Taking a quick break from homework...

HEY HEY! All work and no play? Not for this girl. Ha ha! I have been in my 4th summer of grad school for a whole week now, and look at me go...turning stuff in on time and all that jazz. I am even having a bit of fun here and there, so that makes life even better. This past week I traveled to BAKERSFIELD...which some people lovingly call "The armpit of California," but I have a good friend there, so I try to refrain from saying such things aloud. Visiting my longtime friend Nicole was a BLAST. Not only does Nicole own her own house (!), but she just got a puppy too! 4 pounds of adorable is what I call that little dog. Whew...we had fun with that little pipsqueak. I tell you what....I am glad I don't have a puppy of my own, but it sure is fun to hang out with one for a few days. Nicole and I had a great time just catching up on life, laying by the pool, and of course discussing all things Glee and The Office. Nicole has this new-fangled thing called "DVR" of which I know nothing about in my little apartment/part of the house because I was the cheapskate who didn't want to pay for ANY sort of TV when I moved in here a year-ish ago. So instead, I relished in the recorded episodes of this past season of Glee and the re-cap of The Office. Who knew that even existed? Thankfully Nicole did, and she let me watch it. Unfortunately, I had to come back home to do more grad school work, but it was a nice getaway. Plus, Nicole always makes me a fun "road trip" CD to listen to in my car on the way home, and she did not disappoint. 22 songs of Glee bliss. Just awesome. Later this week, Whitney and I had a blast again adding more fun and adorable decorations and such to my place. Seriously, you will have to come visit - you blog readers, you - because this place is getting cuter by the curtain. I'm not joking. Whitney just has "an eye" for these things, and she says, "You need ________" and then we find it, and somehow it makes my place so. much. better. Come on over and check it out! Today is Father's Day, and I was invited to join my friend Liz's family for lunch and wine tasting. Yep, I just said that. Wine tasting. Allison. Going wine tasting. Ha! Funny image, no? This afternoon, 4 of us piled into Liz's car and I rambled on about my Christian Mingle stories (oh, did you know I have been on that site for 6 months? Yeah...it's been a ride), and all of a sudden after my (hilarious) anecdotes, we were at the restaurant. We met up with Liz's parents, one set of gparents, her two brothers, and one sister in law. Good food, good stories, good laughs, good times. Three of us split a wine-tasting card, so don't get too crazy in thinking I had a bunch today...in fact I had 2 small glasses, both of which were, you guessed it, SWEET DESSERT wines. Mmmhm. That's right. And now it is midnight, and I am just reading textbooks and writing papers...no big deal. Living it up over here...did I mention you can come visit ANY time? Come on over...I will gladly set aside this textbook in order to brew up some joe for ya. :) And now, here are some pictures from today. Oh...Liz is having a baby in September. I already love him/her. :)