Seattle Tash's Wedding

Ok, so I'm wayyyyy behind in blog posts.  It's because we've been super duper busy and have a lot to report about but then we are on to the next thing and I haven't updated from the last thing!  So, I'm going to work on this over the next little bit and see how far we get.

So on the docket here, we have Tasha's wedding in Seattle, then Idaho City race, then mom's birthday.  And of course lots of stuff in between and yet to come!  So this post is dedicated to Tash's wedding.

My friend  Tash is an amazing person. I met her almost 15 years ago, on my first day of college.  Like very first day.  She lived on my dorm floor and we were instant friends.  She is a skinny Hawaiian girl from Seattle who played basketball for Weber State.  She is one of those people who will always be a person with some of the greatest influence on my life.  Well, she got married over Memorial Day weekend!   Unfortunately, we couldn't afford the money or time it took to bring the whole family, so I just went.  Here are pictures from my trip.

View of Rainier from Pike Place Market.

 View from my morning run

Beautiful flowers at Pike Place market on Sunday morning.

My amazing breakfast

After rehearsal dinner, Drew, April and I went out.

This is the view from the house I stayed at in West Seattle.  Amazing.

Got to have brunch with my former boss and friend, Stacy and her cute boy Jamie.

The wedding!  April walking down the aisle.

Beautiful bride Tash and her parents.

Glenn and Tasha getting hitched!

We've all be friends for 15 years, love these girls!

A fantastic weekend to visit with friends and celebrate marriage.  Congrats Tash and Glenn!

Reed Turns 5

Reed's 5th birthday was on Monday.  I'm sort of emotional and sentimental about my kids birthday's.  Like uncharacteristically so.  I just remember back how ever many years and remember how the entered the world.  Like I'm sure many women feel, giving birth to those kids was a traumatic event in my life.  A very good event, but traumatic.  Especially Reed.  It was my first baby, my first experience in birth, my first born, my son.  It was obviously a very life changing event to me.  So I remember it year after year on his birthday.  This year, though, was hard because I'm kinda at the point that I don't want him to grow up anymore.  He's still young, innocent, sweet.  I am the greatest thing to him, his comforter.  He loves me no matter what I do.  But a five year old?  Five year olds are no longer toddlers, they are little boys.  He doesn't need me as much.  He's getting more independent.  But I need to buck up and deal with it I guess, whether I want him to or not, he's going to grow up.  And he's so excited about it, he wants to grow up and that's ok.

So Monday was his birthday.  I let him play hookie from school as he had his 5 year well check and kindergarten doc appointment in the morning anyway.  We dropped Nora off at school and we headed to the doc (after a donut stop).  He was excited about seeing doctor Tony but that wore off by the end of the appointment when he needed some immunizations.  He was pretty upset about that.  I have never seen him fight and scream like that.  It was sort of funny and sort of sad.  He was screaming "I don't want a birthday anymore, I don't want anymore birthdays!".  He got over it about a half hour later when we went to the pool and he got to jump in over and over again.  He was saying "best birthday ever!".  I found a great indoor pool and waterslide and he had a great time swimming.  After that we met up with Fogg for lunch.

After lunch we went to get some last minute things for his party that afternoon, then picked up Nora.  When we got home, he opened his gift from his sister (it was a wooden learning clock).

Then it was on to the party.  We had a bounce house, a scavenger hunt, pizzas, pinata, cake, singing, presents, and generally just playing.  It was a great party.  I didn't take very many pictures cause I was just enjoying it (also managing a bunch of 2-8 year olds is really chaotic).

Carol got him a new dirt bike jersey, not knowing he was getting a dirt bike!  He wore it for 2 straight days after this.

Off he goes:

then all the kids starting chasing him

Our awesome friends:

Reed got a dirt bike from Fogg.  Fogg has been waiting for 5 years to get him one.  First he mastered the balance bike, then mastered the peddle bike.  Now he gets to ride a dirt bike.  He loves it, said he dreams about it.  It's electric so it's quiet and it is pretty slow to start.  A great first bike.  Here he is trying it out for the first time.

Nora loved the bounce house, she got a star glow stick and started singing "twinkle twinkle little star".  Adorbs!

We headed home to clean up, hit the bath and open a few remaining gifts.  He loved everything he got and was feeling pretty special.  Happy Birthday to my little buddy!  Glad we don't have to do that for another year!

10 Years

10 years ago today, I married my best friend.  I know a ton of people say things like that but for real, I really did marry my best friend.  When we got married, I was still so young, I didn't know what life was really handing me.  Though I felt thankful that I was marrying this great guy, I didn't fully realize that I was making one of the best decisions of my life. We enjoyed doing a lot of fun stuff together, we enjoyed life together.  But 10 years later, we still enjoy doing fun stuff together.  We still enjoy life together.  I think it's a big deal really that after 10 years of marriage, we are stronger than ever.  As committed as the day we got married.  The thing is, it's a little easier.  We know each other better, we've been through stuff together that bonds people forever (like having kids).  We love each other just as much (maybe even more!) I feel so lucky that as the years go on, we still want to hang out, go for a ride, explore new things, laugh about silly things, raise kids, make big decisions.  My true best friend.  And thank God for that!

So in honor of our 10th anniversary, some wedding photos from 10 years ago today, only miles from our current home.

Then:

And Now:

Happy Anniversary to my awesome hubby!

New Orleans

Fogg and I have been married for 10 years (on May 15^th).  We always said that we would take a big trip on our 10^th anniversary as we did a pretty small honeymoon.  We wanted to do something like France but when it came down to it, that was just a bit too big for us.  So we decided on New Orleans.  We also decided to not go during an event like Mardi Gras or the Jazz Fest in order to avoid the crowds and inflated prices.  Last week was the trip!  I’m not sure that we could have planned a better time.  There weren’t very many people, the weather was perfect and everything worked out in our favor everywhere we went. 

We have such amazing people in our lives that were able to help us by taking care of the kids while we were gone.  My mom, Dianne and Jim, James and Michelle and the East family were just so awesome that they sacrificed their own time to watch the kids.  I’m fairly confident that the kids had no clue we were even gone, they had so much fun.  In the entire 5 days we were gone, they talked to us for maybe 5 minutes of it. One time we called, they said they didn’t want to talk to us! 

We took off on Monday morning, after dropping the kids off at school.  We arrived in New Orleans around 7pm.  We dropped our stuff at the hotel and off we went to dinner.  We ended up at a little sportsbar/restaurant in the French Quarter called Huck Finn’s.  After eating, we went down to Bourbon Street to take in the insanity.  For a Monday night, it was pretty rowdy.  We stopped at a bar called Pat O’Brien’s and had Hurricane cocktails and watched the dueling pianos.  What a good time it was!  

Dinner Monday Night - we called this our "Elegant Selfie"

 Bourbon Street

 Famous Hurricane Cocktail

Tuesday morning, we got up and walked around the river in the French Quarter.  We stopped at Café Du Monde (for the first time of the trip) and ate beignets and drank chicory coffee. Then we walked the French Market and Flea Market.  After lunch at a café in the market, we walked back to the hotel to take a nap!  We utilized the gym at the hotel then got ready for dinner.  We had a beautifully romantic and delicious meal at the Commander’s Palace restaurant in the Garden District.  It was a huge house built for a royal daughter’s wedding gift but she never got married.  The house was never lived in, instead always used as a restaurant, since 1880.  After dinner we hopped a cab to the Hotel Monteleone to have a drink at the Carousel Bar.  The bar and seats move around in a circle, 15 minutes to make a lap.  The center stays stationary, so the bartenders are always having to find where you’ve moved to!  They were filming a show there at the time we were there, we’ll have to find it when it airs.  What a neat experience and we had a great time chatting with everyone that came and went.

Before:

 After:

 At Jackson Square

 A church in the opposite direction of the last picture.   Beautiful and super old.

 Dinner at Commander's Palace

At the Carousel Bar, two guys in the background being filmed for the show. You can even see the cameraman with the backwards hat.

Wednesday, we went to the WWII museum.  It was completely fascinating and we both enjoyed it quite a bit.  The exhibits were so thorough, interesting and engaging.  We then headed to Juan’s Flying Burrito for lunch in the Garden District.  We were able to walk around the area after and passed by an old Gothic Style house originally built in 1860 that was being renovated.  We talked to the contractor who was there and learned about the area and the house.  Totally fascinating.  We then hopped on the street cars to take us all the way back to the French Quarter.  Fogg really wanted to ride the street cars, they are the oldest in the country!  We ate at Café Du Monde again and gathered up some goodies to bring home.  After a lot of walking during the day, we hit the gym at the hotel again then had a pretty low-key evening at a sportsbar near the hotel.

 Fogg likes the streetcars

 The French Market

 lots of pralines - yum

 I just liked this tree growing over the fence.

 Me at my favorite place in New Orleans

Thursday morning we checked out of the hotel and grabbed a car.  We found lunch on the lake and then we went out to take a swamp tour.  I found this on a groupon that I signed up for when we booked our tickets (a good idea if you plan on traveling somewhere new!).  It ended up being a little cheesy but a ton of fun!  We took the most pictures while on the swamp tour.  We saw so many gators and turtles and other swamp life.  Learned a lot about the area and culture too.  After that, we went further east to Biloxi Mississippi to stay the night.  We stayed in a beautiful casino/resort called the Beau Rivage.  It was really nice.  We got to workout there too and then sat in their huge hot tub.  Then we went to dinner at a really great Oyster place.  We ended up spending the rest of the evening at the bar at the hotel, listening to the band and meeting more people.

Lake Pontchartrain shoreline houses 

 Fogg actually accomplished relaxing

 Lots o gators!

These pointy things are the roots of the Cyprus trees, called the knee

The pool at the Beau Rivage

 Dinner at the Oyster Bar

 View from our room

Friday was a little overcast so we were lazy in the morning, grabbing coffee and sitting in the hot tub again.  We packed up and headed out to explore more of Biloxi.  Fogg showed me the Air Force base that he was stationed at there, his first out of Basic Training.  He says he doesn’t remember much of it, but it was interesting to think of him as a punk 19 year old there…   We headed back to New Orleans in the mid afternoon and hit up Café Du Monde one last time.  We walked around a little more before heading out to the hotel we were staying at near the airport.  We had to take our car back to the city, so we decided to have some dinner in the French Quarter on our last night.  We found another great place, Ralph and Kacoo’s with more piano playing and great food. Our server told us a lot about Katrina and his life there in New Orleans.  I really liked that guy.  When we finished eating, the rain really started to pour.  It was like the ocean was coming out of the sky!  It dumped rain and every single person outside was drenched!  It went on for hours.  By the time we got back to our car, returned the car and caught a cab back to our hotel, we were soaked and shivering!  Luckily it stopped in time for our flight in the morning home.

 hard to tell, but it's just pouring and flooding the streets

What a nice long relaxing trip with my husband. We were certainly ready to come back to the kids and regular life but it was just so nice to disconnect and recharge, we both needed it quite a bit.  A few things struck me while we were there.  Whenever there was an option to split up to accomplish something, Fogg would always say "let's stick together" and we did.  We literally spent the entire trip together.  And in all that time, we not once got sick of each other.  We never argued, we just worked so well as a team.  We understand what each other like and dislike and can read the other well enough that there was little discussion about much on that trip.  The beauty of 10 years of marriage is that some things are just so much easier. We laughed so much and just genuinely enjoyed each other's company.  I think it says something that by the end of a 5 day trip together, spending every moment together, that we like each other more than when we left.  What a renewal to our relationship! We laughed all the way to the end.  I have never felt more confident that I married the right guy!  We also so much enjoyed getting to know all the different people we encountered.  People that we sat next to at bars, or restaurants or our servers or in the hot tub.  It was so fun to experience a different part of the world.  What a perfect way to celebrate 10 years of marriage, like and enjoy each other more and more!

But like I said, our kids were well taken care of.  Here were some pictures that I received while we were gone of the kids:

After bath with slippers on night one!

This is at James and Michelle's house.  Gracie is in the middle!

Not much longer, all three sleeping on their left sides!

In the morning, happy kids!

They also spent the night with Nana and Papa one night and got to take a swim in the hot tub!

When we returned, we brought them a few gifts.  We searched for just the right masks.  

The kids seemed happy to see us when we returned, which was a nice feeling.  They did great, according to the caretakers.  Happy life!

So we return to life as we knew it, just a bit more relaxed and rested and happy cause we are relaxed and rested.  

Cheers~