Wonderful Weekend

Working 9-5 Monday to Friday is exhausting and sometimes it seems like Friday will never come. I've recently discovered that if you plan like 200 things to do during the weekend, the week seems to fly by because you know the weekend is going to be a blast.

Friday after work I went out to dinner with my dad to Chino Latino which is one of our favorite places to go together. We ordered the sushi sampler which was definitely a good choice. It arrived on a covered metal bowl filled with dry ice, so the vapors from the dry ice seemed to be coming out of the sushi. Gotta give it to Chino, their presentation is stunning.

After dinner, I went over to Colleen's house for a good old Vis reunion. We shared college stories, ate a lot (no surprise there, it's Vis), and caught up on what's going on in each others' lives. If there's one thing in this world that i'll never get sick of, it's hanging out with my Vis girls. 

So much food. So Vis. 

Love you Kelly!

After Colleen's, Erin and I (the new summer dream team) headed over to Nick's house. We had a great time, made some new friends, and made some classic memories. I'm looking at you Erin. 

This could be the cutest picture of all time. 

ND love. 

After a great night, my dad picked me up from Erin's and we went to the mall. My dad had set up three appointments at the Apple store for fixing various devices, so I was free to shop. 

Three and a half hours later, my dad was still not done in the Apple store and I wasn't having great success with shopping. However, my luck changed drastically. If you follow me on Instagram, you know what I'm talking about. I'll post about what I got later (getting heart palpitations just thinking about it...)

We finally left the mall and I was a very happy Alexis. Once we got home, I was in such a good mood that I actually cleaned my room. I mean you can't really tell, but you can see the floor now. In most areas. Natalie and Erin came over around 8 and we had a classic girls' night. I'm just a huge fan of those. Natalie baked some delicious brownie whoopie pies and after eating them, I may hire Natalie as my personal chef/baker. 

After lots of stories and giggles, we all squeezed into my bed and dozed off, tired and happy. 

It was a beautiful weekend packed with fun and friends. Hope you all had wonderful weekends too!

Lake Life and Girls Nights

So my brother is pretty involved in baseball. This may be the understatement of the century millenium. This weekend, as usual, my entire family was out of town for a tournament. It's not that I don't like watching my brother play, it's just that the tournaments are a little much for me. Usually, I sit at home babysitting my dog, catching up on Pretty Little Liars, painting my nails, and eating way too much junk food. Though I do enjoy my alone time, I was feeling pretty lame. This weekend I decided to change it up.

Friday night after work I headed over to my girl Megan's house to do some grocery shopping for our Saturday on the lake and our dinner for that night. Let's just say that I spent more money on ice cream than on food for the actual meal, but what's new?

After finishing up the shopping, we headed back to my house and whipped up some delicious chicken stir fry. Megan's quite the chef!

Once we devoured our dinner, it was time to get down to the main event of the night: Sitting on the couch and doing absolutely nothing. We watched whatever was on TV and dug into a few pints of Ben & Jerry's.

Filled up with ice cream and tuckered out from the past week, we headed to bed to get some sleep for our big day on Saturday.

We woke up on Saturday, packed up the cars, made a much-needed Starbucks stop, and drove out to Megan's grandparents' house on White Bear Lake. Erin arrived a little later and we sauntered down to the dock for some sun and shenanigans. Luckily, Erin had brought her new hula hoop which was a huge hit!

We took some cute pics in the sun while we waited for Megan's friends from college to arrive.

Once Michaela and all of Erin and I's new St. Olaf friends arrived, we hopped in the boat for some classic tubing antics. Lots of screaming, giggles, and general happiness ensued. I woke up Sunday morning with all the signs that the previous day's tubing had been a success: sore arms, popped blood vessels, and scabbed elbows. Two thumbs up to the boat drivers!

                                      A little YMCA action!

Exhausted after tubing, we boated back to the house and started grilling up some dinner to feed the hungry troops!

                  Erin proves herself to be quite the grilling goddess.

Full and exhausted from a day on the lake, Erin and I thanked Megan and her grandparents for a wonderful day and headed home for another great girl's night. We whipped through a ton of board games, and the Sesame Street Memory Game proved to be the winner of the night. Erin and I would highly recommend it. Very challenging. We ended the night with some excellent quizzes from Seventeen magazine and lazy-person-s'mores roasted on the stove.

I had a wonderful weekend with some of my favorite people. Now for another week of work before the next MN summer adventure!