Summer Kick Off Road Trip

My parents wanted to throw me a graduation party for all the family and friends who weren't able to make it to the graduation in San Jose, so the day after my commencement, we loaded up the car and headed down to Orange County for the long weekend. Eight friends from San Jose ended up coming down with us, including three in our car. It was a busy weekend, but here's (mostly) what happened...

Friday night, we all drove down from San Jose. There were different cars leaving at different times and the latest of us got in at 6am! For the most part, we stayed at my parents' house in Lake Forest.

On Saturday morning we all got up and got ready for the graduation party. Jorgen picked up food for the party, Jake took the dog for his shots and us girls ran some secret errands for a classified project. In the afternoon, we drove up to my aunt and uncles house for the party. My family did a beautiful job of pulling together an awesome event. The theme was fortune cookies... adorable!

Delicious Mai Tais

Candy Sushi

Wishes & Fortunes from Family & Friends

Chocolate Dipped Fortune Cookie Station

The best part of the day was visiting with family and friends. My whole family was there, the Curtises drove down, high school friends came by and I got to meet my brand new little cousin, Nolan.

That day was also my parent's 22nd anniversary, so as a surprise gift to them, I serenaded them at the party. One of my best friends, Mark played guitar and I sang Shania Twain's "Still The One".

When the party started to wrap up, we got this idea to do a picture of all the girls wearing dresses standing in the pool. That idea turned into a picture of us jumping into the pool in our dresses. It was a fun and silly way to say "hello" to the summer.

After the long drive and the party, we were all pretty exhausted but we managed to make it out to the Irvine Spectrum for Wahoo's and The Hangover II (way too far in my opinion).

On Sunday, we had a BBQ with everyone in the afternoon. That evening, we went to the Spectrum again. It was a blast. We had dinner and drinks at Javier's, one of my favorite Mexican food places of all time and more drinks at The Yard House. It was one of those nights that ended in a lot of laughs and some new inside jokes.

Some of us had summer checklists to complete, so after our night out we went on a secret mission. Not to incriminate ourselves too much, but it involved climbing a certain fence into a certain school to swim in a certain pool in the middle of the night. Mission accomplished.

Monday was Memorial Day and we had a long drive ahead of us, but before we left, we spent a couple of hours down at Laguna Beach. All of us appreciated some time in the sun and Axel LOVED digging in the sand!

It was a terrific weekend and the perfect way to kick off the summer. Thanks to my family for a great graduation party and my friends who joined us to make it a wonderful long weekend!