This week's destination: Boulder, CO

Brad and my latest destination in our crazy travel tour '08 was a trip to Boulder.

We went for the wedding of 2 friends of mine from grad school -- Andrea and Brent met at school and I got to see their relationship grow over the course of the 2 years at Stanford, eventually leading to a move to Boulder and then a super fun wedding this past weekend. It was great to see lots of friends from Stanford and catch up with everyone. And of course, lots of partying at high altitudes in beautiful weather is never a bad thing :) Highlights included a beautiful outdoor ceremony - complete with an acoustic guitarist playing Phish songs for the processional (gotta love hippie friends!) and personalized vows - and a super fun reception at an art gallery with a delicious make-your-own sundae bar and a terrific band. Great times!


















We were also lucky to get to visit with one of Brad's groomsmen while we were in Boulder. Drew and his wife Allegra, both friends from Duke, live in Boulder and recently welcomed their first child, Cadence. Cady is adorable and, although it was a bit surreal to see Drew as "Dad", it was awesome to catch up with them and get to meet Cady.









Overall, a packed weekend but a really great time. Brad and I are so lucky that we have such amazing friends!

Hanging with friends and celebrating our wedding

Today was a fun day of random activities ... it started off with me at work, which was not fun, but went up from there!

Brad and I headed over to Robyn and Brendan's house to spend the afternoon with their gorgeous - and incredibly smiley - daughter, Eva, and our buddy Ann who was visiting from California. It was fun to get together and catch up. We spent the afternoon just chatting about what was new with all of us, which involved the three Stanford ladies complaining about our jobs. Turns out that all of us are on the job hunt once again -- why is it that we can't seem to find jobs that are the right fit for us while the boys, Brendan and Brad, both like their jobs and have great work-life balances?! Oh well, hopefully we'll all find new jobs soon that are everything we hoped for!

Then Brad and I had a wedding-related date night. First, we went to the spa and spent part of a wedding present - a gift certificate from my sisters/bro-in-law, thanks guys! - to get our first ever professional massages. Seriously, I could get used to those!! Then off to Macy's to spend a wedding gift certificate that was about to expire (which resulted in a new bedspread and ties for Brad - kinda boring but functional!). And then we capped the night with a great meal at a nearby Italian restaurant. It was a great day!

i sveikata! (cheers!)

This past weekend, Brad and I had the pleasure of attending Erika and Kovas's wedding in Chicago. I headed out there on Thursday night to begin the festivities with a bachelorette party for Erika ... which included a fabulous tapas dinner as an ode to Erika's upcoming Spain/Portugal/Morocco honeymoon and ended with drinks and dancing. Judging by the pics below, I think that Erika (and the rest of us) had a fun time!

The rest of the weekend was full of wedding activities (for me, that is - Brad was able to do some sightseeing of Chicago) and learning a lot of Lithuanian wedding customs. The bridesmaids even had to learn a traditional Lithuanian dance called Sadute and perform it at the reception. After which, we were dubbed "honorary Lithuanians" by some of the relatives because they were so impressed that we were able to learn and perform the dance so well. One of the other very interesting moments was when Erika and Kovas performed another Lithuanian tradition and Erika was given a head scarf, broom and apron to represent her becoming a housewife for Kovas - too funny, given how much of an independent woman Erika is!

Anyway, the weekend was great! I can't believe that Erika, Ginny and I - the three amigas from Duke - are now all married!! :)

Congrats are in order!

You are looking at the newest Executive at Clark Construction. :) Congrats Brad!

The Big 3-0!

Sadly (as Brad already mentioned in the last post) I didn't make it to the Moe. show this past weekend. But it was all for good reason ...

Brad and I did a little social divide and conquer and instead of going to the concert with him, I helped plan and attended a surprise 30th bday party for my buddy Ginny instead. Ginny and Geoff just returned from their honeymoon in Greece (and from looking at their pictures, I REALLY want to go to Mykonos now!). So, the evening was a great opportunity to celebrate her 30th, catch up on the honeymoon details and see a lot of familiar faces from the wedding. It was great fun and made me realize how close my own 30th bday is ... dum, dum, dummmm.

But that's ok, at least for the moment, I am solidly in my 20s :) and looking forward to the dawn of a new decade of fun adventures with friends and family!

Moe. Round II

For the past several years, Moe. has made an annual stop at our local outdoor amphitheater, Wolf Trap. This year was no different. Unfortunately Erin had to back out of the concert because of a birthday commitment so it was myself along with a big crew of our DC area music buddies. It's been a while since I've been to a show with a crew of over 10 but that is especially fun at Wolf Trap where you get to tailgate and BBQ before the show starts. Anyway, our seats were in the Pavillion which, although the seats only cost 3 bucks more than the lawn seats, was surpisingly empty so we had plenty of room to spread out and dance. Erin and I have a favorite song by Moe. called "Plane Crash" and I joked with her that because she wasn't going to the show they were going to play it. Sure enough I was correct and it was awesome. Overall, the night was great and to top it off I got some of my best concert photos ever.

Stormy Weather in VA

Three days ago I was running in the gym watching TV and the weather forecasters were predicting heavy storms in our area in two days. I found it odd because usually forecasters have no clue but in this case they were pretty certain. Well they were correct. We had a major storm with serious thunder, lightning, wind and rain. We lost power and got it back about 24 hours later but they are saying it could take 2-3 more days to restore all power. We went out to dinner last night and the restauarant was overwhelmed by the amount of people going out to eat. They were totally understaffed and not happy about it. We ended up getting Erin's dinner for free but we really didn't care about waiting because we had nothing better to do at home. Anyway, as I was driving today I drove past a house that needed to be photographed. It reminded me when I lived in CT we had a storm that brought about 13 trees down in my parents yard. Its sad when only 1 person suffers really bad in an entire neighborhood.

A Day at the Gun Range

When we all went to Vegas about a month and a half ago, Todd mentioned possibly going to a gun range for fun while we were out there. When we were checking out the local ranges and prices out in Vegas, it just seemed astronomical, so instead I consulted a former coworker, Duffy, who is a gun collector and frequents the range. Duffy volunteered to host us one day at the local gun range instead, so Todd and Alex came down this weekend to visit us and take Duffy up on his offer.

It was quite an interesting experience! Duffy has approximately 75 hand guns and brought a wide selection from a very small .25 caliber pistol to a 50 caliber Desert Eagle. He also brought an AR-15 which is basically the civilian equivalent to the military M-16. Some of the guns had crazy kickback and were incredibly loud! The afternoon was capped watching a father judge through binoculars how his (maybe) 10 year old daughter was doing at the range. I thought it was a pretty unique father daughter activity.