Father's Day Weekend

First and foremost: I got a job! I am a manager at a fancy place called Massage Envy. I'm still learning the ropes, but so-far it's been loads of fun and everyone there is really nice. AND it's only a 5 minute drive from the house, so I can wake up late and still make it in on time :)

Second: My dad and brother came to visit for the weekend. Unfortunately, I had to work the first 2.5 days of their visit, but the past two days I have been off work and enjoying their company thoroughly. While I was working, they had a chance to get down to Forest Park and visit the Boathouse to kayak and paddle boat around the Post-Dispatch Lake down there. They said they had a great time and my dad got to take a lot of quality pictures, so if you're looking for something fun and scenic, the Boathouse is your spot!

Third: Russell and I saw an awesome band perform an evening packed with cover songs at Mike Duffy's Pub & Grill in Kirkwood, MO. The band is called Square Heads Round Dreads and they are killer musicians. From Wagon Wheel to Johnny B. Good and Feel Like Making Love to What's Up, everything was performed excellently. Great job to you all!

The next day was Father's Day. We went to church on the motorcycles because we like to make a scene. And after going to their respective pews before Mass started, who didn't ask, "God, why can't I be that cool?". I'm pretty sure God got tired of hearing that from so many people right before the service was starting... And that's how we like to think people act when they see us roll up on these bikes.

Posing for a picture after mass (in a very awkward fashion, I might add).

Today was spent enjoying time with my dad and brother before they leave tomorrow. We did a little relaxing, browsed a couple shops at the mall, ate a little ice cream from DQ (The Brownie Batter Blizzard is to DIE for, btw), did a little more relaxing and had a wonderful dinner with the rest of the family. Here we are cramming into my car for some Mexican food.

And, of course, we took some pictures. Here's a nice family portrait.

It's been a good weekend for working hard and playing harder, with a little relaxation on the side. Happy Father's Day to all the father's out there!

Meet Me in St. Louis

Colleen and I survived the road trip of our lives! After a comforting evening in Sioux Falls Best Western hotel, delivery from Ruby Tuesdays and Titanic on the television, Colleen and I slumbered a wonderful slumber only to be reminded when we woke up that we still have another day of driving left. Thankfully, it was our last day of driving! We woke up for a breakfast from the hotel, expecting a nice calm breakfast like the morning before in Billings, MT. Nope. That did not happen. This first thing I saw once I hopped in line for some coffee was a man in his bare feet. That sickening and horrible sight was followed by 20-30 large, awkward-looking people, pushing and shoving their way around a room that shouldn't have more than 15 people there at a time. I got bumped many times just trying to get coffee and cereal; not a wonderful experience to encounter first thing in the morning. My only solace in this situation was that I was going to be back in St. Louis by evening and would not have to shoved around by these crazy people with no shoes. Needless to say, we were excited to get back on the road after breakfast.

The weather served us well through the rest of South Dakota but once we hit Iowa there was nothing but construction zones and rain showers with vision no more than 10 feet ahead of you. Le suck. Though we thought the Iowa troubles were going to slow us down, but thankfully didn't hurt our travel time at all. After traveling many, many miles, we finally entered MISSOURI!!!! Hooray! I've missed te plentiful trees and shrubs along the small hills of this gentle, midwestern state.

We stopped in St. Joseph, MO at Subway for lunch and got back on the road as soon as possible. We also filled up our gasoline and that one tank got us from St. Joseph to St. Louis, so that was our last stop before we got home. Elphie was not impressed by Missouri and slept through most of it.

After what seemed like many grueling hours, we arrived! We got really excited when we crossed over the bridge in St. Charles over the Missouri River (that river has been following us for two days!) and were even more excited to be out of the car for more than a half hour. Day Four: Complete. Total Milage: 2,142.

And after driving through crap for countless hours, this is what God had waiting for me when I got back to Missouri :)

For more details, check out Colleen's Blog !

Letters from the Road

Hello everyone! Colleen, Elphie and I have had QUITE the adventure in just the last 2 days, so get ready for a lot of reading!

The adventure began Thursday night after I picked up Colleen from the SeaTac Airport. We made our way up to the big city to meet her friend Ryan at the 74th Street Ale House in the Queen Anne part of Seattle. Dinner was delish and I had the prettiest, most fancy burger I've had in my life. We had a wonderful time and even got a beautiful veiw of the night skyline. Day One: Complete.

After a good night's sleep, Colleen and I got up early to beat the traffic that all the men in our lives convinced us we'd get stuck in. Turns out that we didn't see more that 5 cars around at a time until we drove into Spokane, WA because we were leaving the city, like us ladies had predicted. It doesn't matter whose right when you have mountain views like this escorting you through the state of Washington...

After much morning driving through the mountains, which Colleen and I thoroughly enjoyed, we stopped in Ceour D'Alene for lunch. We parked by the resort Aaron and I stayed in back in February, walked around the docks for a while, and finally decided to grab some sandwiches from a local sandwich shop to picnic by the water. It was about 91 degrees in CDA and the we couldn't have asked for better weather for the first leg of our trip.

Unfortunately, we didn't haven't felt 91 degree weather since then or seen the sun. We left CDA and drove through crazy mountain passes that I have no idea how Aaron and I got through in the winter time when it was icy. Turn after turn, we wound up and down the mountains and when we finally got a break in Butte, MT, we stopped for gasoline and it started to rain. It was drizzling a little before that, but it started POURING. We crossed the continental divide around 8pm, we're over 6,000 feet high and we winding around mountains in the kind of rain where it's impossible to see because the rain is so intense and water is splashing on your windshield from the other cars pass by. This continued the last 200 miles and they were the most intense 200 miles Colleen and I have ever experienced in our lives. Insanity. And to add to the insanity, Collen leaned on the arm rest and the window rolled down. She screamed, I screamed, Elphie tilted her head and we all got splashed with water. I laughed, Colleen (the driver for these crazy 200 miles) laughed and then shed a tear, and Elphie just went back to sleep. It a long, crazy, and intense day and we couldn't have been more happy to take hot baths, flop into our beds, and pass out. By the way, it was 40 degrees by the time we got to Billings. Day Two: complete. Miles driven: 813.

It was a bit more difficult to get out of bed this morning, but the Quality Inn where we stayed had a cook-to-order breakfast and lots of coffee for our enjoyment this morning. We got on the road and out of Montana as quickly as possible. Montana is not friends with us anymore. Wyoming, on the other hand was much kinder to us. Only a few sprinkles of rain and a few thickets of fog, like the only below, beautiful plateaus, and we had a wonderful drive.

Had the sun been out, we might have been able to see more than the above picture, but we still had a good time. Apparently the roads are red in Wyoming as well, which is awesome, and more fun to drive through. And we saw antelope as well! We quickly passed through Wyoming began to drive through South Dakota, which was flatter than Wyoming and too foggy to stop for Mount Rushmore. We kept trucking through and quickly made our way through this state as well. We saw an old fashioned town from the 1800s, and saw teepees at every rest stop, like the one below.

Luckily, we got to our hotel in Sioux Falls by 8pm central time and had Ruby Tuesdays delivered to our hotel room and have been relaxing ever since. Day Three: Complete. Miles driven: 727

Tomorrow, we'll be driving all the way back to St. Louis-HOOORAAY!!! Making our total milage 2,142. We won't need to get up nearly as early tomorrow, but we still have a full day of driving ahead of us that will thankfully bring us home. For an even more detailed account of our trip so-far, check out Colleen's blog and for pictures, check out Facebook or my Photobucket page. There will be more updates in the next few days about tomorrow's adventure. Until next time...

ROAD TRIP!!!

Today is the day! I pick up Colleen from the airport in a few hours and our road trip adventure begins! After picking her up from the airport, Colleen and I will be meeting a friend of hers for dinner and then getting some shut-eye for our long drive tomorrow. It just sunk in yesterday that I'm leaving and its a bittersweet moment. It's VERY pretty here and I think if my friends, family, and job were here I could really call it home, but I'm also VERY excited to get outta here! I miss my friends and family that I haven't seen in almost a year and I'll get to spend Father's Day with my dad for the first time in 4 years. Many adventures to come in the next couple days and I will be sure to tell once I arrive safely in St. Louis. Look out America, here we come!

So long, suckas!

As I paused from an intense game of fetch with the dog, I looked over at the sunset and realized that I am leaving Washington for good in 3 days. Then I realized how few pictures I've taken of the scenery in the few months I've been here. Sure, I took pictures the first week I got here of Mt. Rainier and Seattle and Puget Sound, but I've hardly taken any pictures outside since.

The beautiful Sound in the early evening

A breath-taking view of Mt. Rainier from the Tacoma docks

The sunset from just a few minutes ago outside of the house

One of many ridiculously large trees in the backyard.

This might be lilacs, but whatever they are, they smell WONDERFUL!

As beautiful as it is around here, I am excited to be heading back to STL. PEACE OUT WASHINGTON.