picnic in the park

Today was a picnic day. My favorite kind of day.

It was perfect.

Lake Huron

A few days ago, my mom, Rob, and I drove about 1 hour to get to a little, VERY little, town called Lexington.  It's on the coast of Michigan- right on Lake Huron.  There was a jetty that we walked out onto.  It was SO beautiful.  

I hope I can always live by a body of water.  Yes, please.

::Kat and Bern, my cute Mom::

Detroit

Since being home, me and my family have hung out in Detroit a few times.  Detroit gets a bad rap most of the time, but really, it is such a cool city with cool architecture, yummy restaurants, sporting events, various festivals, and lots of other fun things to do. 

One weekend we went down there for the Jazz Festival.  There were stages set up all over the city with artists performing.  It was quite entertaining- the performances and people watching down there. 

::Scott, Rob, Jax, Dad in Hart Plaza after watching one of the shows for a bit::

::a cool building down town::

Then we went down there once to do a Coney Dog taste test (basically a hot dog with chili on top).  On the Food Network they featured two Coney Island restaurants in Detroit and had a taste test battle thing. So of course, we had to go to those same Coney Islands and partake in the goodness.  Except for the fact that I did not partake.  I don't like hot dogs.  But it was still fun to be down there.

::Lily & Dad::

::Kat & Dad::

::Rob, Scott, Jax taste testing::

::The plaza we were sitting in::

3 cheers for Detroit!

bowling

My family took a recent trip to the bowling alley.  I haven't been bowling for quite some time, or at least it feels like that, so it took me some time to warm up to the game.  

Game 1- my total score was honestly like 48 or something.  I got a lot of gutter balls. A LOT.

Game 2- I picked it up and got over 100. hah, not like that's anything to brag about, but I more than doubled my score from game 1.  I also got 3 strikes.

I think bowling will become my new favorite sport for the winter. 

::Rob, Kat, Dad.  He was supposed to be looking at the camera, but obviously got distracted by the thrill of the current bowler::

::Jax.  Seriously, try this. You have to bite around the entire perimeter of the pretzel. The point at the top middle is so hard::

::Rob, Kat, Dad, Jax, Scott::

summertime

Summer has been great thus far.  

For the past few days it has been in the 60s/70s...I feel like Fall is coming.  Noooo... please don't go summer!

So this is what we've been up to:

Nauvoo and Carthage with my family

::Rob, my brother Andrew, and Papa Lovell::

::Mom and Dad, Andrew, Jax & Scott, Me & Rob.  My whole family, minus Lily, who was at school::

Then straight to Chicago.  It was my first visit there... and it was spectacular. I <3 Chicago

::Andrew, Rob, Jax, Kat, Scott on Navy Pier::

Then Rob and I prolonged the family trip and spent an extra day in Chicago to celebrate our 4 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!  

::On the glass floor look out on top of the Willis Tower, aka the Sears Tower::

My personal size deep-dish.  De-lish!

Rob surprised me with a horse and carriage ride around the city.  What a sweetheart.

We sent my brother on a mission to Chile!  It's been 2.5 weeks since he's been gone.  I can't even believe it!

::The siblings- Lily, Andrew, Jacqueline, me::
summertime

We went to the Lovell's favorite place to get ice cream... the dairy

And have done a lot of hanging out.  It has been great.  

Can't beat a Michigan summer with the family.

Rewind Take 2

While in Colorado, Rob was in his best friends wedding party.  Mark and Cassidy were married up in the mountains at a ski resort.  It was really pretty up there.  It was a really nice and fun wedding to be involved with.  There was good food, fun dancing, and lots of nice people.

A couple of days after the wedding, we made the long journey to Michigan to see my family.  The day after we arrived, we threw my mom a surprise party for her 50th.  We actually pulled it off and surprised her, which was surprising in itself.  And we had lots of fun at the party. 

Happy belated birthday Mama.  I love you. 

To be continued... I have to wake up in a few hours from now to take Rob to the airport (going to Boston) so it is bed time.  Good night. 

Rewind

This past few weeks may have been the busiest ever. So since I went on a blogging hiatus, I will go back in time a bit...

I had my last day of work at Pepperdine.  These are my office pals, doing the sorority pose as my boss (girl right next to me) likes to call it.

Then on July 26 we moved from our home at Pepperdine and roadtripped to Colorado.  I tried taking pictures along our drive.  Even though driving for hours on end isn't really that fun, at least we had some nice scenery to look at.

Wyoming (top pic) was actually my favorite state to drive through because it had awesome clouds!

Zuma Beach

Sometimes I trick Rob into doing things.  Not on purpose, but I guess it just works out that way.  A couple of days ago, I tricked him into going on a 3 mile walk with me.  He wore flip flops, I wore full exercise gear.  But it worked out, and it was fun.  And pretty.  And we got to see more of my favorite lifeguard towers! :)

We realized that we knew one of the guy on the poster on all of the lifeguard towers.  This is Rob inspecting it and then standing in disbelief that our friend is on it.  It was funny.

weekend adventures.

This weekend was a good one.  I had Friday off from work, so it was good and long.  Just like every weekend should be.

We started the weekend with a nice lunch at La Brea Bakery, which is actually located in the caf at Pepperdine.  The balcony at the caf overlooks the city and the beach, so the caf kind of = a nice restaurant... kind of.  I got a mozzarella, sundried tomato, and pesto panini.  It was divine.

Next up:  We had breakfast with our pals Alan and Kristi on Saturday morn.  I work with Alan.  He is a funny guy.  And they're both super nice.  We ate at our favorite breakfast spot, Patrick's Roadhouse.  I had delicious multigrain blueberry pancakes.  They were great.  Thanks Patrick.

Straight from breakfast, Rob and I went to the Los Angeles Zoo.  If I hadn't gotten free tickets, we might not have gone.  Not because we don't love animals, but just because, oh, it was 100 DEGREES at the zoo.  Oh goodness gracious, we haven't walked around in that kind of heat for a long time.  But it was still a good time because we got to see some baby animals playing around with their moms (our favorites were the orangutan and the barbarous), some really cool mountain goats, and the chimpanzees putting on quite the show for the audience.  It was pretty cool.

Seriously, I would like to see how that goat gets down from there. 

We had to run some errands in Santa Monica after the zoo, so that was where we headed.  And pretty much stayed the rest of the evening.  We walked down 3rd Street, walked to the pier, went to the arcade (we're not gamers, I swear), and watched a street performer do a magic show.  A surprisingly impressive magic show.

I would say that the highlight was when I WHOOPED Rob in arcade basketball, and even set a high score for the machine.  Holla.

It's Final.

I put my 2 weeks in at work last Friady.  So, I only have 9 days of work left !!

And then we're moving!  :o

CRAZY!

I cannot even believe how fast the past 2 years have gone by.  It seems like yesterday that Rob and I packed up, drove to CA, and moved into our small, bathtub-less, blue-carpeted apartment at Pepperdine.

Good times.

These are some flowers around campus, along with my all-time favorite tree.