and told them to please go take that somewhere that was not on me. They laughed apologized and ran off with the giant teddy bear. From that point I could enjoy the nights fireworks that were far less impressive than the nights before. The next day I went to church and was invited by Andrew to have a family dinner with his family and then go wave some cruise ships off, something their family likes to do on Sunday. I happily agreed. When I got home I got a phone call from Nathan, who had already called me a couple times before during church. I had also gotten several phone calls from my family that day, strangely during church as well. Nathan asked me if I had heard the news around Pocola. I told him "No, whats going on? Is that why everyone's been calling me?" He told me with reservation in his voice and words that my best friend from high school, Chris Bryan, had died. My initial shock didn't allow this to sink in. As it set on the surface of my brain I rambled about this is why everyone has been trying to call me, and then in sunk in like a thousand bricks tied to my ankle, pulling me down deeper and deeper at incredible speeds. I broke into uncontrollable sobs and had to excuse myself from my phone call. I couldn't believe it! I was so angry at myself. Chris grew up out here in California and we used to spend bus rides home talking about the stuff he would do out here and I had been meaning to call him for the past 2 weeks to share with him all that I had been doing that we used to discuss. I hated myself for forgetting and hated even more when I realized that I was not going to be there for his services and that my only choice is to go home and visit his graveside. Even writing it now doesn't seem like a reality, one that I can tell I am quickly trying to block to the very most unavoidable moment. I found out that he had overdosed and this thought broke my heart. I could hear his laugh, see his smile, hear him say my name. The confused blur that this is gone now. I'm sick that I can't go home and be there with him. Even though I know that he's already gone all I want to do is go sit with him. I just can't understand it...I don't want to. I know my town is small and I know our entire class will be there and me, his best friend, not being there makes me sick. I just wanna come home. I forced myself not to break my previous made plans and went with swollen sunglass covered eyes to dinner with Andrew's family and felt the comfort of a family and little sisters. It was a nice distraction to reality. We went and waved off the cruise ships after dinner which was really fun. After that Andrew took me to the Donald Trump golf course that has a trail down to the ocean side and let me just have some thinking time as the sun set. I had never been to an ocean that had a rock shore. The noise of the water hitting the rocks and pulling back was the sound track to my still thoughts. His kindness was amazing and really just the present yet along company I needed. I wish more than anything that I was at home right now with Chris and that this great tragedy would not have occured. I fear though that for now the bricks tied to this reality will not hit the ocean's floor of understanding until I am home and go to what will have to be my excepted time of understanding and closure with my friend.

Xs and Os

~Leslie

Feeling at Home and So Far From It

This has been yet another busy and amazing weeks! This week at work we got a couple of new interns and on Wednesday it felt like Intern-Palooza with all the interns out numbering the office employees at least 2 to 1 but the awesome 90s jams got me through the day. The week wasn't anything too amazing at work but I truly love all the people I work with and come Friday instead of running out of the office as soon as I could I found myself staying later just to spend more time with the crew. They are just so fun and with mentions of an office Six Flags trip I was super pumped at the opportunity to spend more time with them all outside of work. We are expecting Meghan back this week so there will probably be lots of cleaning for me this week...yay! With the celebration of our half way mark of our internships Caroline and I went to IHOP Friday night for a yummy sugary dinner. I seem to be missing home a lot this week. With the half way mark upon me suddenly these past few weeks that have seemed to fly by now seem reflecting back that they took forever. I just miss my family and the idea of spending my first 4th of July without them is a lot sadder to me than expected. I have plans to spend the 4th at Newport Beach where there should be lots of people my age and lots of fireworks but I don't think it is going to make-up for my entire family nearly blowing each other up on accident...something about it just isn't as fun. This Monday I went to FHE at my ward for the first time and it was very fun. I very small group of five made up our FHE group and we headed up to the Griffith Park Observatory. It was amazing from up there. We all watched the sunset and once the sky was dark it looked like we were on top of the world. It was absolutely beautiful and the first time that I realized just how small I was is this big big place. I stood up there in amazement and the unsettling feeling of knowing I was truly in a place where I was just another face in the crowd. It was quite amazing to see how many people were there from different countries. As we walked to our open spot I passed so many different languages and so many young people in love helping me realize again just how alone in this world I am and just how much I DON'T want to be anymore. On Thursday I also ventured with some of the Relief Society of my ward to the Santa Monica Temple to do some baptisms. It was beautiful!! So big and it was awesome to see so many members everywhere doing the work! Amazing! Afterwards we girls were hungry and I got to venture with them and have my first In-N-Out Burger in Westwood and I'm in love! It was so simple and yet so delish. I also fell in love with Westwood! It was so cool there and so many people my age just on the streets enjoying being alive together! Perfect! So, this weekend we ventured to Hollywood! It was a fun time getting to see the Hollywood walk of fame, which we realized was the entirety of Hollywood Blvd. I'm not sure what we had imagined but we didn't realized just how many stars there were! We also found the Grauman's Chinese Theater and put our hands and feet in some stars prints, but I think were a little disappointed with the lack of stars that we knew or really liked in it. We had a fun time until we realized that we had seriously lost my car! With the stars on the walk to look at we quickly were just watching the ground and not looking up at all and so this made it really hard to remember what things were around where we parked! And of course we didn't remember what streets we parked on. It really is a good thing the stars are on the ground though because their are just so many adult stores it was ridiculous! I mean how many does one street need! We finally found it and drove around trying to find Melrose street and then figured out that it was not the part of Melrose that Caroline had thought it was and headed home for a very late dinner. We got lost on the way home which added to my poop mood that had formed at this time from the aimless driving previously. But I quickly realized that we were driving into Pasadena and was able to get us back on track pretty quick. I mean that's not too bad, my first time to get lost was 4 weeks into my stay...pretty good I say. Church today was lovely and I was invited to the UCLA ward which I think I will be visiting next Sunday! I also venture to Griffith Park to meet my new girlfriend from church, Ashley, for her birthday picnic. Apparently lots of people like to get out on Sundays her in LA. The roads were packed and so was the park and I never found Ashley; after 30 minutes of searching I headed back home for dinner. I also found out today that my Bishop at my home ward, Bishop Barnes, was released from his calling and will no longer be my Bishop when I get home. I want to welcome our new bishop but I don't feel like opening up to someone all over again. Bishop knows everything about me and is the only person that I ever want to talk to. I have never had such a great realationship with a bishop and I think our whole ward would agree. I'm just so sad to see him go and the fact that I was not there is even more heartbreaking to me! I just want to be at home with my ward. I will have to be positive and not sad when I get home to a very changed ward. This week has been an amazingly busy one and I can only hope that the other half of my time spent here will be as happy and enjoyable as the first. Oh and I don't think it would hurt to keep movin along quickly...I hate to rush time along so I will enjoy it while I have it!

Xs and Os!

~Leslie

You never know who may be an angel.

Okie dokie, so I'm obviously late with week 3 but my computer started to run slow so, I switched my antivirus software and it began running even slower. After asking my super tech boss for help I brought it to the office and he discovered that I had 500 viruses!! REALLY! So he went to work trying to clear them and it looked like a lost cause for a couple days and right before the weekend he was pretty sure he had solved it and I let it rest for the weekend before getting its new antivirus put on Monday. Wow! What a week to have a down computer, so much I wanted to blog about. So week 3 was crazy! Two of our employees went on vacation right as we got a huge shipment in from production in China. The shipment was late receiving so as a team of three, including myself, we headed to our warehouse to un-box, hang, quality check (QC), pull damages, tag, check-in, pick orders, check-out, and then our warehouse did the boxing, and we shipped! We did this for hundreds and hundreds of garments, it was crazy, and as sucky as it probably was for Erica and Joanna (my co-workers, not interns) who have to do this all too often, for me it was exciting, interesting, and such a great learning experience. It was really hard work but it was nice to be out of the office for 3 days and it really gave me a chance to get to know the girls! I am really feeling at home in my office! I absolutely love everyone I work with and enjoy being the only intern their with them everyday...I'm a little selfish. I also found out that I get reimbursed for my lunches as well as my mileage, which is such a blessing. I am getting super good at driving like a LA driver and I just keep praying that I am safe on the roads everyday...I only have this ONE car (and it's not just mine)! So an awesome week of learning at work. This weekend Caroline and I traveled to Pasadena. We were told its sorta like the Midwest, and we were interested in anything that was close to home. We went there and found the coolest humane society we had ever seen! We missed our pets and decided to visit it when we saw it passing by. Now besides the usual cat and dogs of the humane society Pasadena Humane Society had rabbits, turtles, chickens, roosters, and an alligator for adoption. Ok, the alligator wasn't for adoption but everything else was!! It was awesome and so big! We just took in the friendly people, short buildings, and greenery of Pasadena for the day. I decided if life ever calls me to work in LA I will be living in Pasadena! On Sunday I enjoyed church and then a special visit from an OSU classmate who had come to LA for a visit with her parents. It was nice to see a familiar face for a few hours. After seeing our friend Caroline and I went to Courtney and Paul's house (a couple from my church). They had invited us to dinner and only live two blocks away. It was such a great time and it was nice to be in a place that felt homie. They were just so enjoyable and the dinner was amazing! I had an amazing out of work experience this week. I find myself walking to work enjoying the beauty of life even in this hard town and then I walk past a homeless man or woman. I breaks my heart. I am so blessed in life and I only want the same for these people even though I don't know them or know how they have come to be where they are. Deserving or not...I pray for better for them. I was walking home from work one evening with my i-pod playing and a face pace to my walk a gentleman begged my pardon and I stopped and pulled out my headphone. He told me he was sorry to burden me but wondered if I had any spare money so that he could get some food that the fast food place I had just pasted. He told me that he hated to ask but he did have a job anymore. I told him that a probably had a couple dollars for him and he began to tell me how upset he was with the way California treats its vets, that he was a Veteran and that he had nothing after his time in Iraq. I told him that I was sorry too and that it was crazy for me to see so many people homeless because I wasn't from around here. I told him I was sorry I only had a couple dollars, that I was a college student and I'm pretty broke myself. He told me that he had a daughter here in California that is in college. It broke my heart to think how hard that must wear on both of their hearts. Him wishing he could support her as a father should and she wishing her father had a better life. I gave him the money and told him that I appreciated what he has done for our country and for me and said God bless you. He looked at me with the most joyous and happy eyes and smile. He lifted his arms and without a second thought in the middle of this busy LA sidewalk in the midst of onlooking passersby I walked forward and hugged my new stranger soul. I saw the looks the people were giving us and once we hugged he looked at me and told me that I didn't know the blessings I would receive from this, I smiled and said take care and began to walk away as he yelled after me "You don't even know the blessings you are going to receive"! I was talking to my father on the phone a few days later, whom is also struggling in life right now as so many of us are. He was down on himself for not being the financially supportive father that he had always wanted to be for us. I explained to him that there was so much more to that he has been able to support me in in life. I told him my story of the man I had met and our story of our encounter. I told him, dad, don't you remember when we were younger and you gave a man outside of Wal-Mart money and we said, dad why would you do that he will go buy beer or drugs with it. He looked back at us and told us, "Girls, that may be true, and whether he uses that money for the right things or not its important to help those around us in need; after all, we never know, he may be an angel. This could be our test, and we know we've done right". I told him how this life lesson of service and compassion had always stuck with me and how fortunate I was to have this knowledge taught to me through his real life example. It brought some joy to his voice and tears in my eyes. An amazing experience with a stranger that I will never EVER forget.

Xs and Os

~Leslie

Lakers Fans Are CRAZY!

So week two rap up. This work week flew by and I must say I was very happy it did! I am truly beginning to feel at home with my work crew and dancing with the idea of liking LA, but not enough to want to live here. This week I got to go around with my supervisor and assistant designer Erica to see where all of our contractors are. We have local contractors for sewing and pattern making so it was very exciting to see these locations and meet these people. We went to a place where we get a lot of our trims for sample dresses before they are sent to China to be massed produced. The most amazing place. A warehouse with boxes with the trims within taped to the outside. These boxes were stacked sooo high ladders were used to clime to the top to retrieve desired trims. This week at work I also went through every garment offered online for sell and entered into an excel document the specs of the garments for a more pleasing shopping experience. This took, working on and off, the entire week, but is a nice change from hand sewing. This week I was also gifted with Meghan and had the opportunity to get my little sisters birthday present and I just can't wait for her to have it! Caroline and I find ourselves coming home at nights and sitting in front of our laptops watching episodes of TV shows on Hulu and its getting old very quick. And while our apartments leasing office realizes that the only thing they can keep from me is my gym membership while waiting for Caroline's father to sign a form saying "yes, I am her roommate" I am really getting restless. I am so ready for that gym and I think I am at the prepared point to just go be aggressive with the office and get it because this wouldn't even be the situation if only the temp girl had entered Caroline's information correctly. Aggravating! I have come to a realization however that I really should spend some of my after work time on learning and remembering my Spanish since I am in the middle of so much of it. This weekend we had planned to visit Huntington Beach because a friend of mine was having a beach party and we wanted to experience that! We had also decided that we wanted to go see the Wizard of Oz, Dorthy's Red Slippers, display that was going on at the FIDM museum. So Saturday morning we got ready and headed to the museum, walking since it was only a few blocks away. Once stumbling into the building and learning from a security guard that we were not allowed in the building since we were not students and that the museum was around the corner we laughed it off and headed in. The displays were amazing! These floating bubbles hung from the ceiling displayed the various designers that had come into partner with this event and design challenge. We saw some amazing interpretations and gave me, a not in the least bit fan of Wizard of Oz, a lot of excitement! I mean the slippers were the only good part! After that fun and excitement we decided to venture to the fast food places I had seen on my way home from church last week to get some cheap and delicious Taco Bell! We wound up walking several city blocks just to get some Taco Bell...I mean a good 30 minute walk at least, but it passed quickly with our talking and amazement of our surroundings. But lucky us realized that we could catch the bus back within a couple blocks of our place. We ran back up to the loft and gathered our things and headed off the Huntington. We got there surprisingly quickly and easily! It was awesome to drive into! The beautiful sand and all the people out enjoying it! We found a good, FREE, place to park and headed in! The sand was awesome and Caroline and I hadn't remembered from our childhood how hard it was to walk in the sand. We decided to run and put our feet in! I, of course, got way too excited and even with my pants up to my knees I still got them soaked. We realized we were ready to get in a little more than we thought so we quickly changed and played around for a while. We had read before leaving the loft of Main St. and the pier and wanted to go check out all it had before meeting up with our group. We wound up literally spending 5 hours on Main St. in and out of all the various stores and after dinner at 9:30 had missed the beach party in its entirety. Not too bumbed but very tired we headed home and slept like ROCKS!! On Sunday later in the evening the Los Angeles Lakers had a basketball game. Lakers fans love their team so much that men love to skip down the streets! I have never seen so many car flags and sooo many honking cars at once. We were more than amused and have spent mass amounts of time at our window starring down at the fans and crazy cars on the street. Caroline and I a little oblivious to professional sports didn't realize that this was the National Championship and this is why our neighbors decided to yell and wave flags out the window to EVERY passing Lakers fan. And this is why we won't be getting any sleep tonight!
Xs and Os
~Leslie

Let Me Catch You Up On Things

My first week in LA was super insane! I drove out and arrived Friday night. After a long and really difficult night for me I finally got 4 hours of sleep. I spent that weekend moving and adjusting my things in my corner of our loft studio apartment and trying to adjust to what would be my new home for the next 9 weeks. We live in a really tall apartment building and apartment living is definitely something I am not used to. Our neighborhood is considered very nice and I didn't think it was too bad. We even have a grocer just around the corner...literally! Upon my adventure to find where I will be working FOR FREE as an intern for the next 9 weeks I began to realize just how very different things are from home. You go about 4 blocks down and you start to get into neighborhoods that are very sketchy and I felt a sudden need to be very on guard. I work in the fashion district and I was very shocked to see just how unglamorous the fashion district was! Everything looked so rough and not at all how I had truly imagined it! I work in a building that looks really rough on the outside and I was quite sure it very well was not the place I worked all the way up until my first morning of work. Once you go through this big metal gate door it starts to become a little more lovely. Upstairs where my office is it is much more like I would have imagined. My office is really cool. A big open studio with everyone working together in this one office. My first day was intense but sadly not as glamorous as I had expected. I spent 8 hours sitting at the "craft" table hand sewing beads and size labels onto garments. NOT at all what I was thinking I would be doing on my first day. It actually went just like that the second day too. On the third day I was prepared for the same and to my pleasant surprise things were different. We had a photo shoot in office and it was tons of fun to watch! We also had a fit model come in and I got to watch as Meghan checked the fit of garments that were going through production. Really cool to see the things I have learned in work in real life! I also got to take home a sample dress that night and I was really pumped!! My first Meghan. A dress that was about $250! So it was super awesome to get for free! I was still struggling though with the fact that I just didn't want to be in LA. It wasn't what I thought it would be, and the funny thing is I didn't even have a good idea of what I expected it to be. The weather wasn't sunshiny and as my time here has progressed I have learned of the common on the California phrase of "June Gloom" which is really not making my adjusting any better. I decided that I needed to be more positive about this wonderful opportunity that I had been blessed with and began to smile a little more with each day! Work most days is pretty rad and I enjoy it...some days much more than others. I see myself learning a lot! My walk has even got less scary to me. I walk five blocks down to Main St. and then go left for another 5 blocks to my office. I feel as if I have been living here for years on my walk to work. I am even sorta getting used to the stares I get from all the male Mexican workers the entire 5 blocks down Main. I just smile and say good morning back. Some people are really nice and I have had a few morning compliments that have really brightened my day, like: "I like your style, its so natural and beautiful" and "You have a wonderful smile". The kindness of strangers has helped pick me up a few mornings! I have also attended the student ward as of last Sunday and it was wonderful! The exception to my student ward at home is that it is not just a singles ward...it is just for students in general which translates to everyone that has not gone home for the summer is married and even some have babies...so a slight disappointment to the hopes of finding my California love. I made really good friends already with a lot of the girls and one couple was so sweet to bring my a chair that they didn't need anymore so that I wasn't always having to sit on a beanbag. Oh and I spent Saturday in Chinatown, which was a nice little adventure. We rode the bus over for 25 cents! That was great! We spent the day just exploring the strange little shops and taking in all the excitement, even making a few family gift purchases! We had lunch there and later that evening caught the very last bus for the evening leaving Chinatown. Overall the first week was CRAZY!! And I just kept lying to myself telling myself that I am getting used to it. It was just so so so much to take in and I was feeling sad missing friends and family and feeling like I left some really great opportunities in Stillwater that I may never get to have. Overall...a week I will never forget!