Seattle Vacation

For our one year wedding anniversary and summer vacation we decided to take a four day vacation to Seattle, WA. Why Seattle you ask? Well, Optometry's Meeting was scheduled to be in Seattle from June 24th-30th and I was getting my way paid to go as President of the UMSL American Optometric Student Association; so we took advantage of the opportunity and flew out before the conference for vacation.
We flew out on Thursday 6/19 and got into Seattle around 10:30pm. We stayed at Hotel Max in downtown Seattle.

On the first morning (Friday) we woke up early and started our day like everyone in Seattle does....at Starbucks. However, neither of us are coffee drinkers so we got juice and pastries; its a wonder they didn't throw us out of the city right then. We walked down to the famous Pike Street Market. Since it was early it wasn't too crowded yet, but by lunch time its packed! And yes, we did get to see the fish throwing too. Just a couple blocks behind the market are the piers at Elliott Bay. The view is just beautiful from he piers, the water is breathtaking and the snow-covered peaks of Olympic Mountains can be seen across the water on a clear day. The Seattle Aquarium sits on one of the piers at the Bay as well. It was a nice aquarium, but probably geared a little more to small children than mature adults like us.
We were really excited about the "petting zoo", we got to touch star fish and sea cucumbers, and the sea otters (I think we are going to build a pool and buy a sea otter as our first family pet - they are freakin' hilarious). We had lunch at the tip of an adjacent pier at a restaurant called The Fisherman, and had the best view in the house because we sat at the very tip of the pier. The weather was absolutely beautiful the entire time we were there too! After lunch we took an hour long Argosy boat tour cruise around the bay and got a great view of the city skyline. After all the walking we had done that day we went back to the hotel and took a nap before going to dinner, this wound up being a tradition we carried on everyday we were there too.

On day two we started in an area called Pioneer Square, which was the original Seattle, and too the Underground tour. The underground is the original ground level of Seattle that is now under the sidewalks because the raised the city. All of the buildings in Pioneer square have a hidden floor underground that used to be the original first floor until the ground level was raised. On the left are some of the old buildings. What is now the first floor used to be the 2nd floor and the first floor is now underground.

On the tour, we walked by the most wonderful smelling BBQ joint, and it was just as good as it smelled. Then we ventured across town to the Seattle Center, home to the Space Needle and Experience Music Project (EMP). We chose not to go up into the Space Needle but did go to the EMP which is a music museum. It was pretty neat, but some of the displays were a little too crowded. Again we went and took and nap and ate dinner.

Sunday, our third day, Brian had scheduled a tour outside of the city to visit two wineries and a waterfall. I am not a wine drinker so Brian had more than his fare share of wine that day, but I did try every one of them. I did find one that I liked, not surprising it was the sweetest one they had. The stop at the Snoqualmie falls was really pretty as well. It was really nice to get out of the city and see the beautiful countryside. The area is SO incredibly green and luscious. They say anything can grow there because of the steady amount of rain and mild winter/summer seasons as compared to the midwest.
Couldn't resist posting this last one. Some day he will learn....some day....

Our last day (together that is) we took it pretty easy because we had seen most of the sites we really wanted to.

We decided to ride the ferry (the first ride on a ferry for both of us) across the bay to Bainbridge Island. The ferry ride was very nice and allowed great views of the city, Mt. Rainier, and both the Olympic and Cascade Mountains.


Brian flew out on Tuesday morning to head home and I traveled about six blocks to another hotel where I would stay with some classmates for the next 5 days while attending the Optometry Conference.
It was a good vacation and we had a lot of fun together, great first anniversary.

Seattle: Optometry

Brian flew home Tuesday morning 6/24 and I just moved to another hotel where I would stay until Sunday while attending Optometry's Meeting. My friends arrived throughout the day Tuesday and Wednesday. I was the unofficial tout guide since I had been there for the last week. By the end of my whole Seattle trip I had been to the Market 5-6 times, the waterfront three and rode the ferry twice, but that's ok because it was different every time. The week during the meeting the weather was again beautiful and downright hot on Saturday, not ONE cloud in the sky....I got a bit of a burn while riding the ferry. The cloudless, sunny sky allowed for great views of the mountains too.

The meeting's opening session featured Christopher Gardner, the man whom the movie The Pursuit of Happyness is based on. He was a very entertaining speaker, so much so that even having seen most of the movie I was captivated as if I had never heard the story before. One little tidbit that surprised me was that his son was actually only 14 mon old when the plot of the movie happened, they chose to make him older in the movie for the dialogue. The closing celebration of the meeting featured Jay Leno! I am a Leno fan anyway, but after seeing his stand-up I am an even bigger fan! I absolutely recommend seeing him live if you have the chance.

My flight home was to leave at 8:30am with a connection in San Fransisco, putting me in STL at 6:30pm. So I was at the Seattle-Tacoma airport by 6:30am on Sunday only to find out that my flight to San Fran had been delayed and I was going to miss my connection, so they put me on a direct flight to STL leaving at 11:55am. I had a bit of time to kill, but it was worth it to fly direct. However, since I was switched flights my luggage would not be making the trip with me. I had to file a complaint once I got to STL, and it was delivered to my door the next day. I would much rather have delayed luggage on the way home than to my vacation!
The meeting was a lot of fun and we had about 15 people from our school attend too. Though some of us don't always hang out together we all had a lot of fun!
That's me and a drop of Opti-free contact lens solution.

We're Famous!

Or free marketing as Makenzie said.
Makenzie called and informed me that Harrington Photography used some of our pictures in the Wedding section of the website. There is one under the engagement, one of me under bridal (the first one!), one under couple (my VERY favorite pic), 2 consecutive under party, and 2 consecutive under memories. Maybe they are trying to make up for how long I had to wait for my pictures by putting using us on their website! Ritchie and April Herbster also have a picture or two up.
Here's the link: http://www.harringtonphotog.com/WeddingSlideHtml/wdslideDetail.html

Wedding Season

UNO
The first wedding was a solo trip for Brian. One of his friends from Sig Ep was married in Wisconsin in May. Many of Brian's other friends from Sig Ep also made the trip up for the wedding, their girlfriends did not so neither did I. From the stories I have heard I think they enjoyed their guys weekend.

No. 2
On May 31st Brian Gentry was married in Scott City, KS. Where??? Scott City, AKA the middle of nowhere. This time I made the trip solo because Brian would have had to take off work to go. Scott City is 5 hours from Valley Falls in the southwest portion of KS. I drove back Friday (5 hours) to my parents house and stayed the night. Got up early (for a Saturday) and rode to no mans land (5hrs)with Mom, Dad, Mak and Jeff. Went to the wedding and reception, both were nice. Reception was pretty fun...especially after some bottles of Arbor Mist. Woke up early (for a Sunday w/ a hangover) and rode back to my parents house (5 hrs). Was chased back to STL by a big storm Monday morning (5 hrs).
Brian and I have talked about what a culture shock it would be to live in VF again after having been in bigger cities for the last 6 years. Having experienced RURAL KS - land where trees refuse to live it is so bad - VF seems like a metropolitan city!! You just cannot believe how barren and flat the rest of the state is until you spend a weekend there.


Me, Ashley, and Makenzie


Brian, Kendall and Megan


#3
Last weekend we were in KC for another Sig Ep wedding. Brian was an usher in this one (the groom, Ben, was an usher in our wedding last summer). The wedding and reception were in Overland Park. Makenzie now lives in Olathe and was just minutes from both of the locations so we crashed at her house. We got into town on Friday afternoon, Brian went and picked up the tux and we went to the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Saturday Brian had to be at the church early so Mak and I hung out and played Guitar Hero as well as after the wedding while killing time tile the reception. This was a unique wedding, Catholic/Jewish combo, and despite the fact that there was double the religious material to cover the ceremony went really fast. Brian was excited because they got to do the Jewish chair lifting at the reception. It was a fun night and weekend hanging out with Makenzie, wish we could have stayed longer but she was probably ready to get rid of us. Thanks Mak!!!




Beautiful cake!


"chair lifting thing" Brian iss near the bride's right foot, he said it was kind of hard because her dress was in his face.


Ben, Brian and Mark

Goodbye Friend

Last week, Brian and I made an unexpected trip back to KS to say goodbye to a friend. Ryan Gunther, a classmate from high school, was killed in a single car accident. He was a truly unique individual and was loved by all. He is gone, but never forgotten.

Brian and Ryan were very good friends all through childhood and the best of friends in high school. They spent most of their free time together riding around, going to concerts, listening to and discussing books. One unique memory that Brian and I both share with Ryan is that our "first date" was with Ryan. Just before our high school graduation Brian, Ryan and I were hanging out a lot on the weekends. Brian and I were not yet a couple. One weekend the three of us went to dinner at Red Lobster in Topeka, it was that night when we returned to Valley that Brian and I had our first kiss. It was in Ryan's room on his couch, which coincidentally used to be Gary and Jayne's. After that we started dating. Neither Brian nor I can recall our first "date" by ourselves, we've always considered that night with Ryan as our first date.

As tragedy often does, it brought old friends back together. It was evident by the vast number of people that came to show their respects at the visitation and funeral, just how special Ryan was. Many members from the VFHS Class of 2002 were there as well. I am very thankful that so many people were able to attend Ryan's services and that we were all able to be together again.

Despite the fact that it has been 6 years since we have been together and many of us are married and/or have kids, when we reunite it feels like just yesterday when we were screwing around in the halls of the high school taking an extended "bathroom break" to avoid class; it is like we have never been apart. I am so thankful for all of my "old" friends. Brian and I are both very lucky to be apart of such a great group of people with so many memories. I know this catastrophic event has inspired us to make a more concerted effort to take advantage of the time we have with our loved ones -- family and friends -- and to not take our time here together for granted.

To each of you reading you are truly special to us and we thank you for being apart of our lives.

Soap Box Derby

Each year the Jaycees, a volunteer organization which Brian is a part of, helps organize and run the St. Louis Soap Box Derby. For the second consecutive year, Brian has been the Jaycees chairperson for the event (he's gluten for punishment). The event is held in an area in South St. Louis called The Hill, which is an old Italian area that has great food, lots of overweight people and more cigar smokers than I have ever seen in my life. In addition to the numerous hours of planning, meetings with Italians, phone calls, sign making and hanging, etc he put in prior to the actual race he also was there from 5:30am to 6:00pm that day.

I also came down for some forced volunteering. He was very short on volunteers in the afternoon so I helped load the kids' cars onto trailer from about noon to two. It was a pretty nice day until we started lifter 100+ pound cars every 10 minutes in the blistering sun. Manual labor is not my forte....thus why I am in professional school.

The event again was a success because of Brian's tireless work. Not to mention all of his efforts that day as well.
He did take home a very memorable souvenir that day......


Get Ready Ladies....



Yes, those are my pajamas, featuring my NOT in public booty shorts!
I can post things like this because he does not help or read OUR blog....yet !
For the record, he did put on sunscreen, just not on his legs.