Girls Weekend!

Well, a long-awaited and momentous event (I think so anyway!) finally happened this weekend... RENT came to town on Broadway! My mom, mom-in-law and Chels all came to watch and have a girls weekend. The show was really awesome, I got tickets through my work and we were in the sixth row! Chelsea kept saying she wanted to run up and touch one of the actors. :) Also, two of the original cast members (and stars from the movie!) were performing, so it was like listening to one of your favorite soundtracks live... really cool!

So Rent was on Thursday night... Friday we slept in (well, technically just Chelsea and I did) and went to lunch and did some shopping. My moms thought it would be fun to weed and plant a little garden in my front yard (isn't it amazing the differences in what we consider fun as we get older???) so we went to Home Depot and picked up a bunch of gardening stuff.

The result is pretty amazing! :) Chelsea and I made cookies while they worked their magic, and it only took them a few minutes, they're pretty awesome!





Posing with the masterpiece!

Sisters!

We had a really good weekend, and so did Kyle... he went on a boys backpacking trip and they really roughed it, they only brought what they could carry, no tents or anything. Kudos to them, not exactly my kind of camping! :)

The boys...

Random snow!

Teamwork fishing... Bryan caught and Kyle assisted! :)

Resting on the trail

Kyle has a reenactment this weekend in Salem, but the Halls and I are going to head up to my parent's cabin for the fourth of July, I can't wait! Hopefully it's not too hot for the boys...

We've been talking about having an open house for our family because most everybody hasn't seen our new house yet, and we've decided to do it on July 11th. Don't have a time or anything yet, but save it on the calender if you can and I'll keep you posted with the details! :)

Port Gamble

So it was a fun weekend in Port Gamble for Kyle's reenactment! Bryan's girlfriend Lindsey and I drove up after work on Friday to Gig Harbor, and on Sunday morning we drove to Carissa's house, which was (very conveniently!) three miles away from the reenactment. We went to both battles on Saturday, and my family got to see their first battle, which was exciting. We hung out in the boys' camp for a while, then when they had to get back to work we went out for a nice dinner in Poulsbo.

The girls out to dinner...

The Casebolt's (and Hall!)

Lindsey and I also went to the Sunday morning battle, which of course was the best one! I was really disappointed that it couldn't have been the one Saturday afternoon that my family came to, but that's just the luck... the boys came out first and were like the only union men on the field, and they were so close!

An unprecedented view!

Rallying the troops! or something... :)

Shooting at the rebel sharpshooters!

Man down!

The town of Port Gamble, it was really cute!

The boys hanging out in their camp...

This weekend Kyle is going on a boys camping trip that he's been planning for a long time, he's really looking forward to it. They're going backpacking around the Eight Lakes Basin (I have no idea where that is!) for a couple days. My mom, sister, and mom-in-law are coming into town on Thursday because we're going to see RENT in downtown Portland, I can't wait! I took Friday off so that we could all hang out and have some girl time too, it will be a fun weekend!

Klamath!

What a weekend! We spent the weekend in Klamath Falls for our friend's graduation... it was a very different experience sitting in the stands this year! Or the grass, if you show up right when the graduates are walking in... :) We were worried it was going to rain on us, but fortunately it never did. It was pretty cloudy though, and the sun was only out for a few minutes, but of course...

I still somehow managed to get a sunburn! Go figure! :)

After graduation we went to the Running Y resort, which is where our families stayed last year. It's a ways outside of Klamath Falls, but it's a really beautiful area, and the sun was finally out. We stayed with the Browns, who are good family friends (their daughter Meagan graduated from the repiratory therapy program), and just hung out all day, eating and playing games. It was really fun!

One of the best parts of the weekend was that I got to see my old roommate and good friend Dorota, who I haven't seen since we left Klamath in almost two years! I've missed her so much, she lives in Reno so it's been hard to connect, but this weekend felt like we'd never been apart... So much has happened in our lives the last couple of years that it was a blast to just catch up and get up to date with eachother. I'm hoping to plan a trip to Reno to visit her really soon!

This weekend is Kyle's reenactment in Port Gamble... there are two battles each on Saturday and Sunday, one at 11:00 am and one at 3:00 pm. We would love to see you there if you can make it!

Exciting news... Kyle officially applied to grad school last week, so I will definitely keep you posted when we hear something! From what I understand it usually takes about a week to process your application, and then if they're interested they contact you for an interview... we're keeping our fingers crossed! :)

Anyway, I'm working a double tonight so I'm going to try to take a quick nap before I head in to work...

Graduation

Well... Kyle and I had quite the graduation experience on Wednesday night! The weather was fine all day, so the ceremony was going to be held outside on the school field. We got there about half an hour before it was supposed to start, and there were a lot of clouds, thunder and lightning, but no rain... and man did that quickly change! As the ceremony was starting, it began to POUR, big fat raindrops that quickly drenched all of us. Keep in mind that it's been like 90 degrees around here lately, so none of us were at all prepared, just sitting there in short-sleeved shirts and summer dresses with no jackets or anything... we looked like we'd jumped in a pool! Coupled with the lightning and all of us sitting there on the metal bleachers, it was quite an eventful evening! I felt so bad for all the grads, I'm sure it wasn't enjoyable for them either... and of course it stopped raining as soon as the ceremony was over!

Kyle and I with Sarah after graduation.

View of the ceremony from where we were sitting. Sarah graduated from South Albany High School, but Kyle and his brothers graduated from West Albany. Big rivalry in the family!

Sitting with Bryan's girlfriend Lindsey, trying to shield ourselves from the rain! Unfortunately, Albany is the grass seed capitol of the world, and so my allergies can really act up... my allergies got so bad during the ceremony that I couldn't even open my eyes, they were so swollen and watery, and the stuffy nose and the sneezing... I was pretty miserable!

Kyle's cousin (Sarah's sister) Courtney, with Bryan right behind her... looking pretty wet!

Good news... Kyle got his test results back yesterday, and did really well on his test for grad school! We're just waiting for one more letter of recommendation to arrive in the mail, and then he's going to send off his application, hopefully sometime this week!

We're heading down to Klamath Falls next weekend, we have a few friends graduating, so that will be fun... it will be nice to sit under the cover this year and let all the graudates sweat it out in the sun! :) Can you believe it's already been a year since graduation?

BBQ

On Saturday Kyle and I went to a graduation BBQ for our latest student Ally, who graduates in just two weeks. It has been so hot out that we didn't even relax outside, we stayed inside where it was air-conditioned. :) It's hard to believe that we'll be welcoming another student in just a few more weeks!

Ally holding up her cake... it was really cool, my co-worker Denise's boyfriend makes cakes as a hobby and so he made one that was a graduation cap in OIT colors... he's a real ace of cakes!

Afterwards, Kyle and I went out to a place called Edgefield in Troutdale with a couple of my co-workers and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon. Edgefield is a McMenamins, which are places that have been converted from old schoolhouses, pubs, etc. into restaurants, movie theaters, all sorts of fun stuff. Edgefield also has a golf course, so the boys went off to play a round of golf while us girls sat outside in the shade at picnic tables and talked shop for a while. We had a really good time! :)

Sunday we went to another BBQ (do you see a theme here?) in Clackamas, a family friend of Kyle's that does civil war reenacting turned 60, and so we stopped by to say hello and wish him a happy birthday. We're heading down to Albany on Wednesday, Kyle's youngest cousin Sarah is graduating from high school. It seems like these young adult years are going by way too fast!