Lake Norman Wedding

June 27th

This weekend we had the honor to be invited to a wedding of two good friends, Mike & Paige. Mike worked in the Video Office while he was in school and it was so great to be a part of their big deal.

It was a beautiful wedding at a beautiful venue, Lake Norman Yacht Club. We loved so much about it.

One of the best things was being about to see and catch up with others from the Video Office and VT from years past.

The sunset over the water was perfect and we had a fantastic time celebrating Mike and Paige way into the wee hours.

Congratulations Mike & Paige!

GRADUATIONS GALORE!!

June 3 - 7th

Thankfully we were able to plan our trip to Thailand to work out so we could be in LA for our niece's graduations. So immediately after our memorable travel day and a 3AM bed time, we were up and out early(ish) to make sure we caught all the festivities for graduations.

We were able to meet up with family by lunchtime and had plenty of time to help everyone get ready and get to Ava's middle school graduation on time.

It is still crazy that our niece's have grown into beautiful young ladies and we had a great time celebrating Ava and look forward to what high school will bring.

Since Zoe had something immediately after her graduation the next day, we decided to all go to one big dinner to celebrate on Wednesday night. It was a great time at The Grove in LA.

The next morning, we got everything turned around so we could celebrate Zoe's high school graduation. Boy, do they put on a show for graduations here! They even had a fly over!

Zoe was amazing and participated in the ceremony in many different ways. She is such a talented musician.

We had an amazing two day celebrating with the family and just relaxing and enjoying our time with them.

After the graduations and time with family we took two days to see old friends in LA. We had the best time laughing, talking, eating, and eating more and we stopped to see everyone.

It was National Doughnut Day!

Right before we left, we decided that we wanted to do two things before we left and we were so excited to be able to squeeze both in.
1. Getting in the Pacific Ocean. We were in the Atlantic Ocean in March and we just went swimming in the Indian Ocean a day (or two) earlier, we felt like we needed to get them all in during one calendar year.

2. Go see Entourage (The Movie) on opening weekend (or as close as we could) in a "famous" theatre. During our time in LA we never made it to a premiere for any movie and never had much of a desire or drive to go see a movie in a "big name" theatre. So we took the opportunity to do that on our last early evening in LA.

After 11 days in Thailand and 5 days in LA, it was finally time to head home. It will definitely feel weird to be back into the normal routine but we all know we won't sit still long before our next adventure.

Thailand or Bust (Day 12)

June 2nd (Tuesday)

We all knew this day was going to come quickly and it did. Today we start the journey home. But just like all traveling it didn't come without a few hiccups. We woke up super early to catch our transportation to the airport and we woke to a monsoon! We were so thankful for all the great weather we have had the entire trip (almost) so it was fitting that it was monsooning on the day we leave. 

We didn't think anything of the rain until we ran into some major flooding and delays getting to the airport. We had a fantastic driver who drove through all kinds of back ways/ parking areas etc to get us to the airport and not miss our flight.

There was a bit of excitement in the air as we were going to have a super long layover in Hong Kong and it looked like it would be long enough for us to leave the airport and go explore a little before catching the crazy long flight back to LA.

It was bittersweet to get on the plane in Phuket. The bittersweet feeling turned to frustration as we sat on the tarmac for a few hours and we watched our time in Hong Kong waste away. 

Unfortunately, they were unable to make up any of the time that was lost in the air so as we landed in Hong Kong, we knew that we were going to have to make the best of the Hong Kong airport and not any part of the city itself. We were excited that we would be able to get some Szechuan cuisine and Jed & I had flashbacks to our time in China. 

We wondered the airport for quite some time before settling on Taiwan Beef Noodle Restaurant. I supposed we should have known better, an airport restaurant is an airport restaurant no matter where you are in the world. This place was no different. It was way over priced (compared to what we have known the last 11 days) and the food was okay.   

After food, we wandered the airport finding some of the most random of things.

It wasn't too much longer before it was time for us to get on our final flight to head back to LA. It was still so surreal that our trip was coming to an end.

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After a 12 hour flight, it was nice to be home. None of us really knew what day or time it was so instead of headed back to Eric & Audrey's and going straight to sleep, we headed out for more food!

SO GOOD!! We finally made it back to Eric & Audrey's and ending up watching videos until about 3AM. It was glorious! We are so incredibly thankful for having the opportunity to take this trip with these guys. Can't wait for the next adventure!!