if i leave here tomorrow.

ryan's 21st birthday was monday night.

it was quite the night.

we headed downtown to the royal falconer for a couple of drinks with ryan and his parents. a few beers, some birthday shots and seven minutes of free bird later, we decided to hop to the next bar and try some karaoke.

the birthday boy himself... ryan charles swearingen.

birthday shot on the house.

three very un-wise men taking a wise men shot (big dave, bretterson and ryan)

getting ready for the next bar.

watch the hands, boy!

at lake alice, the next bar, we signed up to sing "you're the one that i want" from grease.

fun fact about lake alice: their bar is the longest bar in riverside county. this fun fact sounds cooler than it looks.

unfortunately, after a few more of these it was time to take ryan home before they called our name for karaoke...

it was a simple night full of simple fun with lovely people.

slowly but surely people are beginning to arrive for the wedding. grandmother and ireney showed up today. carl and his family should be arriving tomorrow along with maw maw and stacey and eric.

photos of the schiller hotel coming soon!

tourist for a day.

this is probably the most adorable youtube video ever.

i went to visit robbie this week and i forgot my camera! i'm so bummed because we did a lot of cool things.

tuesday night we went to old town with robbie's parents and david and had a DELICIOUS dinner. then he and i headed to pacific beach and went to a few bars. while walking to one of the bars we found a wad of money on the ground! we picked it up and waited to see if anyone came back to claim it but after 10 minutes or so, no one did. we counted the money and there was $240! we celebrated by having shots of patron. it was fabulous.

wednesday we went to the midway, a gigantic war ship that you can launch planes off of. we took a little tour (we're such nerds) and hung out at seaport village. i felt like such a tourist.

i'm so lucky that i get to see him about once a week this summer. he's been so great to me.

ONE WEEK UNTIL THE WEDDING!!! the big day's coming up! i'll have plenty of stories and photos to post soon!!

tandem this.

robbie and i have adopted a mystery tandem bike that was sitting in my garage.

no one has any idea where it came from.

so now it's ours!

robbie came to visit for about three days this week and while he was here we worked a little on the bike. actually, he worked a little on the bike while i took pictures and pretended to help.

we had joked a couple months ago that since we'll be living so close to each other next year we should just buy a tandem bike and ride it to school.

he's so handy.

when replacing the tubes in the tires, robbie found an extra five or six of them in there! so weird.

it's not finished yet but it's nearly ridable.

just another summer project to add to the list!

everything has a beginning, middle and end. this is the beginning.

here are a couple of photos that i haven't posted. they're from a little while ago.

i took robbie to the journalism banquet at the end of the school year. it was at avila beach. i had never been to avila at night and i loved the lights on the pier.

in the last few days of chaos before moving out and before finals were done, robbie and i turned my (messy) room into an office. we were wheelin' and dealin' in the craigslisting business. i had a couple of things i was selling and we tried to sell his bike. it was a funny little afternoon.

the second weekend of the summer i headed to palm springs with page's friends for her bachelorette party! it was so cute and a lot of fun and HOT.

a few nights ago, brett's little sister lauren and i went to the eclipse midnight premiere. while standing in line, i watched new moon because i hadn't seen it yet. the movie was awesome. i'm definitely a twilight nerd and i loved every second of the premiere!

more photos of the summer to come! fourth of july is a bust this year.. page and i both have to work. however, we are having a garage sale next weekend! hopefully we make big bucks.

catchup!

carizza and i made a date to head to the getty wednesday.

so we did.

we dressed up in flowery dresses, packed a picnic and took our cameras for a classy adventure.

us in the car with our matching stormtrooper keychains:

the traffic- and smog!- in la were NOT pleasant. but we dealt.

an hour and a half drive later (should've been about 45 minutes!) we got to the getty where everything is freeeeeeeee!! it's a beautiful place.

oh. i forgot to mention that i went with carizza's friends greg (far left), jessica (second to right) and collin (far right). they were all so very nice and had great attitudes. the wire statue thing they're standing by is supposedly a face looking over the mountain but i think it looks like a snowshoe.

i hadn't used my camera for a while, so please excuse the artsy photos.

our first stop was the gardens.

doesn't this waterfall remind you of a mayan temple or something?!

credit for the photo set-up goes to carizza. i just took the picture. it was among my favorites for the day.

i liked that she was kissing his cheek. cute.

carizza and greg.

we had a nice little picnic out by the gardens. it was delish.

carizza in the photography exhibit. there was some work by james nachwey, a war photography who i love. his work is always so sad but so good.

miss jessica on the tram back to the car. i love the colors and her jewelry in this one.

overall, it was a lovely trip with nice, new friends.