A packed weekend in DC

We finally decided to put our VA condo on the market so we needed to take a trip up to DC to go to closing (which ended up not happening that weekend after all - very long story! - but we went up to DC anyway!).

We headed up after work on Thursday, making it up to NoVA pretty late but found some time to drive past our old townhome and go have dinner at Brad’s favorite Thai restaurant. He used to make us go to this restaurant ALL the time so we figured it was a great place to go to while we were in town. He was a happy camper!

On Friday, we headed to our condo to meet up with the real estate agent, sign off on any paperwork that we still needed to fill out and hand over a set of keys so that when the place finally goes to closing, we don’t have to be there.

It was really strange to see the place – imagining that we spent several years living there and that seems like a lifetime ago. I can remember bringing Duke home for the first time. Brad complaining as I forced him to make wedding favors and nametags at the dining room table. Babysitting Natalie when she was just a little pipsqueak. Having friends and family over. And lots more memories through the years. Great memories but I am sure glad to not be living there anymore – seeing the tiny space with poor natural light and no yard, makes me love our current house even more :)

After meeting with the real estate agent, we headed to a rental car place so that I could get a car and Brad and I could go our separate ways. We had realized that we needed to divide and conquer in order to see all the people that we wanted to see for the weekend!

So, I headed off to lunch with a good friend from the Booz Allen days while Brad went to have lunch with friends from Clark. Then Brad went up to Maryland to spend Friday night with Jay, and I went to DC to spend the night with Ginny, Geoff and their adorable 1 year old, Emily.

On Saturday, Brad and I met up again at the park to spend a bit more time with Ginny, Geoff and Emily and then off to Virginia to have lunch with Kevin, Jessica and their nearly 1 year old Dylan.

Then up to Maryland to check in to our hotel and go to the Jason Mraz concert!



And finally, down to Silver Spring on Sunday for brunch/lunch with Stanford friends – Brendan and Robyn and their kids, Eva and Asa; Alix and Catherine and their adorable daughter Gwen, and even Dani (who happened to be in DC for some work meetings) and her friend Brooke.

Then back on the road to head home to NC after a fabulous weekend seeing friends! Another busy weekend but a great one!

Families Unite!

All of my friends were saying that we were crazy. Heading to Texas to visit the Worshams. But not by ourselves … with my parents. That’s right – a weekend getaway with the Layburns and the Worshams.

But, not surprisingly, it was a super fun weekend. So great to have some quality time with just us and both sets of our parents. We spent a bunch of time on the water, we headed to downtown Austin to see the sites, ate great food, and went to Esther’s Follies (so funny, even though we were in the front row and were dreading getting picked to go on stage the entire time and my dad got “peed” on by a dog on stage!).

A fun of days of great food, great conversation, relaxing on the water, going for boat rides and tubing. Another fantastic time in Texas!

Our Anniversary!

Speaking of being a lucky girl, the best husband on the face of the planet and I just had our anniversary. 4 years of wedded bliss (and 13 years of togetherness)! Crazy how fast time flies – it really feels like just yesterday that we were having the most amazing wedding ever in DC. Now suddenly it’s several years later, we’ve moved from VA to NC, we’ve both changed jobs, we’ve traveled a ton, bought a new house together and a million other things. Crazy! Can’t wait for all the years to come.

Layburn Ladies' Weekend

My sisters and I had promised my mom that for her birthday that we’d all get together for a girls’ weekend. Somehow that took us 8 months to schedule but it finally happened in August.

We all gathered at mom’s house and had a fun weekend of quality girl time! Out for dinner, wine and gossip on Friday night. Then a fun day on Saturday – farmers’ market and a trip to Jamestown, including a super fun Segway tour. I seriously love Segways! Finally back home to make a home cooked extravaganza for Saturday night dinner – we cooked for our mom, that’s a twist! – and then just hanging out and playing Mexican train for a nightcap. Sunday we went to see “The Help” (awesome book and an awesome movie!) and then capped a great weekend off with ice cream!

It was fabulous and SO fun to spend good quality time with mom and my sisters. I’m a lucky girl :)

Bowling with Shaz

One of our fav friends Shazia came to visit us and she humored me because I really wanted to go bowling :) We went out for dinner and drinks and then on to the local bowling alley. Played a couple of really good games (seriously, we were pretty impressive) and then this happened:



Wow. That is some BAD bowling! Needless to say that was our last game of the night - figured that the bowling gods were telling us to pack it up!

Mike & Julia Get Hitched (a couple of times)

This past weekend we headed up to Connecticut for Mike (one of Brad's friends from high school) and Julia's wedding. We were excited to catch up with everyone and have a fun weekend celebrating.

Friday night hanging out with Chris and his girlfriend Ilana:


Brad and Dave catching up over a beer:


And then on to the wedding on Saturday. Julia looked amazing and they both were so happy :) Here they are right after they were married - for the 2nd time!


Turns out that they got a call on Friday from their celebrant (a family friend that had gotten "ordained" in order to marry them) and she was no longer able to make it! (sadly, she has some unexpected and serious family health issues).

So, Mike and Julia found themselves without a celebrant. So, 2 choices - have a "fake" wedding ceremony on Saturday and then truly get married once they returned from their honeymoon. Or, scramble and try to find a justice of the peace to marry them before the "wedding".

So, they scrambled, headed down to the local courthouse on Friday afternoon and got married. They brought Dave with them to serve as witness and got married on the roof of the courthouse, with all the courthouse employees eating lunch around them, and a boombox playing "wedding music". Dave said it was all totally surreal - and hysterical. The upside is that they get to celebrate their wedding for 2 days ever year! ;)

There were so many unique touches at the wedding that really showed Mike and Julia's style. Like unique programs and favor cards and Madlibs at each of the tables - so fun!


A great live band. Mike and Julia - who are both musicians/music teachers - even played with the band at the beginning of the night. Fun to see the bride in her wedding dress rocking out on the drumkit and the groom playing his trumpet!


Natural centerpieces at each table - here's Bob stealing one at the end of the night ;)


And Nutlettes cereal! (a running joke in this crew and now a part of our wedding gift to Mike and Julia)

We had such a blast hanging out with good friends and celebrating! An amazing wedding weekend!

Aruba Aribe (yayayaya!)

We just got back from the most amazing vacation - Aruba!!

My wonderful parents gave us the gift of Aruba for Christmas this past year (they own a Marriott timeshare, so gave a week to me, Brad, Kiera, Ryan and Sharon). So, we basically just had to get to ourselves down to Aruba and enjoy the view from my parent's timeshare:


It was an amazing week of lounging by the pool and by the ocean, reading books, and just constantly chilling out. And of course, lots of tasty frozen drinks like these:


And more drinks in our favorite place - the lazy river!


And of course, an Aruba recap wouldn't be complete without our new friends, the adorable lizards (and yes, I do want one of my own):



There was one day where we actually explored the island. First stop was the lighthouse on the end of the island and some rock formations:


But the highlight of the trip was our visit to the Donkey Farm! AMAZING. I know officially love donkeys (but, fortunately for Brad, I do not want one of my one).


And a gorgeous butterfly farm:


Crazy nights out including a Ryan karaoke special:


But sadly the trip came to end all too quickly. One last of those tasty drinks for the road:


A quick photoshoot on the beach by our hotel:


And we're off! I'll miss you Happy Island!

Trip to NYC = Fail!

We were supposed to go to New York this weekend.

Plan A was to go to Jessie and Thomas's wedding in Connecticut. Plan A = FAIL! Sadly, Thomas - who is from Ireland - wasn't able to get his fiance visa in time so he was stuck in Ireland. Wedding without a groom is not the best idea, so the wedding was postponed until next summer.

But, we already had plane tickets so we decided, let's go with plan B! Plan B was to have dinner with Julie and Jenn to celebrate Jenn's birthday on Friday night, and then stay with Julie on Friday night to see her new place. Then Saturday brunch with Julie, Lauren, Max and finally have a chance to meet their adorable son, Gus. Then Saturday afternoon with Mike, Julia, Chris and Dave. And finally hanging out at Dave's place on Saturday night before heading to the airport early on Sunday morning.

A great plan, right? Except Plan B = FAIL!

Unbeknownst to us, there was a Plan C in the works. Plan C was hang out at the airport for hours on Friday night while our flights got delayed and delayed and finally cancelled. Then make a bunch of calls to cancel all of our NYC plans and head home to try and salvage the rest of our weekend, stuck in NC.

Oh well. Looking forward to Plan D - when we reschedule our NYC weekend and get to have a "re-do" on our great weekend with friends!

Fun with Phish & Dan

This past weekend, one of Brad's best friends from high school, Dan, came to visit. We had a blast hanging out with him and hitting the road to see some Phish shows - hooray!

Some crappy iPhone photos of the three of us enjoying the shows:

This is a horrible photo but I had to include it so you can all see what I had to deal with all weekend! By the end of the weekend, I stopped calling them Brad and Dan, and had decided that they needed to be called Frick and Frack instead. ;)


And some of Brad's more serious shots of our favorite band!





Ending the weekend with beer flights at Tyler's!