Parental Visit

So the parents came into town! Mom and Dad drove up from SF after visiting all my siblings there. I convinced them to stop at Crater Lake on the way, which is something I've been wanting to do for a loooong time! Someday... The dropped off their rental car at the airport where we picked them up last Wednesday night and brought them home to a night of grilling at the house! Unfortunately I had to work on Thursday...and it rained most of the day, so mom and dad hung out at the house most of the day waiting for us to get home. I did, however, take Friday off of work, so that's when the real fun began! Ryan still had to work, so mom, dad, Ben, and I spent the morning wandering through discovery park and enjoying the sunshine.

We met up with Ryan for a delicious Mexican lunch where mom and I stuck around and rented kayaks for a few hours. Yes, the Mexican restaurant rents kayaks...that is awesome. It was such a perfect day for being on the water, and it was great exercise too paddling around the lake for a few hours!

We headed home after kayaking and waited for Ryan to get back from work. The evening was spent walking around the neighborhood, getting some good views, seeing a house Ryan designed, and some delicious pizza and wine. I love being able to walk everywhere on a nice summer night!

Saturday was game day! Being home for the Auburn game was a bit of a priority, so we just went out for a little brunch and a walk around greenlake to get some fresh air before heading home to catch the afternoon game. We won.

Unfortunately mom and dad had to head home early Sunday morning. We spent the rest of the weekend doing a little yard work, relaxing, and watching a lot of 'Homeland'. Have you seen it? We're hooked at the moment. It's a lot easier for me to get into a show when I can watch several episodes in a row...which we did...several times...

Smith-Smith Smash Part One!

Last weekend I got to spend a few days with a few of my favorite people in the whole wide world! I flew out bright and early Friday morning for Charleston, SC and met up with the party animals at an awesome hotel right on Folly Beach. My good friend Evelyn is getting married in two weeks, so this was her bachelorette party weekend!! It ended up being a group of 4 of my best friends from college, and 3 of Evelyn's awesome friends/family. It was such a great group and we had a blast! 

After a quick drink at the hotel beach bar and a few drinks in the hotel room, we headed out for a night of delicious seafood and some serious white girl dancing!

When we got home, apparently the lovely bride to be decided it would be a brilliant idea to jump in the hotel pool fully clothed. It looked like a good time, so we all followed suit and jumped in! As could be expected, the hotel security came out and asked us to get out. We played stupid and apologized, then to our surprise, he asked us if we were actual guests of the hotel and what our room number was. When we gave it to him, he said he'd let us stay in if we kept the noise down!

Friday night was a great start to the weekend of celebrations!!

Saturday morning started with lunch on the beach and a few hours of beach time.

After our beaching it was time to go out on the town! Evelyn's cousin had made us reservations at a great place in Charleston so we started our night there, and did a night out in the big (not so big) city of Charleston. 

After a delicious dinner we found our way to a strange rooftop bar. It was definitely trying to be super swanky, and it was a little, but there was a super strange convergence of people there. One side had a wide range of much older people, then there were the people that looked like they were on a first date at a hot spot...and then there were the bachelorette parties...about 6 of them! This prompted Eduardo and Walton to corral them all into a bachelorette dance off!

After the bridal war, we all spent the rest of the night partying it up and boogying on the dance floor!

So that was really hard to narrow down photos for this blog, and I have a couple hundred more too! Did I mention that I really like to take photos! We had such an amazing 2 nights of fun the South Carolina, and I love all of these people so much! 

Sunday everyone headed their separate ways. The best part of ended this trip though is that we'll all be seeing each other again in just 2 weeks! That is so awesome and I can't wait to see them all again for round 2 of the Smith-Smith Smash (Evelyn's last name is Smith and her soon to be husband's last name is Smith...no relation, so they awesomely don't have to worry about any name changing after this wedding!)

My flight wasn't till a little later, so I hung out with Liz and Laura who were driving back to ATL. We walked the pier and had lunch in Charleston before they dropped me off at the airport and headed home too! Did I mention that I absolutely adore all these people!!

And then we went to Disneyland!

We had an awesome time with all our buddies at the Crossfit Games, but most of the people headed out on Monday to fly back to Seattle. Ryan and I and our friends Scott and Katie stuck around for an extra day to hit up Disneyland! As you recall a couple months ago, we had gone to DisneyWorld where I was able to get a great military discount on a 4 day park hopper ticket. We only went to DisneyWorld for 2 days, so I still had 2 days left on our tickets. After a little internet research I discovered that although it is not advertised, you can exchange DisneyWorld tickets for Disneyland tickets (but not the other way around), so that meant we already had tickets for Disneyland, so why not go while we were there?!?

We got up Monday morning and everyone got in a quick workout. Ryan went with a few of the other people to a local Crossfit Gym which I went for a run to the beach...I felt like I need to at least see the beach which we were right by it!

After we cleaned up and said farewells to everyone heading to the airport, we were off to Disneyland! Although I've been to DisneyWorld quite a few times, I had never been to Disneyland, so I was super excited to check it out!

It was a long exhausting day of fun, but so worth it for those of us adults who still like to be kids and are fascinated by pretty lights and colors and rides and everything Disney!

Note to any other adults going to Disneyland...it is a really tight fit to shove 4 adults in a teacup...I don't remember there being such a small amount of leg space! Ooops!