Kristen's Road Trip

This past week, I finally went back to Michigan for the first time in over a year and a half! I was only there for less than 24 hours, but at least I was there. The purpose of the trip was to help Kristen (my little brother's fiance) drive out to San Francisco where she will be living for the summer. Since I was already making the trip, I decided to come a day early to check out some possible wedding venues. I went to 4 different places. Before I came, I was already interested in the Royal Oak Music Theater. I think this visit solidified that! Unfortunately it's a little more pricey than I was hoping, but I was able to get a little discount, and I think the awesomeness of the place makes it worth it! We would have the ceremony in the lobby of the theater, then the reception and party in the theater. It's so pretty!!

After we visited the places, we were able to meet up with Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Dan for dinner. It was so good to see them all in my quick little trip!

The next morning, Kristen and I took off for our road trip! We planned on taking 3 days to get there. The first day we took it easy and visited a friend of hers for lunch in Naperville, then ended up in Iowa for the night to visit my BFF from high school, Jeannie! It was so awesome to see her, meet her boyfriend and see the new house she just bought. We're all growing up! They cooked us dinner and let us crash in their guest bedroom.

Since we had a short day on Thursday, we made up for it on Friday. We left before 6am to get on the road and made it the rest of the way through Iowa, through Nebraska, and almost all the way through Wyoming before stopping for the night. It was raining most of the day too, not so fun to drive in. Back home in Seattle, Ryan has been working on moving apartments, and we just submitted applications for a new place before I took off. Apparently to move in, they needed my signature on a few pages of the lease, so I felt all business-like using the business center in the hotel to print out the lease and fax the signed copy to them. Luckily I was able to do that so we could get the ball rolling on the move!

Day 3 we only had about 12 more hours to cover to get to Walnut Creek to stay with Kimberly and Jason. It was a pretty easy day of driving. We crossed through Utah and Nevada, then into California. It was pretty neat to see the Salt Flats in Utah. I could tell there were a lot of people trying to drive on them, but I think they were a little too wet for any serious speed racing. No breaking of the sound barrier today!

Finally in Nevada and California we got some beautiful blue skies! It was amazing to watch the temperature go up steadily as we got further as well.

We made it to Kimberly and Jason's house a little after 6pm Saturday night. Just in time for dinner! Jason grilled us some burgers while we sipped our wine and girl talked ;) After all the driving it was nice to relax for the night with family!

Sunday we actually got to sleep in! After walking to a little local diner for breakfast, we headed to the pool to soak in some sun and read wedding magazines!

[bathing beauties Kristen and Kimberly]

[Keeping the Michigan Pride alive in California...I didn't get the memo]

[Our weapon of choice for the Road Trip!]

Sunday evening I headed home to Seattle. Ryan and his brother, Aaron (who is living in Seattle for the summer) spent the weekend moving into the new apartment, so that's where I got to go home to when I got there! It's definitely a step up from the last place. It has an actual bedroom this time! And it's on the 32nd floor, so we have great views of the city. AND...dogs are alowed there, so I don't have to hide Tara anymore! YAY! I can't wait until I get to move down there too. Just a few more months!

Lots o' Traveling!

I went to DC last week for the Women's Leadership Symposium again. There were nearly 1000 military women there. It was really great to see them all! I also got to see one of my favorite Auburn girls, Evelyn, every night while I was there! I was soooo good to see her, and I get to see her again in a couple of weeks for Liz's wedding! The first night we went out to a kebab restaurant and had a little girl talk over some red wine. The next night we went over to Evelyn's boyfriend's house and he cooked us dinner (thanks Nathan!) It was delicious. The last night we went out to a crazy african restaurant that apparently has a much different scale of spiciness. I'm a big fan of spicy food and usually get it as spicy as it comes. Luckily I ordered my chicken with the second hottest spiciness because my mouth nearly melted with just that! It was still a great meal. Afterwards we went out to another little bar for the evening with a few other friends. 

I had to catch an early flight Friday morning back to Seattle. The whole purpose of me taking such an early flight was because Lauren and Lance were coming into Seattle that morning too, so I was trying to get in the same time they were. It would have worked out great if the second leg of my flight wasn't delayed FIVE HOURS! I was really frustrating. Luckily Ryan was able to meet up with Lauren and Lance to at least let them into the apartment. I had made an appointment for that afternoon to try on wedding dresses and ended up having to push it back a few hours so I could still make it after the delays. So Friday night was the start of my wedding dress hunt! I definitely found some good options, but still have time to look a few more places. Friday night we took Lauren and Lance to one of our favorite tapas bars in Belltown. One of the famous menu items is a plate of broccoli. That sounds a little bizarre, but it is amazing, and we always make out visitors give it a taste.

Saturday morning Lauren and I headed out to another bridal shop to try on more dresses and came up with a few more good choices! At least I don't need to worry that I won't find anything, I just need to narrow it down to one! It's so hard...wedding dresses are all so pretty! I would be hard to go wrong! Saturday night Lauren and Lance went to their friend's wedding and we met up with them afterwards for a few drinks to finish out the night.

We spent the day Sunday visiting a few good local hotspots, sampling food, visiting the market, and just wandering around until Lauren and Lance had to go back to the airport. I'm so glad they got to come out for a quick visit! Now I'm getting ready for my next trip leaving tomorrow night to fly back to Michigan. It's been over a year and a half since I've been home...CRAZINESS! Lots more adventures to come as I road trip from Michigan to San Francisco with my future little sister-in-law :)

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.