Yay Friends!

I always knew I had some of the best friends in middle school, now I get to hang out with some of them all over again!! Friday night I went out to happy hour with two of my favorite people from middle school, Leigha and Sarah! I've been hanging out with Leigha a good bit since we've both relocated to Seattle, but now I get to hang out with Sarah too. She was just in town for a few days, but her and her boyfriend were scouting out potential apartments to make the permanent move, and Sarah got an awesome job while here too! It was really awesome to be back together again with them, and it's still incredibley apparent why we were friend to begin with...because they're awesome :) Sarah is making the big permanent move out to Seattle at the end of the month, so I can't wait to all hang out again very very soon!

On Saturday we got to hang out with some more friends and make some new ones. We headed over to Golden Gardens Park again for another birthday party. This time it was for my roomie, Sarah! Obviously we hang out together during the week since we live together, but we both head south on the weekends, so we've never really hung out in the city. She is from Everett (just north of Seattle) so she spends her weekends there, and obviously I'm in Seattle every weekend. It was a great day out, so it was fun to spend the afternoon at the beach and meet some of her friends from home. They were also cooking up some giant oysters on the grill so I had to give them a little taste...they were soooo big!

New Apartment!

So Ryan is officially all moved into the new apartment. It's definitely a step up from where we were at. We're on the 32nd floor and have great views of Capital Hill and Downtown Seattle as well as Mt Ranier on a sunny day in the back ground. Some awesome things about the new apartment: really tall concrete ceilings, an actual bedroom, large dogs are allowed, a great gym overlooking the city, huge windows, and it's environmentally friendly! Really the only part I dislike about it is that there's more carpeting than I would like. I also did not like the small about of counterspace and storage in the kitchen...buuuuuut, that has been remidied! On Monday we scooted over to IKEA and picked up a great kitchen island! It has drawers and cabinets on one side, and a bar top seating area on the other side, and a huge surface area on the top! I love it and am super excited about it.

I think we're in an awesome place for now, and I plan on moving into it as well when I move down to Seattle in the winter and start my new position in Kitsap. We have a 18 month lease, which I think is the perfect amount of time to get all settled into our new lives and save up a little money to hopefully look into buying a place next. That would be super exciting! It would be hard to beat these views though!

Happy Birthdays!!

We had a little birthday fever this weekend! Although I wasn't able to directly celebrate Jordan's 23rd birthday, I sent him a birthday t-shirt that I had screen printed and apparently it made an appearance at Harvard on Sunday! Mom and Dad got to visit him in Boston for the weekend, and it looks like they had a pretty great time. Wish I could have been there too. I think I've done my fair share of traveling though. In fact, I'll be heading to San Diego in about 2 weeks now. Also celebrating a birthday on Sunday was my friend Leigha from middle school! I love the fact that after years of being apart we are able to reconnect on the other side of the country! I just found out that another great friend of mine from middle school is about to move to Seattle as well and is in town apartment hunting now. Hopefully we'll be able to meet up this weekend too!

Saturday morning I got up bright and early to run the Rock 'n Roll half marathon in Seattle. Last year I took a shuttle from downtown Seattle to the start line and there were so many people waiting for the shuttle that I had to wait for about an hour to get onto it. I thought I'd get on it a little earlier this year to make sure I got there on time so I headed down to it around 4:30 in the morning. Turns out that was a little too early. There were no lines for it at all at that time so I hopped right on a bus and got to the start line by 5am...the race didn't start until 7am, so I had 2 hours to kill! I guess next year I'll sleep in that extra hour. Either way, it was a good run. I wish I had had a little more time to train for it in the past few months. All this traveling is having its toll on me, but it's been so much fun! As a result, I was in a lot of pain after completing this run, so Ryan helped me hobble back to the apartment (which was a good cool down walk). I had time to wash up a little before settling down for the US vs Ghana World Cup game. Boooooo to losing that one! I'm not doing so hot in our little family bracket predictions! So far on Saturday I'm down 2 in my predictions!

Saturday night we headed out to the Golden Gardens beach/park for Leigha's birthday celebration. This was the first time we'd been out to this park, and it was packed for a good reason, it's so pretty! The beaches were packes with people sun bathing, playing volleyball, and cooking out. Nino, Leigha's fiancee, had a little bbq set up in the middle of a clump of trees right on the beach. We enjoyed some great burgers/hotdogs, beach games, and a beautiful sunset on the beach in a celebration of Leigha's birthday!

After an exciting weekend, we spent Sunday sleeping in, watching some soccer, playing frisbee golf, and I finally got to watch the new Alice in Wonderland movie. I thought it was awesome, but I'm a little partial towards Tim Burton films. I love the costumes and imagery in them!

Liz gets MARRIED!!

What an awesome weekend this past one was!!! Ryan and I flew out Thursday night on the red eye to Atlanta getting there a little after 7am. We took the MARTA over to a stop near my good friend, Laura's, house where she kindly picked us up to take us home. After the time zone changes and not really sleeping all night, we were definitely up for a nice nap, so while Laura went to work for a few, we took advantage of some nice sleep time. When we rested up sufficiently, we met Laura and some friends at the local pub on the block to watch some World Cup. I've been so busy lately that it was nice to finally be able to sit down and watch a whole game! Afterwards a friend of hers left us into their apartment complex to use the pool where we got a little sun and a little more sleep before starting on the wedding celebrations! Friday night Liz and Andrew were having a pre-wedding celebration with friends and family, so we headed over for that. Everyone was gathered at a huge outdoor table in the back of the restaurant right next to a couple of bocce ball courts. When we got there the table was full of about 40 people. Towards the end of the night we picked up Evelyn and Nathan from another MARTA station and ended up with just our group of friends hanging out in the wee hours of the night. It was so good to have everyone back together again, and it was a beautiful night to be outside! Finally around 1am we decided to make Liz and Andrew go home since they were planning to get married at 10am the next morning!! They still had to get up around 7am to get ready for it! The rest of us headed back to Laura's house for a little more celebration.

Saturday morning...late morning...we walked down the street for brunch and mimosas. Poor Evelyn is in crutches again so it was a little rough for her to hobble down the street, but we made it! The place we went to had a big projection TV and by the time we were through with eating it was almost time for a World Cup game to begin, so we just stuck around for that too! By that time it was almost time to get ready for the wedding celebrations, so we hobbled back to Laura's house to relax and get ready. Liz and Andrew had a small back yard wedding at their house in the morning and we having the reception that night. Ridiculous wedding planning story: Liz and Andrew had spent the last few months landscaping their back yard and building a great deck off the back of the house in preparation for their wedding. Days before the wedding, lightning decided to strike a huge tree in their yard causing a massive branch to fall off resulting in major damage to their deck and yard that they had been working on for months! Luckily they are awesome and managed to pull everything together and still have a perfect setting for their wedding!

We spent Saturday night celebrating Liz and Andrew and their fabulous relationship and now marriage. It was so great to see everyone! After the reception, we headed out to another club before heading home and getting about 2.5 hours of sleep before getting up to head to the airport. Since Evelyn and Nathan had a super early flight, we got there extra early for our flight which ended up working really well because Ryan's parents were able to meet us there for breakfast! It was awesome to see so many friends and family on such a short trip!

Bridesmaids in Tights

I think this might solve my keeping my bridesmaid's warm in February, and I think it looks pretty cute!

[Source]

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 :)