Feeling Mighty Fine at Twenty-Nine

Well, my birth”day” definitely turned into a birth”week”…I’m a lucky girl!

The past few weeks have been a bit crazy with all of the traveling that I have been doing for work but it has been a lot of fun. The last week of March found me in Scottsdale and Dallas. Dallas was particularly fun because Aaron flew in to meet me there. We had a great work event at an awesome spot called Saint Ann and Aaron and I enjoyed our short stint navigating around the busy downtown area. On Friday, April 1, we left downtown Dallas for Southlake. We had lunch with Aaron’s aunt and uncle, Sandra and Bruce, and then we made our way to downtown Fort Worth to see our friends Jeff and Katie. Jeff and Katie were wonderful and generous hosts and treated us to a wonderful meal and a great visit. On Saturday morning, we packed up again to head to Forney to visit our dear friends, the Bryans. It was my first time meeting Houston and we had great time catching up with their whole sweet little family.

Saturday night, we headed back to southlake and spent the rest of the weekend being totally spoiled by Sandra and Bruce. The weather was beautiful and it was great to have a weekend to relax and eat well and sleep well!

On Sunday night, I experienced my first real big Texas hailstorm. Holy cow, that is some serious business! We drove to the airport that morning to fly to Austin and unfortunately, the hailstorm caused us to be delayed for a few hours. We arrived in Austin just in time to get ourselves to Rudy’s for some delicious barbeque…yum. With full and happy bellies, we headed towards UT where we were staying for the night. My work event was hosted by an alumnus at his law firm downtown so we had more good food and a great time visiting with the Pepperdine Law Austin alums. On Tuesday morning, I woke up to spend my first birthday outside of California, I think…and it was great! Aaron and I got a quick workout in at the hotel gym and then we were off to birthday breakfast at my new favorite place…Central Market! That place is amazing, seriously. After breakfast, we got packed up and Aaron had made a list of things we could do for the day since we were not flying out of Austin until about 5pm. We decided to go check out South Congress Avenue which is a funky little part of town with awesome shops, food trucks, and interesting people.




After working up an appetite, we went down to Lake Austin to have birthday lunch at the Hula Hut right on the lake. It was such a gorgeous day and the food did not disappoint.


After lunch, we had just enough time to get some shopping in near campus and then it was off to the airport. While at the airport, I thought I would text my brother and T to see if they wanted to join us for dinner when we landed back in LA. I told T that we were probably just going to go to Urth Caffe in Santa Monica and I was really excited when she said that she had a meeting in SM and so my brother was just going to meet her there for dinner. Perfect?! Maybe a little too perfect? Well, I sure didn’t notice, haha! Turns out, my brother and T had already been invited to dinner by my very sweet, but very sneaky!, husband. When we finally made it to Urth, imagine my surprise to see my brother and T AND 4 of my best girlfriends here at Pepperdine!



I had NO IDEA, which obviously makes it that much better. They surprised me with cake and everything and it was awesome. After dinner, Bran and T wanted to get yogurt so, why not?! Haha. When we finally got home home, I opened the door to more balloons and more cake!

Aaron had arranged for our friends Scott and Kevin to have that at home for me. How spoiled, right?

As if that wasn’t enough, later in the week, I had to go to San Diego for work and I was able to make a weekend of it and see some of my best girl friends in the whole world. I stayed downtown on Thursday night and got up in the morning to go to my alma mater for a bit before meeting Jess for lunch at one of our old favorites, Whole Foods in La Jolla. It was so wonderful to catch up with her. Later that day, I met up with my sweet Kate at her awesome downtown apartment when she got off work. We spent a few days doing what we do best--eating, talking, and shopping:)

This past week, I had one more work trip planned to Nashville. I've never been and so I was really excited about the opportunity to get out there. When I arrived, I headed straight to the Opry. I sort of stumbled upon it by accident but it was a great move!




Nashville is a really awesome city. It has an Austin vibe with all the music but it's very cosmopolitan with a country kick. I stayed downtown and went to our Pepperdine event on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning, I woke up and headed to Lipscomb to see our friend Jenny who is teaching at Lipscomb this semester. Aaron went to ACU with Jenny and her husband Matt and I have had the pleasure of getting to be friends with them. It was great to see her!

After visiting with Jenny, I drove back towards downtown to walk around and take some photos.




I met up with one of first year roommates before heading out to the airport. I had time to duck into a few boutiques on my way to the airport and I ran into Mallory from The Amazing Race. We chatted for awhile and probably could have gabbed some more! She is so sweet and adorable in person.

I can't wait to go back to Nashville. Aaron has never been so we'll definitely need to make a trip sometime. I'd love to catch a show at the Opry sometime.

Just to keep this 29th year interesting, on Tuesday before I left for Nashville, I decided to join a team for the Ragnar Relay So Cal 2011. The relay is a 200 mile race from Huntington Beach to Coronado Island. Teams are made up of 12 people and this team needed a 12th person at the last minute. I had heard about the Ragnar last year and Kate was actually a team captain for her team this year. I haven't been "training" per se, but I figured that if I could get a leg assignment that was decent, I would be able to pull it off. I almost immediately started to second guess myself when I said I would do it but I am SO glad that I stuck with it! I was on a team of mostly Pepperdine alums and one current student, Lauren, who posted on a facebook wall that her team needed a 12th person. So, I flew back to LA at about 10:30pm on Thursday, packed, and picked Lauren up to leave at 6:45am Friday morning. What followed was a surreal, brutal race but it was the most fun time running I've ever had. Running a relay is awesome because your team is supportive and pushes you. I was running much faster than I normally do and it was so cool to see what I was made of! We each ran three legs so I ran my first leg of 5.8 miles at about 4pm on Friday, my second leg of 3.8 miles at about 3am, and my last leg of 6.4 miles at 12:30pm on Saturday. It was hot, hot, hot and so trying to sleep and getting in and out of the van was...interesting. People go all out for this race...costumes, van decorations...it was so much fun and I made some great friends. I can't wait to do it again! Here are a bunch of pictures.










RAGNAR was so fun but I'm definitely happy to be home. No more traveling for me, I've missed my husband too much!

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Romans 12:9-10