Spontaneous Beach Day

The day after the museum night, we pulled ourselves out of bed and headed separate ways. Two of us hung together & decided to get some lunch. So we took off to our new favorite place- Good Dog. Basically gourmet hotdogs and homemade fries and ketchup. Deliciousness in a cute little neighborhood place. Can you tell I'm a fan?

Afterwards we were planning on hanging by the pool as I had been missing summer like crazy, thanks to NZ winter! But we decided to take it a step further and head back to the beach. Because why not? We stopped by my friend's house and I reunited with her cat. Do you remember Ronald? He is still a little creep.

It was a perfect little afternoon- followed up with Torchys and a movie. Of course.

xoxo

Back when I was job-less.

I didn't have a job for the first month that I was home in Houston. This left a lot of time for me to see friends, work-out, eat a lot, and repeat.

One of the best things that happened when I got home was that one of my best friends got engaged! She was out of town when it happened but our reactions were pretty great:

There was trivia playing:

There was reuniting with puppies:

There was giggling:

And then there was working out:

That's pretty much what I did for a month.

Yep.

xoxo

Meanwhile back in Houston

I am about two months behind on blog posts. WHICH IS CRAZY. I might have to start doing every day blog posts to catch up on my life. But in the mean time... when I got back to Houston it was a bit crazy. It still IS a bit crazy! So many people to catch up with & do things with. I am really grateful for my friends & how much they are always around. :) You know we are close when they start buying me birthday presents with french bulldogs on them (yes, I have an obsession & they have started to feed it).

You also know we're close when I can go into their house while they're away and steal their dog for a run. Etc.

They are great.

We also have way too much at Target & snapchatting. That is for sure.

xoxo

A week of outfits.

Now that I have a new JOB, I get to dress up a little more than I do at home. Our office is laid back enough where I can get away with jeans, but since it's still work I do have to look appropriate... I am having fun with this.

Of course the two photos taken outside are from the weekend...

If you are curious about where any of my clothes are from, follow me on instagram- hipster.abbey. This is a new insta that I made to track what I wear every day. Call it a social media experiment.

BECAUSE NOW I WORK IN SOCIAL MEDIA.

:)

xoxo

A perfect summer day!

My first Sunday back in Houston, my friends aided me in something I'd been dying for all summer (winter in NZ). They took me to the beach!

Of course, I've been to beaches in New Zealand that are way more beautiful and stunning (sorry, little galveston, but it's true), but there is something about being home with your friends at an empty beach. It was cloudy when we left home, and doubt started creeping in that it might not be the perfect beach day we imagined. But as we crossed over the little bridge to Surf Side, the sun appeared.

It was the perfect beach day. Effortless, not too hot, empty beach. We listened to music and tanned and jumped over waves. We even ran down the beach a ways. These are the days that can't be replicated, so we savored it!

xoxo

Rangitoto via the iPhone

In the second weekend of June, my friend Brenda and I decided to venture to Rangitoto- one of Auckland's local volcanoes. You can see it in the background of nearly half of my photos. It's pretty prominent. We took a ferry from downtown Auckland to the island. There are no stores on Rangitoto, just hiking trails! We adventured along, and decided to cut down a path to some lava caves. This was probably the coolest (and funniest) thing we did that day. Thank goodness there aren't any real predators in New Zealand because otherwise I was sure some kind of creature was going to get us deep in the caves, where it was pitch black. We only had Brenda's phone lighting our way (mine was busy recording video ;).

As I'm sure you can tell, we made it out alive. We had a bad case of the giggles- I'm glad no one else was down there to hear us struggling. After the lava caves we headed back to the summit trail. It was pretty much steps straight up the mountain. One does not simply walk into mordor, after all (we also found brenda a hobbit hole on the way up). We struggled. But the view was so worth it.

Just look at it.

After our big hike, we had an hour to kill. We settled in near some trees and the ocean and took a nap.

A perfect end to a lovely day. Maybe we are hobbits...

xoxo

Part two coming soon.

Life Pre-New Zealand

Last week was kind of boring. Until Thursday. The boyfriend is in his last couple of weeks of undergraduate schoolwork, so he's piled high in projects & labs & the like. So, I joined some friends on thursday for some outdoor activity. My ex-roommate had a tennis lesson, so Alex and I threw around a football while we waited for it to end. I think I would've been quite successful as a football player if I had not been traumatically scarred from my tooth getting pushed in. ;) After the tennis lesson ended, my ex-roomie joined us and we tried to make up games that included football & tennis. We settled on baseball with tennis rackets. The rest of the night was a hoot & a half. We ended up at our local fav restaurant and drew all over the tables. Bets were won and lost, and there was ketchup on noses, and lots of planning for Easter weekend...

Easter weekend was crazy.

Alex, Andrew, and I had originally planned to do an acupuncture appointment on Saturday morning. But, we chickened out last minute and decided to get breakfast instead... this is where the day got interesting. The boys wanted to do batting cages, and I said sure I'd join. Then we all decided we had to do something we didn't want to do because there's always something someone doesn't want to do, isn't there?

I did not want to do bumper boats. Every time I get in one, it breaks. I don't know if there's a magnet in me somewhere that makes the machine dysfunction... but it always happens. Alex did not want to do DDR. Andrew did not want to jump on trampolines. But we did ALL OF THE THINGS! There will be a video in the future to commemorate this day. And I would like to point out- my bumper boat worked but the water gun did not. So I got soaked because I could not defend myself. I TOLD THEM ALL.

After all of the activites with my brothers from other mothers, I had a wedding to go to! The boyfriend picked me up and we went off to celebrate my friend Alejandro's wedding! It was really lovely, and I'm sad we didn't get a photo with the new groom and bride, but we had to leave a bit early for church! The food and the views, though, were amazing. Along with everything else!

The next morning was Easter! We had all of our family friends over and even my uncle! I love that last photo- they all look like little easter eggs sitting in a row! My mom even made a cake that looked like a peep! We were all very impressed!

Things here in Houston are coming to a close (at least for five months), but I have really been living it up! I love these people & will be happy to return to them when my chapter in NZ comes to a close!

xoxo