A candle passing

Last Tuesday, I was tricked. Duped. One might call it the smoothest and nicest act of deceit ever. So the story goes: since I'm Personnel Advisor at Chi Omega, I have to go to the chapter on occasion for personnel meetings with the President and Personnel Chair - to talk with members they're concerned with or members who have broken a rule. We've been trying to schedule a meeting with a member for a long time and my advisees finally said they booked the meeting. So Maddie was going to cover for me, but she said she had an appointment. So I asked another advisor who also had a conflict. Technically, I could do the meeting, but it was my only night to be able to run errands, so I was just hoping that someone could cover. But alas, no one could.

So I go to the chapter for the meeting. The Personnel Chair and President said the member was running late, so they asked if I could help them with something in the Chapter Room while we were waiting. So we go down to the chapter room. They open the door and I am about to turn on the light when I see my girls standing there, ready for a candle passing - a sweet little tradition that we do for the newly engaged. My jaw was on. the. FLOOR. I was shocked. It took awhile to understand all the coordination that went into this - seriously, how sweet! So after I got the full scoop - and realized how I made their planning that much more challenging - we decided to all get a drink together at one of our favorite college bars: The Duchess.

It was such a special night. I am incredibly grateful for all of the wonderful friends that Chi Omega has brought into my life. They're pretty amazing. Thank you ladies! And thanks to Maddie for putting up with all the challenges I threw her way in planning :) Love you all!

Blast from the Past

Last Friday, I got a text message from an old friend, Adriana. Turns out, she was in Seattle for her Bachelorette Party and wanted me to come - how could I turn this invite down?! Even though we already had a going-away party that night, I was up to the party-hopping challenge.

Adri has been on the East Coast for school since we graduated high school, and now works as a veterinarian in Alaska. Needless to say, we haven't seen each other since GRADUATION. (I know, a little embarrassing.) Despite this, Adriana is exactly the person I remember - smiles, giggles and all.

Adri, wishing you a happily ever after! Let's not go another 10 years without seeing each other again, kapish?

TGIF

I hope your weekend is filled with friends, fun and beautiful sunsets!

(Sunset from dinner at Cliff House in Bellingham)

The Sunriver Finale

There were many a cheers, relaxing by the fire, strolling through Bend, a trip to the Owl's Nest, delicious homemade meals, snowblasting on a sunny day, snow boots a plenty, and a beer to top it off. Sunriver, I love you.

Now we're all looking forward to Chelanigans!

Downtown Bend

Because we can't stray from tradition too much during our Sunriver trip, we spent one day casually roaming the streets of the little town of Bend. We love us some Bend. It's quaint and has cute little restaurants and shops, so what's not to love? From happy hour cocktails at Tart to dinner at Common Table (a cool nonprofit restaurant that donates all proceeds to the community and is run by volunteers!), the day was exactly what we hoped for.

To come, Sunriver via Instagram!

Sunriver: Snowblasting

Ok, ok, it's really called the Snowblast Tubing Park, but I truly believe we should all call tubing, snowblasting. Why? Simple math. Snow + having a blast = snowblasting. At any rate, you start with a few glorious minutes of relaxing on your tube as the rope tow brings you to the top, then you jump off and go down a GIANT hill, breaking the sound barrier within seconds! I'm not even kidding people, we created some sonic booms on our tubes, especially when we went down FOUR AT A TIME. So if you ever find yourself at Mt. Bachelor, heed this advice: go snowblasting. It's breathtaking (literally and figuratively - at times you go so fast that you can't catch your breath due to the wind resistance!).

Stephanie and Lizzie finding the perfect tube for optimal (fast!) speed.

Lizzie and Lianna ready to take on the hill.

Stephanie rope-towing up the hill.

What you can't really see in this picture is that the snowblasting hills are at about an 85 degree angle. I don't lie. And that hay? That's to make you slow you at the end, so you don't launch into outerspace or something.

Before we parted ways to ski and snowblast, all the ladies at Mt. Bachelor. Good times.

Rescued

I don't know about you, but this whole Chilean mine rescue has been incredible. I am completely memorized by the coverage and stories. Could you even imagine being stuck a half mile underground for over 2 months?! (If you're interested in what they ate, how they communicated or even how they stay entertained, read this article.)

It's all been a bit surreal to me and I found it hard to think past the logistics of it all, but when I saw these pictures from the Big Picture, that's when it hit home. These 33 men have family and friends eagerly waiting for them. Look at the tears of joy being reunited with their loved ones. (The little kiddo especially got to me.)

Puts things into perspective, don't you think?

(The hugger is Chile's President)

Happy Weekend!

Sometimes it takes a crappy situation (read: I hate Jiffy Lube) to realize that it's not the end of the world. Yeah, so I might be out $10K (ugh, typing that still does make my stomach drop), but at least I have an amazing family, fantastic friends, supportive coworkers and even my new bus driver rocks. Thanks all!

Therefore, I'm starting off this weekend with a big ol' smile. I have a lot to look forward to:

• Company "summer" party is finally happening. The theme is something like, "We're Great Americans/Yay, Don is still alive!" (Ask for the story if you want)
• Dinner with Stephanie and Muriel tonight.
• Then meeting up with the other girls, including Karen who is in town for the weekend!
• Seeing the rents and probably taking them to lunch for putting up with my displays of anger (read: I still don't like Jiffy Lube) and helping out tremendously this past week.
• Christina's final fling before the ring!
• Hitting up the Puyallup Fair on Sunday and eating everything that comes into my path. Why is fair food so good?

Who knows that other adventures lie in the weekend ahead. Hope you all have a great one!

Rockstar Diaries just posted this and I feel like it fits perfectly with my post...

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Fan-freakin-friend-tastic!

Last night a big group of my girlfriends gathered at Maddie's for a taco soup feast. Yumm...

The lovely ladies in attendace: Maddie, Stephanie, Autumn, Erin, Kimber, Lianna, Lizzie, Stacy and yours truly.

It had been far too long since our last get together, so we all had to share our life updates. Man, we live cool lives. Two people recently bought houses, three people (myself included!) are going to Hawaii on a search for the best Mai Tai, one person is sailing down the coast to California on a pimped out sailboat, another is headed to drink endless margaritas in Mexico, one is attempting to adopt an orange kitten before she moves in with her boyfriend who may or may not be allergic and another is getting her couch recovered. (Tronics - it is a big deal. I know what you were thinking...)

These ladies, all my other friends and family mean the world to me. Life would simply not be as fun and meaningful without all of you.

Ok, enough of this seriousness, look at how Maddie is doing her makeup these days. Pretty, pretty princess.