Life by Racquel: Sunny SoCal

Prepare yourself for an onslaught of posts. I've got three comin' at ya right now. Life has been busy, but my lack of blogging can mostly be attributed to my laziness as a result of that business. If that doesn't make sense, it's okay. And if you haven't missed my posting, that's okay too. This is mostly for me and for my grandma. But if I'm being honest here, I hope you appreciate them too :).

A few weeks ago (about mid-January), we packed up our bags and headed for sunny SoCal! My new partner, Robbie, and I decided that competing in Newport Beach in the middle of January would be a fantastic idea. It also happened to be our first competition since beginning our partnership. Adam and Clarissa wanted to come to, and we were able to catch a ride with my mom and my sister (Emma just happened to celebrate her 14th birthday the weekend after, and wanted to go to Disneyland really bad. We used the competition as an excuse of sorts to get her and my mom to California. Instead of Disneyland though, they hit up Nott's Berry Farm and had a blast). My fantastic cousin and her husband live in SoCal, and we were able to stay with them for a couple of nights, which was an absolute party. My mom and Emma even coerced them into tagging along to Knott's. They have an adorable little boy who's about a year and a half old, and has already got some killer dance moves! He'll be going places.

Competition was great, and on Sunday we got to take a bit of a relaxation day and visit both the Newport Beach temple and the beach. So. Fun. Check out some of the pics we got. Another warning: picture overload.

Dinner break in Vegas ended up with a serendipitous stop at Serendipity for frozen hot chocolate! It also may or may not have been Emma's first exposure to the strip...

Getting ready!

Not bad for a first comp! 1st in Novice Ballroom and 4th in Pre-champ Ballroom!

This is Clarissa. She's going to be my roommate this summer and is one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet.

And that's her partner, Adam. Both of them are bucket loads of fun to be around. Also, I might be in slight amounts of trouble for posting this picture here.