Sunscreen, the Beach, Shopping, and randomness

Yesterday, the thirteen of us girls hopped onto a bus and went to the Mission Bay Beach. On our way, we had a little bit of an adventure. We have noticed that it is not a good idea to walk alone at night (or even in small groups) around here... but at 11 am, we didn't think we would have any trouble... particularly since there were 13 of us. However, that didn't seem to make much of a difference. As we were walking to the bus stop, a truck of guys drove by yelling and honking and squirting some blue stuff at us. Then, they slowed down and attempted to cut us off as we were crossing the street... and squirted more blue stuff. I think it was just sunscreen (I was hoping that was all it was). But, it was rather unsettling. More rude and obnoxious than anything else.

Anyway, we ended up having a wonderful time at the beach. It was sunshiny, but really windy. We all managed to get some sort of sun, though. I was almost about ready to give up on wearing sunscreen (I wasn't seeing any results from the sun), but later on, I noticed a few places where I apparently missed putting on sunscreen. Almost everyone has some patches of sunburn where they forgot to put sunscreen on. It is kind of funny. A few people got burnt really bad. Needless to say, I think I'll stick with the sunscreen.

After spending a few hours at the beach, we took the bus into Henderson to do some shopping. I finally found a purse, which was nice - within my budget, will work as a beach bag and as a purse (had to leave mine in Beijing), and it is cute and matches nearly all of my outfits (a nice bonus). I also bought a Hayley Westenra CD. She is a New Zealand singer. I realized that I associate a lot of my memories with music. Since this is a new season of my life, I decided some new music would be good to associate new memories with. Her music is very calming and gentle. I like it.

Upon returning from the beach, Brent ordered pizza from "Hell's Kitchen." It is a very interesting place - they have unique names for their pizzas - such as mordor, greed, lust, brimstone, etc. The pizza was delicious... I didn't notice any pizzas titled "gluttony," although it may have been an appropriate title.

Chelsea's birthday was yesterday, so we also bought her a cake and had a small celebration after dinner for her. It was the first of many birthdays on our trip.

This morning, we went to New Zealand Bible Church. It was interesting to visit. It didn't seem a whole lot different from many of our churches in the U.S. After church, Katie and I stopped at Pac 'n Save to buy garlic bread and salad for lunch. Brent and the guys cooked an amazing spaghetti meal for us. It was delicious.

Oh, I also had a sweet time chatting with a couple of the girls on our trip yesterday. I'm so looking forward to getting to know everyone better. I know it takes time for all of that to happen... but I'm definitely looking forward to it. We're having our first official Girls Night tonight. It will be sweet.

Yesterday was a very restful and relaxing day - free of homework. Now it's time to get back at it...