my people

In Boise with Tyson, Abbey, and Kaytee

At a park in Idaho with Sarah

In Portland with my brother Travis and my sister Rachael

In Seattle with Lacey, Eric, Amy and Kyle

One of my favorite things about my recent trip across the country was being able to introduce my boyfriend Ron to the people I love as well as introducing my friends and family to my boyfriend.

We spent over a week to complete our travels. We traveled from Pittsburgh, PA to St. Louis. MO and stayed with my friends Marshall and Stephanie. They were fantastic hosts. We wish that we would have been able to spend more time with them, but we had plans to drive to Denver, CO the next day to have a BBQ with my dad, his soon to be wife Christy and my aunt and uncle. We made the long drive in just about 12 hours and enjoyed some fantastic bbq chicken upon arrival. My dad knows his way around the grill.

From Denever we drove to Ogden, UT to see where my friends Kaytee and Glendon live. They have a really cute house in the mountains. It's beautiful there. We stayed in Ogden for dinner and then we took Kaytee with us and drove 4 more hours to Boise, ID to spend the weekend with Abbey and Tyson. I really wish Glendon was in the country and could have met Ron and spent the weekend with us.

Before we left Boise, we were able to spend Sunday afternoon with my friend Sarah. Sarah and I have been friends since 6th grade. We had lunch together, hung out at a park and then got coffee before Ron and I drove to Bend, OR...my home town.

In Bend, we stayed at my mom's house. She treated us very well. We were welcomed to town with a lovely fruit pizza. While we were in my home town we were able to spend time with my "adopted" parents, Steve, Cathy and Gail and good friend Casey. We had dinner with my dad (yes, we saw him in Denver and Bend), and grandparents. Then our last night in Bend, all of my extended family had a bbq at my grandparents house, so we all gathered there to celebrate my "homecoming" (I think we were actually celebrating the fact that I'm in a relationship).

From Bend we drove to the Oregon coast and spent the afternoon there. It was beautiful! Then we drove to Portland, OR and were able to spend time with my brother Travis, his girlfriend Kaycie-Ann and my sister Rachael. Rachael went over the top as a host, giving us coupons for free beverages at Starbucks and we each scored a free pound of coffee beans.

When we finally arrived in Seattle, we were able to spend a lot of time with my friends Eric, Lacey, Kyle and Amy. We laughed a lot and took a lot of pictures. Our walk around Green Lake at sunset was almost too much fun. We also went to the midnight showing of The Dark Night, a Mariners game at Safeco field and a favorite restaurant of mine on Elliot Bay.

So those are the people that were kind enough to share their time and homes with us. We are grateful. I'll post more pictures from the trip and maybe a story or two sometime later. For now, I just wanted to shout out to my people. ha...shout out.