4th of July -- Texas Style!

I spent the last 4 days in Devine, TX with my best friends from college. We all had such a great time and there were so many funny moments.

Jen R. picked me up from the San Antonio airport on Thursday evening, and we immediately headed to Chuy's for dinner. We were joined by the Austin-ites -- Kirstine & Joey, Melissa & Matt, and Jen V. & Gui. We were also joined by our Dallas friends, Carolyn & Andy.

The rest of the weekend was a whirlwind of.....

(1) GAME PLAYING - Here's all of us in the middle of playing "Smart Ass" - a board game Kirstine got for her birthday. This is a picture of one of the questions asked during the game. This is an inside joke, but my parents and close friends will think this is hilarious!!! (2) BBQ EATING - On the 4th of July, Jen's dad barbequed a brisket and sausage. So good! We also did our fair share of beer drinking... and some of us enjoyed Jack and Coke out of a strawberry shaped glass (Andy!).(3) BABY HOLDING -- Well... not so much ME holding the baby. I'm still a bit scared of that little guy. But everyone else got their fair share of holding Jameson (Jen & James's baby). He's 4 and a half months old now, and such a cutie! I love all his clothes and particularly liked his Longhorns tshirt and festive 4th of July outfit.
Jameson and his Mommy: Happy boy!

(4) JEEP DRIVING -- James took me out in his jeep to run some errands. So cool! No doors! Way fun.

(5) HAVING ADVENTURES WITH DOGS -- Kat is James and Jen's dog... she looks exactly like the dog I had growing up, Katie. Melissa and Kat share a special bond, as you can see.

Kat wasn't the only dog we spent time with over the weekend. While taking a walk, Melissa, Jen V., Carolyn, and I were going past a graveyard when a dog ran over to us. We all freaked out, not knowing whether he was nice or not... the poor dog turned out to be really nice, but REALLY stubborn -- he followed us all the way home! We went inside Jen's house and the poor dog just sat in her driveway for awhile. I felt so bad leaving him out there... hopefully he found his way home. Here's our graveyard friend:

(6) OTHER RANDOM ANTICS --

Here's a bunch of us looking at Jen's pictures on her computer:

This frog was on Jen's glass door. Cool picture!

Here's the marshmallow man we blew up in the microwave (it was HILARIOUS at the time)

This picture was quite possibly the funniest of the weekend. (But maybe you had to be there...) Matt and James had the same fancy camera and were trying out all kinds of techniques all weekend. Somehow they were able to blur lights in the background. Matt took this one of James under a bunch of Christmas lights. James thinks it looks like he's wielding the lights into a "rainbow of fury". I can almost hear him screaming "RAINBOW OF FURY!!!" when I look at this picture. Man, that made me laugh!

I'll miss Texas and everyone there, but I'll be back next year!

Fishing in Alaska

I'm completely letting my dad upstage me by posting these pictures, but they were just too cool not to share! He went fishing at the Russian River yesterday and saw all the wildlife Alaska has to offer except a moose.

Here's a brown bear cub hanging out in the river.

Here's my dad with the red salmon he caught.

A black bear!

Random Pictures

These don't really fit in with my "trip" theme for the blog, but I just wanted to post these pictures because I like them. :)

Amy and I doing our Victoria Beckham impression. We're doing a good job of looking super pissed while maintaining a sense of self-importance.

My kitty Magnolia in a typical napping position:

A picture of a moose and her twin babies in our neighborhood in Alaska -- my dad just sent me this one.

Wedding in Iowa.... and Nebraska.

During the weekend of June 13th, Amy and I drove 9 hours from Denver to Sioux City, Nebraska (which is right across the Missouri River from the other half of Sioux City, Iowa). Amy's friend and teammate from college, Beth, was getting married, and I was assured it would be a fun time. :)

Amy was invited to the rehearsal dinner Friday night in Beth's parent's backyard. We feasted on fried chicken, ribs, mashed potatoes, and apple cobbler. The clouds in the background kinda looked like mountains, so I took this picture. It looks a bit dark, but you can sort of make out the "mountains".

After the rehearsal dinner, a few of us went to fabulous downtown Sioux City (which is on the Iowa side of the river) for a night on the town. After refusing to pay a $3 cover at our first bar -- can you believe they charge a cover at ANY bar in Sioux City?! -- we settled on Rosies.... and it was fun!

Here's a picture of Amy, Perry, and me... Perry lives in Vegas and always shuttles us to and from the airport. Such a nice guy!

Here's a picture to prove we were in Iowa... a banner for Amy's beloved Hawkeyes.

After a night at Rosie's, we decided we were hungry and went through the McDonald's drive through... Amy was sad because the late-night menu didn't have her chicken sandwich. Boo.

The next day, we went to the wedding.

My favorite memories from the wedding:

1. The food -- The bride's family owns Jolly Time Popcorn, so as the appetizer before the big dinner, they had a popcorn buffet. There was caramel corn, parmesan, honey nut, almond bark, peanut butter, chocolate covered caramel, and regular butter. So good!!! And the centerpiece at every table was a glass vase full of popcorn.

2. Dancing to Abba's Dancing Queen and doing the Cuban Shuffle (which I just found out is actually called the Cupid Shuffle. That's embarrassing).

3. Catching the bouquet -- I didn't technically catch it, but it landed at my feet and I swooped down and picked it up. A little girl wanted that bouquet SO bad... she congratulated me on getting it, and I offered it up to her. For the rest of the night, she held on to that bouquet and thanked me for it every time she saw me. Super cute!

4. A keg full of Coors Light.

5. The ceremony was in Iowa, but the reception was in Nebraska. I thought that was fun.

6. Amy and I received some odd compliments. I danced with a guy who told me he liked my pink shoes and that I have pretty feet. If you've seen my feet, you'd know how funny that is! When I told him I thought my toes were abnormally long, he says, "No, I think they're very proportial." So funny! Amy danced with a guy who told her her hair smelled nice. This normally wouldn't be funny, but we had spent the afternoon in a smoky casino... so her hair definitely did NOT smell good! (And speaking of the casino -- they had free ice cream cones. That was definitely the best part about the casino.)

Here's a picture of Amy and her dad:

At the end of the night, there were random bags of popcorn sitting around... so I took one.

Here's a picture of the Nebraska countryside on our way home on Sunday.

And here's us enjoying that popcorn I took. I KNEW it would come in handy!

Mmm.... popcorn. :)

Los Angeles & San Diego

On June 1, Amy and I flew to Los Angeles, CA for a week of training. We had an awesome time all week! On Tuesday, we went to the Dodgers game... they were playing none other than the Rockies - we couldn't believe our luck! We sat in the All You Can Eat Pavilion -- whoever thought of an all you can eat section in a ballpark was a genius! Amy and I did it justice by eating 2 hotdogs, 2 nachos, peanuts, popcorn, and a lot of Diet Coke! Not only did the Rockies win, but we witnessed a fight between Yorvit Torrealba (our catcher) and Jeff Kent (one of the dodgers). The benches cleared, the Rockies were booed, and Amy and I promptly zipped up our jackets to hide our Rockies tshirts. It was nuts!

On Wednesday night, Amy and I went to Santa Monica to have dinner at one of my favorite restaurants -- The Lobster. We had crab cakes, shared a filet mignon stuffed with crab, and shared the yummiest lobster I've ever had!

After dinner, we walked along the pier, tried not to get blown away, and watched some fisherman.

On Friday, our friend Krystal from San Diego came to LA to get us and take us back to San Diego for the weekend. I'd never been there before, and I was so excited to see it!

We spent all day Saturday at Moonlight Beach. We read, watched the beach volleyballers and surfers, and listened to a free concert that included Switchfoot! It was a great day.

Saturday night, we celebrated Krystal's birthday by getting a room at the Marriott downtown and going to the bar on the rooftop of the Marriott. It overlooks Petco Park (where the Padres play) which was really cool. Here's the view from the bar:

Here's a picture of me, Krystal, Amy, and Amy's friend B-Val.


We went to bed late and headed back to Denver in the morning... it was another fun trip to California!