Trip Day 2

On our second day in Seattle, Jeremy and Mary slept in and Matt and I went for fancy coffee. The latte art was pretty beautiful - my artsy coffee picture can show you the leaf the barista made for me.


Matt also got a haircut as he was starting to look a little scruffy. In the afternoon, Mary left to volunteer and Matt, Jeremy and I wandered around the Pike Place Market, stopping at the original Starbucks and admiring all of the beautiful flowers. Matt and I signed up for an underground tour and explored the depths of Seattle after that. In the evening, we met up with Erin, Greg, Joe, Stephanie, Mary and Jeremy for dinner at a local Thai restaurant. We had a great time seing old friends and introducing them to one another. The food was fantastic and the night was great. We returned home, and Matt and I fell asleep on the air mattress and prepared for an early morning trip to Portland!

Trip Day 1

Sorry it's been so long! We have just returned from our trip out west and are trying to organize Jenny's move out of my apartment and Matt's move in to my apartment. To catch everyone up, I'll blog about our trip day by day. :)

I flew from Detroit to Seattle (via Atlanta: thanks, AirTrain) and met up with Matt at the airport. He was coming in from Vegas, where he hung out with the boys for a few days. Mary and Jeremy picked us up at the airport and we went out to lunch near their lovely apartment in Capitol Hill. We spent the first part of the afternoon relaxing and catching up with them. Later on, we met up with a couple of their friends and went kayaking for a couple of hours in Lake Union. We rounded off the night with a quick dinner (delicious fish tacos at Ivan's) and a viewing of Project Runway. Matt, Mary and Jeremy headed out to some funky hipster bar; I fell asleep on my air mattress almost immediately.

Up next: Day 2!

Good news!!

Three days ago, in the midst of our travels, Boyfriend Matt - or should I say Fiancee Matt - proposed! He asked me to marry him on the top of Multnomah Falls in Oregon, and I accepted immediately. Woohoo!!

We've spent the last few days of our trip celebrating and seeing new places. On the evening of the proposal, we went to dinner with my little sister and her roommate and saw a little of her new town. (We also hit up the bookstore, buying wedding books and magazines galore!) Two days ago, we made the long drive from Portland to Napa, stopping only for fast food and stretching breaks. Yesterday, we met up with Burns and Nicole in Napa and spent the day at wineries: Joseph Phelps, Rutherford Hill, Frog's Leap, Slaughterhouse Cellars and Reynolds. The best of these were the Rutherford wines - if you can find them where you are, we recommend the merlot, the cabernet sauvignon, the red blend and even the port.

So that's the update for now, from the free computer at our hotel in Vallejo. More details to come!

Made it to Seattle!

Matt and I made it to Seattle yesterday. Our friends Mary and Jeremy picked us up at the airport and took us for a relaxing lunch in their Capitol Hill neighborhood. The restaurant has a good theme: it changes featured country (and decorations, and food) every couple of months. When they moved to town, it was Greek. Now, it's Costa Rican!

We lazed around for awhile and then spent the late afternoon kayaking around Lake Union with Mary and Jeremy and two of their other friends. After that, we felt like we earned our dinners of fish tacos (me) and fish and chips (Matt). We spent the evening watching the finale of Hell's Kitchen, and crashed on the air mattress.

Today we have big plans, involving a trip to downtown and the Pike Market, an underground tour, and coffee at the first Starbucks. Tonight we're meeting other great friends, my old roommate Erin and her husband, Greg, and JoeBre and his wife, Stephanie, for dinner at the Thai restaurant where JoeBre and Stephanie had their rehearsal dinner. Yum.

Oops. Double oops.

I made a frozen pizza for dinner. I went to pull a paper towel off of the roll and then noticed there was already one sitting on the counter. Did I already grab one, I thought? I figured I must have, so I used the paper towel to blot a piece of pizza. Then I caught a recognizable whiff of... Windex. Yes, this was the towel I used to clean a picture frame. Oops. There went the pizza.

Then, as I was getting ready for bed, I fumbled through my newly-reorganized-to-incorporate-Matt's-stuff bathroom cabinet for toothpaste. While squeezing it onto my toothbrush, I noticed that it looked a little strange. It also smelled strange. Of course it did: it wasn't toothpaste. It was antibiotic cream. There goes the toothbrush. (Or can I still use it if I clean it well?)

It's definitely time for bed. Sweet dreams!

Back in the Arb

Boyfriend Matt and I left Chicago on Sunday! Just before we left, we had a fantastic firm dinner at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba. It turns out that if you dress up nicely and provide people with a lot of alcohol, everyone will participate in salsa dancing lessons. Who knew? We also got to spend some time with my friend Meg and her family when we went to see Meg's sister Claire's fantastic play. If you're in Chicago, you should check it out - this is it's last weekend! Claire is the star of the play, Ismene, and she plays the character beautifully and convincingly. Finally, we hit up a few good restaurants, including Manny's and our favorite, the Bongo Room.

After moveout, we spent a few days in my hometown of Cedar Falls, Iowa. My mom took us out to my favorite restaurant, Montage, and my dad had a BBQ at his home for his co-workers. Matt and I were able to help out in the kitchen. While home, we spent our free time planning our trip to Napa - we leave in a week!

Now Matt is in Vegas with the boys and I am back in Ann Arbor until I leave for our trip on Monday. When we get back from our trip, Matt is moving in with me and my roommate Jenny moves out to start working in Chicago. So I'm spending the next three days trying to change "my" apartment into "our" apartment. I'm not sure how to do this, really. Here are my efforts so far:

--Painting a wall in our living room dark red (accent wall!)
--Installing one of those magnetic knife things he has always wanted
--Hanging up some of his pictures on the walls
--Getting some more photos printed up of us and our friends

Does anyone out there have any suggestions? I want to do my best to really make this our place and not just my place.

Job! Moving!

Yesterday my firm offered me a position! I will begin working for the firm's health care department as a first year associate in September 2007. This is pretty exciting stuff. Since I went straight from high school to college to grad school, I've never had a real life, full time job. What am I going to do without summers as a change of pace??

In other news, today is my last day of work. We have a big celebration event tonight, which will be made doubly fun because my friend Meg is coming in to town. Tomorrow night Boyfriend Matt and I will meet up with her whole family for dinner, and then we will go to see her sister Claire's play. Sunday morning we'll hit up the Bongo Room one last time, then we'll pack and move. I'll land back in Ann Arbor in a few days after a trip to Cedar Falls with Boyfriend Matt. If anyone's going to be in town, let me know!