Flip

Tara is silly. I keep forgetting to do stuff with my flip video. I have a ton of videos from Egypt too that I need to do something with at some point too!

Brandon Visits

Ryan's older brother, Brandon, came into town last Wednesday for a week. He got to be here for Ryan's birthday which was a lot of fun. This weekend we has some more fun visitor festivities! Friday night we took Brandon to our favorites little pizza place, Belltown Pizza. They have an amazing pizza with roasted red peppers and buffalo sauce on it. It is amazing! After that we joined some friends for a few rounds of bowling. I just have to point out that the last game I completely creamed everyone and got a 183...which is pretty awesome ;) I actually did pretty well all 3 games, but definitely dominated the last game, so it was a good way to end the night!

Saturday we headed out to Marymoor park to enjoy the sunshine outdoors. We mostly just walked around and explored the park. There's a huge dog park in it that I'm definitely going to have to bring Tara back to.

There also happened to be a historical reenactment going on in the park at the time. It was really funny because it was a really sad an small group of people trying to put on what seemed to be a renesaince fair. At least we got to watch some people try to sword fight. It was pretty amusing! Saturday night we went out for some delicious sushi and to the black bottle afterwards for some drinks and get a little taste of Seattle nightlife.

Sunday we met up with a friend of Brandon's that works on a cruise ship. Their ship just docked in Seattle for the day before turning around and heading back to Alaska. He said he could get us some pretty sweet discounts if we took a cruise. That sounds super tempting!! Sunday night we grilled out on the roof deck before I had to head back to Oak Harbor so I could get up bright and early Monday morning for one of my twice a year physical tests for the Navy. Not so fun so early in the morning. At least it was a great weekend!

Happy Birthday Ryan!

Yesterday was Ryan's 27th birthday! I baked a bunch of really delicious cupcakes. In fact, they may be the most delicious ones I've ever made! I did strawberry ones and chocolate mint ones. Since the recipes made so many, I took half to work and they got devoured within the hour. The rest of them I brought to Ryan's work and out to Ryan's birthday dinner/happy hour with his co-workers and brother. I wanted to try out a new place that had a really big outdoor patio because it was in the 70s and sunny out yesterday! It was a lot of fun with a great group of people. The service was terrible, but it almost made the experience that much more amusing. I have a feeling our server may have been high. Hopefully it made for a great birthday for Ryan!

Pics from the last couple of weeks

Since we've been traveling all over the place in the last few months, it was really nice for the last couple of weeks now to actually stay in Seattle! We did a little apartment shopping a couple of weekends ago, and may have found a winner! The Aspira is a new residential high rise in downtown Seattle. It's the first LEED Certified (environmentally friendly) high rise in Seattle. It's a big glass building that is really clean looking from the outside. It just opened a couple of months ago, so all the apartments are brand new. Unfortunately our leases aren't up until November, but hopefully at that point I'll be able to move down to Seattle, and we can get a nice new apartment! And they actually allow big dogs, so we wouldn't have to hide Tara. 

Later that weekend we went to a 50s themed party with some friends of ours. They were throwing it for all their employees of a gourmet hotdog restaurant they recently opened in Seattle. It was a fun excuse to dress up!

This past week was really nice out. I actually got to be in Seattle most of the weekend because I was attending a workshop in Everett, about 30 minutes north of Seattle. In celebration of Cinco de Mayo, I made some margarita  cupcakes. They didn't turn out as cute as I was hoping, but they were still super yummy! I also made some strawberry scones for our breakfasts the rest of the week. They turned out really well. 

This past Saturday we had plans to have dinner at Leigha and Nino's new house. I got to bring the dessert, which of course I'm a big fan of making that and making other people eat it all! This time I made little chocolate peanut butter tarts. I've tried then once before and they turned out even better this time, and they're so easy! Their house is so cute, and I got to inherit all their old wedding magazines (2 bags full!) It was good to catch up and discuss wedding plans and such. Sunday morning I got to go with Leigha to pick up her wedding dress!! It was so pretty! She gave me lots of good advice for when I get to start my dress shopping too.

The whole weekend was really pretty out, so we also enjoyed walking around outside and soaking up some sun sitting in the park reading wedding magazines...let the planning begin!!

The South

I feel like my life has been on fast forward a little lately. Sooo much running around and traveling all over the world and excitement! This past weekend we headed back to the good ol' south. We spent a couple of days hanging out with Ryan's parents (my future In-Laws!) in Columbus. Saturday we drove over to Birmigham, AL for a wedding, which was the reason for this whole trip. Before the wedding we were able to meet up with one of my former classmates from Auburn for lunch, then we headed over to a wedding pre-party where we saw lots more former classmates of ours. I got to show off my pretty ring to everyone :) After stopping by the hotel to check in and get ready for the wedding, we headed over to the church. Now everytime I'm sitting in a wedding I'm taking notes and thinking of what I should do in ours! It also freaked me out a little bit that I have to do all that in less than a year! I don't know how I feel about everyone staring at me as say my vows...scary. Anyway, it was a fun wedding and we did lots of dancing and partying at the reception afterwards. It was good to see to many Auburn folks again!

Sunday morning we headed back to Columbus again and hung out with Ryan's parents for a few more hours until heading back to catch a flight in Atlanta that evening. We didn't get back to the apartment until about 1am which made for a very sleepy Pamela the next day.

WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!!!!

Sooooo...the title pretty much sums it up! I'm super excited and still a little in shock at the moment, it'll be a while before it all sinks in. Perhaps when plans start being made. For now I get to enjoy the new bling on my ring finger and the company of my new fiance! That's super weird to say!

[about 10 minutes before the proposal. little did i know!]

We had plans last weekend to head up to Mt. Baker and stay in a cabin built by a company that is building one of Ryan's house designs in Seattle. I knew we were planning on doing some hiking, but I was in for a much bigger surprise! We drove up there on Saturday and ended up on the Excelsior pass trail. It was sprinkling a little, but not bad enough to stop us. We got about halfway up and ran into some other people coming down who told us that the trail was covered in snow further on. We figured we could at least make it that far. So we did, and sure enough the trail got to a point where we were walking through snow and kept falling through up to about our waists. We had packed a lunch and decided that was a good place to take a break for sandwiches and then turn around. I got all packed up and ready to head back and Ryan apparently wasn't quite ready. He told me to give him my gloves to which I displayed great confusion but complied. I was really confused when he started playing around and trying them on but just thought he was being weird. I kept asking him what he was doing until he finally said 'I really just wanted to give you this' and pulled out a little black box. He opened it and said 'will you marry me?!?' Still in shock and greatly confused, I asked him if he was serious (which he will not let me live down) and then said YES!! It seemed so out of the blue and caught me completely off guard, but totally awesome!

[my camera was kind enough to die right before our lunch break, so we turned to the iPhone for the first picture post engagement!]

After we hugged repeatedly and reveled in the moment for a while, we headed back down the trail towards the car. At the car we got out the big camera for a few more shots.

We went back to the cabin that night and enjoyed a nice relaxing evening in a really nice cabin. Sunday we made the essential phone calls to the parents and spent a few more hours hiking around the area right outside of the cabin. So much excitement for one weekend!

Ryan did such a good job at picking out my ring...I LOVE IT! Obviously after two days of being engaged, not many details have been figured out, but I'll start working on it soon! I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with this man!

Seahawks and Easters

Easter weekend I was lucky enough to have to work on Saturday, so Ryan came up to Oak Harbor for the weekend. We watched the entire 5th season of LOST while I was 'on watch'. Easter morning we both went on a little Easter basket hunt. Somehow we were both able to hide the other person's basket without finding our own...and the house really isn't that big! Afterwards we colored some pretty eggs.

I got to spend most of the next week in Seattle while I went to a training in Silverdale. Since I got to cook for two people, I decided to try out a crock pot roast chicken. I will definitely be trying that again! It was soooo good and moist and just fell right off the bone. I was a little grossed out by the whole chicken and having to pull out the insides, but then I just stuffed it full of lemons and spices and it turned out perfectly and fed us for the whole week :)

This past weekend we did a little shopping to prepare for the wedding season. I'm super excited about the new dresses I got and can't wait to wear them! First wedding is coming up in a week. We'll be flying down to Atlanta and driving over to Birmingham, AL next weekend to see some fellow Auburn Alum, and visit with Ryan's family while we're there.

Sunday morning I participated in the Seahawks 12k run. It turned out to be a really fun run mostly along Lake Washington. Another plus being that the race shirt that I recieved is my first official Seahawks gear! So now if/when I make it to a game, I'll have something that says Seahawks on it to wear! Or it's just another good shirt to run in :)