Jordan Comes to Seattle!

Little brother came to Seattle this past week! Kristen's older sister was getting married this weekend in Seattle, so Jordan was coming up with the Freels' for that, but came up a couple days early to hang out with me! The first day was a little overcast and sprinkly so we wandered around the city for a little bit then did some relaxing at the apartment before meeting up with Ryan for a fabulous dinner of crepes!

Wednesday was supposed to be a pretty nice and sunny day, so we planned a hike just outside of Seattle. It's so nice being able to drive for less than an hour and be out in the middle of nowhere! We took Ben (the puppy) with us too for our 8 mile trek through the woods and up a mountain. He did great climbing all over everything and jumping through the streams! It turned out to be a really nice day too with lots of sunshine peaking through the trees. 

Thursday we went to the museum of flight, which I hadn't been to yet. It was pretty intense and had a ton of small planes in the actual museum as well as flight simulators. Across from the indoor part of the museum, there was also a large parking lot that had the larger planes that you could tour. They had a Concorde (fastest passenger plane ever) as well as an Air Force One! It was a retired one obviously, so it would be awesome to see what the newer more high tech one looks like now.

The rest of the week Jordan had a lot of wedding related events to attend. Ryan and I met up with them a few times for happy hours and bar nights. I even got to see one of my old Rural Studio  classmates! She was a friend of Katie's back in school as well so was in town for the wedding as well. It was super random seeing her again in Seattle. Can't wait for my next visitor (Kimberly's coming in October!). Also can't wait for next weekend for Leigha and Nino's Seattle wedding!!! YAY!

DC!

I spent a few days in training in DC. I was told I needed to attend this training at some point and when I saw the option to go to DC I jumped right on that so I could hang out every night with Evelyn! One night we all went over to Evelyn's for food, drinks, and to watch Citizen Architect (a documentary about the Rural Studio). It was amusing to see so many people we knew as well as our own projects on TV! The last night I was there we went out to a bar for a surprise party for one of Evelyn's friends. It was a lot of fun meeting new people and hanging out with the crazies that I already knew. I can't wait to head back that way for any other 'training!

Back in the Mitten

We had a fabulous several days back in Michigan at the end of August. We were coming home for the weekend to go to my cousin, Melissa's wedding, but extended the trip a little bit to do a little planning for our own wedding and hang out with more friends and family. We got in Wednesday afternoon and spend the evening hanging out with the parents and little brother and relaxing. Thursday we started some wedding planning by meeting with the caterer to go over potential food selections. It went really well and she was able to come up with an amazing menu of different food stations as well as hor'dourves for a cocktail hour between the ceremony and the receptions. It all made me so excited!! After that we all headed over to the theater again so Ryan could see it and we could get a few more ideas. The caterer came with us too and Aunt Elaine met us out there as well. We all walked around the place throwing out fun ideas as we went along!

Thursday night we had the Dougherty side of the family over for a little dinner party and Kristen's family all stopped by as well. It was so good to see everyone and let everyone meet Ryan finally! 

Friday we spent most of the day with Jordan and Kristen doing a little engagement photo shoot for them. It was so much fun and the pic turned out really great! My lovely fiancee is such a great photographer! We started out downtown Rochester at Knapps with some milkshakes, then headed out to the park for a little more naturey pics. Later in the afternoon we went out to Yates Cider Mill...mostly to get some cider and donuts, but took a few more pics there! What a fun day!

Lots more pictures here!

By Friday night Jason was in town, and Dipti came over as well, so we all headed over to Buffalo Wild Wings for a little drinky drink and some hot wings!

Saturday was the big wedding day! We wedding was supposed to be on the waterfront in downtown detroit, but it ended up being a little bit of a rainy day so it was moved into a little tent next to the Omni. It still ended up being an awesome wedding and a great party. Melissa looked amazing!! It was great to see all the Raetz Family too while we were home!

Great times were had by all! After a relaxing rest of the weekend in Michigan, I was off again, this time to DC!

Swimmies

Ben had a big and potentially terrifying weekend. Since it was sunny and in the 90s, we thought a little dip in the water would be appropriate. We took the dogs to Magnuson dog park which is right on lake Washington. It's got a great little spot for the dogs to go swimming. Tara jumped right in and started swimming around with all the other dogs. She was a little uneasy about the waves when she was standing in the shallower part and almost got knocked over, but she had a lot of fun in the water. Ben, on the other hand had a little more fun showing off his cuteness to all the people around. We tried to dip him in the water a few times, but he didn't not seem to like it at all. When he got out he started shaking really bad, so eventually we gave up. Someday he better like to swim!

Saturday night we went to our first Seahawks game. It was just a preseason game against the Titains, but it was a lot of fun to be there! We might even be interested in looking into season tickets next year. Again it was also really pretty to see the sun setting against the city from the stadium. Seahawks ended up wining 20-18, and we got to see a few former Auburn players on the field again!

Sunday we got busy on a few little wedding details. We started registering!! We went to Bed Bath & Beyond to get started, and ended up with almost 100 things before calling it a day. We still need to go back and pick out a few more things, but we got a great start! We poked around Macy's too, but I think decided there wasn't really anything there to register for that we couldn't find comparable items to at BB&B. We're also going to register at REI, which I'm sure Ryan is more excited about. We'll see how all that goes, and that might be it! It'll be nice to get it all done! We also shopping around a little bit for weddings bands. I think I found exactly what I want, but I'll probably still shop around a little more and I still need to get my engagement ring resized too. Can't wait to get that done!

Just a few more days and we'll be heading out to Michigan! Can't wait to see everyone and get some more planning done! Then it'll be off to DC to do some training (ie. visit Evelyn for free!). It's going to be a busy rest of the month! So much to do!

I FOUND MY DRESS!!!!!

This Sunday I went wedding dress shopping with Leigha and Sarah. There was one dress that I had found online that I really wanted to try on before I made any decisions about other ones. Good things I went because it is soooooo 'THE dress'! We went to the Alfred Angelo boutique and the lady really freaked me out at first. I told her I knew exactly which dress I wanted to try on and started looking through their catalogue to show her, but I couldn't find it!!! I tried to explain to her what it looked like and she kept bringing out the wrong dresses and telling me she couldn't think of any other ones it could be. I started getting a little nervious thinking that they no longer carried it or something! Luckily we busted out the trusty iPhones and quickly looked up the image from the website to show her and get the style number off of it. Relief finally set in as she finally found the right one! I tried on a few different dresses but knew I was in love with the one I had come in for and actually found one other one that I really loved too. Leigha was kind enough to be my photographer for the day. We left the store with the choices narrowed down to the top two. After looking though the photos, I knew I had to go with the one that I had originally fallen in love with! Although pictures will not be posted on here, I do have a few that can be viewed at your request!

We spent lots of time this weekend playing with baby Benjamin and getting more fun things for him, such as his rockin' new dog tag which should come in later this week. Tara is slowly warming up to him and he tries really hard to make her like him, but she is just not very into playing with anyone. She's getting better at tolerating him though.

This weekend I also picked up supplies for my first wedding craft project. I'm planning on making felt ruffle wreaths to hang on the aisle of the ceremony. I thought it would be warm and fitting for a winter wedding and we could incorporate our color schemes into the ceremony a little more. They are a tedious little project, but I think they'll turn out really cute! I'm going to see how it looks with little yellow oragami flowers on it as well.

This week my bible study treat is cookies and cream cheesecake cupcakes! We spent a little time browsing through Barnes and Noble this weekend (a favorite pastime) and I read through Martha Stewart's cupcake book. Since I had no intensions of actually purchasing the book, when I started drooling over these cupcakes, I quickly iPhone googled the recipe to make sure I could find it online without having to bring the book home. Success!

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends"

I tried a new little recipe for my bible study treats this week. I made orange/almond whoopie pies. They turned out perfectly and were devoured with great compliments at bible study. I think I might have to give a few more whoopie pie recipes a try in the near future, they're such a great little snack size treat!

Since I've been going to this Bible Study, we've been going through the book of John. Last night we did the second half of chapter 15. One of the verses that really stood out to me was John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends". Since I live in a Navy town, most of the people at the Bible study are connected to the Navy in one way or another. The guy who leads the study made a point that this verse is used a lot in military memorials. I feel like a lot of people that I know or hear about in the Navy have that love mentality based on patriotism, but I wonder how many people would lay down their lives for Jesus. Jesus spoke the words right before he gave the ultimate sacrifice and died on the cross. It really makes me evaluate how severe that love is. Jesus also commanded us in the same passage to love one another as he has loved us. That's a pretty high bar to strive towards and I am quite certain that I fail misserabley quite often.  We also discussed what makes a Christian a Christian. So many people claim to be a Christian because they went to church when they were little or because their parents were.  Just because someone doesn't do drugs or murder people doesn't make them a Christian, and I think society as a whole has been forgetting what it really takes to get into heaven. Just something to think about.

Baby Benjamin!

We got a new little puppy this weekend!!! Ok, so that was the biggest news of the weekend, but that was just Sunday. I drove down to Seattle Thursday night just in time for a farewell BBQ for Aaron on our roof deck. He cooked up some delicious wings and we all hung out by the fire enjoying Aaron's last night in Seattle. Friday morning I headed over the water to the Kitsap Navy base for an Officers' meeting. We got to take a tour of the submarine training facility including playing in a full sized simulator of the control room. It was pretty awesome. At the end of the day I finally got to have my little promotion ceremony! I officially got promoted about a month ago, but I had to wait to do the oath and paperwork with the CAPT. Now it's really official. Good thing I at least got my raise a month ago. Now I'm a Lieutenant Junior Grade :)

[Me Re-affirming my Oath]

Saturday night we got to do a little celebrating in honor of being promoted. There were actually several people who got promoted this summer, so 4 of us threw a combined celebration at a billiard in Seattle. The Navy tradition for promotions is called a 'wetting down' were the person getting promoted gets to use their first paycheck increase to throw a party for everyone else...goodie. At least there were 4 of us throwing our monies in so it could be a pretty decent party with all our colleagues. Also part of the 'wetting down' tradition is to get wet down...so towards the end of the night we each got a little surprise in the form of a glass of ice water being poured on our heads. Somehow they coordinated a sneak attack on all 4 of us at the same time. Well done fellow officers.

Sunday was the big day! We had been looking for Boxer puppies and found this little guy online and knew he was the one. Too bad he was also all the way down in Portland, so we had a nice little drive to get excited. We picked him up, hit up the Petco on the way home, and had a few hours to play at night before bed time. So far he's doing really well and only whines a little bit when he gets in his crate. Yay for little Benjamin!

When we got home Tara was eagerly awaiting us and was in for a little surprise. I think right now she's just wierded out by how small he is. She'll put him in his place if he starts acting up, otherwise she just ignored him. Hopefully when he gets a little bigger she'll pretend to play with him every once in a while!