Yellowstone and Bozeman

This weekend I decided on a moment's notice that we should go to Yellowstone National Park. I loaded up on the pistachios and hats for this occasion, piled into my boyfriend's car for our second "road trip" together, because seriously, what else is there to do with a six week long winter break? Are you going to go to Yellowstone or are you going to go to Yellowstone!?

"I'm going to bring my new camera and take so many cool pictures!" I said to myself. Until I realized into day two of our mini vacation that I'd left it on my living room floor. And without cell phone service and a forgotten phone charger, it was a completely picture free weekend spare the photos I took of the hot springs in Yellowstone, my boyfriend's cat, and the most epic Billiards team you've ever seen. Because obviously.

So, no pictures were taken to document the weekend. And all I have are the memories of eating a lot of breakfast food with views of some of the prettiest mountains I've ever seen, voyaging downtown Bozeman being shown favorite local bookstores and music stores, meeting the parents and seeing old stomping grounds, and being within 3 feet of a full grown elk.

It was the best weekend. I have nothing but a few crappy iPhone pictures to show for it. I was fully immersed in the moment all weekend long and I loved every second of it.

Monticello, Virginia, and Sophie

Last spring, I got a phone call from my sister. I knew already that she was supposed to find out whether or not she got into the hardest school she applied to, but what I didn't expect was a phone call from her as she logged into her account online to see if she got in. I squeezed my eyes shut and bit the inside of my cheek until it bled. I was completely nervous and went over in my head what I was going to say that would be encouraging if she didn't get in. Sophie, you're wonderful and everything happens for a reason? It's UVA's loss, not yours? You did everything you could? Those sort of things. I waited impatiently as I heard her type in her user name and password in silence.

More silence.

"Sophie?" I asked.

And finally, I heard laughter. A sort of surprised kind of laughter that came in short breaths like she was figuring out for herself how she was feeling. I wasn't sure if she was experiencing the laughter you feel when you get bad news leading to hysteric tears or if it was a happy astonished sort of laughter.

"Sophie!? Did you get in?!" 

I swear, it was one of the longest moments of my life. And then she said the six words I'll never forget that in my 19 years of being an older sister to her exemplified everything I knew about her in one question.

"Why would they let me in?!"

It wasn't fake and it was completely genuine. She said it through her continued laughter and her disbelief perfectly showed how humble of a person she is.

Whereas I am sometimes self-indulgent and idealistic, my sister is humble and selfless. She worked ten times harder than I did in high school and got one hundred times the reward. She deserved everything she got because she earned it. The school that is her perfect fit is the one she was accepted to and given a hunk of change to fly across the country to attend. Last weekend, my Grandma, Mom, and I all hopped on separate planes and got to visit her in Virginia where she's now been for two months. I finally got to see her in the place where she didn't believe she stood a chance of going to. 

Sophie, I am proud of you. But I am (also) absolutely and sincerely happy for you. I am so happy that you got yourself to Virginia and created the life you have now for yourself. I only got to see a snipet of your life and I'm sure there is a lot I will never know about it. But from what I saw of you there, you stood taller than I've ever seen you. You fit there. And it is exactly what you deserved to get.

being tourists in seattle

this weekend was perfect. when i woke up this morning to snow falling outside my window in my apartment bedroom, the reality that i was back in montana hit hard. if i could relive a day in my life over and over again, saturday would be a pretty great one. waking up in a living room with my two best friends from home and sister, walking around seattle sans coat with my mom, doing every single touristy thing there was to do, eating a lot of good food, laughing constantly, and trying to navigate the city as local idahoans was priceless. and then there was meeting dillon, who also hung out with my family all day and when we were all done being tourists for the day with them, was the best dinner/breakfast/ice cream/coffee date around. so much so it took me twice as long to eat because i was talking so much and intent on listening. oh, and i also tried new food. and it was maybe one of the best meals i've ever had. it was a blast.

perfect weekend.

did i say that march was going to be great or what? so far it's off to the best start.

seattle in 24 hours

it all started with a hey, i have to go pick up my car in seattle this weekend to bring back to missoula, wanna go? text followed by a laura, niklaas invited us to go to seattle this weekend, wanna go? freefreefree. and a i want to go to seattle! yes!! text after for us to decide to make the 8 hour trip (...accomplished in 6) to the west coast for less than 36 hours. it was hands down one of the best days we've had in a long, long time filled with seattle sunshine, city street walking, spontaneous adventure-ing, family seeing, friend seeing, and floor crashing fun. it was one of those things that made me really appreciate the fact that we're now 19-almost-20-year-olds with the world to explore on our own. i absolutely enjoyed every exhausting city minute in the 75 degree seattle sunshine.

the space needle was unfortunately SOLD OUT by the time we got to the seattle center so we didn't get to go up, sunset plan and all. niklaas has never been and it was my goal, $20 a pop or not, to get up there because i love it soso much and everyone should really view seattle from the space needle once in their life. it just gives us another reason to go back, though... right!?

we all piled into a suburu. it was me, my best friend laura who is from seattle and my pre-med scholarly friend who is one of the few friends i have that has a similar school/studying mentality that i do (aka, bordering on the edge of insanity...), my roommate molly (the funniest person i know, seriously), and niklaas. we made a fab travel group, taking the eight hour drive in stride, getting along seamlessly without grumpy travel spats, exploring seattle spontaneously in a relaxing demeanor, laughing a whole lot, and being quite the mature group of teenagers on the loose (i was proud, though i probably shouldn't have expected less from any one of the four of us).

niklaas and i luckily got to steal a few hours in the morning together to walk around seattle alone and browse the stores. um, awesome! it was nice to have a couple hours to ourselves. also, i realized that we went to seattle a little more than two years ago together with our high school before we started dating and it was kind of awesome to come back together, two years later, as much the same people together with an official title now. i love being together but feeling like we're the same best friends we've always been. it was fun. i blogged about our trip to seattle two years ago here. (does anyone else feel embarrassed when they look back on old blog posts..?)(...horrible braces? saying things like 'hehe' and typing like thhhiissss? smily faces and winky faces? UGH!).

just before the sunset. so perfect. the space needle was looking like quite the little beauty on saturday in the sunshine.

when i was in minnesota with maggie, we couldn't get a Jcrew employee to even look at us let alone if we needed help (i guess we don't look the 'jcrew' part)(i.e. classy/sophisticated/has a lot of money to spend), but when i was in the jcrew with niklaas he got complimented by two employees and smiled at. it might have helped that he was wearing their pants, but he really did gather quite the up and down looks. what a stylish jcrew stud. also, my uncle thought he was pretty "hip".

nothing tastes better than pizza after walking for hours and hours on end. especially big mama's pizza. holy cow, was it good (and cheap and by the slice and wonderful). i even tried pesto pizza and it was fantastic. i have a new favorite.

definitely my favorite skyscraper in seattle, if you ask me. i'd die to see seattle from the top of it.

although we didn't get to go to the top of the space needle, we were able to hang out on the 33rd floor of laura's dad's environmental law office. it was crazy cool!! laura's family lives on an island one 30 minute ferry ride away from downtown seattle. her dad is an awesome environmental lawyer and takes the ferry commute every morning and then bikes the few blocks to his building where he gets to enjoy this view every day. i could live with looking out this window at the space needle every day.

pikes place! i'm not a huge fan of pike's place for some reason, but i do love the fresh flowers. they have the best flowers.

the picture of pike's place that every single tourist takes. i looked like a tourist with my nikon and huge purse while niklaas was mistaken for a local a few times. i really brought the team down.

we spent a solid two and a half hours in nordstroms helping laura find business professional clothes for job shadowing and job interviews (when did we get so old where we need business clothes?). niklaas ended up picking the winning gorgeous suit top and the winning shoes. he won for the day.

my roommate molly is seriously the funniest person i know, as i said above. but she's also one of the nicest people i know as well and i love her a lot. she decided to room with us at the last minute last year and i was the only one between the three of us that knew her, so it could have gone terribly bad or incredibly well. i'm so glad it was the latter! anyways, i think she looks gorgeous in this picture and it depicts the sweeter side of molly we all know lies underneath the sarcastic one. oh, and she has a killer sense of style. i love her closet.

the seattle aquarium is entertaining for twenty five minutes...and then it bores me. i like the zoo more, what can i say?

i was really excited to finally wear my favorite new sunglasses for the spring. oh, but i definitely got a nice sunglasses burn on my cheeks.

we went to 'molly moons' ice cream mostly because it was called 'molly's' and we had our own molly in the bunch, but it was fantastic. homemade waffle cones, homemade thin mint ice cream... i'm drooling right now.

laura is great. i think one of the best parts about going to college is the fact that you get to meet people so different from you that you'd never have met anywhere else. i love getting to meet their families and their friends and getting to know them from the place they live in. it was truly a neat experience (and the sappy moment ends).

coolest library i ever did see! we didn't get to go inside, but maybe someday? next time? when we come back?

there was a laura b's design, a molly moon's ice cream, and lastly a maggie's shoes. niklaas was left out.

i wore my sperrys, but i quickly developed a blister halfway into the day in a spot that kept rubbing against them. i very badly wanted to hop on this horse...

where the awesome homemade ice cream cones were made. they were still warm!

i like this boy a lot. two years later. adventuring. seeing new (and old) things. we're so much the same as we were and i'm so happy for the two years of experiences we've shared. two years! we're days away from the big day but there's no point in not acknowledging it two weeks early, right? (i started saying 'two years' a few months ago whenever people would ask us how long we'd been together, anyways so it's close enough in my book to now celebrate it).