Like a Sister to Me...

Hangin' With My Best Friends in Vancouver...

Keeping Portland Weird...

Even tho I lived in Seattle for 17-years of my life and have been back to visit countless times, i've actually never spent any time in Portland which i've heard described as "the front yard of Seattle." Anywho, all that changed thanks to our personal tour guide Ms. Ashlee! We had so much fun exploring and walking and shopping and chatting and laughing and sipping coffee together.

21+20+19=super cool partay people!

Homemade cake, margaritas, party hats, presents and the best of friends!!!

HOME

As the flight crew came over the loudspeaker to announce we would be making our descent into Seattle I was overcome with this feeling of comfort that I was home; it's a wonderful reality and i'm grateful.

El Fin de Semana...

Leala & ILeslie, our worker and Cira
Sheila and I, another worker we're borrowing from Mississippi while she cares for her Mum & Dad

La Hacienda

(MOST) of our wonderful little meeting...

Leala hosted "game-night" at her place in Port Orange friday night for all the young professing kids in the area. There were 10 of us including little Cira! We had a BBQ with tons of yummy contributions from everyone... Then we played a few rounds of Apples to Apples, a new game for me so that was lots of fun. Leala kicked our butts tho!

We had dinner at La Hacienda later Saturday evening, our last meal together with all of Bruce and Zoe's family and Narque before everyone leaves... Bruce & Zoe are off to Texas, Evan is off to Tampa and Narque is off to Iraq! Such big changes!

Sunday after meeting we had a potluck for Bruce and Zoe's family before they leave at the end of the month!

Later Gator!

I got to take the kiddos to the Alligator Farm/Zoo for my last day with them before I head off to Washington for two-weeks! Evan and I decided that the giant turtles were our favorites.



THANKS, BUT NO THANKS...!!!

La Dolce Vita

Zane and I went for a most exhilarating run last night. Well more like a jog with as slow as I "run." Wouldn't you know, we get about a block from our casa, totally committed to running at this point and it starts just pouring buckets of rain on us. At first we both kind of looked at each other and were like... 'don't we usually make fun of these people when we pass them in our cars all warm and dry....??' yah, we do... oh well. Like I said, we were at this point committed to running. But i'm telling you, the rain was exhilarating, it was like it gave me a burst of extra energy. We became 6-years-old again for those two-and-a-half miles jumping in every big puddle we could find shouting at each other with mock disgust that we would dare to get each other wet. And we definitely found some worthy puddles to jump in... some were over our ankles... so when we ran we actually made an audible squishy sound... we then decided it made perfect sense to run down to the ocean and go for a swim... seeing how we were already saturated... our pants were literally sliding off because they were sooo heavy with water. The ocean water was incredibly calm and warm and clear, and it was wonderfully peaceful to roll in with the giant gentle waves (clothes and all-ha!) Then we came home and took a hot shower. It was fantastic!!! Oh and we definitely confirmed that for this upcoming halloween we are dressing up as 'nerdy joggers' with fanny-packs, clip on cassette players, sweatbands for our heads AND wrists (because your wrists TOTALLY get sweaty y'all! or not... we both discussed our confusion over wrist sweat bands...), tube socks, ankle weights, and teensy tiny short neon shorts. So sexy, hahaha.