Trip #2: Waco

I've been waiting for months for this Tri Delt Sing Chair 07 Reunion in Waco with my four favorite girls - Holly, Rebecca, Brittany and Johnna! Since February '06 (when we were first united as sing chairs) the five of us have been inseprable. We worked for 18 months to plan the greatest sing act in sing history - "It's a Small World." Here's a link to our sing act, just in case you haven't seen it. Whether we're driving, planning, dancing, watching sing dvds, mass texting or e-mailing.... it hasn't stopped for three years and I have no reason to believe it ever will.

This past weekend we all met in Waco to watch Sing '09 together, cheer on DDD and as always, perform our whole Bug sing act in Blums car with it blarring through her stereo! The weekend was a major success - in every way. Tri Delt even won 1st place again!!!! Whoo. We were so proud! They're act was produce isle and it was super cute! They did a GREAT job! Here's their act if you want to watch it too.

I don't know if I ever laugh harder than when I'm with my sing girls. We are and always will be the best team and best friends! Now that we're all back in our own cities: Chicago, San Antonio, Divine, Lubbock and Houston - the e-mails continue and I already can't wait for the Sing 2010 reunion. Love you girls!!! See you soon.

Here are some pics of the reunion:
miss you girls already. bugs forever!

Trip #1: Seattle

Last week I traveled to Seattle for work - to represent the Texas Wind Energy Institute. I do the marketing for the wind education program and somehow I got to be the sole rep from TTU to be the exhibitor for the AWEA conference in Seattle. Since I was staying in a big hotel in downtown Seattle, I got to walk around some and see the city during the breaks. I absolutely loved it. Yes, it rained most of the time but I just really loved how natural and outdoorsy everything was! Even the air just smelled cleaner!

I also loved walking the streets (like in NYC) and shopping at every store you could think of (like the flagship Nordstrom which was six floors i think). I also got to meet Jesse (a friend from Baylor) and her husband Bret and their precious daughter, Harper for dinner one night. We ate at a restaurant on the pier which was really fun. I ordered crab legs and it was by far the best crab I've ever eaten!! I hope I get to go back with Mark sometime soon and spend more time in Washington and Oregon! It was awesome!

This was at the Pike Place Market down on the pier. I walked there from my hotel and got to see all the vendors putting out their fresh fruit, veggies, fish, seafood and tons of flowers. It was so pretty. I wish I could go there for groceries every week.








All the vendors were giving away samples and one of the guys talked me into buying this super special kind of plum that is only grown in the shade and is only in season in February and lots of other special things I don't remember.... not sure if any of that was true, but it was most definitely an amazing tasting plum!







Freshest fish/seafood I've ever seen!!!

















Have you ever seen a lobster tail like that? and check out the shrimp on the far right..... amazing!












This is the original, first, flagship, number one Starbucks store in the country. It's the cutest little hole in the wall coffee shop! Of course, I had to buy a souvenir coffee mug that says First Starbucks on it.









I also went up to the top of the Space Needle over looking all of Seattle. It was beautiful! I loved all the boats in this harbor - there were lots of boats going around Puget's Sound and there was a huge Ferry which I would have loved to have been on!




















It was super windy out on the top of the Needle! Even more windy than Lubbock, if that's possible! :)



.........sorry about the spacing. not sure how to fix it..........

twenty-five

1. I love the beach with all my heart. It’s my happy place. I go there for a week with my fam every summer
2. I check Lindsay’s blog every day
3. I placed at the state track meet in Pole Vault every year (even the year my pole broke on my second attempt in front of thousands of people… I pulled it together and got up and cleared it on my last try)
4. I did competitive gymnastics for 12 years of my life
5. I love Kanakuk and really miss it
6. In heaven I will be able to sing like Jennifer Hudson and Idina Menzel
7. I love to shop and I wish that everything I owned was from Anthropologie
8. I let my 7th grader small group girls dye my hair dark brown in college – it was supposed to be 24 washes. It lasted for 6 months.
9. I am and always will be obsessed with Sing – I know I need to let it go, but it’s just never going to happen (i will take this opportunity to mention that when i was the sing chair, tri delta got first place!) im telling you, im obsessed
10. I love Friends. I own all the seasons and watched them all in order with my roommate junior year.
11. I’ve never finished a crossword puzzle
12. I want to have a beach house some day – Mark wants a house in the mountains
13. I love to run- my husband and I ran three half-marathons in 2008
14. I love to travel (I’ll be in seven different cities -and five states- in the next five weeks)
15. I love my family with all my heart and will travel any amount of miles to be with them
16. I had never heard of Lubbock or Texas Tech until a few years ago…. Who knew I would move here.
17. Every Thursday we eat dinner at Dions and watch The Office with Chase & Taryn
18. I love to perform on stage
19. I can’t wait to be a mom
20. I’ve watched You’ve Got Mail and The Devil Wears Prada so many times I have them memorized
21. I wish I could get married to Mark again every year – that was greatest day of my life and I would love to get to wear my wedding dress again!!
22. I was a cheerleader for Baylor
23. I cannot sleep without a sound machine
24. My husband is a mountain man and I love it
25. I’m obsessed with So You Think You Can Dance
26. I try really hard to be a good long-distance friend
27. I love love love to bake and wish there were more people in our household to eat it

(i know, it's actually twenty-seven. what else did I forget?)
thought of a few more:
28. Would get a mani/pedi every week if I could
29. Hate to iron
30. I am doing my part to "GO GREEN"
31. I've recently become obsessed with scrabble
32. I adore things with birds and butterflies on them - so sweet and dainty

paradise.

Our trip to the Dominican Republic was one of the most incredible vacations we've ever been on! It was refreshing to be with our dear friends, Lindsay and Elliott. We miss them so much, every day, and it was a much awaited reunion. It's taken me a while to upload these photos because I don't even know where to start to describe what a fantastic time we had! It was simply PARADISE. Here's some of what we did....

The soon-to-be mommy and daddy: Elliott and Lindsay Drake - We took their dog, Ridley, on a walk through one of the national parks in Santo Domingo. (I thought it looked like Jurassic Park in the background, haha)

Best friends for life. After dinner in the Colonial District downtown.

Yogen Fruz. Best yogurt I've ever had in my life!!! No joke. and its organic (i think) and super healthy! (my hair is looking quite rough here, sorry. they don't have hot water and sometimes no electricity either and it was extremely windy that night)

This was the most beautiful view of the whole trip. I wish we could have captured it in a photo. We were driving along the beach and then about 2.5 seconds later we were up at the top of a mountain at 2500 ft. above sea level. Seriously, God is amazing.

in awe.

took a long, adventurous walk along the beach

it was so beautiful!

The gang. We would give anything to be able to see them more than once a year :(

This was the coolest palm tree because it shot out parallel to the beach and then went up over the ocean.
This is us on the whale watching tour. Humpback whales travel to the north ocean of the Dominican Republic every year from Jan-March. The day we went, it was raining and the water was pretty rough, so they said we may not see anything... but they were wrong! We saw three whales and followed two of them for quite a while! They were bigger than our huge boat. It was amazing.

Look closely and you can see its whole head.
The view of the harbor from where we ate lunch after whale watching.Cutest preggo lady ever! Can't wait to meet that baby girl!!

We went to a cave called Tres Ojos (three eyes)- named for the three ponds inside the cave. It was really cool!

This was the third pond in the cave.... we were "inside" the cave and the pond was open to the sky.... again, so beautiful!

The trip really was a perfect reunion. It was so special to see the mission work that Lindsay and Elliott are doing in their neighborhood and in their city! It's clear that the Lord has placed them in Santo Domingo for His purpose. He is always faithful to provide for our needs - whether in the Dominican Republic or in Lubbock, Texas.

Elliott and Lindsay, we love you and are praying for you daily! Thanks for such a wonderful trip and for the life-long memories.

Believe it.

I never thought tumbleweeds were a real thing. I thought they were only in old books and movies about the wild west (aka Fivel Goes West). Well shortly after moving to Lubbock, I quickly found out that they are in fact real and they are EVERYWHERE. I hate them. They blow through the streets, they pile up on the side of your house, your fence, your alley, they mess up my flowers, they scratch my car. yuck. Here's some proof for all my non-texan friends!

This one in particular hit our student worker, Jenna, in the parking lot! haha

Where do I live??

Cupcakery.

I found a new Lubbock treasure today. The Peace O' Cake cupcakery. It is the cutest place! It's a little cupcake shop on 34th & Indiana. It's only been open for three weeks so you should try it out! The owners/bakers are super fun and most importantly, the cupcakes are delicious!

If you want to give it as a gift, they'll put it in these cute little boxes!

They have different flavors everyday.

Kenna and I enjoying our strawberry cupcakes at work. yum.

Mission Trip

mountains.

my favorite little guy who spilled bubbles all over himself but couldn't have cared less bc he was having so much fun!

Mark and Chase - real doctors for the weekend

The CMDA med school mission trip in El Paso was a major success. Mark has been working for months as the VP of missions to set-up and plan the trip for all med students, pharmacy students, nursing students, doctors, etc. Taryn and I were the only non-medical students, but we had a blast playing with the kids. It was so much fun to watch Mark in action! He is going to be the greatest doctor. He was so cute running around with his stethoscope and examining people. It was so neat to see the ways the Lord worked through our group to touch so many people both spiritually and medically. I know Mark has been called to be a doctor and I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for him. I don't think I could be any more proud!