Girls Trip to the San Juan Islands

After spending a few days helping Lacey get situated and moved in and visiting my parents, I hopped on a plane headed for Seattle.  But, I had a brief layover in Vegas.  It always feels a little sentimental when I'm here. Brings back so many memories from when I lived here from 1999-2002 when I was 23-26 years old.

Made it to Seattle!

I met up with my three awesome roommates Ashley, Kelli and Monique.

The four of us met while living on the 3100 floor of Hinkley Hall in the dorms at BYU 32 years ago in the Fall of 1994!  How lucky are we that we have stayed in touch and remained friends?! 💗💗💗💗

Wednesday night, we met up at the Seattle airport, then made the 2+ hour drive to the coastal town of Anacortes, where we drove onto the ferry and made our way to Orcas island, where we checked into our cute Air Bnb with a beautiful deck and windows that overlooked the water.

On Thursday morning, we woke up and headed to Moran State Park. We made our way to the 2,409 foot summit of Mount Constitution.

Beautiful views from the top of Mount Constitution

Then we went on a hike to Rustic Falls and Cascade Falls

Made it!

San Juan Islands is in my 1000 Places To See Before You Die book, so here I am motioning myself getting another check mark ✅

Cascade Falls

Then we made our way down to Cascade Lake and walked around the lake.

After all that walking, we worked up an appetite and headed into town where we had lunch at the Lone Pine.  Delicious home-cooked food - yum!

Then we came home and did our Favorite Things gift exchange, which was really fun.  And then we enjoyed talking out on our deck with this amazing view!

I told Dave when I got home that we had a big flat-screen TV in our house...... that we never turned on once!

Sunset in the San Juan Islands!  😍

The next morning, we headed to the western part of the island to Deer Harbor where we boarded a boat and headed out whale watching in search of the Orcas.

Success!

We went back into town (Eastsound) that evening for dinner at Mijitas Mexican Kitchen.  

A little more browsing and shopping at all the boutique shops.

And ice cream at Clever Cow Creamery to finish off the day!  So many yummy, locally sourced flavors.

The following morning, we boarded the ferry and headed back to Seattle where we enjoyed a delicious lunch at Din Tai Fung.  Delicious!

Then we made our way to Chihuly Garden and Glass.

It all looked somewhat familiar to me before I realized that Chihuly designed all the ceilings at Bellagio in Las Vegas. 

Beautiful!

Space Needle selfie before heading back to the airport after a glorious, relaxing, fun weekend! So grateful I met these amazing ladies over 30 years ago and even more grateful that we have been able to maintain our friendship over the years.  We have 15 kids between the four of us, many of which overlap in age, so it's fun to have people you've known forever whether the storms of life as well as the joyous times together. Friends Forever.... Go Cougars! 💙♡💙♡

 

Getting Lacey All Moved In!

Lacey and I flew to SLC on Saturday, Aug 29th and spent the night at my parents' house. The next morning, Lacey and I loaded up the car with all her stuff that she stored at my parents house over the summer and headed to her apartment.

By complete coincidence, Lacey ended up moving into the same exact apartment complex that I (and Dave too!) lived in 30 years ago.  

I even found my exact apartment:  B-18

I lived here during my sophomore year 1995-1996

And now 30 years later, my daughter is moving into Building L, apt #133

Before....

And after!

While Lacey was getting herself situated, I went and met up with my good friend Lisa, who was also dropping off her daughter at BYU as well.  She was heading out of town the morning after I arrived, so we were lucky to be able to overlap for a few hours and see each other!  Lisa also went to BYU, but it wasn't until I moved to Huntington Beach that we met and lived together as roommates from 2002-2005.  Fun to catch up in person over brunch!

Later that day, I went back and picked up Lacey and drove out to Saratoga Springs to meet up with our good friends Kim and Pete and their daughter Emma.

I met Kim when she and her family moved to Maryland in 2009 and we've been friends ever since!

And we also went to Lehi to see my cute niece Reagan.

The following day, I went to visit my Aunt JoEllen, who just turned 84 yesterday.

Sandwiched between sisters and best friends.

On Tuesday night, my final night in town, we went to Cafe Rio for dinner, then to Seth and Cari's house (I forgot to take a picture while there) and then out to gelato.  It's so nice to have my parents live close by and to be able to stay with them and visit them every time I drop off or visit Lacey at school!

Lacey's off to a fun start!  Classes started on Wednesday and then just 48 hours later, she and her roommate headed to Southern Utah for Labor Day weekend.

Lacey being an arch at Arches National Park.