Ryan's new Ride

Ryan bought a new motorcycle last week!! We're looking to take the safety class and get licensed at the end of august, then I just need to get one too! For now, this is the bad boy of choice ;)

Rachel Lake

We spent the 4th of July appreciating this wonderful country that we are blessed to live in by going on a hike to Rachel Lake! The first part of the hike was just a light uphill following along the side of a river/waterfalls. The last mile or so, however, was a pretty steep climb that ended up being covered in snow. Luckily it wasn't too much snow to keep us from completing the hike. We ended up at an alpine lake (Rachel Lake). Unfortunately the weather wasn't ideal, and when we got to the lake we were pretty much inside of a cloud. It was still really pretty and amazing. I guess all the rainy days are what makes the brilliant green foliage that makes the hikes so beautiful.

By the time we were driving back into Seattle it was perfect timing to catch all the fireworks at night. We drove across the I-90 bridge and could see fireworks in every direction. It was the perfect ending to a great 4th of July. God Bless America for real!

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!

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