Sisters in Seattle!

A few weeks ago Kimberly mentioned that Jason would be out of town for s guys weekend so she was looking for somewhere fun to go herself and ended up buying a ticket to Seattle. A few weeks later Lauren decided to join in the fun too! So last weekend we got to have a sisters (plus Ryan) weekend! They both came in Friday night so we picked them up from the airport and headed home for a nice little night of wine drinking and chatting. Saturday morning we got up and made some breakfasts while watching some football. A couple of weeks ago a Navy Civil Engineer Corps Officer from the Seattle area passed away. As a result all of the civil engineer corps officers in the area (that would be me) attended the memorial to show support to his family. So after a nice breakfast I headed off to the memorial service all dressed up in uniform while Kimberly and Lauren headed around the corner for some shopping. I've been pretty congested and had a little cold for the past week or so, but when I got back from the memorial service I was feeling pretty icky. After trying to watch some football with everyone, I ended up having to lay down for about an hour so I could be ready for a night out for dinner. We went to a really great sushi place near our old apartment. When we got home we settled in for the night with some wine and a movie. 

Sunday morning we got up with plans to head out to a pumpkin patch/corn maze! After breakfast we drove  about a half hour north east of Seattle to Bob's Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch! It was slightly obvious that we may have been a little older than the average crowd, but it was awesome! We started out with some hot cider from the store before jumping on a tractor ride over to the corn maze. It was a huge maze, but luckily it came with an aerial map so we could find ourselves a little easier. It was such a nice day out too which made it even better. After maneuvering through the maze we ended up at the pumpkin patch where we picked out some pumpkins for carving later! After we loaded up our purchases, we headed off to the airport to drop Kimberly off for her flight. Lauren stayed through Monday morning, so we headed back to the apartment to carve our pumpkins. I think it had been a while since any of us had carved some pumpkins. It was a lot of fun and I'll definitely have to do it again next year or maybe even again this year! We also baked the seeds for a delicious snack while carving.

The rest of the night we just relaxed and went to bed a little earlier to get ready for waking up at 5am to get Lauren to the airport. Can't wait till we can do another awesome girls' weekend! Also...Ben is super cute still :)

Save The Date!

This past weekend I had to work again in Oak Harbor, so while I was on call we took the opportunity to address a whole bunch of save the date post cards! Our friend, Danny, from Auburn printed the post cards for us and they turned out beautifully! We got so excited about those that we spent some time designing our official invites too. Hopefully we can get those going soon too! So exciting! 

We also spent some time updating and revising our wedding website. Hopefully this will be helpful to get out all the information to guests and give them an opportunity to RSVP digitally.

Rural Studio Reminiscing

A couple of weeks ago Lions Park (a Rural Studio Project that I was a part of in my thesis year) was published in this magazine. It starts on page 81 and my part of the park was the toilet rooms. It's always fun to see the project or any Rural Studio project published. It also made me reminisce a little bit. So here's some fond memories of a video by my team mate, Mark Dempsey, of our tilt up construction on our toilet rooms. The quality had to be lowered a little to upload in a reasonable amount of time, but you get the idea. Yay Rural Studio and Lions Park!

Puppies and Treats!

Here's a few little puppy videos for your enjoyment. The first one is of Ben trying to wrestle with my roomie's much larger dog. They wore each other out after quite a while of this. The second one is Ben showing off all his new tricks. He's getting pretty good!

This week, one of the guys I work pretty closely with is retiring. Tuesday mornings we always have a weekly staff meeting, so tomorrow will be his last one. I made some treats for everyone for his last day. Some blueberry streusel mini muffins and pumpkin scones. I love delicious treats in the morning!

We have also been taking a great East Coast Swing class at the Century Ballroom in Seattle. It works out so nicely because it is so close to our apartment and it's Sunday nights. It's a 5 week class and we just had our 3rd week. Soon we'll have some sweet new moves to show off! Our instructors are in the top left picture here.

A Bice Wedding :)

Highlight of the weekend...LEIGHA AND NINO GOT MARRIED!! I've known Leigha since 6th grade(ish) and have had the pleasure of getting to know Nino the past year or so that we've lived in Seattle. It was so great to be able to see them tie the knot! The wedding was at a small farm in Poulsbo, WA (a ferry ride and short drive from Seattle). Luckily it ended up being a mostly sunny day for their cute little outdoor ceremony. Leigha's dress was fabulous! I had gone with her a few months ago to pick it up, but it looked even more stunning since it's been fitted and tailered perfectly for her. Another highlight of the wedding was reuniting with several more of my favorite middle school friends! There were several girls there that I haven't seen in almost 10 years and it was so good to see them all and meet some of their hubbies too. There were so many cute little details to the wedding that made it so personalized and cute, I loved it.

After plenty of wining and dining and dancing, we came home to a little puppy who did a great job blocked into the bathroom. He's been doing pretty well just out in the apartment for a few hours here or there. Since we were gone for about 10 hours that night we blocked the dogs into the bathroom to contain them without sticking ben in the crate. It seemed to work out really well. We went out on Sunday and got a little baby gate to block off that area a little easier without closing the door on them. Also Sunday night we had our first dance class! We signed up for a 5 week East Coast Swing class and the first night was last night. The teachers seem like they'll be really good. Can't wait for next weekend!

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!