thanksgiving weekend

i love Seattle.

mark & i had the best time over thanksgiving in seattle with his family. we enjoyed a relaxing & lazy weekend filled with lots of food, family time & only a little bit of rain! okay, so I have only been to washington two times, and both times i have been it has only rained like 1 full day.

AMAZING!

Beautiful skyline with Mt. Rainier in the distance

Narrows Bridge in Tacoma (Mark's hometown)

so maybe i haven't had the true rainy seattle experience...washington is so green and beautiful when it isn't foggy and drizzling, though. i just love it.

i really wouldn't mind ending up there for a few years...hint hint :)

grad school??

so saturday we had our open house for the washington family and friends that could not make it to our wedding back in august. mark and i had such a great time bonding with his parents, his older brother and other distant relatives during the reception. it was great chatting with uncles, aunts and cousins that i had never met! {some of which mark hadn't met either} the gifts weren't terrible either ;)

one of the highlights of our trip for me was making floral arrangements with ann, mark's mum (I say mum because she is british && so cute) for our open house. it was so much fun being crafty and experimenting with creating masterpieces out of flowers! i would really love to do more floral arranging and can't wait until i get the chance to try it again. {maybe i should talk to my step sister, jenna claire, she make ALL of our centerpieces and bouquets for our wedding. talented.}

another highlight of spending time in washington was hearing all about mark's childhood, his family and just seeing where he comes from. i loved driving around fircrest, wa listening to mark tell story after story about his childhood & adolescent life. he was such a wild kid, not much has changed, and i die listening to all of the stories about him and his best friend, shane, as kids.

i love him.

i have really never dreaded coming back to school (& provo) since I started college, but for the first time I really didn't want to go back. actually, it was more that I didn't want to leave seattle. i don't know what it was about that vacation, but i have been thinking about seattle and family so much lately. all i want to do is be around the ones i love, do crafts, cook, gossip & chat, watch movies, go shopping and spend time with the hubby.

i can't wait for Christmas, to say the least...back to seattle! :)

and then to LA for new years!