July - The Month of Visitors

Drew & I have been busy!  Apparently too busy to blog!  At the end of June I travelled to Chicago to meet up with my dear friend, Ashlee.  We had a wonderful time sightseeing & exploring Chicago.  I hadn't been there since my family took a road trip through there way back when I was a wee one, so it was very fun to explore the city.  And what a lovely city it is!

After I got back from Chicago, Drew & I hopped an airplane for Seattle for the wedding of two of our best friends from Guam.  It was wonderful to have a Guam reunion!  Neither one of us had ever been to Seattle and we loved it!  We packed so much into just our three short days there.  While we were in the Pacific Northwest, we also headed down to Portland for two nights to visit family & friends.  We had a superb time!

One of the best museums I've ever been to - Chihuly Glass & Gardens
in Seattle, WA

Wedding chic

Cousins! 

I love my family! 

When we got back from Seattle, Drew's sister, Maggie, arrived in Newport for the 4th of July.  We had a wonderful time of sightseeing, cooking, eating, beaching & playing Catan while Marge was here.  We were sad to see her go, but only had to wait about 2 days until our next visitors arrived!

Showing our patriotic spirit at the oldest continuously running
4th of July parade in the country in Bristol, RI

Jake & Angela flew up from North Carolina to help me celebrate my 30th birthday!  It was the perfect birthday present and we all had such a fun time together.  I was a little bit scared of turning 30, but really it's not bad at all.  In fact, so far I'm loving it.  On my actual birthday, the four of us went to up to Providence, ate dinner at a very tasty Peruvian restaurant (thanks for the recommendation, Yelp) and saw the WaterFire show along the Riverwalk in Providence.  It was quite spectacular!  For about a mile of the river in the middle of Providence, they have all of these wood fire pits floating on top of the water.  They come by in boats and light them all and it is brilliant.  There is music playing, tons of people, vendors - it was just a great celebration for my birthday!  Again, we were sad to see Jake & Angela leave and this time we had to wait 3 whole days until our next visitors arrived....

WaterFire Providence - I showed some real maturity on my 30th
by ringing it in with a glow stick necklace

Drew's parents, Rick & Sue, came to visit us for a long weekend!  We did a lot of new sightseeing things with them - like taking a ferry to Rose Island, touring the Rose Island Lighthouse, touring Fort Adams, and going to Fall River to see Battleship Cove & Lizzie Borden's house.  And we played a LOT of bridge!  It was a lovely visit.

Now July is almost over (I can't believe it!) and I'll be heading to California soon!  I'm planning to stay basically the whole month of August in California so I'm looking forward to visiting with lots of family and friends.

Oh, and I can't believe I forgot to mention that in between all of our visitor fun, Drew & I managed to fit in a US Men's Gold Cup soccer game!!  It was in Connecticut, so we figured it wouldn't get much closer than that & we just went for it.  It was so much fun!  And even better now that they won the Gold Cup!  USA!  USA!