Memorial Day Weekend

A taste of summer and a weekend with the girls:

Saturday morning run + practicing throwing a football + learning tennis

Sunday evening housesitting + banana bread + Scattergories + MadGab

Monday drive to Deception Pass + barbecue + volleyball + badminton + ice cream cookie sandwiches

Deception Pass

Thanks, Brittney for inviting us to your family BBQ!  It is such a good feeling to be at a home.

Congrats, Marty!!

Guess what??  This brother of mine is officially graduated and a college student.  I can hardly believe it.  I loved his Instagram caption after he graduated... "We graduated baby.  To everyone I won't see again... Have wonderful lives."  Haha yep, he is much more real than I was when graduating.  It's true though...there are so many people I haven't seen since graduating.  Which is kind of sad, but also okay because that means we are all moving on to bigger and better things besides the bubble that high school was, shielding us from the real world and life to come.

Congrats, Marty!!  I can't wait to see what's headed your way in the coming years :)  Love you!

Seattle Mariners

Three games in just over one week was it?  I'm okay with that.

Seattle Shenangians

College life in a nutshell:

When we stay up insanely late talking about nothing and
everything all at the same time.

Institute's first annual Dribble Drive!  Basketball teams brought donations as their "entrance fee" and competed in a 5 on 5 tournament.

This was my first intramural soccer team to ever win a game...but then we won MULTIPLE games, so I was pretty proud of them.  Long live Team Chris!

Canoeing at the WAC. 

This was dumb but cracks me up every time.

JoJo and I accidentally play the roles of Lax Mom and Lax Dad perfectly.

Post-final exam...Nick got pooped on by a bird.  Must be
good luck, right?

Go Kart racing at Family Fun Center.  Happy birthdays to Danielle and Steven!

ME 355 build a stirling engine to spin a flywheel.  Yayyyy engineering!  (Also, please notice me and the shop dog).

For you, Ashlyn

I have never been a dog person.  Nor do I ever think I will become a true dog person.  I have, however, been getting better and better over the last few months at holding puppies.  I'm not gonna lie, they are pretty adorable...but I do enjoy being able to hand the puppy back to its owner when I am done holding it.  So I am getting better at being around dogs, but I certainly am no where near ready to think about one day perhaps wanting my own.

Ned.

Crusher.

Mowgli (first encounter).

Dog sitting Mowgli one afternoon.  YES, I am dog sitting.  Look how cute he is...asleep on
my lap and whatnot!

UW Lax Goes To Winston-Salem

This quarter was BUSY with lacrosse, but I wouldn't have had it any other way!  We won our regional championship game, which qualified us to travel to North Carolina to compete in the national tournament.  The only problem was the cost of getting 20 girls across the country for a week...  BUT never fear, our community is absolutely amazing and between the hard work of our team and the amazing support from family, friends, and lacrosse lovers throughout Seattle, we raised the money to be able to travel across the country to compete!  We arrived in North Carolina late Tuesday night...the other captains and I just kept saying to each other "We're actually here.  I can't believe this is actually happening."  

The tournament was held from Wednesday - Saturday and we played one game each day.  The first team we played was Georgia...they absolutely creamed us.  It was very sad.  But they were a fun team to play and I felt better about our loss when they won the entire tournament.  We played three more games and won only one of them.  However, because we came into the tournament ranked 16 out of 16, we ended up climbing the ranks and ended in 14th.  Yay, not last!  Our team realized that East Coast lacrosse is much different than the lacrosse we are used to playing.  The teams we played challenged our physical endurance and intensity as well as our mental stamina.  I spent many hours each night with our coach and JoJo (aka my lax soulmate...see picture below) analyzing our games, what we did well, and how we can improve.  We left the tournament with many ideas of things we want to practice and implement in our play next year.  I intend for our team to make it to Nationals again next year and really show the country what UW Lacrosse can do :D 

Up, up, UW!!

Being interviewed by King 5 News.

Thank you, Kristina, for letting us adopt Mowgli as our own while we fundraised...he sold
us 10 Jamba Juice cards!  People will do anything to pet a puppy.

Our cute freshies (and Ally) working the campus ice cream shop!

Clara and Maike

Coach Durbo PUMPED for our game!!  We almost had to travel to NC and compete without a coach, but Durbo rearranged
EVERYTHING to come out and coach us...we love her!!! 

Let's just say the fields were a bit muddy.

Assuming my role as lax mom in the drivers seat of the mini van.

Headed to play our last game together... JoJo is my fellow defender and lax soulmate.  I have never played with someone
else so fluidly...all it takes is a quick look or small push and we know exactly what the other player is thinking.  I will
miss you next year, JoJo!!

Look who came and watched me play <3 <3

Team breakfast.

One day, JoJo and I were sad about our two losses and decided we needed a win.  We splurged and bought the hotel's
all you can eat breakfast meal.  We won our game that day and I credit that partially to our amazing breakfast.