Puppy-Sitting

Our friends Audra and Nate used to watch Vera when we went out of town - which was all the time. A few weekends ago Cory and I got a chance to reciprocate and puppy-sit their dogs, Sage and Mosley.

Cory was greeted with a very warm welcome.

 Sage and Mosley don't exactly have boundaries, so they quickly made themselves at home.

Mosley relaxing on the couch.

Sage chillin' on the potato.

These guys have a ton more energy than Vera ever had, so they were all over the place. Sage was especially interested in Pounce, since she had never met a cat before. Pounce made sure to keep a safe distance.

At bed time, the dogs had no problems joining me on the bed.

Mosley finds the conditions acceptable.

Not to be outdone, Pounce decided to participate in the party. Cory, on the other hand, opted out and had to go sleep in the other room.

Close quarters! 

It was a fun weekend, but reminded us why we can't get another dog until we move into a house. A two-bedroom condo is too small for more than our current population: 2 adults, 1 cat, and 1 fish.

Philly - A Little East Coast Swing

Cory was in Philadelphia attending a training class for his new job, so I decided to fly out and meet him for the weekend. We'd been to Philly once before - on a road trip up the East Coast. As road trips tend to go though, we only stayed for a day and night and were off again. Since Philly isn't on my radar of hot-spot vacation cities, I figured I had better take this opportunity to get to know it a little better.

Cory's #1 "to-do" item was to see the Rocky statue and run up the "Rocky Steps" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Yo, Adrian!

Da  da-da-da  da-da-da  da-da-da...DA - DA - DAAAA...DA - DA - DAAAAA!

We thought it would be poor form to only go to the Museum of Art for Rocky, so we went inside in an attempt to see the visiting Van Gogh exhibit as well. When we saw it was $17 each (or something along those lines) to get in, we decided we weren't that cultured after all.

We went to a Phillies game instead.

Phillies vs. Cubs - Phillies lose :(

The next day we decided to wander around town. We started at the Italian Market and made our way south to Pat's - one of the two most famous Philly cheese steak places in town (the other is across the street at Geno's). I was told that all cheese steak places have a man's name.

I was also told that you have to order your steak with Cheez Whiz - Yum!

Cory loves his cheese steak.

I think Cory owes the city $100 - He's too skinny. 

After wolfing down my first-ever cheese steak and not having a plan about where to go next, I thought it would be a good idea to sit at a coffee shop, digest, and decide what to do. We randomly wandered into Rim Cafe, which we soon learned is a coffee shop that makes super-amazing and intense hot chocolate. So much for digesting...

We met the owner, Rene, who was on Sugar High on the Food Network for his Cafe's concoctions. See below...

Rene makes his own blocks of chocolate and has tons of different hot chocolate recipes.

We thought the drinks would be really rich, but ended up perfect. Not too sweet and just what we didn't know we needed after a cheese steak lunch.

We spent the afternoon wandering through the streets. We encountered a YMCA Zumba class that had blocked off a city street to advertise. Adults and kids were dancing in the middle of the street, so we stopped to watch. We walked through Rittenhouse Square and wandered into a church that was having a full on dress-rehearsal choir practice. And we ended up LOVE Park, where there was a live band preforming and, separately, a bride and groom taking wedding photos.

The famous LOVE statue.

Just more proof that a day of wandering around can be more fun and interesting than a day that's fully planned.

That night we went on a ghost tour and back to bed early. We had another historical tour to catch in the morning. Among other things, we saw...

Elfreth's Alley - The oldest continuously inhabited residential street in the US.

Ben Franklin's grave - throw a penny for good luck.

Independence Hall - Cory is re-enacting the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Since our flight was in the late afternoon, we had time to walk part way across the George Washington Bridge, which connects Pennsylvania to New Jersey. Our shuttle driver told us we could find one of the best views of Philly from the bridge. He was right.

Downtown Philly

We spent a lot of our weekend walking around. Luckily, we had a notable landmark to indicate where we needed to turn to get back to our Comfort Inn (not recommended).

Thanks Mr. Bar Stool, Elvis, and Charlie Chaplin for pointing us in the right direction!

NOLA Bachelorette Party!

Be prepared that this will be an epic blog post. I'll try to keep the text to a minimum as these pictures should speak for themselves:

The first man we met on the trip at our first bar - still in the Seattle airport.  

When we arrived in NOLA there was a limo bus waiting to take us all to the hotel. It was supposed to be a surprise, but, like the destination itself, someone let the cat out of the bag before we got there.

I still acted surprised.

We stopped for some cheap gas station champagne and then we were on our way!

We debated whether or not we should go out on Thursday night, knowing it would be a long weekend, but we were too excited to stay in.

Melissa screen printed me an amazing T-shirt that I had to wear on our flights and out that night.

One last ride for the bride!

Liz Swary's cousin works as a bouncer at Coyote Ugly, so we went there first. Since there were only about 7 other people in the bar, we were the life of the party.

Luckily - since we were sober - taking shots with no hands wasn't a problem.

We finished the night at a dueling piano bar and went home to bed. Thursday night on Bourbon Street wasn't too crazy (at least not by Bourbon Street standards). We stayed out until 4am - not that impressive since we were on west coast time...

Friday morning I even got up and went for a run/walk through French Quarter Fest, which was going on all weekend.

We had a dinner planned at Jacques-Imo's Cafe near Tulane. Laura, my Lady of Honor and trip planner extraordinaire, went there, so she knows all the spots to hit in the area. We even met the owner of the restaurant. At first he seemed very nice and jovial - if a little burnt out from living through the 70s.

Jacques-Imo is in the back middle and I'm holding his dog.

He even bought us a round of Lemon Drops.

But then things got a little strange. He took a liking to Beaker and, after dinner, tried to get her to go home with him. Needless to say Beaker was a little scared.

Beaker and Jacques-Imo, pre-creepiness.

The food was tasty and we met a bachelor party that was also having dinner there, which made for an entertaining time. The groups got to know each other and this wouldn't be the last time we would see them.

Fried chicken - Yum Yum

After dinner we had the best cab driver ever. Beaker was rocking out in the front seat after having narrowly escaped the restaurant with her dignity and more Bourbon Street shenanigans ensued.

Laura gets washboarded - and it lasts a lot longer than she hoped it would.

I win $120 arm wrestling this guy (he threw the match and I gave him $20 and bought him a drink)

We run into the bachelor party from the restaurant - notice the creepy man behind us.

After another 4am night and a trip to IHOP, we made it home and prepared for another day. And, in case you were wondering, I did more than just drink. Here I am wandering the French Quarter and enjoying my Saturday afternoon.

There's not even a drink in my hand.

Saturday night - the official Bachelorette Party night - arrived too soon, however. I wasn't quite ready to go big for my third night in a row, but I sucked it up and made it happen. 

My softball girls made sure the sign we stole from a rival college while we were in school made an appearance (Thanks T!). 

I mean, GPA National Champions? Please!!

They also made sure I had a softball helmet with purple, sparkly penises to wear proudly all night long.

Purple Helmet!

My non-softball girls made sure to deck me out as well. Everyone participated in donning sexy tattoos.

It's probably for the best you can't quite make these out.

Then we went to dinner at a Mexican place on Bourbon Street. At dinner, we ran into this lovely lady.

I don't think those are real - and yes, that's just paint.

 I also decided I needed to wear my awesome mustache shirt again.

I managed to wear the helmet all night long too.

Ooops...how did this picture get in here?

We met lots of other bachelor parties and fun folks. My helmet was quite a hit.

Melody is holding the wrong body part.

This guy is from the bachelor party we met on Friday at dinner.

Irene, Liz Swary, and I closed the club down - with the help of everyone else.

Elvis lives!

 By the end of the night my feet were tired and I was ready for bed.

Thanks for the ride Melissa!

 However we still managed to get a final photo...

Everyone's looking pretty good for another 4am night!

and we had fun all the way to the room!

Why won't the elevator door close?

We didn't leave until Monday afternoon, but by Sunday we were all ready to relax. We made it to a fantastic brunch before a couple ladies had to leave. We were even treated to table side musicians.

Then we spent some time near the pool and headed out to listen to some live music and eat some local food at French Quarter Fest.

It was freakin' packed!

Finally, we hit up the infamous Cafe DuMonde for coffee and biegnets. A perfect end to a ridiculously fun bachelorette weekend. My first time in NOLA was a blast!

Oh, and we did have some hook-ups, but only the single ladies misbehaved :)

Hello my name is....