Seattle Sunday-Funday

I spent last weekend in Seattle for the first time in like, a MILLION YEARS (over exaggeration much? only a little? ok). It was really great to finally spend a weekend here. Friday night I Zumba-ed then hung out with Dustin. Saturday I woke up early to make him breakfast and see him off to Eugene, OR. I went for a walk around Green Lake with Natalie, scrubbed my apartment for many hours, made cookies, and went to see a movie (This is where I Leave You which was actually hilarious and down to earth) + drinks + dinner at Skillet Diner with Josh and Katie before passing out at 10pm.

Sunday was deemed Sunday Funday and I spent the day drinking beer in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood and girl talking and eating two dinners with Brittan, Natalie and Meli. Our first stop was at Reuben’s Brews which was a total mix up because Meli is gluten free and can’t drink beer and Reuben’s Brews didn’t have any beer or wine so I ended up having most of my delicious pumpkin beer alone (because I showed up first and ordered w/o checking my phone) and then Natalie met me and we went to the next place together. But it was really nice outside and I had a beer in my hand so it worked out fine.

^^ Pumpkin beer at Reuben’s Brews^^

Our next stop was Hilliard’s Brewery. After going inside and asking the bartender if they had anything other than beer on the menu, we were informed that it is actually illegal (??) in Washington to sell any alcoholic drink other than beer at a brewery. Even cider is a no-go! So we ordered a round of beers because they had a nice outdoor seating area and it was actually nice in Seattle in October (WHAT?!) and we got Meli a coffee which she spiked with her purse flask (haha we lose at being adults). We sat outside and chatted about all the girl things before making our next move. P.S. if you don’t have friends who online date and tell you about their dating stories, get some ASAP, it’s magical! 

^^Meli, Brittan and Natalie at Hilliard’s^^

We headed to King’s Hardware after that for some food which was actually really delicious. Or maybe we were just that hungry? 

Our next stop was Percy’s where they have $13 bottles of happy hour champagne on Sundays which fueled SO MUCH GIRL TALK. I seriously got my fill on Sunday and it was the best.

^^Brittan and Natalie^^

We eventually decided that we were getting hungry again so we headed to The Gerald for dinner round 2. Lucky for us it was Seattle Restaurant Week, so we were able to split 2 delicious, 3-course tasting menus between the 4 of us, which meant two deserts to share which was really the best way to end the night.

From there we headed home, happy and full. On my way I stopped to get things for Dustin’s birthday cake (his birthday was Monday) and it wasn’t until after I got home, exhausted from my day of fun, that I realized I was missing one of my round cake pans and couldn’t make his cake. I decided to call it a wash and went to bed instead of baking a cake. I ended up grabbing some cupcakes from Trophy Cupcakes on my way home from work Monday and it all worked out fine!

Hooray for weekends spent in Seattle. Speaking of, is it Friday yet? ;)

Summer 2014 Disposable Camera Dump

Right before I headed back to White Salmon for the 4th of July weekend I thought it would be a great idea to pick up a disposable camera to capture the fun of my favorite holiday. It turns out a disposable camera actually has a lot of pictures on it, and it ended up taking me the entire summer to finish (4th of July – the weekend after Memorial Day). I packed that thing around with me everywhere and got made fun of a little, but you know what, I’m really digging the whole disposable camera thing. You get actual, hard copies of photos and I always opt for the CD too so I can have soft copies as well. I also learned that almost no one knows how to take a picture with one of those (so many fingers in the photos), and also people really like to bunny ear hard copy pics. Fun times!

Anyway, here is a summer recap by way of soft copy disposable camera photos:

The night before the 4th of July I decided to meet Beth for a post-work-beer at Chip’s (this really divey bar in Bingen, WA with a sign that says Liquor in the Front, Poker in the Back out front), we ended up running into a bunch of people I went to high school with and we convinced my brother and his BFF Jered to come join us. We definitely closed down the bar that night and it was actually a blast: ^^Jered, Josh, Beth and Brother Jim at Chip’s^^

On the 4th I went to the annual 4th of July party at the TREW house. I always dress up in my best America outfit for the 4th since it’s my favorite holiday everrrrr. This year did not disappoint:

^^Sarah and I with our matching America glasses^^

^^Captain America letting everyone it was shot time!^^

^^Beth and Capitan America + his mullet^^
    ^^Beth and I in our patriotic 4th of July gear^^

That same weekend Gaby and my friend Dan came through town (on an epic road trip) with his daughter Allison. I met them at The Gorge White House for lunch and a walk through the grounds:

 
I also went to a Mariner’s game with a huge group of friends and coworkers this summer. We ended up running into even more friends and had a total blast. We ended the night in Ballard where one of my flip flops broke so I decided to just go into a bar, Kings Hardware, with only one shoe on, HA:

^^A cute picture of Dustin and I “ruined” by a stranger giving him bunny ears and my coworker Dave photo bombing LOLZ^^

^^Dustin, Meli, Me, Brittan, Danielle, Natalie and Jeff^^ 

  ^^I also found some sorority sisters at the game: Allison, me, A Jo, Kate and Erin^^

In August, I went to Millstock, which is the best thing ever. The next day I took Brittan, Justin, Natalie and Millie to Hood River on our way out of the Dalles and back to Seattle. It was the middle of August and it was SO hot, so we decided to walk down the train tracks to the tressle. On the way we grabbed a bottle of wine from the Springhouse Cellars and bribed the bartender to discreetly open it for us so we could drink it straight from the bottle while swimming like the classy people we are:

There were also Sunday morning brunches and farmers market trips in Ballard with Brittan and Natalie, which is one of my very favorite things:

 
Memorial Day weekend, Brittan’s brother got married in the Dalles. I ended up meeting up with Brittan and Justin in Hood River the night before the wedding. We went to ALL  the bars and drank too much. I took them to Jack’s for the first time and got them their obligatory scorpion bowl which did not help the situation. Whatever, it was so fun!

I went to see Foster the People at Edgefield at some point in August with Gaby and Sarah. It was fun. After I met Beth and Tonya and Christa and we had girls night where we ran around taking shots and dancing our faces off. It was really sweaty that night too.

^^Beth, Christa, Moriva, me and Tonya. Moriva bartended us our first shot of the night – so let’s blame her for our shenanigans ;)^^

And finally, the weekend after Memorial Day I stayed in Seattle (literally the last weekend I spent in Seattle – omg really looking forward to NOT driving this weekend). I went to Friday night Zumba, I got drinks and dinner with Brittan and Natalie, and on Sunday I met up with Katie and Josh and Katie’s dad who was in town from Ecuador and we went wine tasting in Woodinville. It was awesome:

^^Josh, Katie and I^^

^^Katie’s dad with his “marshmallows”^^

Anddddddddd that was my summer! Hooray!

Opening weekend failure

As many of you already know, I hunt. I grew up hunting on my parents’ ranch and I got my first deer when I was in 7th grade. It’s something I always feel weird talking about because I never know if I’m going to offend someone or if this fact about me will be off-putting, but it’s part of who I am and this is my blog so I’m going to go with it. My family eats the meat from the animals we kill and we donate the hides and sometimes my friend Sarah makes things out of the bones and honestly, it’s something I enjoy doing (mostly – sometimes it makes me sad #somanyfeelings #donttellmydad).

Anyway, last weekend was opening day/weekend of deer season in my neck of the woods, so I made the trek, for the millionth time this month, down to my parents’ house to head out hunting at daylight Saturday morning. Last year I shot my deer within minutes of leaving the house on opening morning, but this year I didn’t even so much as see a deer. At least the scenery was great though!

After hiking around outside with a gun for a few hours (I forgot how hard that is, btw – lots of hills, lots of brush, carrying a gun and wearing uncomfortable clothes) with zero deer sightings I headed home. It was a bad morning for everyone in my family. I napped for a few hours with sweet Fluffy before heading to Hood River to run a few errands (including the worst ever, Wal Mart – BOO Wal Mart!) and grab a breakfast sandwich with Gaby.

On my drive home from Hood River I saw SEVEN! deer on the side of the road (WTF?), so shortly after I got back from town (isn’t it funny to hear someone say that? you know you live in the country when…) I headed back out for an evening hunt with my dad. We hiked around for about 2.5 hours and only ended up seeing three deer (none of which had horns). Bummerville. I was exhausted but decided I should probably be a little social, so I went back to Hood River to meet Sarah and Josh for dinner at Solstice which was delicious and amazing, per usual, after which I headed home to go to bed.

Sunday morning I woke up early again and hunted by myself and saw one deer, with only one horn (what happened to your other horn, little deer?!). Deer have to be three-point or better to shoot in the area where I was hunting, so he was a no-go.

It was a pretty unsuccessful weekend hunting wise, but I did really enjoy hiking around on my parents’ property, even if it did end with really blistered feet and some blood drawn from both my boots and some berry bushes.

^^It’s hard to see but in the background there is Mount Hood and below that to the right is Hood River and even further to the right is the Columbia River Gorge (although technically, I – I promise it was much better in person, darn iPhone^^

I got a text from my mom Tuesday night letting me know that there were a lot of deer out that evening, and then a little while later, while I was at happy hour with some friends my mom text me to tell me my brother got a deer. I responded with “pic or it didn’t happen” because I’m the best daughter. She sent one back – it happened. Whatever, brother.

Tonight I need to decide if I want to make the trek back down for the MILLIONTH (7th) weekend. Part of me really wants to get outside and get the most out of my tag but the other part of me is realllllyyyy craving a weekend in Seattle. We shall see.

Anyway, I hope I didn’t offend any of you with all my hunting talk and things. I also hope you’re having an excellent week! Talk soon, friends!

The Osbornes DO Vegas

Monday afternoon I got back from an epic weekend spent in Las Vegas. It was one of the most fun trips I’ve ever been on and  I learned that I can function on a very small amount of sleep for many days, but when that happens I get weepy at everything and it takes like a whole week for my body to recover. During our first night in Vegas, Beth and I stopped into a Walgreen’s on the way back from dinner at the Bellagio buffet where “the kids” drank about a million margaritas because we had to take advantage of that $12 unlimited alcohol add-on, so she could buy bandaids. We also decided that it would be a wonderful idea to buy a 5th of blueberry vodka and a disposable camera to document the weekend. Half of these pictures are from that camera, the rest are from my iPhone. This is what happened:

DAY ONE:

After going to bed at approximately midnight the night before, we woke up early to be out the door by 5am. I swooped up Beth and we headed to PDX to prefunk our 8:30am flight like champs. My parents don’t drink (anymore) and this was my mom’s first ever flight (and my dad’s second ever flight, but the first one he’d been on in over 40 years), so she took some anxiety medicine to cope with her fear. My mom, dad, brother, Beth, Jered, and my mom’s two nurse friends from her work were all on the flight. So was this total douchy bro who was shouting SO loud about how he “knows people” etc. I hated him a lot. Everyone did. Flight was smooth, we landed alive, hooray! The Guerrero clan (Karen, Joe, Andy, Brooke and Kory) were waiting for us at our hotel. I had already convinced them that we needed to have In-N-Out burger for lunch and they agreed to drive me there to get burgers and fries for everyone in their rental car. They are the best. So is In-N-Out. Build one in the PWN already, please!!
 

After lunch we all wandered to a few other hotels and gambled and Beth won $100 playing video roulette for the first time ever at New York, New York!

It took us a million years to be able to check into our hotel rooms, but when we did Beth and I headed up to the room we were sharing with Brother Jim and Jered – worst or best idea ever??? maybe somewhere in the middle – to get ready for dinner. We waited another million hours in line for the Bellagio Buffet because it was my dad’s birthday and the Bellagio buffet has sushi and when it’s dad’s birthday we do what dad wants to do! The 4 “kids” at dinner (there were kids (me, Beth, Jim, Jered, Andy, Kory and Brooke), and there were adults/parents (mom, dad, Joe, Karen, Judy and Pam)) opted to pay the additional $12 for unlimited drinks and we devoured about a million margaritas at dinner because we had the best server ever.

 
We stopped to watch the water show at the Bellagio fountain on our walk back. We also stopped so Jim could give some of his drink to a street accordion player. We stopped again so that we could go into Walgreens and then have the temporary tattoo man take our picture with our disposable camera and take a chug out of our blueberry vodka 5th – but for whatever reason those two photos did not get returned to me when I picked up my film, WTF?! When we finally made it back to our room we drank vodka and took voke tabs and jumped on the beds had a dance party to rap music (“can you guys play anything but rap music?!?”) before heading downstairs to win a MILLION DOLLARS on the roulette table (I wishhhh).

 
Because Jered put $100 down on the routlette table before we could make it out of the casino we gambled there all night. Literally. It was 5am before Beth and I went to bed. The rest of the group even came to meet us and at one point all the “kids” were around one table drinking free vodka redbulls (the waitress kept bringing a million rounds) winning all the dollars and it was so much fun. I came out of that night $200 richer. #KILLINGIT!

DAY TWO:

I woke up at 8am after only 3 hours of sleep, my heart was racing/pounding, Jim and Jered weren’t in the room, I needed to put food in my mouth, so I got up and found Jim and Jered downstairs, still gambling. I fed us all Starbucks breakfast sandwiches, chatted with my parents, then headed to the pool.

We rented a cabana/gratto thing at the pool and it was the best idea. There were couches and a TV and a fridge and bottled water and fruit and a waitress and most importantly, shade! The whole clan hung out by the pool all day drinking and eating and taking ridiculous pictures and it was so much fun! Joe’s niece who lives in LV even showed up with her two baby girls and we swam with them which was a blast.

 

In case you’re wondering, I wore a metallic bronze/orange one piece from American Apparel and I had to wear pasties under it that you could CLEARLY see so I felt the need to announce it to everyone, even the “dads” sooo sorry dad and Joe, “everyone has nipples!”

When we’d had enough of the pool Beth, my parents and I headed to Todai (my dad’s FAVORITE place ever, but they closed all the north west locations, so he was super stoked to get to go to one in Vegas) for all you can eat sushi! I got really upset when talking about Ebola and the US man who got it trying to carry a pregnant woman to the hospital – only to be turned away! Weepy incident #1.

After dinner Beth and I headed to Old Town to meet the rest of the crew. When we got there everyone else was just walking into dinner #annoyed, so we decided to make our own fun. We got these large mixed drinks with sexual names from Whiskey Licker Bar that said “Liquor in the front… Poker in the back” on the cups, and we saw this upstairs balcony bar we decided we NEEDED to be on.

So obvi, we marched ourselves inside, walked up to the man in a polo guarding the elevator and told him “we want to be on the balcony, how do we get up there?” and so he took us up. And walked us back. And then stayed on the balcony chatting with us.  It took about 10 minutes before we realized he didn’t work there, he was just a random man standing by the elevator LOLZ! His name was Jay but after he left we nicknamed him “black Doug” from the Hangover because (a) they looked surprisingly similar, and (b) Jay asked us if we had any ecstasy. No.

When the rest of the group got out of dinner we met them, said goodbye to 1/2 of them and the rest of us went out to explore Fremont Street.

 
Andy and Kory zip lined while we ran into THE DOUCHE FROM THE PLANE! OMG! I made sure to shout “OMG it’s the douche from the plane!!” which his friends heard and we all had a good LOL over how drunk and douchy he was (obvi he does not remember). And we all chatted for a while.

 
Beth also got Rebeka “tattooed” on her leg in sharpie by a topless 19 year old who has a 4 month old baby named Clyde who we found on the street. Obvi we told her she is heading in the wrong direction and is too young to be living that vegas life and then we gave her some dollars and some pulls of blueberry vodka from my purse flask.

 

Then we got in a fight with Jim and Jered and stormed away to meet Kory and Andy after their ZipLine adventure.

 
Andy and Kory made us get in a cab to head back to the strip. We shouted EWWWWWW all the way there and then when the cab driver took us to the Tropicana we told him “THE TROPICANA IS EW! TAKE US TO THE BELLAGIO!” and so he did. We immediately drank mind erasers at the bar and then walked around and then Kory decided we needed to go back to the Tropicana because we were OOC.

^^EW selfies^^

Back at the Tropicana we fought more with Jim and Jered and Beth apparently dived head first for them and I cried in the bathroom then we and stole all the boys’ dollars and their chips. I gave back their chips but Beth forgot that she stole Jim’s dollars and in the morning he tore the hotel room apart looking for his $108 to no avail. Tuesday night I got a call from Beth telling me that she found Jim’s money waded up in the bottom of her purse LOL #shame

 
Then I went downstairs and drank with Kory and Andy until 4am.

DAY THREE:

I woke up at 8am and packed up my shit and we looked for Jim’s money and Jered (who didn’t ever make it back to the hotel) and checked out. But on my way to check out of our rooms I found Jered at the Roulette table, down $1200 and he asked me for a number. I told him 12. He bet 5 dollars and won $600. You’re welcome Jered. At the airport I ate orange chicken for breakfast and shoved eggrolls in my purse for later. I almost vommed on the flight which was terrible in my mind and it made me want to cry, but I didn’t vom, and then when we landed (all 13 of us on the same flight) I drove from Portland back to Seattle and it was over. But it was one of the most fun weekends of my life and probably I’ll have a lot more funny stories for you later because some weird, funny shit happened that weekend and it deserves to be told.

When can we go back?!

Know Your Numbers

My work has this “Know Your Numbers” initiative going on right now. You can go in, get a flu shot and a health screen for free, they’ll donate 50 vaccines to people in need and you get $50 or a Fitbit. It’s pretty rad. I’d never had my cholesterol or body fat measured, so I figured I’d give it a go, plus I’m pro vaccine and I needed my flu shot, sooo win/win. I made the mistake of doing this screen last week, right before I went to Las Vegas. The perfectionist in me wants to get my “numbers” down even further so I can be healthy and hopefully avoid issues later in life. The rest of me wanted to have SO MUCH FUN in Las Vegas (which I did) and probably if I got tested today my numbers wouldn’t be great after how I treated my body this weekend.

So, let me tell you about some of the terrible things I did to my body this weekend to make you feel better about your life (hah) and remind myself that sometimes you just gotta live and hopefully the 80/20 rule is good enough:

• Ate two buffet dinners, both including sushi and dessert, one including about 3 too many margaritas;
• Drank vodka redbulls all night while playing roulette, woke up after 3 hours of sleep to a racing heart;
• As we were boarding the flight back to PDX, Jered was standing behind me and announced “it smells like Chinese Food” to which I responded, “that’s because I have eggrolls in my purse.” Chinese chicken for breakfast at the airport, check! purse eggrolls for snack, check!;
• Got a lot of sun (sunscreened, but still) and drank a lot of drinks at the pool on Sunday; and
• Only slept a total of 11 hours from Friday morning – Monday night.

At least it was fun! My body hates me. Time to get back on schedule (a normal sleep schedule, exercise schedule and work schedule etc.), cut back on the alcohol and get my numbers down.

Please tell me, what do you do to keep yourself healthy?

Las Vegas through the years

It’s Thursday afternoon, I’ve hit a wall, I’m drinking some coffee but I thought maybe a quick work break for a blog post would be a good productivity booster. Also, I have a headache and I can’t figure out why and I need to do something that’s easy on the brain for a bit.

I’m going to Las Vegas the day after tomorrow and I’m really excited about it. The closer it gets the more excited I get. I’m sharing a room with Brother Jim and his BFF Jered and my BFF Beth and that’s probably going to be interesting but I’m sure if we can work out an acceptable bathroom schedule and no one pukes (I’m looking at you, Jered), we’ll be fine. It’s supposed to be in the low 90s there so I booked a gratto at the pool for our clan on Sunday. Pool Party!!!

Vegas is one of those places I feel like people either love or hate. I guess that would mean I’m on the love side of things? I usually don’t get super crazy in Vegas, but it’s always a really easy trip from Seattle or Portland. It’s a quick flight, it’s usually nice there and there are a million things to see/do/eat/drink. Plus, what’s more fun than walking down the street wearing whatever you want with a drink in your hand?! I’ve been 4 times, this will be my 5th. Yikes, that’s a lot. Anyway, in honor of #TBT or #throwbackthursday if you’d prefer it, let me recap my trips for you thus far.

The first time I went to Las Vegas I was 22, I think. It was for my ex-boyfriend’s 21st birthday. Call me a cradle robber all you want – I quickly learned dating younger men isn’t for me. We hung out with his cousin who  lives in Las Vegas, thoroughly enjoyed those novelty size margaritas and I loved life while running around to all the bars by myself, skipping lines (while the boys waited in them) and walking right in because I was 22, a girl in a dress and alone(ish):

 
The second time I went was 1L year of Law School. Sister Erin and I went for SPRING BREAK, WHOO! We spent like $200 total on our flight + room at the super classy and totally convenient Stratosphere (ha!). We also ate McD’s chicken nuggs for like every meal because they were cheap and came in boxes of 50 and we were really poor law students. We definitely only went “out” one night when we were there (not before we made a cab take us to the Olive Garden for dinner because, it was definitely the classiest Vegas trip on the books) ended up spending $13 per well drink, and watching my friend from HS who met us there fall over backward on the dance floor, OOPS!:

My third trip to Las Vegas was with Dustin for a wedding at Excalibur we didn’t actually end up going to, because, DRAMA! Instead we went to see the Elvis Cirque de Soleil, ate PF Chaing’s for dinner (Dustin snuck in a water bottle full of vodka, because Vegas), had someone successfully unlock the door to our very nice room at the Aria (WTF?) and Dustin danced in front of the Bellagio fountain:

 
The last time I went to Las Vegas was actually January of this year (!!), this trip will make the places I’ve been to on a plane in the last year: cross country road trip from FL –> WA, San Francisco and Las Vegas X2. Let’s see if I can beat that this next year! Anyway, the fourth time I went to Vegas was with Gaby to meet our friend Dan who was in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Trade Show. Gaby and I crashed in Dan’s suite, gambled at Circus Circus, ate guacamole for lunch outside in January (!!), went to the sexy Cirque de Soleil (by accident), walked a million miles, ordered a lot of room service (thanks Dan!) and made a cabby take us through In-n-Out burger:

 
I can’t wait to give you all a recap of the trip next week! Also, please tell me: have you ever been to Vegas? What do I need to do while I’m there? I’ve never been to old town. And I feel like I haven’t even skimmed the surface of amazing restaurants. Suggest away, please!

Anyway, back to work for me… right after I grab some Advil for this headache, yikes!

Happy Thursday, everyone!!