a year ago today.

i had Ben Lee ready on spotify and cuddled into my bed, ready to take on the blog world….then the internet went out. it’s funny how it feels like your productivity has to come to a complete stop when either 1. you have no wifi. 2. you have no music. don’t hold your breath too long though. it’s back on! since I live in soCal these days i often think about what my life looked like a year ago, because it looked…well…so different. let’s take a trip down memory lane via some fun photos. my cousin/friend/loveofmylife Bree and I started training for our first half marathon together a year ago this month! this picture kills me because it brings back hilarious memories. me: “Bree, now that we’ve run together (we ran 1.5 miles), would you maybe wanna run a half with me?” b: “yeah sure, what is that, like 6 miles?” me: “errr 13….13.1” fast forward a week. both of us are either about to puke or stop oxygen flow all together.

imagine it pitch dark (we ran at 6am, wah) and us running in these masks and gloves. do i need to paint this picture for you? we were the blonde running bandits. dodging squirrels, heaving (on my part), tripping, and mostly pretending we were in the hunger games. i miss you. (i think i’ll be typing that a lot through this post) Moving on. MARCH. i fly to here (orange county) to visit my dear friend and now roommate chelsea kim for her 25th birthday. i also visited the school i was hoping to go to (UCLA) and oh yeah, fell in love. pictured here-

pretty cool right? i actually have a picture of myself falling in love. ok realistically i was falling into infatuation. infatuation with the sweetest man with the dreamiest head of hair. so yeah. loved the school. loved spending time with one of my best friends (seen below in cute scarf). loved my new church, new ocean. and that’s when i knew i was going to move out here. pretty epic trip all in all.

so i fly home on a wednesday afternoon. land. and 8 hours later get picked up by the lovely LA and drive 8 hours south to Nashville, Tennessee. we spent the next 4 days staying with our friend Natalie who lived there at the time and joined by Nikki who drove up from Birmingham. we antiqued shopped and ate until we literally (and i actually mean literally) couldn’t move. unless we had to run to the bathroom. which i did. anyway, here we are.

i didn’t travel again until May. BUT WAIT before i jumped on another plane. this actually happened…

we ran our half in columbus on May 5th and on May 6th I flew off to Southeast Asia and spent a month in Cambodia with the one and only Shelby Mitchell. We climbed some ancient ruins, ate a lot of rice, met some unforgettable people, and got to teach the most precious orphaned children english.

next trip…. (this blog post just turned into “Jenna’s 2012 travels”) there were many other things that happened last year too…graduating, best friends getting married, moving across the country. on and on. minor details. i’ll stick to traveling from here on out. july 2012. california. again. yes. my life is so hard, i realize this. this time it was to spend two blissful weeks with my bestest friend on the whole planet. she introduced me to this wonderful state 4 years ago and we have come back together every summer since and stayed with our (her biological, my pseudo) aunt and uncle who are saints that put up with us and feed us wonderful food. (i love you!) AND i got to see my future (now current) roomies! they’re the ones with the surf board….pretending to be naked on the beach. precisely why i live with them. they are awesome.

hiking in palm springs!

How cali is she? move here please. annnnnd next; LOLLAPALOOZA! meghan, her boyfriend Chris, and I drove to Chicago to meet up with our beloved Kat and her new roomie Hannah in Lincoln Park. Three day music festival full of wonderful chaos, complete with goose island beer and leotards (duh). AND not to forget spending a fantastic day shopping with Tiffany Wong and then having my mom surprised me at the end of the trip with three more days in the city staying at…say whhaaaatt? the ritz! so fun. i have the best mother. the end.

NEXT STOP: new york city with 9 girls for sarah’s bachelorette party! sarah is the one wearing the hat in the Color Run picture…why is she wearing a hat? i’ll tell you why. because she’s a bright little one. and my hair was pink for the next 4 months and hers was not. that’s all i have to say about that. oh yeah, let’s not forget the killer view when we went out for dinner that night? time square? yes please.

a couple weeks after getting back from NYC, i FINALLY got to fly to….wait for it….alabama! why would i be so excited you may ask? because i got to spend 4 days straight snuggling these two!!!

yes the same two blondies (Natalie and Nikki) i got to see in Nashville. this is also the trip where i first fell in love…again….no not with Nate, with Matthew. Matthew Crawly that is. Get it? side note: i just googled matthew’s name to make sure i got the spelling right and think I just accidentally ruined the season finale i’m supposed to watch in an hour……..i feel very distraught. on that note. i’m going to end this post. that boy in the 3D glasses at the top of this post is waiting for me. maybe one day i’ll blog about him. i only got through september of last year….next up i’ll write about moving here and going to australia, do dum de do. conclusion. -i just tried to make up for a year of not blogging. -does matthew crawly die? ahhhh. -i’m remembering why i’m broke. me. last year. in lots of planes. - J