arizona

I am finally posting about our visit to Arizona last weekend. We got in Friday afternoon and went straight from the airport to lunch at Cafe Rio with our friends Joe and Marci. We don't have a Cafe Rio here so it was a fun treat. We then met up with my brother and his girlfriend, Leslie, and headed over to the tailgate party and football game at my high school. We got there a little late, but still saw some people and it was good to catch up. The game was kind of lame because WW lost, but it was still fun to be there. Then Andrea, Heidi and her husband Ryan, Levi and Leslie, and Wendel and I went out for frozen yogurt and then to my brother's place and talked forever. It was so fun to hang out and laugh and reminisce about high school. We got a little side-tracked about a certain person who would call us and ask us out all the time...feel a little bad about that because he's a nice guy...but you know how there are just those guys in high school who would not leave you alone? All three of us experienced that with this person. Married life is so nice, by the way. Glad to be done with the "dating" days!

The next day we went to lunch at Native New Yorker with a bunch of our friends from high school. I didn't take too many pictures - just a few.

Heidi, Andrea, and me. I love these girls. We hung out all the time in high school and have kept in touch over the years. (I have a picture of the three of us in high school but I can't find it anywhere. It's driving me crazy. So here are graduation pictures of me with each of them).


Greg and me in 1997 and then us the other day. Greg was one of my best friends. We did everything together. I'm lucky to have had the friends I did in high school. So lucky. (Crazy how young we look in that picture below. Funny how we didn't feel young, being seniors and everything. Yeah, that is me as a senior. And people think I look like I'm twelve now?!?)


Looking back on these pictures made me realize that high school really was an awkward time. Yeah, the homework was easy and you didn't have bills to pay, etc. but it's such a time of finding yourself and deciding who you are. I look at these pictures of myself and realize how much I've experienced and learned and become since then. Even though I'm the same person, I am so completely different in many ways from the girl in those pictures.

There are other friends I saw who I would have loved to get pictures with but it's hard when there are lots of people with everyone leaving at different times. Also, on a side note, I wish my friend Shon could've made it (he had to work). He was such a great friend to me - he, Greg, and I had many adventures together and I haven't seen him in years. He and Greg were the guys I could talk to about who I was dating, feel completely comfortable around, and not care if they saw me in my pjs with no makeup. Here is a picture of the three of us, taken the year following high school, when I had come home to visit from nannying in Minnesota and was heading back. (That's a note from Greg on my hand.)

I wish Tyler could have made it too. He's in the Navy right now. There are lots of people I would have loved to see.

One more picture of the way Dub's hamburger came out at Native New Yorker, just because it looked pretty cool.


We didn't go to the graduation dinner (it was $97/person and I saw everyone I wanted to at the lunch) so we hung out with Dub's sister and her family Saturday night. They bought a Nintendo Wii that night and we had so much fun playing. Tennis was the best. My arm hurt for days after though...it really is a workout.

We hung out with our friends Brian and Lori Sunday morning and saw their adorable babies. It was fun spending time with them. We had dinner at my my dad's house on Sunday. He is such an amazing cook. Then we played Dominoes for a few hours (my family loves this game, thanks to our friends Kristi and Ramsey). So fun.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous. It was in the 90s and so warm. Nice to put my flip flops back on. I loved walking outside at night and instead of freezing, just enjoying a warm breeze. I miss that. It's raining here in Seattle today. We came back from Arizona to rain and to a freezing house. I think this winter will be tough for me but I also love it here so I'll have to survive.

School is so busy! Ever since I started college, I have made it a goal to keep Sundays homework free. I do whatever I have to during the week so Sunday can be a day of rest. I'm so glad I did this because I need that day to just recuperate and not feel guilty about what I should be doing for my classes. But starting tomorrow, things will be so crazy again. I'm giving a presentation on Bipolar Disorder in one of my classes tomorrow. Hopefully it will go well.

This has been a long post. Signing off for now.