Surprise!

While it was snowing here this weekend, I was ever so fortunate to be enjoying the sun in California. :) I'm even slightly burnt, mostly on my face, but also one strip on my arm with a matching strip down one of my calves. Awkward!

I spent the weekend visiting my friend Melissa and supporting UW's Ultimate Frisbee team at a tournament. It was pretty fantastic to sit out in the sun for two days and quite exhausting might I add. The best part of the weekend was surprising Marc. He had no idea I was coming. I was super sneaky, flew out just an hour before him, and after convincing him that he should let me order his tickets so I could get triple mileage points, I was able to access his flights, move one of his seats and book tickets home sitting next to him. :) In his words, I "just showed up in the middle of California."

The sport is growing on me a little, but just a very little. Mostly I can get into almost any form of competition and as long as I have a team to cheer for, someone worthy to give support to, I'm good. I still think some of the rules are weird, don't understand the lack of refs (and even when they do have "observers" they don't get involved half of the time), and the structure of tournaments is just bizarre. After losing 1 out of 6 games, against the nationally ranked first place team (UW was at #9), Marc's team only made it to the 5th place game. They were bumped out of the 3rd place game, by a team who won all 6 games in tier 2 (tier one is the top 40 teams, tier two is the rest of the teams). I appreciate that tier 1 teams can do well and play in to better competition, but all the way to the 3rd place game!? One day I would like to reorganize Ultimate Frisbee, but not really. As it turns out, I'm not actually that passionate about it, I just, not so humbly, think I could do it better. I think all of the players actually kind of like the lack of organization though, so turns out my way probably wouldn't really be better at all.

In other news, my dad and Perry (the big one) are now each a year older. Happy Birthday guys! The previous weekend we celebrated as a family at Pasta Freska for my dad's birthday. You absolutely must go there! For dinner, there are no menus. The head chef asks you what you don't like, what you won't eat, and then the food starts rolling! It's about $25 for dinner, including salads, appetizers, and just yummy goodness. Wine and dessert are extra, but you usually get three different desserts that are well worth the extra money. It seems pricey, but for the amount of food you get, and again, the yummy goodness as well, it's so worth it! Sure, I wouldn't go there every weekend, but for a special night out, absolutely! After dinner, we then moved on to a surprise party for Perry. There were some pretty major kinks in the plan, but when all was said and done, it was a really fun, great night.

The night before, we also had a family game night including Bananagrams, Cranium, and Apples to Apples. All quite fun! I'm trying to spend a little bit more time with my family during the Lent season since I'm always so busy. So far, it's been really fun!

Not too much else to report at this point. I'm just enjoying the sunshine, as busy as can be, and trying to keep in touch with you all. Feel free to get on me about hanging out. I miss my friends!