Family, Friends and the Fourth

This was such a fun weekend y'all! Friday after work I flew to Houston, Texas for a dear friend from high school's wedding! My parents were already there and met me at the airport. I just love that they now live on the same continent as me and it's so much easier to get together for the weekend.

The couple, Sam and Kallie, were getting married on Sunday and so we had all day Saturday to "explore" Houston. I'm pretty sure my mom is going to touch on our not so educational, slightly stressful, but still fun trip to the Houston Space Center so I wont go there but I will say that one thing I noticed and continued to comment on for the entire trip was "OH MY GOSH IT IS SO HOT!" Seriously a new level of heat!

Later that evening we met up with one of my best girlfriend's mom. My friend Fiona unfortunately couln't make the trip over but it was still such a nice treat to catch up with her mom and dinner! We reminisced over high school days and times shared together in England, and places we miss and people we love. We definitely got ourselves all pumped up for the wedding/mini-highschool-reunion.

(Above: with Fiona at our high school graduation- how I wish she could have been there this weekend!)
Sunday arrived and since the wedding wasn't until the evening we headed to this great shopping center. It had the coolest Tommy Bahama with a bar inside of it and I actually got a new dress and pretty necklace from JCrew that I can't wait to wear to work: I just love coral and aqua colors together and you'll notice I wore that color combo to the wedding as well! And here we all are: The 5 Hillingdon alumn who could make it to Sam's wedding! It has been 5 years since I've seen any of these friends (with the exception of the blonde boy in the back row-I got to meet up with him and introduce him to one of my friends when I went home to England for spring break sophomore year of college.)
5 YEARS!!! And it was like no time had passed! Please notice how big Sam (in the bow-tie) is smiling. He was seriously beaming the entire evening! It was just so surreal that the first time I saw Sam in 5 years was when he walked down the aisle and became a married man. And even though the ceremony was outside, in July, in Texas, I was so thrilled that I got to be a part of the start of his new life and reconnect with these old friends.

Unfortunately it was a very short visit. My flight back to D.C. was Monday morning so I had to miss the brunch at his parent's house. I got in to Reagan around 2:30 and metroed to my office where I dropped off my suitcase at my desk. Then I slapped on some sun screen and headed to the National Mall with my roomie!

We definitely got our work out in and walked from the White House, to the Washington Monument, to the FDR memorial (very cool, peaceful place that I'd never seen before), past the Jefferson memorial and back to the Washington monument. We had hot dogs and listened to the amazingly talented Air Force Band with guest Jo Dee Mesina. It was so fun to be in the hub of the city's festivities and the crowds weren't nearly as bad as I was expecting! Plus how cool do the fireworks look with the Washington Monument as their backdrop??

All in all a very celebratory focused weekend! Hope y'all enjoyed it as much as I did!