T-mins one week till Graduation

I can hardly believe that tomorrow is officially my last day in college. I completed all my classes last week and somehow lucked out with zero final exams (the perks to being a senior design student). I'm presenting a website I've been designing for a local cafe Monday morning and then it's smooth sailing until graduation this Sunday. I hope by now you have received the announcement I designed. I just had fun with it :)

The last few months have been insanely busy with getting ready for graduation, preparing for moving out and of course still working at the magazine. I've managed to fit in a number of fun things as well, trying to make the most of the time I have left in college with my roommates and friends. It's amazing how many people are moving to work in different countries or going to grad school in other states. My plans are still slightly up in the air, but I'm learning to roll with it. As one of my co-workers (who graduated last year) put it, this is the first time in my life where you don't have a plan, no more getting through high school, applying for college, planning college, etc. I'm trying to take my plan in strides, first by moving myself home and then hopefully into an apartment in Seattle!

Here are some pictures from the last couple months...

Heather, Alex (my best friend from high school) and I met up a few weekends ago for Happy hour at the Melting Pot. Happy Hour there is the best, because fondues and appetizers are half price. Our bartender (pictured) practically had to roll us out of there we ate so much. Our meal consisted of...a walnut honey brie plate, cheese fondue, salad, drinks and dark chocolate fondue.

Then I met up with two old friends from church to celebrate Micah's (the one in the middle) engagement. He's been serving in the Marines in DC for the past year and came home on leave to celebrate with his fiance.

Then it was Cinco de Mayo and one of my best graphic design friends, our design professor (not pictured) and I went out for Cinco de Mayo. There happened to be a lovely balloon making woman (who must only come out for holidays) who made us balloon hats.

But sometime before Cinco de Mayo Dustin and I attended our first wedding together. My co-worker got married in a beautiful church in Tacoma. It was actually only my second wedding ever, which most people were astonished to discover.

We celebrated Kristen's (my roommate) 22nd birthday in April at Indochine. It's a fancy thai restaurant in Downtown Tacoma. I made a double chocolate cake from scratch, topped with home-made ganache frosting. The recipe is great and can be found here.  Indochine actually let me bring the cake to the restaurant and put it in their fridge. So my roommate Katie and I snuck to Indochine a little early to drop the cake off for a surprise. Funny enough though at cake time our waiter came out with a dainty little one layer slice of chocolate cake that was definitely not mine. After some more communication and happy birthday sung twice... MY cake was brought out, sliced, sprinkled with powdered sugar, topped with whipped cream and a flower. The presentation was wonderful and Kristen was definitely surprised.

We went to see Born to Be Wild in 3d Imax at the Seattle Science Center for Mother's Day. It's the most adorable movie about two different women, one who raises orphaned elephants and one who raises orphaned orangutans. Could your life get any more fulfilling? It made me want to pack up my bags and head to Africa to be an elephant mama. Afterwards we stopped by an authentic taco place on Capitol Hill for some grub.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

At the Macklemore Concert

This last weekend PLU put on its annual LollaPLUza music festival. Each year they bring in a well-known artist and then a bunch of local artists. The concert is outdoors and free to anyone. This year we had the privilege of having Macklemore. He just finished a national tour and is ending it in Eastern Washington this weekend. He's a hip hop/rap artist from Seattle who is starting to make it pretty big. His songs are great, and the concert was awesome! We lucked out with sunny weather and the third row. I even got to fist-pound him during the concert!

This last picture is just from the other day driving home from work. On sunny days the mtn is out and so pretty! Tacoma is lucky to have a much better view than Seattle.