Pacific Northwest and Canada trip

Yes, yes I know its been way to long and this current post will have no photos, so sad I know but there will be many to come! In my long blog absence a lot has happened. To catch my 3 followers up on that might take way too long so we will just skip ahead a bit to the amazing trip I am currently on.
About 4.5 months ago I decided it was time to give this whole internet dating thing a shot...I joined eharmony with the attitude of meeting new people and knowing now what I was looking for in a relationship. Well about a month into my adventures in online dating, I was set to go out on my first face to face meeting. It was with this guy Dwight, who lives in the same suburb I do, is a teacher, loves the Golden Gophers, and is a hockey fanatic...hmmm I thought I will give it a try. We met, spent 4 amazing hours chatting away getting to know each other with eating some dinner thrown in. That was like 3.5 months ago and we have been together ever since. He makes me laugh, smile, and is an all around amazing guy. We have had so many fun adventures together but the one we are on right now might top them all. Dwight is from Northern Idaho, close to Spokane Washington so we have been traveling visiting his parents and now we are at the OLYMPICS in Vancouver!! Yes you read that right the OLYMPICS! I love the olympics, and so does he..,yet another thing we have in common.
So I am hoping to post more about our trip tus far, we have been going to a TON of hockey games, Dwight is a huge Spokane chiefs (a junior league hockey team), so we have gone to a bunch of their games and the USA vs Switzerland game yesterday. All of this has been so much fun and the weather here is amazing. It should be the Spring olympics not the Winter;) So now I am off to Kamloops, BC for another Spokane Chiefs game. It is so beautiful seeing all the mountains and scenery around here! I will write more soon! (I promise)

Midwest Tour

This weekend I went on a mini midwest tour of 2 of my favorite midwest cities to celebrate 2 very important events...Emily's 30th Birthday and Coral's Bachelorette! Since I forgot my camera BOTH nights, I am relying on pics from facebook to narrate the night. And since I don't know how to enlarge them, I am sorry people they will be mini sized.

I took a road trip with my friend Dan and after dropping him off to visit a friend in Milwaukee I headed to Chicago to visit one of my oldest and closest friends, Emily. We went her local neighborhood bar that has TURTLE RACES, on Friday nights! It was awesome. Emily's name was drawn to race a turtle and her turtle won!!! Here is the birthday girl with her tshirt.

Here's me and Em, enjoying some PBR, in solo cups...I mean how can you not love this place?

Emily has also become good friends with my friend from grad school Julia, and some of Julia's friends. So here is Julia, myself, and Ben, celebrating.

After spending an AWESOME friday night in Chicago and I headed back up to Milwaukee for Coral, my friend from grad school's, bachelorette party. Here is Coral enjoying one of her many shots of the evening.

We went on a cruise on the Milwaukee River with Margaritas and tacos. It was great! The only downfall was it was very cold. Not at all like an August night!! I love getting together with my friends from grad school. We all live all over the midwest so being able to spend time with them is always a blast!! Here is Jenny, myself, Julia, and Marlys on the cruise.

This picture is almost pointless because it is so small but oh well. After the booze cruise we hit the bars, first up the Harp. An AWESOME place, more shots, laughs, and beer happened here.

Me and Marlys at the Harp...I really liked this bar
The grad school crew at Trinity. Jenny, myself, Marlys, Julia, and Coral. There were a couple of other great stops in the night to other bars for some more drinking and dancing.

Everyone had a great night especially Coral! Sunday was a bridal shower for Coral and then heading home back to reality and work on Monday. I feel really lucky to get to spend time with my amazing friends. I can't wait to back and visit them again very soon.

love tuesday

As promised, I'm still back and time for a love tuesday post:)

• love my new computer! It is so amazing, look at how cute it is!!

• love cleaning out my closet and donating 2 whole bags of clothes!! Don't love that my closet still looks full which means no shopping for me right now.


• love that I get to attend two of my friends' big celebrations this weekend. Emily's 30th Birthday party in Chicago one night and then Coral's bachelorette party in Milwaukee the next. love spending time with friends who live in different cities.


• love that fall TV is coming back soon:) Biggest Loser, Grey's, and a special fall So You Think Can Dance, in the words of Rachel Zoe, I Die! Thank goodness I have DVR


• love the DQ thin mint blizzard...really how can you go wrong, it combines to of the best foods ever. Girl Scout cookies and ice cream.

• love panda cam from the san diego zoo...if you are lucky, you can see the mom all snuggled up with the wee little baby panda!
• love all the friends and family I have right now who are expecting...I need to get to work on my baby knits! Can't wait to get started on some fun baby hats

OK my 3 followers, hope you all had a lovely Tuesday!

I'm Back!!!

After a LONG LONG hiatus I am back and dare I say, better than ever...much to catch up on!! At the end of July I went on an Alaskan Cruise with the WHOLE Wattson family and was lucky enough to have one of my best friends Tina join me, or as my family calls her "T". We had a blast. It was truly one of the best vacations ever, so beautiful and amazing. We started in Seward, AK and ended in Vancouver. Some of us then spend a day and a half in Vancouver which was not nearly enough time there, and then down to Seattle for another couple days. I did not want to come back and I think the feeling was mutual among all 17 of us:) So here are so pics from the trip...enjoy!

Going into the bay to see the Hubbard Glacier. It was a highlight for many of the family members. The weather was perfect and we got within 250 yards of the glacier face which is unheard of I guess. We saw calving, when pieces of the glacier fall into the water, and many seals hanging out on the ice floes.

We went Ziplining in a Artic Rainforest in Juneau...it was beautiful being among the trees

In Juneau we went to the Mendehall Glacier as well and hiked out to get as close as we could and found this gorgeous waterfall.(Jake, Paul, Tina, and Natalie)

My dad and I whale watching. My dad is so happy when he is on the water. It was a gorgeous day and we spotted some amazing humpback whales. No pics taken by me because it would have been a black dot on the horizon.

Mom and Dad whale watching (with our cruise ship in the background). They said they always wanted to take us to Alaska for their 50th wedding anniversary, they took us a 3.5 years early:)

The morning we were in Ketchikan, I woke up to this amazing view.

Tina, Paul, and I took a bus to the Saxman Village which has a large collection of totem poles. We talked to Woody Watson (a distant relative I hope because he was full of the info!) about the stories of the poles. Very interesting!

We ended our cruise in Vancouver, which I would love to go back to for a whole week. A very cosmopolitan city with tons to do! Here we are walking along the seawall in Stanley Park. It was record breaking highs, 30 degrees Celsius (so math geniuses figure that one out)

We went to Granville Island which is a big Public Market with shops and artists and of course tons of Food!! We had a fun morning vacation breakfast of whatever we wanted!! Tina had sushi, Natalie french fries, and myself...a nutella and banana crepe! Almost as good as the ones by Notre Dame...sigh...

View of Vancouver from Granville Island

We all met up with one another in Seattle for a final family dinner. Here are my 4 nephews. L to R:Nick (15), Jake(14), Henry(6), and Eric(14)

And my three nieces!! L to R: Natalie(11), Greta(4) and Hilary(17)

It was definitely rough heading back to work after such a fun time! I can't wait until the next trip:)

It's Official!!!!

So it is official....

http://kevinries.edinarealty.com/Listing/ListingDetail.aspx?listing=40615016&Popup=1

The don't have all the photos up yet because it just went on the market today but the old house is FOR SALE!! Definitely 30 years of great memories from there:) I hope a very loving family buys it.

love, tuesday

OK so just a mere day late but hey, i'm working on it:)

• love my cell phone. I know most of you already know this because this photo below is how you can often find me, texting away on my phone. I love it though.
  
• love craft club!! So a while ago my friends Kristen, Tina, and I decided that we wanted to start a craft club. The idea behind it being, we get together to work on different projects like knitting, sewing, or any sort of crafty thing you want to do. We just started it up again last night and its so great. So fun to get together with people and eat some snackies, work on projects, and chat.
• love my mom! It was just Mother's day so I have to give a special LOVE to my mom. She is my favorite person in the world. Love her so much and do not know what I would do with out her. I was glad to have a day to celebrate her and do nice things for her even though I try to do that everyday. Here's an old school photo of my family, sorry its so small...I'm the baby
• love a clean bathroom! I had to clean my bathroom last night because of having craft club at my house and now its so clean and sparkly! I love it.
• love my little desk fan. It has been very humid lately which makes my little cubicle very stuffy. My new little desk fan keeps me cool and not falling asleep at my desk!!
• love season finales of tv shows. Its kind of a love hate thing, I love them because they are so climactic and exciting, biggest loser was last night, america's next top model tonight, grey's tomorrow, etc. However sometimes they leave you hanging. That is not the best, because then I have to wait until fall to find out what happens. Oh well it is also a sign that summer time is here:)

Have a lovely day everyone!

love tuesday

Hip hip hooray!!! Its really Tuesday and I am writing my blog, yeah for being on time:)

I have been kind of crappy so far this work week but a few things have made my tuesday better than my monday

• love my new pens from my friend and coworker Megan. I stopped at her building the other day to bring her some fries, more on that later, and she was using the coolest pens. I am kind of a pen freak so I asked her where she got them and she said I could HAVE them, I know! how lucky am I?! So I have been using them since then and there was even an orange one that I was using today in honor of Cinco de Mayo (love Cinco de Mayo)
• love that there is now a Five Guys down the street from my work!! When I lived out in DC they had this chain everywhere and their Burgers and Fries are simply amazing. I heard a rumor that one was going to be opening in MN and little did I know it would be so close to me! YAY!!
• love scrapbooking with Kristin on Saturday. It was so great to spend a ton of time working on some unfinished projects, thus fulfilling one of my new year's resolutions.
• love my parents' new condo! Moving day was yesterday and even though half their furniture is still at the old place for "staging" purposes it was great to have them get into their new home. love helping them unpack as well, nice to give back for the numerous, numerous times they have helped me do the same.
• love massages! I have been having some bad headaches again recently (seriously you turn 30 and everything falls apart, just kidding I have had this for a while) and nothing helps me like an amazing massage.
• love the TV show gossip girl, sorry people but I do and right now I can't get enough. Its like I wish that I hadn't seen every episode so I could go back and watch them again for the first time, I know its weird and twisted.
• and while we're on the topic of TV, love The Biggest Loser! Heck yeah, nothing I would rather do on a Tuesday night than sit down with a big bowl of ice cream and watch the Biggest Loser. I don't think that's exactly what they have in mind for "inspiring" people but I eat Edy's Slow Churned now, so does that count? I highly recommend the S'mores kind:)

Have a lovely Tuesday everyone!