iphone does: cardinals nation

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A beautiful day for baseball

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Cherry blossoms + dad being reprimanded by George Washington for rooting for the rival team

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Game #1 aka my turn to wear our (yes, OUR) new Cardinals shirt

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Mama & Papa E!

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WHEN IN ROME! + Game #1's dugout seats

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Sweet Grandma - I hope to age as beautifully as she has

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They may actually be the game's biggest fans

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The man who started a Redbird legacy

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My man Yadi on the right!

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As dad put it, you can take the usher out of the ballpark, but you can't take the usher out of the man

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I mean, those are cute. And conveniently, delicious.

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Pictures like this make me wonder if I'm nearing my quota of how many selfies I can impose on him

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Post game brewery madness at Bluejacket

Because I am approximately 6 months behind in blogging about life events, these are from ohhhhh you knowwww, last MONTH when my parents & grandparents came up to DC to join us for the Cardinals vs. Nationals game. Both of my parents hail from St. Louis, so I was born into Cardinals fandom. Jared is a more recent convert, having no opinions on baseball prior to dating me, & eventually becoming -- Dare I say it? -- a bigger baseball fan than I am. We made it to two of the three games, & had equal amounts of fun with the ENORMOUS Cardinals fan base that we were surrounded by at both games. (& really, we like to have local spirit, but only when the Cardinals aren't the opponents. Go Nats.)

It was especially an honor to have both of my grandparents at the game. My grandfather has worked at the Cardinals' Busch Stadium since he retired over 20 years ago, ushering every home game ever, I'm pretty sure. My grandma joined him at the stadium for the past few years, & together, they are surely the biggest Cardinals fans I've ever met. They recently moved out to Virginia from St. Louis & are experiencing their first baseball season away from the ballpark, so it was very important to all of us that we got them to their team while our redbirds were nearby. It was a truly memorable afternoon, enjoying the game with them from the stands.

iphone does - birthday, brunch & burgers

*waves* Me again. With pictures from last weekend's fun with friends!

^^ Our Coulomb besties showed up to celebrate Andrew's birthday weekend. Jared had to work a bit on Sunday, so the three of us filled our time with a bottomless Mexican brunch on 14th St. It was somehow my first DC brunch, & mannnn, it did not disappoint. We missed Jared so, but now I have an excellent excuse to return.

^^ Super Bowl Sunday = The only Sunday Jared & I kick back with canned beer & watch football. It's becoming a tradition to spend it with the Coulombs, which works out REALLY well for us, since Amelia always makes her famous Buffalo Chicken Dip. (**side note: If you're wondering if all we do when we're with Amelia & Andrew is eat... Well, you're not wrong.)

^^ Birthday rice krispy! ^^

^^ The next morning, after we successfully started the Coulombs addiction to House of Cards (like all good friends would), we balanced out all the delicious food we consumed with a nice long walk to the National Portrait Gallery. 

^^ Snow, cold, rain... I can handle all of it. But wind? OMG I HATE WIND. It was truly in rare form when we came out of the museum. The kind of wind that leaves you feeling like you just got beat up. The. Worst. ^^

^^ But the promise of Shake Shack burgers & fries kept smiles on everyone's face ^^

^^ See? I'm smiling right now just at the memory. YUM. ^^

Always such good times with these wonderful friends.

iphone does - the moving process

As demonstrated by the total silence here on the blog, I did not keep my camera out & busy during our moving process. So iphone photos for all!

A commemorative FaceTime photo 
to represent how we most often saw each other for the past few months.
LAME/MY LEAST FAVORITE/LET'S NEVER HAVE TO FACETIME AGAIN.

One happy girl who just got that phone call from her hubz that they were approved for their new home
+ our wonderful Norfolk home

A coffeehouse breakfast on a final morning of packing & cleaning
+ that polaroid has now been the last thing we pack in two apartments -- I think that makes it an official tradition

The packing elves that were sent to help fill boxes. Not super helpful but definitely super cute.

The moving truck (& Budget over U-Haul EVERY DAY, PLZ/THX) + Our final photo in front of our Norfolk door

ON THE ROAD SELFIE! + My view during our rainy drive to DC

I have promised photos of our "new place" when we moved into our Chesapeake AND Norfolk apartments, & didn't deliver either time. SO! Maybe by not promising photos this time, it will actually happen. Ehhh?? 

iphone does - amelia's birthday weekend

Well, you know what they say. While the husbands are away, the wives will play. They don't actually say that, but they should. We've known for about 6 months that Amelia's husband would be in England for his fellowship over the summer/her July 3rd birthday, & with Jared being up in DC, the obvious solution was a good ol' fashioned girls weekend at the beach. I think we mostly just wanted an excuse for a girls weekend in our husbandless states of being, but also BIRTHDAY! 

I managed to forget my real camera at home every time we left the house this weekend (which is sometimes a relief when you have an excuse to not be that girl in the restaurant taking pictures of her plate with a giant Canon), so iphone photos, FTW.

Thursday evening :: I was at work when Amelia arrived in from Richmond, 

but her husby had macarons delivered to my apartment 

& I made sure to deck the halls with birthday balloons & garlands.

Yes, that says "wifey."

We promptly headed out for upscale Mexican at the local Luna Maya restaurant. 

Jalepeno tequila & deconstructed tamales? Oh, yes.

From there, we enjoyed a concert in the park & some 3rd of July fireworks, 

which they definitely set off JUST for Melie's birthday. Obvi.

Teaching ginger niece about the finer things in life. 

She gets her cupcake eating skills from her aunt.

Proud to be an Americaaaaaaaan! 

+ 1.5 yr old experiencing fireworks for the first time

& fireworks.

& niece! & fireworks.

aaaaaaand fireworks. Can't help ourselves but to take pictures of these guys. 

Friday morning :: It sort of hurricaned-ish overnight, 

but strong winds couldn't keep us from donuts on Friday morning.

Just some sugar. My recently whole30'd body is still angry at me. 

Lesson learned.

Friday afternoon :: Cookout at my parents with boozy strawberry basil lemonade 

+ golden doodles who just do not understand the principles of Instagram photo staging.

We met while we were both GMU Patriots & her birthday is on July 3rd, 

so we're pretty good at this American thing.

Saturday morning :: This gets a full frame 

because I have never seen the Virginia Beach oceanfront so packed.

However, that may be because I was last at the boardwalk on a summer Saturday in 2006 

when I hung out with a one Mister Jared Bethune for the first time.

(locals pride ourselves on our secret beaches, of course), 

But! Amelia & I wanted a classic boardwalk experience & we sure got it.

Really proud of ourselves for packing a picnic lunch, 

buying beer & carrying a cooler all the way out to the beach sans boys. 

It was all DELICIOUS.

Mexican blankets + beach neighbor's music & sunshine for dayzzz

Saturday evening :: In between making the best black bean burgers ever created, 

we walked to the docks around the corner from our apartment for 

the postponed 4th of July fireworks show.

Sunday morning :: Brunch at 328 Tequila!

It's been almost 48 hours & truly...
I'm still not ready to talk about how incredible this food was. 

We were mildly blown away. 

It even inspired me to throw up not one but TWO peace signs. 

Talk about nirvana.

It has been so essential to surround myself with my family & friends like Amelia during this wacky summer without my Jared. This girl somehow becomes dearer to me with every year that passes, so birthdays -- while scary & ughhhh -- are just a sign that life is getting sweeter. & maybe one of these years, we'll actually all live in the same city? Soon, SO SOON, the husbands will be in their respective homes (in their respective cities) & the Bethulombs (yep, we also have a hybrid last name) will be reunited.  In the meantime, Amelia & I may just eat ourselves into comas. Which is fine. Or something. Actually, it's a really good thing we don't live in the same city, probz.

iphone does - the DC apartment hunt

Oh my gosh. It's Friday. Not only is it Friday, it's almost the end of June. HOW.

I took a little trip up to DC for 30 hours apartment searching, which was a fine excuse to see that husband of mine, peek into his new job & take the occasional detour on M St. On my drive up, I realized that I hadn't been into the city since we made the decision to move & OH MY GOSH WHAT IF I HATE IT. But I didn't. I loved it. Still. More? Whatever the level of love, I'm so ready to be a part of it.

 

We went to Arlington & back into the city & round the round-a-bouts 72 times attempting to get off on the correct street. We saw scary apartments & apartments we'd like in 12 years. We met dogs & potential neighbors. We ate salads because of my continued Whole30-ing (not an easy choice in such a delightfully foodie city, let me tell you) & drank a LOT of iced coffee. We probably used 96% of our data for the month thanks to Google maps & spent 30 minutes at a time walking hand in hand while both on the phone with various property managers.

At about 3pm, we got to the point that Jared just pulled the car over into what we were fairly certain was a legal parking spot & just started walking up & down streets that we'd like to live, calling any "For rent" number we could find. Every 30 minutes or so, I'd start getting panicky, & Jared would talk me down. Because no, Kelsey. We aren't going to have to live in our car. & I would look at him, my favorite human, & peace would swallow me. We've got this.

Jared's transition to DC has made time crawl, but at the very same time, this impending move has us racing against the clock. The dark cloud of where will we liiiiive??? has taken over my every thought, as demonstrated by these three paragraphs on that very subject. I lay in bed with my laptop till 1am every night, over-analyzing hundreds of Craigslist ads & rabbit trailing onto random realty websites. I've caught myself rationalizing way-too-expensive neighborhoods & considering way-too-teeny studios, only to swim back up to the surface, take a deep breath & remind myself that in a little over a month, me & that favorite human of mine will be in the same city, breathing the same air in the apartment that is perfect for us right now.

So, I've just got to trust. & be patient. & wait for the peace whale to swallow me whole, over & over again.

[I'm dangerously close to being behind by 3 outfit posts... Working on it. My camera is having an attitude problem, which is simultaneously frustrating & $$ scary. Lovely timing.]