Planes, trains and...cowboy boots

My very first post! What's been keeping me busy lately is definitely travel - over the past few months I have had an absolutely amazing time planning and taking trips to visit friends and family wherever and whenever I can.  I think I am taking the "I'm-26-and-when-else-am-I-going-to-be-able-to-do-this" philosophpy to heart, and I couldn't be happier about it! 

One of my favorite places to go is up to Whidbey Island, WA, where my mom's sisters, my uncle and cousins live. It is a beautiful area just north of Seattle and it's so wonderful to have family within driving distance and a place to go to unwind and get out of the city!  They live in a cute little town right on the coast and you have to take a ferry to get to it, it's like a mini-vacation every time I visit, and I love it.  I'll go there for Thanksgiving, and I definitely made the drive a few times this past summer.

In August one of my best friends from Atlanta, Jason, was on business in San Francisco and I decided last-minute to bounce down and see him and make my first trip to the City by the Bay!  We had a ball...Fisherman's Wharf, Nob Hill, trolleys, and we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge! Quick trip, but a fun trip!

I was also lucky enough to make it home to Chapel Hill for a week in August...a much needed vacation from work, and my only decision I had to make all week was what time to head to the pool! Played a little golf, had a few beers on Franklin St., and it was so great to have our whole family together under one roof - with me out on the west coast, my brother moving to Greenville, S.C. and my sister now living in Chicago, that doesn't happen very often and such a great week!

Side note - during this time I also moved! Nicole, one of my best friends in Portland, bought a new house and needed a roommate - and the rest is history!  I loved living in the city, but after 4 years, it was just time for a change, and I love where I live now. It's closer to Nike, has a lot more space, and it's so much fun to live with such a good friend! Pictures to come!

The first weekend in October, I made the trek to Nashville with Nicole and our friend Jackie to visit another friend of ours, Ainsley.  She used to work at WHQ in Portland and moved to TN earlier this year to take a position as a Nike sales rep, so a trip to see her was a MUST!  I loved Nashville - it has all the charm I miss about the South, but also the glitz and glam of being the capital of country music!  We went to the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Jack Daniels Distillery, and the three girls (not me) went horesback riding - I had to catch the Clemson-Miami game :) 

Those were the normal activities.  In typical fashion, we also had our moments - Ainsley picked us up in her sales rep MASSIVE van, Nicole won the bullriding contest IN STYLE, we turned into Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman's driveway and almost got stuck, I become the unofficial flirt of Nashville, we drank moonshine out of a mason jar, got into a fender-bender and didn't eat anything if it wasn't fried. Oh, and Ainsley rented us a stretch Hummer limo as a surprise, and we got cupcakes from the shop that did Carrie Underwood's wedding. Of course.  I could sum the weekend up as: whiskey, plaid and lots of laughs :)

Next up is England in a few days!! I am leaving on Wednesday for a week to go to my cousin's wedding, it's going to be amazing - and yes, I am even wearing a little "hat piece" on my head. The wedding is in an old church, the receptoion is at a palace, and I cannot wait to see my family and enjoy every second of it! Updates once I am back Stateside...