A Lot of Things in One Post Because I'm Too Lazy to Break it Up Into Two

Hi hello friends! I've been sitting here watching this cursor blink for a while now trying to think of a clever way to start this post, but since I can't think of anything I'm just gonna go with "hi." It's been a couple weeks since I've last posted and since I've had couple fun things go down so let's talk about them shall we? ...mostly because I can't really think of anything else to blog about.

A couple weeks back I had the opportunity to travel for work, which on the surface doesn't sound fun, but A.) having to travel for work really makes me feel like a grown-up and that I'm like, important enough to have to go places where people want me to participate in things, and B.) anything is fun when you have the best coworker ever and you always make lemons out of lemonade. ...figuratively that is, we didn't actually make lemonade or anything.

We had the most packed itinerary and meetings and team dinners back to back to back, so my coworker, Bernadette, and I were left with no choice but to take an Uber 30 minutes into Chicago at 9pm when all the 'work' activities were done. The bad: all my pictures of the city of chicago are at night time, mostly hanging out of the side of an Uber. The good: our Uber driver was THE BEST. We got in the car and he's like "So where are you headed tonight?" and we go, "Well actually we need your help!" ...probably every Uber driver's worst nightmare but whatevs. He drove us around and told us what we needed to see and he even got out and took a few pictures for us.

We went to Millennium park and saw "the Bean,"

It's kind of cool how you can see the reflection of the skyline in it. 

Then we walked down a few blocks to the river and the Trump tower and we stopped and enjoyed a beer underneath all the city lights. It was quite perfect if I do say so myself.

We were running on fumes by the time it was time to go home, but totally worth all of the missed hours of sleep.

By the time I got home it was time for my last baseball game of the year. Which is sad because the Diamondbacks miss yet another year of playoff baseball, but it was also happy because please just look at how close I was to Paul Goldschmidt:

I'm almost positive we almost made eye contact. I love it when my husband takes me to go see my boyfriend. It's a win-win, really.

Until next year, Chase field.

While baseball was winding down for Arizona, so too was my husband's class at the policy academy. After 20 (TWENTY) weeks, it was finally time for him to graduate and become a real-live police officer. 

We were able to go to the Academy in the morning for a few festivities, a tour of the campus, and an orientation for friends and family. 

Then the actual ceremony was off-site later on in the afternoon. He was presented his badge, and then his badge was pinned, and then they were sworn in, and just like that he was too legit to quit.

I remember him as a kid stirring up trouble and riding his skateboard everywhere and now he's a police officer all protecting the community and stuff. Life is so crazy. 

We celebrated Nathan and his graduation the next day with a big 'ol party with so much food and so many friends and family and lots and lots of cornhole. It was the best time.

So good in fact that I was so busy eating food and hanging out and having a good time that I hardly took a single picture. ....how very un-like me. And very un-blogger of me. But I suppose those are the best kinds of parties right?

You wanna know who else is a pretty dang good party? Garth freakin Brooks. I saw it first hand this weekend when I went to his show - the first time in some 19 years he had been back to Phoenix. I went with two of my favorite Lindholms, Kenny and Kayla:

I love third-wheelin' it because all my friends like me more than their husbands. At least that's what they tell me ;)

Anyway, the show was absolutely amazing. Like, probably the best live show I've ever seen (maybe with the exception of George Strait cause George is king). That guy just doesn't stop and he literally runs laps around that stage and he's out of breath and he keeps singing and you would never even know and he sounds so good and omg I didn't want it to end. Garth is life. Please never stop touring.

So I think that wraps up all the fun things that have been happening lately. I organized my guest bedroom and cleaned off my desk and shredded a bunch of papers today but since that's not as fun as all of the aforementioned items, I didn't include it here. Although I will say it was an impressive amount of papers that I shredded. ...shredded is a word right?

Happy Monday friends!

The Ultimate Girls Weekend - San Fran Edition

Lately, whenever I start a new post I always look at my blog and see when the last time I posted was, because I'm really trying to write more often lately. But it looks like I posted almost exactly 4 weeks ago. Ugh. When did blogging become so hard?? It used to be so easy to sit down and crank out a post.

Anyway, I've actually been meaning to sit down and get my blog on because I had the most fantastic girls weekend a couple weeks ago and I've been meaning to blog about it. Because it was pretty fantastic and really fun and really fantastic.

I left on a Friday night after work with two of my girlfriends, Charlene and Sarah, to meet another girlfriend, Katie, in San Francisco. I knew it was going to be a good trip when Charlene busted out some free drink coupons for Southwest, and we subsequently somehow managed to score an extra rum and coke on the flight. FYI: cocktails on airplanes are literally a shot of soda in a cup of alcohol. We unintentionally landed in San Francisco with a solid buzz. Oh well you win some, you lose win some

We drove about 30 minutes north of San Francisco to our place for the weekend. It was the coolest place but so hard to find. Even harder to find at midnight, in the hills, with no streetlights, and your Air B&B host's directions are different from Google's directions. But alas, we found it and all was well. It was almost as if we were tucked away in our own little vintage place at the top of the hill for the weekend, which just added to the awesome-ness of the trip.

Saturday morning we woke up and made our way down the hill to see what we were working with here. We made a coffee run, a grocery run, and actually figured out how to get Katie's car up the driveway so we didn't have to hike up and down the hill. It's amazing what some daylight can do for you.

We took our time getting ready, watching some college football, and taking pictures on the patio (obvi) before we made our way to Sonoma for some wine tasting.

I mean, that's a pretty spectacular view for a weekend right?? ...Like, the hills and the greenery and stuff, not our butts. Although our butts are pretty cute too, in my opinion.

I love going away with girlfriends because I don't have to be self-conscience about how much I pack, sprawling my stuff out everywhere, or taking too long to get ready. We're women - in a matter of hours there were bra's and hair dryer's, and tubes of lipstick, and outfit's laid out all over the place. There was, "Guys, what are you wearing?" and "Do you have a cute necklace I could wear with this?" and "Is this too dress-y? Should I be more casual?" ringing throughout our little cottage all morning long. Girlfriends are the best. Truly.

After we were wine-tasting ready, we called for an Uber and made our way to Sonoma for the good stuff.

First stop: R2 Wines:

I was sort of half expecting the tasting room to be like, a Star Wars theme because, "R2 Wines," that's kind of like R2D2. But it wasn't. Which makes more sense. A Star Wars themed wine tasting room would be weird because there's probably not wine in space. Or maybe there is, I dunno.

After some delicious wines we made a pit stop for lunch and then found stop #2 - Bump Wine Cellars.

We proceeded to taste all of their wines (or at least what's included when you pay the wine tasting fee), and make yet one more stop...

Our last tasting room of the day I think was my fav.

Passagio Wines was tucked away inside a mediterranian-esque breeze-way and I think it's safe to say they had the best wines.

Our fav of the day, Lake County Sauvignon Blanc. Although, I thought this was pretty cool too:

An 'Unmarked' wine as a tribute to law enforcement. Very cool, Passagio, very cool.

From there we called our last Uber of the day to take us home. It was 30 minutes away...so we drank more wine while we waited. Just what we needed after a day of wine tasting...more wine. 

Our Uber driver probably regretted accepting our trip as soon as he saw us come around the corner and start waving and running at his car like crazy people. "That's it! It's a Prius!! That's the Uber!!" "Uberrrrrrrr!"

It was kind of all downhill from there. Our driver was the best sport though. Poor guy was transporting four wine-drunk girls an hour away. There was lots of singing, and dancing, and asking questions. We get very inquisitive when we're wine-drunk. "Is this your Vitamin Water? Can I use it as a microphone? 

Are we the best passengers you've had all day? We're the funnest right? Are we the prettiest people you've driven around today? Are you having fun??" 

We had so much fun in our Uber that we tried taking a picture with him before we left however, we were wine drunk so this was as close as we got:

Good enough.

Saturday night we sat outside on our patio and ate cheese and crackers and drank all the wine we purchased during the day. We talked about important things and non-important things. We made fun of Donald Trump cause that's one of our favorite group activities, and eventually called it a night. Because Sunday we had important things to tend to. Like baseball, for example.

The Diamondbacks happened to be in town the same weekend we were which means duh, we have to go to the game. But first, we had other business matters to tend to.

1.) The Golden Gate Bridge.

When you've never been to San Fran, you sort of have to go to the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a requirement. So we did that. Not only did we go to it, we walked along it. The whole way. Like, almost two miles I think. 

2.) The Full House house. 

We went. And we selfie-d.

From there it was off to the game. 

It was my first time inside another major league ball park. With that said, I realize I don't have a large sample size to go off of here, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Chase Field is still the best. There's a roof. And air conditioning. Which we so desperately needed this weekend because while it was only in the low 90's, our seats for the game were directly facing the sun and the bleachers were so hot and we could barely sit on them and we're from Arizona so we're like OMG what is this what is happening why is it so hot and why am I so sweaty in San Francisco. Yes, I realize that was a run-on sentence in the worst way but that's how we felt - panicked and so confused.

The good news is we still had fun,

AND Steve Berthiume (color commentator for the Dbacks) tweeted our picture on the Twitter.

So basically we're famous. 

We left the ballpark, burned a few hours over pizza and beer so Sarah could watch the Packers play (and also so we could eat pizza and drink beer and be in the air conditioning), then headed to the airport. I was really sad to see the weekend go. I was sad to leave our little cottage at the top of the hill, and leave my friends, and leave being on vacation time, and also to not be able to drink so much wine and have it be socially acceptable. But I suppose all things must come to an end. ...until the next girls weekend is planned and on the books and then the good things will start all over again.