You Gotta Lose Every Once in a While, Right?

It seems like me and Marcel always have a bet of some sort going on. Most of the time it is on normal stuff, March Madness and the Super Bowl, and we've adapted things to our own way of determining a winner, but in addition we also place bets on "So You Think You Can Dance?". For this show, after the Top 20 is announced, we each pick our favorite girl and favorite guy dancer and whoever has the last dancer standing wins (regardless of that dancer actually winning the competition). I decided just a few weeks ago that I owe our relationship to this show. For those of you who may not know, me and Marcel started dating after just a few weeks of REALLY knowing each other and for only a week before we were forced into a long-distance relationship; school was out and he returned home to Washington. We had yet to realize all the things we have in common (trust me, it took some time for that to happen between 2 pretty different people) but we did know that we both loved the show SYTYCD. It seems that no matter how often we talked, we only talked about what happened on the show, what was going to happen, who we liked, who we didn't, etc, so it helped form the foundation of our relationship from the very beginning. Before this season of SYTYCD, I was 5-0 (2 dance seasons, 2 basketball tournaments, and the latest Super Bowl) in our bets, but as of last night both of my dancers, Will and Kherrington, have been eliminated and Marcel has one (Josh) left, making him the winner. Its funny, though, because I originally picked his remaining dancer and after him complaining I picked someone else, so I should have won again, but life will go on and its something pretty easy for me to sacrifice for the benefit of our amazing relationship. So for losing, I'm buying 2 tickets to their tour stop in Portland, OR. Normally the prize is just a date of any kind that you decide, but we decided the tour tickets were fitting, since it was what we bet on, so we will be attending their Sept. 21 show at the Rose Garden, my treat!The dancers we'll be seeing

Enjoying My Backyard

Yesterday, I came home from an extremely normal but boring day at work, with a bad headache. I came home and noticed that no one had checked the mail so out I went on a walk to recover whatever we may have gotten. When I returned to the house, I found that I had locked myself out of the house with nothing but the mailbox key and yet another store catalog for the previous tenant. I was then standing on our garbage bin to open our fence so I could sit in one of our lawn chairs in the back yard. After 5-10 minutes I could hear that I hadn't gotten the fence closed completely and when I went to fix it I noticed a roommate had made it home. Well, I spent another 5 minutes on the front step, because she had locked herself IN (much better than out!) and had gotten in the shower. Let's just say it wasn't the greatest evening ever, until me and Kelly had a TV watching marathon and I finished a season of Gilmore Girls. And I'll just let you know that it is the most time I've spent in our yard :) The joys of a real house and no longer living in a dorm! I'm finding it much more humorous today than yesterday so I hope you can all enjoy a laugh or two at my expense...

4th of July in Olympia

With an extra long weekend I headed up to Olympia to see Marcel. It had been a long time since I'd been up to see him and his family so this visit was long overdue. I'm not a particularly big fan of the 4th of July but it was a great excuse to make the trip! My trip included a long walk around Capitol Lake in Olympia that ended with us at the Capitol Building in a downpour, which was surprisingly beautiful. The weather was still warm so it was nice to get a little wet :) Throughout our walk we were amazed by God's beautiful creation and that we didn't have to travel anywhere exotic to see such beauty. We also headed up north to the local water park, Wild Waves. We weren't there long but we got there when it opened so we did each ride a few times before enjoying a great lunch date at Applebee's. I also enjoyed 2 church services at the church Marcel is completing a summer internship at. I've been there before but whenever I get the chance to see Marcel involved in worship, I realize how lucky I am to have found such a servant of God to love and to be loved by!

Out on a dock we found while on our beautiful walk. Obviously this was before the downpour when the weather was nice and sunny!

Another picture from our walk. I made us stop here to have a pretty background.

After a day at Wild Waves, looking just gorgeous! We didn't care because we had a blast and were finally together again ;)

Marcel insisted on making the ducks fly away

A beautiful group of lily pads out on a beautiful lake

The view of the Capitol Building at the beginning of our walk