Breezy Goes North - A Match Made in Blog Heaven, Part 2

Day 2 (read day 1 here) in the Tri-Cities was nothing short of domestic bliss with these folks, minus Rob cuz he was fishing...

The guest room at the Smith Manor consists of a bed in a loft nook just outside of the bedroom doors of Raven's two angel babies. Even sleeping with my earplugs in, I was awakened by the shrill screams from Coltie in the middle of the night. Raven had warned me that if anyone woke up crying in the middle of the night, she would be there to take care of it, so not to worry. It still scared the shit out of me.

I awoke in the morning to Gunner hopping up on the bed asking me who I was. I informed him that I was a friend of his mother's and that he should go see her with any questions. I promptly dozed off, only to be interrupted a short while later by the same adorable child, this time in a towel, asking me to get up and come play race cars with him. How could I resist.

I headed downstairs to find Raven passed out in her bed with Coltie sitting next to her watching cartoons. She informed me that Colt had thrown up in his crib in the middle of the night and proceeded to puke a few more times in her bed after she brought him downstairs. Poor guy. He seemed to be fine that morning though, so all was well. As soon as she introduced me to him, he promptly climbed out of the bed and into my lap. Both kids took to me immediately, actually. It was pretty adorable.

We took Gunner to school and then headed back home for a couple of hours to have breakfast and coffee, before returning to pick him up.

After we picked up G-Man, we ran a couple of errands, like returning a chicken costume to the party rental store, and dropping off a puke-covered duvet at the dry cleaners.

When we got back to the house, Raven showed me how to bring the garbage can up from the curb, lazy-chick style:



I knew I only had a small window of time to get my fitness on before we started our day drinking, so I showed the boys how to work it out.

Once I got my workout out of the way, we put the boys down for their naps and I experienced some Dr. Phil with a cocktail, Raven-style.

Dude's in-laws tried to straight up kill him in their garage. That shit cray!

After a couple of hours of lounging, we decided to get off our asses and start getting ready. Raven was taking me to the country club for dinner, so I had to look legit. After the boys woke up from their nap, Mama Piper came over to get the boys so we could have date night. We enjoyed dinner at the country club, where Ravey-Poo photo lurked me in the bathroom.

Dinner was followed by a drink or two at a local bar. Pretty sure it was college night. The drinks were weak and the crowd was young, so we took our bad selves home to continue the party our way.

The rest of the night got a little fuzzy, but I think there was more trashy television and deep conversations before crashing out for the night.

Saturday we woke up slightly hungover. We stopped by her sister's house to drop something off and see Poppy, the most perfect little baby you will ever see.

We met Mama Piper to pick up the boys and then headed to the grocery store to stock up on stuff to make wraps and pizza, plus we were out of booze. The kids were running crazy through the store and my blood pressure was through the roof by the time we got out of there. I honestly don't know how she does it. It was pretty close to nap time, we hadn't eaten yet, and there may have been a minor meltdown in the parking lot...

We got home and I promptly made wraps and adult beverages while Raven put the boys down for their naps.

I have been obsessed with these things since I left Kennewick and have eaten my weight in them. So goooooooooood.

After naptime there was more playing, Pocoyo, screaming, crying for no reason, looking through photo album after photo album of Raven's ridiculous photo shoots (girl loves a camera...), jumping on the trampoline, taking a tour of their yacht boat, playing with the puppy, consuming cocktails (adults only), and bath time (kids only) before bedtime.

Once we put the kids to bed, Raven made me one of her famous veggie pizzas on the traeger.

Raven assumed her position in her chair, with her computer, and the puppy by her side while we drank, watched more amazing television, continued to pause the TV to have in-depth conversations about society, politics, relationships, blogging, etc., and stuff our faces with pizza until bedtime.

Like I said, domestic bliss!

Check back later this week for my final recap...our overnight in the fantasy suite Portland!

Breezy Goes North - A Match Made in Blog Heaven, Part 1

I am fully aware that this post is long overdue. I figured I owed it to everyone to get this one out there first and then I can do a catch-up post for all of the other happenings in my life.

In order to keep this from being the longest post in the history of blogger, I am splitting up my visit into a few different blogs. But first, a disclaimer.

More than a year ago I found Raven's blog through a couple of other blogs that I follow. I have to be honest, at first I wasn't hooked. A mommy blogger that I probably didn't have anything in common with? No thanks. But, one day I read a guest post she did on another blog and I thought she was pretty funny, so I added her to my reader and gave it a shot. A couple of months later, I added her on FB, and one day I decided to say hi via chat. I didn't even introduce myself, I just jumped right into a conversation like we were already friends. Weird? Maybe. But who cares?

She had just posted the blog about her mom cutting her precious child's hair while she was away on a vacation with her husband so I just asked her if she had a heart attack when the pic came through on her phone. I won her over with my humor and wit.  A few hundred messages later, and we exchanged phone numbers. A few million messages, texts, and face time phone calls later, I purchased a plane ticket to go spend 4 days with her in Tri-Cities, Washington...

I never mentioned it on here before I left because I knew I would get some flack from my family and friends, especially those that don't blog. People who don't blog never understand. People who date online understand a little bit more. I liken it to a pen-pal. We all had those when we were little, whether they were in other states or other countries. The internet just makes things easier. If you think about it, when you very first meet someone, you don't know them at all. You don't know anything about them. Maybe you meet through mutual friends, but how well does your mutual friend know them? I mean, it's not like I went to visit her a week or two after "meeting her". It was a year-long courtship.  JB thought it was weird at first, but every night he saw me giggling and texting and would say, "How's Raven?" and would sometimes get jealous that I was texting her all night instead of hanging out with him.  He trusted my judgement and knew that if I thought it was fine, it was fine.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let's get down to business...

I think both of us were excited, but a little nervous to meet each other. I mean, what if she wasn't as awesome as I thought she was in text? When texting her about picking me up at the airport, I kept asking her if she was working on my billboard. I wanted something sparkly and bright that screamed my name at the airport so I would know where to find her. Her response? "Oh, you just wait..." I definitely didn't expect this:

As soon as I came down the escalator and saw the back of a chicken suit, I knew it was her. She was mad that I knew, but come on, who else would be cuckoo enough to wear a chicken suit at the airport? Besides that, I didn't see her anywhere and I knew she had been there for a while. When I walked up to her, there were people asking her to take her picture. She was pointing a camera at me like a freaking stalker, but wouldn't say anything. She wouldn't take off her chicken head until I threatened to hug her if she didn't reveal herself.

Since my free Southwest flight didn't fly into the airport closest to her house, I flew into Portland and we had a 3.5 hour drive to get through before we could even socially lubricate ourselves with a drink. The time seemed to fly by and before I knew it, we were at her sprawling mansion house with a drink in our hands.

We had to take G-Man to school in the morning, so after saying hello to her handsome husband, Rob, and having a drink, we called it a night.

Check back on Wednesday for my recap of domestic life in Kennewick...

So Much Excitement!!!

As I have mentioned many times before on this blog, I have been blessed with the best in-laws a girl could ever hope for!  They truly are the best for so many reasons, only one of which I am writing about today.

Drumroll please.........

We're going to GREECE!!!!

I am so excited, I can't even stand it.  Not only for this, but for the fact that I get to hear JB say many times a day, "I can't wait to go to Greece." or "I can't wait to do (fill in any activity from brushing teeth to drinking beer to seeing historical monuments) in Greece."  For the next.seven.months.  Joy of joys.

Apparently my mother-in-law has wanted to do a big family trip like this for a long time and has been planning for it (Growing up our family vacations consisted of camping and a trip or two to Disneyland.  My parents did all the cooler stuff without us).  JB knows how much I love a project and told her I would take care of finding something, so over the past month I have been searching and working with my aunt who is a travel agent to find the right trip for us. 

At first we thought we would just pick a place and go, but then I realized how many different islands there are and we wanted to get the most out of our trip there.  Knowing that, I looked into a cruise.  Having been on a few cruises before, I know that you have a very minimal amount of time in each port, so that wasn't the best option for us either.  Finally, I came across a combo package that combines land stays with a 4 day/3 night cruise.  The best of both worlds!!

We will be visiting Athens, Mykonos, Turkey and Greek Islands, and Santorini.  Our itinerary is as follows:

via

Athens

Spend 3-nights in Athens. Visit the ancient Mediterranean metropolis highly recognized for its unique place in history. Spend your time at leisure or take advantage of the many optional excursions. Perhaps a one-day cruise around nearby islands, or take a tour of the city including the Acropolis and the Panathenaikon Stadium, the place of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Don’t forget to visit the Plaka (old city) to wander the cobblestone streets, peruse in the shops or dine in one of the many traditional Greek Tavernas.

Mykonos
Enjoy three sun-filled days on the island of Mykonos, where the options are endless. Spend a day relaxing on one of its many beaches, stroll the town’s whitewashed streets, sip a drink on the waterfront while enjoying the sunset, take a trip to a nearby island, enjoy the exciting nightlife, savor the authentic Greek cuisine and more. Don’t forget to visit the many chic boutiques or find a table at a taverna on the harbor and enjoy the serenity of Cycladic island life.

4-Day Cruise
What better way to see the Greek Islands in a short period of time. After your stay in Mykonos, you will sail to Kusadasi, where you can take an excursion to the ancient city of Ephesus. From here you will visit Patmos and take an optional excursion to the Monastery and Cave where John the Divine wrote the Book of Revelations.

After Patmos you will sail to Rhodes and spend a full day. Perhaps you will take an optional excursion to the city of Rhodes and the rocky Acropolis of Lindos to visit the Temple of Athens.

From there you will sail to Heraklion, the capital of Crete. Take an optional excursion to the Palace of King Minos at Knossos, the center of the Minoan civilization.

The final port of call for the cruise is Santorini where you will disembark for a 3 night stay.

Santorini
Santorini, the volcano island, is one of the most unforgettable places in the world. Walk the narrow streets of Fira or visit the beautiful village of Oia, perched on the rim of the caldera, offering panoramic views of breathtaking beauty.

We will leave June 3rd with a day of travel and arrive in Athens on the 4th, returning home on the 16th.  If I didn't have a reason to get back on track with my fitness goals, this would do the trick.  I will basically be in a bathing suit for 2 weeks.  This also falls close enough to our anniversary to count it as an anniversary trip.  Double whammy!

I wanted to write about this sooner, but didn't want to jinx anything since we hadn't booked yet.  We paid our deposit today, so it's pretty much official!  I will try not to drive you too insane over the next 7 months with vacation related posts, but I can't promise anything.

 

Labor Day in So Cal

Now that I have finally recovered from my recent trips, I can start blogging about them. 

One of my good friends moved down to LA not too long before our wedding and since we had to pay for said wedding and honeymoon, I haven't gotten a chance to go down and visit her.  She has since met someone and they now reside together in Manhattan Beach.  With all of the great deals on Southwest, I snagged a decently priced ticket and headed down there for Labor Day weekend with another friend of ours and left JB at home.

Since it was also the upcoming birthday of the friend I was heading down there with, Steph and her BF made some plans for us which involved driving down to San Diego on Saturday.  After they picked us up from the airport on Friday night, we headed to a nearby bar where their friend, Dane, was playing an acoustic set.  I have a video of him between songs just messing around, but he was pretty awesome.  I love, love, LOVE acoustic sets!



That's Steph trying to creep into the video.  If you can see in the mirror, there was a girl in red and black flannel that was getting down on the dance floor.  A friend of Dane's, supposedly.  She was dying to get us to dance with her and was apparently a rep for Red Bull so in order to keep us out there with her, she kept buying us rounds of drinks.  Works for me!

Later that night we went back to Steph and Kris's apartment which is right on the harbor in Marina Del Rey.  We had to take this cutey-patooty for a walk, so we ventured out to the pier:


Meet Chester (Newfie/corgi mix)

We were almost at the end of our walk when we heard snoring coming from the docks.  There was a mountain of either seals or sea lions (how do you know the difference?) sleeping on the dock.  When we approached with Chester, the alpha male started barking at us.  So naturally, I took some video.  You can't really see anything, but our drunk commentary made me laugh:



A pic of us on our evening walk:


Apparently I didn't get the PJ memo before the walk

The next morning we headed down to SD, but not before we had ice cream cake to celebrate Maren's birthday. 
 

Wish I could wake up to this every day!



Given the fun the night before, we didn't get the early start we were hoping for and it took us 3 hours instead of 2 to get down to SD due to holiday traffic.  We had some road sodas (and a designated driver) with us though, no worries.


And Chester!!

We made a brief stop at the apartment we were staying at to change real quick and then headed off to a house party right on Ocean Front Drive.

Gotta get the booze from the car to the house without getting busted

 

Don't all of your house parties overlook the beach with a DJ in the living room?

One of my favorite morments of the trip:

 

And the award for Best Lover goes to....

Shortly after this we all headed downstairs to the patio for the sunset:

And then proceeded to go home and get ready for a night out at Hard Rock:

That was a late night with a lot of drinks, which led to brunch the next morning looking something like this:

After brunch we headed to Coronado for a day at the beach (which may or may not have included 6 bottles of champagne) some delicious Mexican food, and another night at Hard Rock.  However, I don't have pictures of any of that. 

We ended up staying up all night since Kris had to work his bartending job in SD and we planned to head back to LA as soon as he got off work.  We hit the road at 5am and pulled into their apartment complex, full sunrise, at 7am.  We slept for a few hours and then headed out for brunch/lunch in Venice Beach before heading to the airport.  I'm pretty sure my liver still hasn't forgiven me for what I did that weekend.  At least it was good prep for my Vegas trip.

Up next, Vegas Bachelorette!!!

First Anniversary!

A while back I started doing yoga at work on Fridays at lunch time. The instructor is super sweet and just the right mix of sass and zen, so when she mentioned she was going to be doing a yoga retreat in Bodega Bay, I was really excited to talk to JB about it. We had been looking for something to do for our anniversary that wouldn't completely break the bank, but would still be a nice weekend getaway. Given the cost of the all-inclusive retreat per person, we decided to go for it.

The retreat included accommodations at a beach house in Bodega Bay, 3 days of yoga, all meals/wine, a facial, and a massage. And let me tell you, the cost was LOW for all that.

Saturday we hiked to the beach and did yoga on the sand with the waves crashing. It was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had.

Namaste

We had some down time between yoga and our scheduled facials in the evening so we wandered into town to do some exploring.





The town of Bodega is where the Alfred Hitchcock movie, "The Birds" was filmed so I took a pic of the church they used and the little general store that had all the cool memorabilia. After that we headed into a little antique shop next door...so creepy.





Before we headed back to the house we stopped at this little wine store right on the water and did some wine surfing.




We came back to the house to our long awaited facials and some organic wine tasting with paired appetizers.  Later we had dinner and then people who had signed up for massages that night, got them.  We all thought we were getting 30 minute massages, but since the masseuses got lost and were a few hours late getting there, they gave everyone a full hour.  I was going to get mine in the morning since it had gotten so late, but the masseuse offered to bring the table into my room and let me get mine before bed.  It was amaze-balls.  It had been too long since I had gotten a massage and this guy was GOOD.

Val gave us the master suite since it was our honeymoon and we were so grateful.  We had our own bedroom and bathroom all weekend and the in-room massage was heaven.  We also had views of the other amazing homes in the community and on Saturday night, a beautiful sunset.

To top it all off, today, I received this in the mail:

 

Back cover with yummy recipes

It's a mini scrapbook of our weekend!  I only knew JB, a coworker, and Val before we got there.  Spending the weekend with a bunch of strangers for your anniversary could go really good or really bad, and I am so glad it was good for us.  What a great way to remember our first anniversary!