in which we burned things in a livingroom

Last night I went over to Natalie and Brittan's with an envelope containing an almost illegible letter sealed inside. The letter contained all of the negativity I wanted to release from 2013 so I could move into 2014 unburdened and with good intentions.

Natalie and I grabbed burgers from the place across the street, Brittan poured us some drinks and we got down to business. We lit a candle on a baking sheet in their living room and proceeded to talk about all the negative things and let them go. We physically wrote down the things we wanted to release and burned the paper they were written on and in doing that cleared our minds and our hearts and it was all so good.

We agreed that 2013 was definitely a transition year for the three of us. We are still trying to navigate life after law school and get settled into adulthood, meanwhile some of our peers are married, others have or are having babies, some of our friends are single, some have really enviable careers, and others are working multiple part time jobs to fund their dreams. All of the mid-twenty-somethings I know are at such different points right now. It's really beautiful. It's also really hard not to compare yourself to others sometimes. We're all moving forward whether we like it or not and it's really ok that our lives and our relationships and our career paths don't look like everyone else's. It's nice having such wonderful friends who live so near me who are in very similar points of their lives to talk through all of our insecurities.

The other night our friend Lisa was visiting from Philly and we were having drinks and discussing our resolutions for 2014. My resolutions (minus the one where I want to wear sunscreen on my face and chest every day) are inspired by people who are at very different places in their life than me. I want to find something besides my: work, workout, make dinner, read, go to bed, hang with friends routine that fulfills me. I'm not completely sure what that extra something is, but I want to start exploring. I have a few ideas in mind and I'll let you know how they go.

In the mean time, tonight I'm not going to think too much about serious things and instead I'm going to eat pulled pork, see Super Diamond (the Neil Diamond tribute band), wear a beautiful mermaid dress, dance around with some great friends, get a smooch at midnight and drink (too much) champagne. I can't wait! I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful New Year's Eve!

xoxo

Christmas 2013

 

Christmas this year was a good one. A few weeks ago Dustin and I went to get a tree from the tree stand a few blocks from his apartment. I picked it out, he carried home, we went our for Chinese food then we came home and decorated it together. 

 

 

This last weekend I went home to White Salmon and dropped off Christmas presents for my family and friends. I also crafted an ugly Christmas sweater (at Sarah's craft night) complete with a cat and the words "Meowy Christmas" which won me second place at the Brian's Basement Bar party. Sarah and I ate way too much delicious food at Solstice, on the night of the winter solstice, where there were belly and fire dancers to entertain us during dinner, and where Sarah and I realized we are professional belly dancers (no training required). I was able to spend time with friends, bond with my dad, eat lots of good food with friends, and take Gaby to Jack's for the first time ever during my weekend at home. Success! 

I came back to Seattle and worked Monday. I had lunch with Katie and Josh on Christmas Eve, ran some last minute errands then went to Dustin's to start our Christmas festivities. We went out to dinner at a French restaurant (it's hard to find restaurants open Christmas Eve) then came home, drank hot buttered rum and watched Home Alone.

Christmas morning we opened presents and ate cinnamon rolls. We spent the rest of the day in our PJs, playing with our Christmas gifts (my new Kindle Fire kept me entertained/distracted all day - thanks Dustin), watching Christmas movies and for dinner we ate crab mac and cheese. It was a super relaxing, merry Christmas.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas as well.

XO

Birthday Bangs

I woke up on Friday morning after our GRand Adventure and decided that I wanted big, blunt bangs again. I mean, is there really any better way to ring in my 27th year of life than with blunt bangs? I don't think so. So, what did I do? I booked an appointment with my favorite Kalyn in Hood River and drove down to Oregon that day with Gaby right behind me in her pink nugget. That 4 hour drive felt like nothing after driving all the way across the country a few days before. I swooped up Beth's sister, Emily on my way through Portland, landed in Hood River and chopped my hair.

 ^^Emily and I in Hood River after I chopped my bangs^^

 

After my hair appointment I went and got a manicure (hair did, nails did, everything did), patiently waited for Beth to get into town from Boise and discovered that I had separation anxiety after being with Gaby for so many days in a row (I was having issues functioning alone). When Beth got into town we met at Henni's to share small plates and have drinks. We were joined by Gaby and Marissa part way through dinner before calling it an early night.

^^Only at my parents' house do people wake up to such a sight^^

Saturday was the most wonderful day. I had breakfast with Beth, shopped for baby gifts, relaxed and spent time with a lot of good people, sat at Ground and drank a cider, and then had an early birthday celebration.

^^The best breakfast sandwich on a homemade English muffin at River Daze Café^^ 

^^Dylan and Beth at Ground^^

 

^^Ryan and Beth at Ground^^

 

^^Dylan is a brat^^

 

Some of my favorite people joined me at Double Mountain for dinner, showered me with love and presents, and ate pizza and drank beer with me in celebration of my 27th year of life. After dinner we went to Cebu to watch our friends play some music and then made our way to the Trillium after discovering that both the Red Carpet and Jack's (my favorite dive bars) were both closed (BOO!).

 

^^Birthday present at dinner^^

^^Dylan and Mo^^

^^Dylan, Gaby and Mo - I love these three #ground4lyfe!^^

 

Mo gifted me a pint of fireball for my birthday so we definitely all shared that outside the bars like we were teenagers and it was so fun and definitely led to a nasty hangover Sunday (side note: fireball pulls, beers and jello shots DO NOT mix), but it was so much fun and it was all in the name of my birthday, so YAY! #birthdayprincess

 ^^Mo and I outside Cebu with our fireball, sneaky sneaky^^

Sunday Beth, Emily, her boyfriend, Gaby and I had breakfast at Bette's before saying goodbye and heading our separate ways (slash leaving Gaby safely in White Salmon - GRand Adventure END). Have I mentioned lately that I love it there? Guys, I love it there.

San Francisco 2013

Last week I celebrated turning 27 by eating nachos after work, going to bed really early, waking up the next day and flying to San Francisco (California is the 14th state I've been to this month, if you're keeping track - that number is bigger than the number of states I'd ever visited before combined).

We discovered on this trip that Brittan and I like to take a very laid back approach to traveling which really stresses Natalie and Danielle out. We may have barely made our flight, but we did make it (during last call). When we got to San Francisco we were starving and after dropping our things at our Air BnB on Nob Hill we walked to Little Italy for a late lunch of pizza, Caesar salad and beer. After lunch we walked to the really curvy part of Lombard St., took pictures, admired the best sunset ever and then walked back to our Air BnB where our hostess's husband was waiting outside for us. His name was Nick. He creeped Brittan and I out a lot and we may have slept with knives beside our round bed out of fear that he was coming for us in the night. But that's another story for another day.

 ^^View from the top of Lombard St.^^

 ^^Me, Danielle, Brittan and Natalie at the bottom of Lombard St, looking the wrong way^^

 

After resting for a bit at our apartment (there are a lot of really steep hills in San Francisco, OMG), and discovering the amazing view from our roof, we walked downtown to Zara and then back to our apartment to call an Uber and head down to the Marina district to grab a  drink at the Tipsy Pig (which was soo cute) before our 10pm dinner reservation - how hip are we, am I right? Ha! For dinner we had margaritas and arguably the best Mexican food of our lives at Mamacia before calling it an early night and making endless hashtag jokes on the ride home.

 ^^discovering the roof top view from our apartment, most amazing thing ever, right?^^

 

^^Brittan, Danielle, Natalie and I at the Tipsy Pig^^ 

Saturday morning we woke up early, grabbed coffee and bagel sandwiches and headed down to catch our ferry to Alcatraz. None of us had ever been to Alcatraz and it was such a neat experience. I would recommend it to anyone visiting, but make sure you book in advance as apparently you can't just walk on a ferry. We took an audio tour of the prison which was really cool and the views from the island were stunning. It probably helped that it was gorgeous all weekend (suck it, Seattle rain!). I just wish we would have been able to see more of the island and also I wish I knew more about all of the "Indains" graffiti all over (see: Indian Occupation).

^^The welcome sign at Alcatraz "Indians Welcome"^^

^^3 floors of jail cells in the prison at Alcatraz^^

^^Natalie in solitary confinement^^

^^Danielle and I and SF from Alcatraz^^

 

^^The Golden Gate Bridge from Alcatraz^^ 

After Alcatraz we hopped in an Uber driven by Dan, the best ever Uber driver, and headed to Alamo Square to see the Painted Ladies, or as I refer to it, the Full House Houses! It was a little anticlimactic but I had never seen them before and I was glad to cross it off my bucket list.

^^The Painted Ladies from Alamo Square with downtown SF in the background^^

We grabbed lunch nearby then Danielle and I decided that it was necessary that we walk through the neighborhood in search of ice cream. We ended up at Smitten which was so good! You guys have to go if ever you're in San Francisco. They make small batches of ice cream using liquid nitrogen and the ice cream is so smooth and delicious. Danielle and I split a giant sundae which we were so excited about (obviously)!

 ^^Smitten is inside an old shipping container and it was the cutest^^

 

^^Danielle and I with our sundae that consisted of salted caramel ice cream, dark chocolate sauce, cookie crumbles and whipped cream^^

 

 ^^the liquid nitrogen doing it's thing^^

That night Danielle's friend Ashley and my friend Courtney who I love and who I worked with at Ground in Hood River (and her boyfriend Danny, yay Danny) met us for some delicious Sushi a few blocks from our apartment. Side note: I'm convinced that all of the food in San Francisco is delicious. Seriously. After sushi we headed down to the Mission district to meet up with some more friends and have some drinks. My friend Micah and his wife Alexis even came from Okland to meet up with us and I had a blast catching up with them. It had been too long! We ended the night by eating Mission style burritos in the Mission district (I mean, c'mon!).

^^Micah, me and Alexis^^

The next day we woke up, got ready, said goodbye to our roof and headed to the airport. We were all feeling ok until the Uber ride made us all want to vomit and die. But we made it home safe, sans vomit. It was a really amazing weekend getaway.

^^Waiting for our Uber, the last time we all felt decent for the rest of the day^^

Also, random things about San Francisco/our trip: it is sunny and 65degrees there in mid-November; all of the buildings in San Francisco are connected and it's so confusing and amazing and beautiful, it feels so much more romantic than modern Seattle; Uber in San Francisco is the best thing ever (ok they have it in Seattle too and really it's good everywhere); staying in an Air BnB is awesome and I would definitely recommend it, just be ready to maybe sleep with a knife by your round bed if your host creeps you out; AND finally, Brittan and I need to purchase round beds immediately because round beds are amazing, no joke. San Francisco, thank you for being so good to us, we heart you #itsofficial.

^^Brittan is going to kill me for this one - round bed 4eva!^^

 

^^best. rooftop. view. ever.^^

 

GRandadventure or GRandventure or SOMETHING

It's been a busy month-ish for me. Lots of traveling, lots of good things, good people, not a lot of time to stop and relax and clean my shower which, gross, but I'm not complaining. It's been really wonderful, this past month.

Last Wednesday I got back from a cross-country road trip in which I flew to Tampa, not without first getting caught at LAX during the shooting causing my layover to last 6 hours instead of 50 minutes (I realize I'm lucky that I made it out of there safely, my heart hurts for the victims and their families), swooped up my friend Gaby after a night at "St. Pete's hottest night club" and moved her back to Washington in her little pink nugget of a car.

We left Tampa on Saturday and made it back to Seattle on Wednesday afternoon. Our days looked like:

DAY 1: Left St. Petersburg on almost no sleep after a quick stop at the beach and a few errands, hoped for some roadside gator jerky, didn't get/see any, stopped to pop my Dunkin Donuts cherry, drove through Georgia, saw more billboards this day than I've ever seen in my whole life, popped my Chick-Fil-A cherry, got late night Taco Bell in Tennessee that tasted different from Taco Bell elsewhere (yes, there was a lot of unhealthy food this day) from a woman with a trashy southern accent, ended up in Nashville at about 11pm where we got ready in the car, watched the clock roll back an hour, grabbed a fancy drink with Gaby's friend Krista and then watched some live music (Wagon Wheel!!) and a street fight on Broadway.

 

DAY 2: Krista lives with the guitar player from Thompson Square and his wife, he showed us his recording studio then invited us for breakfast at his mom's house which was amazing. We stopped for sweet potato lattes at the Frothy Monkey on the way. We drove from Nashville, through Kentucky which had more road kill than any other state ever (Gaby swears she saw a dead pony on the side of the road), through Illinois, into Missouri where we got stuck in the only traffic of the whole trip, stopped in St. Louis to see the arch, have the worst service of our life at dinner (I ate BBQ), said "hi" to one of Gaby's friends and then drove until almost midnight and almost Kansas city where we spent the night.

 
DAY 3: Drove through Kansas City, we got pulled over in Missouri (BOO), drove into Iowa, stopped at a weird welcome center, and then got dinner in Lincoln, Nebraska. All of those states look the same. We almost ran out of gas in WY, and finally made it to Cheyenne at almost midnight. We stayed at a Days Inn where the man at the front desk assured us our room wouldn't smell bad so we were extra pissed when it was the worst smelling room ever and it was like twelve degrees outside so opening the window to air it out sucked, ordered pizza only to have the delivery man tell me he made an "oopsie no no" and forgot the credit card receipt while awkwardly asking me for a cash tip and then after all of that was said and done we discovered our pizza wasn't at all what we ordered before passing out so tough.

 

DAY 4: Woke up to snow in Cheyenne. It was gorgeous and also 12 degrees. Frigid. Drove through downtown Cheyenne to get Starbucks and take pictures. I drove us out of the snow and it was my favorite part of the trip, so beautiful. We ate 50cent ice cream cones from Little America for lunch and Gaby did an ice cream dance out of delirium. We stopped at the prettiest ever rest stop in Utah, and finally made it to Beth in Boise, Idaho after traveling for 13 hours. We grabbed drinks (and took shots, what?) downtown Boise with a few of her friends, Beth and I cuddled on the floor of her apartment and we ate Calfonapzaktnch (translation: California Pizza Kitchen).

 

DAY 5: Idaho to Oregon to Washington! We stopped at the trailer I used to live in on the Umatilla Indian Reservation (that gave me severe anxiety), and we met Gaby's dad in the Tri Cities for a few minutes, and we finally made it back to Seattle that evening totally exhausted and happy to eat dinner that consisted of (not fried) vegetables.

 

Other notable things from our road trip: we listened to a lot of Ashlee Simpson, Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, country, and old school gangster rap. Basically Spotify Premium was our best friend. We don't know what we would have done without our phones in general (music, GPS, cameras, general entertainment like looking up weird stuff). We stopped at every welcome center and took pictures with every state sign we passed except Washington. We had a hastag mix up we only discovered 1/2 way through the trip, I thought Gaby way saying #GRandadventure and she was saying #GRandventure (combining the two words) so we were both hashtagging different things the whole time HA. Gaby stayed in Seattle with me Thursday and explored the city in the crazy rain while I went to work and then we both headed back to White Salmon on Friday to celebrate my birthday early with all of our White Salmon/Hood River friends and also Beth which was so fun! I loved our trip a lot, it was so much fun, and I'm so surprised I didn't get sick of Gaby at all (I actually felt separation anxiety after we were finally apart for more than like 5 minutes), but I'm probably good with not driving that far again for a really long time!

FIVE things

Today I have like FIVE things for you that probably (mostly) deserve their own posts, but sometimes life gets in the way, you know? So here they all are, an update of sorts. Enjoy!

ONE.
I got sworn into the bar the other week. It felt like more of a hoop than a monuments occasion, but it was nice to get dressed up and celebrate my last law-school-ish-related-thing, nonetheless. Hello being a real lawyer.

Dustin went with me to the ceremony and acted as my cheerleader/photographer (he may have been more excited than me, considering he had to deal with my stressed out self for like three years of law school and bar studies - someone give him a high five) and afterward took me to the Ballard Annex Oyster House for seafood - I had oysters, bites of Dustin's clam chowder, and a lobster roll - and champagne to celebrate.

TWO.
That same week, I went back to White Salmon where it was beautiful and fall-like, to do some hunting. I ended up getting a deer opening morning which was so, SO exciting and after tracking it through the woods with my dad and brother Jim, I took this picture in which I was exhausted and so happy.

Note to self: it might be a bad idea (or the best idea) to spend Friday at a coffee shop working really productively (Hood River is the most magical for all things), then go get a manicure (which held up so well through my hunt) before meeting up with pretty ladies for dinner and then letting them convince you to go out for a drink or two and dancing at Jack's until like 1am. But it was really fun and I was really exhausted when I had to get up before daylight to go hunting and when my dad let me go inside and nap while he finished skinning my deer for me, you'd better bet I did just that.

 

And then, that evening, instead of hiking through the woods looking for a deer, I was able to go to dinner with Josh and Sarah, and then grab another drink with everyone in Hood River before I called it an early night because I was SO tired, you guys (spoiler alert, see: THREE below).

 



And, this last weekend, my really cool brother Jim got his deer. I wish I could have been there. Also, jeal that his was bigger than mine (it ALWAYS is).

 

THREE.

I definitely got strep throat last week, which was a total bummer. My tonsils swelled up to the size of cherries and got all white and disgusting, even the Doctor was shocked when he looked at my throat which made me LOL really hard, because you don't expect a doctor to freak out when he looks at your throat, amiright? After not getting sick at all last winter coming down with strep so early in the season was not a fun one. Hey antibiotics forever.

 

FOUR. 

Sunday someone had a birthday. We celebrated with Ba Bar for dinner followed by a drink and a shot for him thanks to our gracious bartender, then home for cake (vanilla with raspberry filling, made by yours truly) and presents.

FIVE.
This next month is going to be full of travel for me and I'm so excited. This weekend it's back to Hood River for some Halloween fun, picking up a freezer full of deer meat and getting my teeth cleaned.

Then, next week I fly to Tampa to swoop up my friend Gaby and drive with her back to the northwest. I'm really excited for our cross-country road trip. We're doing the whole thing in 5 days, Tampa to Seattle (to White Salmon for her). We're definitely stopping in Nashville, St. Louis, Cheyenne(ish) and Boise. Does anyone have any must-sees or dos along the way?

Then, right after my birthday, Natalie, Danielle, Brittan and I are going to San Francisco for a long weekend. Again, if anyone has any must-dos in San Francisco please let me know. I am just so excited about all of it (my bank account, on the other hand, is not, but YOLO, amiright? ha)!

xoxo