Italy Summit

On Saturday Brad and I got together with his sister Shana, their dad, and Shana's friend BJ & her husband Ryan to begin planning our Italy trip in the fall. We have pretty much planned out the whole two weeks, and may be just a bit ambitious with all the cities we would like to visit ;)

This is roughly our itenerary:

Fly into Paris (spend a couple days just Brad & I)
Tuscany (meet up w/ his family & friends)
Rome
Amalfi Coast (Positano, Sorrento)
Naples (seriously going solely for a slice of pizza--YKYFW)
Sicily (Relax, maybe boat out to visit some islands)
Fly back up to Pisa (and head to Cinque Terra for a day)
Fly from Pisa up to Germany for our random flight out of Frankfurt, back to Seattle
Kind of have to travel around a little in a weird way, but because we are using miles it is making us fly in and out of odd places.

Here we are in our Italy Summit on Saturday evening. It was quite formal, handraising and all... ;)

We even found some boys getting Carried away...

The Ultimate Girl Night

It was just another Friday night in the city. Hanging out with my girlfriends, sipping martini's & chatting about our favorite episodes of Sex & The City, while dining on some fabulous food at Palomino. We were apparently not so discreet about our excitement for the 10:30 showing of SATC, as not one, but two different ladies from tables at opposite ends of the restaurant came over and asked us what we were out for, letting us know that their tables had "bets" on whether we were out for a birthday, bachelorette party or the SATC movie premiere. One woman hollered back to her friend "See, I told you they were going to the movie!!!"

We headed to the theater over an hour early to secure our spot in line, which ended up being about halfway back.

Kim, Courtney and Jamie are excited for the movie to begin!!!

It's finally here!

Tonight, along with 9 of my fabulous girlfriends, I will finally be seeing Sex & The City "The Movie"! I can't wait!!! In just a few short hours we are meeting downtown for apps (and Cosmos of course) and then heading to our 10:30 pm viewing of the movie. SUCH a fun girl night! I can't wait to see the movie...and I can't wait for this scene, seriously, what on earth are they wearing!?

UPDATE: Totally omitted scene, apparently???!!!

Okay one more post about it & then I'm done...

Well, at least until Friday night when I will share my thoughts on seeing the movie with all my girlfriends :) I was just reading the article on msn.com titled: "Love Lessons from Sex and the City" http://lifestyle.msn.com/beautyandfashion/cosmosexandthecity/articlecosmo.aspx?cp-documentid=7410497&GT1=32001. I loved this paragraph at the end:

"Case study: Carrie
The eternal single girl had her share of romances, chronicled in her weekly column, but the truest love story is the one she wrote for herself. Bad luck and messy breakups were de rigueur in Carrie's life. By surviving the pitfalls — a Manolo-mugging, a computer crash, and a very embarrassing fashion fall — Carrie gained the confidence and strength to continue her search for true love. "The most exciting, challenging, and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself," she said. "And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous."
Lesson #7: Be fearlessly single.

I absolutely love the line: "The most exciting, challenging, and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous."

I think that is so important for everyone, in a relationship or not. So that's for all my girls today...

Once again, relating my life to SATC...or can I?

So today, I am working down in Renton holding an open house. I finish and I am STARVING. So, I go to the closest restaurant I can find...Taco Time (not that I am complaining, I do love the Time). So I get there and I am waiting in line to order and a girl runs in and yells "I'M BEING STALKED!!!" Everyone looks up for a brief moment and it was like the record screached to a halt and for a blink of an eye it was silent. Then a mere moment later the noise continued and everyone picked up doing what they were doing & paid no attention to the girl. "I"m being stalked!" she yelled again desperately looking around for someone to listen to her. For one moment, I felt that I was in the episode of Sex & The City where Carrie is mugged on the streets of New York and the thief takes her Manolos right off her feet. She runs in and yells "I'VE BEEN MUGGED!" No one in the whole barber shop even looks up, or seems to care what has happened to her. It slightly reminded me of the situation I had found myself in with this alledged stalkee in front of me. The woman at the counter calmly asked if she was in danger and if she needed them to call the police. Then this trashy girl goes into honestly a 5 minute long story about how her MOTHER is "stalking" her, and how she had hunted her down at her job across the parking lot at QFC and ran in & started cursing at her in front of customers, and wants to steal her baby back, blah blah blah. And then I quickly remembered that I was in Renton, at Taco Time...listening to a 20 year old girl tell a story about her mother, "the stalker", to the cashier and I realized that no, my life is nothing like Sex & The City today. Maybe if the mom stole the girl's shoes at gunpoint perhaps?

Conclusion: I must just be REALLY excited for the movie on Friday...

The Kocher Yacht

The second one was christening The Kocher's new boat! It is absolutely gorgeous! We took it out for a spin Sunday night and boated to Kirkland for dinner at the Cactus. And no night is complete without some absurd dancing/rapping while drinking champagne ;) The night went from normal to crazy in about 3 seconds...

A day of christenings

My first christening of the day was my cousin's daughter Finley being baptised. She is QUITE adorable. We went down to Tacoma to see her little sweet head drenched in the holy water, she was such a good sport!

Folklife Festival

Today Brad and I went to the Folklife Festival at Seattle Center. It turned out to be a beautiful day, so we walked from Eastlake. When we arrived, we immediately went for the food (of course) and had hot dogs, elephant ears & lemonade. The perfect "festival/fair" food. Afterward we met up with friends and layed on a blanket and just relaxed in the sun. There was music being played, hula hoopers hooping all over the lawn around us...it was just a really nice, relaxing sunny day in Seattle. We decided to take off & head home around 4:30 or 5:00 to get home in time for Courtney & Nick's BBQ, which we went to this evening. Unfortunately after our return home, we were watching the news & saw this! http://www.komonews.com/news/19239719.html Not cool, 2 people totally got shot right where we were laying all afternoon! How sad that such a relaxing day in the sun, soon turned into that for those poor innocent bystanders...scary! :(

332-PAPA

Somehow I managed to have Papa John's for lunch AND dinner today. Every Friday my work orders Papa John's pizza, sometimes I am in the office, and fortunately a lot of the time I am not. Today however, I was in the office and extremely hungry. It really takes me back to my days in Pullman. Tonight a bunch of us girls went over to Coffey's for some dinner & hanging out. Somehow, dinner managed to be Papa John's pizza...what are the chances!? We ordered not one pizza, actually not even 2 pizzas, but THREE pizzas and cheese sticks...with garlic sauce of course. Ugh gross, I am on a Papa Johns fast now :(

Waah...

I just got back from the pet store, I saw the saddest thing this afternoon. The kitties honestly looked like they had been crying! It breaks my heart...I want to adopt one. This whole "no pets in the apartment" thing is killing me!!! :( Kris, look at her!

YKYFW (You know you're fat when)...

You see this headline on msn.com just now: Trailer spills 14 tons of Oreos on interstate highway and your first immediate thought is "I wonder where!? Dang, I wish I could have been there..." :(

Here comes the Bride!

Yep, another Saturday...another wedding! This time it was Tiffini's wedding at the Broadmoor Country Club. The wedding was beautiful, we had such a great time! Although these last 3 weekends have been so much fun, I am looking forward to a little wedding hiatus ;)

Mariners Game!

Tonight Brad and I went to the Mariners Game. It was a beautiful night! So warm & sunny, it was a million times better than last month when it was about 50 degrees & raining. Kris's dad Terry sent us to the game tonight in search of the JJ Putz bobblehead for his collection, since he wasn't able to be in Seattle this weekend. Success! Collection is still on track to be complete! :)

Deal or No Deal?

Yes, that is the name of an absurdly ridiculous tv show that can suck me into staying on the elliptical machine past a 1/2 hour, but it is also a motto I use when shopping. I. Love. Deals. Who doesn't? Some things, however, I will say "no deal" from time to time. Comfortable shoes, appropriately fitting jeans, etc. are typically items worth splurging on. Summer dresses? Deals please!

I started out on my dress journey last night heading downtown to find some cute dresses, especially since we are getting some record breaking temps this weekend. I was even feeling a little down as I headed into the city, could have been a number of things: the cloudy cool day, the fact that it was only Wednesday and not the weekend, or just me needing an evening alone to walk around & clear my mind. I went to Nordstrom, Banana Republic & Anthropologie...nothing. Just as I was about to throw in the towel & call it quits, I see a glimmer of hope in the distance, that I had almost completely forgotten about.

The Rack!

The Downtown Nordstrom Rack is definitely the best one in the area, and I hadn't been there for quite sometime, since I have been working in Kirkland for the past three years. I headed downstairs and happlily stumbled upon 6 giant rounders of dresses! Granted, you need to be in the right mindset to be there. Don't go there if you a) Are on a time limit or b) Don't feel like digging. Finding deals takes lots of patience usually, and although there were definitely some gems to be found, there are a LOT of horrible clothes out there that you have to dig through. Luckily for me, I began to sift through the racks and started finding loads of adorable BCBG dresses, and a ton of cute ones from TBD as well. Now if by chance they were all in my size, I might have gone home with 12 dresses last night! I did take 12 into the dressing room initially, but ended up with 4 making the final cut. My grand total with tax? $108. Yep, you heard me right! Their actual retail value all together before markdowns? $476! I was cracking myself up as I caught myself feeling so happy in the dressing room just thinking to myself "Wow...what did I do to deserve these?" I couldn't wait to get them all home and try them on again with shoes (my usual routine after shopping). Shopping just makes me so happy, I love clothes & the way I feel when wearing something that I think is especially cute. So my tip of the day friends: Go find a great deal, it will make you really happy :)

At the wedding with Adriana, Dani & Angie. Apparently I am slacking in my spray tanning, no more Jamaican bridesmaid!

Get low

So, there were like a MILLION kids at this wedding...I have never seen so many children at a wedding, ever! They were hysterical though, when a rap song would come on they were out on the floor breakdancing & doing all sorts of moves. At one point, I looked over during that Flo Rida song "...applebottom jeans, boots with the fur, shorty get low, low, low, low, etc." you know that one, and saw this image. I couldn't stop laughing, some of these kids were like 5!

p.s. I actually just googled "Applebottom jeans" because I had no idea what that meant, but apparently the meaning is very literal, just referring to a woman's shape in the jeans. Hmmm.

Dave & Lexi's wedding

Saturday night we went to another wedding, but this time it was Brad's turn to be in it. Dave is a friend of Brad's from college & the wedding was a lot of fun! The bride is Cambodian, so the reception involved many traditional Cambodian dances, as well as a live Cambodian band! I took a video of the band, definitely funny...especially at the end when he gets kind of intense with those moves! Totally cracked me up!

Wedding #2 of 9

Wedding Season has officially begun, kicking off with the Fuller/Juhl nuptials last weekend. Did I mention The Juhls are currently laying on a beach in Playa del Carmen? Jealous? I am! I will be heading out of the office shortly, to finish up working "in the field" a.k.a. "Renton". Lovely. Then heading straight to another Friday night rehearsal dinner, which in turn makes me very dressed up for work today!

The Bigger Dance

Some of you may be familiar with a local radio event in Seattle called "The Bigger Dance", done by KJR sports radio. To sum it up, it is a "hot girl challenge", modeled after the NCAA College basketball tournament. Celebrity females go head to head in challenges (games) where people call in and vote for them. Whoever has the most votes at the end of the time limit wins the "game" and advances to the next round. We are down to the Final Four, and I am proud to say that out of 35,000+ people, Brad is #48! I, on the other hand, rank right up around 18,000. Brad really knows how to pick the hot girls apparently ;)

UPDATE: Brad was knocked out of the top #50 now because Jessica Biel lost to Jessica Alba. Dang, we could have won a trip!!!

Sunday at the Park

I dragged Brad along w/ me to Roanoke Park so that I could take some pictures & enjoy the beautiful sun we were experiencing...

Jimmy's on 1st

Somehow, we made it to a bar after the wedding. Some of us walked aside Qwest Field barefoot, some of us carried large flower arrangement center-pieces to a bar...but we made it! After a LONG day, we were almost ready to go home...

First Dance...

A toast to the Bride & Groom!

Teresa and I gave the Maid/Matron of Honor toast to Courtney & Nick

"Did you guys just get back from Jamaica?"

The tannest group of Seattle girls in the history of May weddings. For girls who have not seen the actual sun in nearly a year, we sure looked tan. Literally went through 2 bottles of spray tan for this. Crazy.

Always a Bridesmaid...

Courtney and I...almost wedding time!

Wedding Day!!!

Just putting on the finishing touches for the photos!

Rehearsal Dinner

All the bridesmaids at Courtney & Nick's rehearsal dinner

Time for a pedi!

Jamie, Crystal, Diggy & I all met the bride for a pedicure on Friday afternoon. It is almost wedding time! Cheers!

Engaged!

Congrats to Ruthie & Jeff on their engagement!!! So happy for you friend!