If you caught my last blog post I've had some exciting changes in my life as of recent. Even better, I got to kick off my new life adventure with nearly a month on my favorite coast! It was so wonderful to be home to relax and regroup a little, all without having my departure looming over my head. Somehow the month still flewwww by but I did get some quality family time in, which I SO needed! Here are some of the highlights of my trip!

Portland

I kicked off my west coast tour in one of my favorite cities with some of my absolute favorite people -- the PERFECT combo!

It's always so much fun visiting Portland! I may have only lived there for a year, but it always brings back great memories.

Little Duck and I put our walking shoes on and had such a fun adventure! It's probably good we walked a lot too because we followed our amazing breakfast with donuts and cupcakes. #NoShame. Okay, well we saved the donuts for later, but hey, when in Portland enjoy the food!

After an awesome day. We united with our other lovely ladies and enjoyed a fun night out! We checked out a delicious little Italian spot in the Pearl District that was dishing up some seriously good bites and then we headed to the Nutcracker! The last time I had seen the Nutcracker, Little Duck probably wasn't even up to my shoulder in height, so you know it has been a LONG time! It was such a nice holiday treat and I'm so thankful that the Hardersens invited me to join them! 

For our last day in the city, we visited my all-time favorite Portland spot, Pine State Biscuits! Nom, nom, nom! Followed by some shopping at some seriously cool home stores including City Home -- LOVED this place!

Enumclaw

After our amazing trip in Portland, we headed back north! My mom recently moved back to my hometown so it was so wonderful to break in the new digs! We hosted the whole fam for Christmas and it was a great time catching up with everyone!

We even got a little bit of a *White Christmas*! Barely, but enough to say we did ;-) After Christmas I worked quite a bit, which doesn't make for that exciting of blog posts buttt I did capture this work-from-home day with my dad! We have matching hats because we're cool like that.

Fast forward a little bit and Chris headed west for a visit. Almost as soon as he arrived, we headed up north to Vancouver B.C. for a little getaway.

Vancouver, B.C.

I've been wanting to visit Vancouver B.C. for awhile so we decided to finally make it happen! Surprisingly, even though it's only about 3 hours away, I'd never been so it was some new scenery for the both of us.

Normally I'd do a lot of research on visiting a new city, but for this trip we kind of winged it by just booking a hotel and some great suggestions from a friend.

If there's two takeaways I have from our visit.. it is that Vancouver people are some of the friendliest I've ever met and man is the city beautiful! 

Seattle

Following our Vancouver trip, we also made a trip up to Seattle. Aww, love this city so much.

It may have been a little chilly, but the day was gorgeous so we hit up Alki Beach. I just love the views over there.. oh and the donuts weren't bad either!

We also checked out an Oregon Ducks bar for our bowl game. The bar was a lot of fun and it was awesome to see so many Ducks fans in Seattle. The game ended up being an epic bust though sooo we'll just skim over that fact!

And Back to Enumclaw!!

For the rest of my trip I mostly stayed local for some more family time and a few Seahawks games! Plus I got to be home for my mom's birthday (the first one since I was 18) soooo that was really nice too! 

It was such a great trip, although still somehow not long enough! I think being home so long almost threw me off in a weird way! If plans had to get pushed around I was thinking, "oh no problem, we'll get together later" and then poof! Suddenly there wasn't time for later. So to those I didn't see, or see enough of. I'll be home again soon! :)

Hey everyone! I'm officially back in NYC after some fun summer trips and this week I'm going to give you a little look into my trips!

If you caught my last post, you already know I headed back home for Little Duck's high school graduation! I'm so glad I got to be there for her graduation and I'm so excited for her next chapter!

It was the last trip I was going to be home for before she goes away to college so I really tried to get in some quality girl time -- Anna and Faithy style. 

Our adventures usually involve some delicious food (insert Red Robin here), jamming out in the car, and definitely a Target trip or two. ;-) One of our big adventures this time around was focused around something totally awesome too... DORM SHOPPING! Shopping for my dorm brings back so many fun memories and I was so excited to help Faithy get ready for hers. Plus, after living in NYC for awhile, I've gotten pretty good at decorating a small space and learning all sorts of storage hacks!

In between shopping, we also checked out a couple of really fun places! One being Sub Zero Ice Cream. I had never been before but it's totally awesome if you have any near you!

You start by picking out the flavors you want and they mix the ingredients into a bowl and then....

Poof! They use liquid nitrogen to freeze your ice cream right in front of your face. It's just like magic (or a little science!). So cool and it was really tasty too!

We also stopped into a spot I've been wanting to check out since Christmas.. The Root Beer Store. I absolutely love root beer and I found out about this shop up in Puyallup that sells over 100+ brands of just that! How cool!?

They also have some fun other options like bottled shirley temples, birch beer and other flavored pops. Basically if you're a fan of root beer you are in for a treat with this spot!

Along with some really awesome time with Little Duck.. I also got to go to Happy Hour for a mini Napa reunion with some of the ladies from my trip in September! 

I also squeezed in a trip to spend some time with my grandma which was really nice. She had a rough start to the year so it was really wonderful to catch up and see that she's doing much better now. 

To celebrate Father's Day, we went up to Seattle for the Fremont Solstice Fair. I was a little surprised when my dad suggested it because it's a little wild and well, not really his cup of tea, but I guess he was feeling a little adventurous this year.

It ended up being a lot of fun and I even got to spend a little time with one of my good friends who moved up there this year!

And just as soon as I arrived it was time to head back east.. We ended my trip on a pretty exciting note by checking out my mom's new house! I just missed the move by a week when I was home but I did get to watch the house go through some pretty dramatic changes over a week which was pretty neat. SUPER excited for my mom and my sister.

Another wonderful trip in the books! Missing home and the lovely non-humid weather already!

I’m backkkk! Finally, I know! My holiday blogging break was a little longer than I planned.. The new year hasn’t been very kind to me so far, but I’m hoping that turns around this week! When it rains it pours, right?! Anyways, with the exception of the last few weeks, I had a really wonderful trip back to Washington during my break!

I haven’t really had a trip back recently where I just relaxed with family and this trip was just that. I watched more Hallmark movies with my mom than I care to acknowledge, got some of my favorite food fixes in and made 3 trips to Target. Just a good and solid relaxing trip with the fam bam!

I also got to check out the local movie theatre that plays the Seahawks games on the big screen. It’s free and they have treats and drinks for purchase. Someone had a seriously good idea with that idea — the place was packed!

Onto some of the bites of the trip… Donuts, Red Robin, teriyaki and some amazing mac and cheese from Kelly’s Mercantile.

It should also be noted, this was my dad’s FIRST trip to Oshio’s in Enumclaw. I’m not even sure how that is even possible, but it is.

I also got to catch up with a few of my favorites, Little Duck and Ang! So proud of everything Little Duck is doing! And it was so wonderful to catch up with Angie, who lives in New Zealand now! It’s not often we’re home at the same time so I’m glad I got to see her!

Another great trip home in the books! I got spoiled with a pretty awesome sunrise on my flight out of Seattle too. I mean, check out that view!

After an early morning on the west coast, I made it back to the east coast by the late afternoon, headed home to change and then I was on the go again to go kick-off the New Year!

And that does it for the exciting parts of my blogger break! I’m in the process of kicking some health bugs, but am hoping I’m on the path of recovery and will be back to my usual blogging now! Looking forward to another year together!