Hello friends! I hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend. Summer has begun in earnest here in Utah with lots of sun and high temperatures. I thought it would be fun to give you a little life update on what I’ve been up to lately!

I’ve been having great fun podcasting both on my podcast/channel Rachel’s Reviews and my Hallmarkies Podcast I do with my friend Amber. They are both a lot of work but very gratifying. I love talking with friends from around the world about animation and all kinds of things.

I even recently got the privilege of interviewing Nick Park, the creator of Wallace and Gromit for rotoscopers.com!

http://www.rotoscopers.com/2018/05/21/interview-with-early-man-director-nick-park/

He was amazing as you would expect and the highlight of the interview was he said “I’m a clay man myself.” How cool is my life that I got Nick Park to say that to me!!

On the Hallmarkie front Amber and I celebrated a year podcasting together in May, so I made this compilation video:

I also did summer previews for Hallmark and the regular box office with Amber and then David.

I had a great time visiting my local comic book store for Free Comic Book Day. I have been trying to read more for this summer. At least 2 books a month is my goal. I also had a blast attending many movies including the latest Star Wars movie  Solo: A Star Wars Story. The highlight was seeing the new Fred Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor. The Utah Film Center put on an event with delicious appetizers before (watermelon and feta is a new revelation) and then had cake after to celebrate 60 years of KUED, our local PBS affiliate.

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The Royal Wedding came and went and it ended up being a solitary celebration but a really fun one for me. It was so much fun to see Harry and Meghan tie the knot and I made tea sandwiches and drank herbal tea all night long.

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I also got to see my niece Olive when she came for an unexpected visit with my brother! I love her so much and had a great time talking with her.

I went to see Clueless at Tower Theater, which was a blast (one of my favorite movies) and met up with one of my twitter friends Tyson. He was so sweet. I have had great experiences with everyone I’ve met from twitter. In fact, I’ve made some of my closest friends that way.

Then today I got in my first open water swimming of the season which is always a delight. This was especially great because I got to see my friend Kate who I haven’t been in touch with much over the last year. It was SO great to catch up and reconnect. Plus, I just love being in the water so much.

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So overall it’s been a great time and I’m looking forward to what June will have in store. It promises to be full of podcasts, swims, movies and more. It’s not a bad life being your smilingldsgirl!