I have the best of friends! My friend Jenny threw me a going away party at Bahama Breeze last Thursday in Tukwila. About thirty people showed up all at different times just to wish me luck in LA. I was competing with the opening night of SIFF (Seattle Independent Film Festival), so I was surprised that so many people had shown up. One friend actually thought my going away party would be more interesting than SIFF, how sweet, considering we are all in the entertainment industry. Jenny also had thought to bring me a cake (a huge sheet cake from Costco), which was shared with all 30 people, plus some. We took some crazy fun pictures, as we always do, and called it a night around eleven.

Friday, my soon to be Navy Seal boyfriend came into town for Memorial day weekend to visit (he’s been in Chicago for the last two months pre-training). I picked him up at the airport, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a bigger smile than when I saw him, I then realized how much I really did miss him. It’s weird how that happens, “J” as I call him, has missed me since the day I left (we drove over to Chicago together). And it’s not that I didn’t miss him these last few months while he was gone, I was just busy looking for apartments in LA, packing, planning, hanging out with friends, nannying, working on bikini football, I went on a family vacation to Arkansas, acting, etc., that I purposely kept myself busy so that I wouldn’t have to think about how much I really did miss him. We went out for dinner Friday night at the Olive Garden; J was starving since he hadn’t eaten since 6am Chicago time. After our bellies were full, we headed back to the hotel and locked ourselves in for the night.

Saturday morning came much too fast. It was the day of my friends Chris and Kari’s wedding. J and I got dressed into our wedding attire, I had this cute long cream dress with purple flowers and green stems that was almost a tube top style, but with a braided tie around the neck (I got several compliments on the dress, including several people telling me I was the best dressed). J had bought an outfit to perfectly match my dress (ahhh), yet with total J style - Ed Hardy tie included. I had a one o’clock appointment to get my tattoo (read the blog about my first tattoo), and since Seattle has such amazing traffic, we got there forty five minutes late. I was in and out of there pretty fast and off to the wedding we were headed.
When we arrived at the church we were confused, there weren’t that many cars parked in the lot. I assumed either people were running late or it was a small wedding – wrong! We were parked in the front parking lot, everyone else was parked in the back. Besides the wedding party, J and I were the best dressed/hottest couple if I do say so myself (and we were – people were even saying so). I was able to see Chris and some old high school friends who were in the wedding party (Jeff and Ryan) before the wedding, which was nice. The wedding was beautiful, and not as long as I expected for a church, daughter of a pastor wedding, it lasted 45 minutes.

After the wedding we all headed over to the reception, and surprise, surprise, J was hungry again (that boy can eat, but he seriously has no body fat from constantly working out and he needs all the food he can get). We happened to choose a random empty table and within a half hour the table was full of all Kentlake Alumni , including a teacher of Chris’s, weird. Another hour later the bride and groom had still not arrived and J and I had to leave – we were meeting his parents at Jillians for the UFC fight which had been planned by J for awhile. We changed out of our nice wedding attire and changed into our kick ass street clothes (still hip and still the hottest couple ever) just as the bride and groom arrived, but by that time we had already gotten in our car and were starting to leave. I never got to say Congrats in person, sad.

Like every other UFC fight and place we go to watch the fight, we assumed Jillian’s would be packed – WRONG! It was dead! His parents even got there early, just to save us a spot. J finally gets to order some food and eat (since we had to wait on the bride and groom in order to eat at the reception, we were never able to eat). We watch the fight, but I’m not all that into it this time because for one, my fav fighter isn’t fighting (Forrest Griffin or J’s – GSP), plus I was sad about having to leave the wedding reception early, since I planned my move back to LA around this particular wedding. After the fight, J and his parents played pool… J’s dad kicked butt, as usual, although J is also a pool shark.

J and I fought on the way home… not the way I had pictured spending our wonderful weekend together. He was upset I was a downer at Jillians, I was mad that we left the wedding early, etc. We hashed it out, but as always we worked and talked through it and before we went to bed, we were okay again.
Sunday J had planned a picnic at Gas Works Park and then the Woodland Park Zoo where his mom would join us. We drove to Gas Works, played on all the pipes, took a zillion pictures (I scrapbook, so I have to have pictures), then our yummy picnic lunch followed by a round of Frisbee. A few hours later, we headed to the zoo where his mom would meet up with us. The whole time there J made me laugh so much that my cheeks hurt. I don’t think I’ve laughed that long or hard in a very long time. It was nice to be happy and relaxed and think about nothing but the current moment for once. Life is good.

After the zoo, we left J’s mom to grab some dinner, then met up with her later at Snoqualmie Casino (they both love to gamble, me not so much). I lost $40 of my moving money to those stupid slot machines; this is exactly why I don’t gamble - urgh! J and his mom won about $200 each, yay for them. J and I took off back to the hotel at around 1am. I started to get sad, realizing J leaves in the morning.
Monday came too soon, just like the rest of the weekend. We hurried to pack our bags, checkout and grab some breakfast before J had to catch his flight. We ate at this pancake restaurant in Tukwila, I would not recommend it, I should have listened to the Yelp reviews, lesson learned. I dropped J off at the airport, cried as I hugged him goodbye, but knowing it would only be a few weeks before I was able to see him again.

I met up with my friend Christina a little later, her adorable mom and family were in town, so I finally got to meet them before she took them to the airport as well. We were now both sad that our company was gone, but at least we had each other. We went to the mall to do some shopping before our movie – much needed girls’ night.
The following Thursday night I packed my car up for my trip to LA. A few friends stopped by to say a final goodbye, Christina being one. She was upset, she didn’t want me to leave, we had become really good friends (we were a Craigslist success story, as she calls it, haha). She purposely made plans so she wouldn’t stay too long at my house. As she was leaving Jenny showed up. She helped me pack my car, we had some great convos and grabbed some ice cream, before she too left. This was it, I was leaving to LA tomorrow afternoon. I was sad to leave all my friends behind, many new, some old, but I was also glad to be moving back to LA where my dreams and passions lie as well as old college friends.