Big Bear Weekend

The weekend goes toooo fast! Especially when it's December and I'm trying to enjoy the Christmas spirit! I actually love winter and cold weather... as long as it's Christmastime. Come January it's just like ughhhhhhhhh. Ha. On Friday night AJ and I did a round of the Festival of Lights again in downtown Riverside. (So nice to just be able to walk there!) We ate on the breezeway and then went to Casey's Cupcakes and got a gingerbread cupcake mmmmm and we were thirsty and since they are going for the kinda the old-timey soda pop vibe, they only had bottled sodas, like cream sodas and ginger ales and then I saw CHEERWINE. Say what?! I thought that was a Southern-only kinda thing! I just had my first one ever in August in South Carolina. So we HAD to have it. (By we, I mean me.) I made AJ pose with it so I could send a picture to Jayna. His eyes ended up being half-closed but he said he didn't care. Probably cause he thought I was only going to send it to Jayna and then delete it. Well lolololol joke's on him.

AJ unloaded his truck at my house since we were leaving first thing in the morning to go up to Big Bear for the day and meet up with his friends who had rented a cabin. (We opted out of the weekend since we are both anticipating being poor with the Europe 2016 trip coming up). He had Anana's dog bed in there and we brought it in and then caught the Khaleesi sleeping on it. BTW I bought her a cat bed and had to throw it away because not only did she never sleep in it, but she peed on it too LOLOLOLOL but apparently THIS bed is good enough for her!

AJ and I were up early on Saturday, went by Starbucks for holiday drinks (gingerbread latte mmmm) and then up the mountain to Big Bear. He was going out with a small group of them to go snowboarding, and I stayed behind with the rest who were content to relax around the cabin for the day.

The boarders on their way out

Girls walking down to the Bear Mountain lodge for bloody marys

Then the boarders came back and full-on funtimes ensued. I took multiple power naps and then would wake up for more shots. Needless to say, AJ and I ended up crashing on the couch there rather than driving back down the mountain that day as originally planned.

Lecturing AJ about how dare he go snowboarding without me lololol JK

Good God I look increasingly tired as I get older

Waking up from a power nap, someone made me chug a cup of coffee to stay up this time

AJ playing pool. Not sure if this was before or after Nadine went
rolling on the table and ruining the game in play at that time haha

AJ and I each woke up in the middle of the night at the same time. We each went to the bathroom and then chugged water and lamented about how dry it was and how our necks were hurting on the couch. I suggested we escape right then and so avoid having to clean up the cabin in the morning hahaha I WAS JUST KIDDING. We woke up in the morning and helped clean up the cabin and then we all went to Denny's and actually beat the Sunday brunch rush. 

I ended up having to drive down the mountain because I got really sick after only like 10 minutes of riding shotgun and was dry heaving on the side of the road. Then I got the grand idea to use our full Sunday productively and finally buy our Europe tickets for Shannon's wedding, so we made it to my mom's for football and Europe research and GUESS. WHAT.

We bought tickets!! Ahhhh! It was scary to FINALLY pull the trigger but I had also been bugging him for us to do this since summer. We got a killer deal all in all I think, and excited for us to go to Iceland, England, France and Denmark!! It will ALL be new for AJ (who has only been to Serbia and Hungary) and it will be all new for me except for Paris. I have seen a lot of England, but not Manchester or where Shannon's wedding will be (near the Lake District), I insisted we go to a French speaking anything anywhere, and originally we were shooting for Switzerland, but Paris is by far the easiest to get in/out of for the cheapest, and I don't mind seeing it again and AJ has never been, and neither of us has ever been to Copenhagen (so stoked to see the Little Mermaid statue) and we are both most excited for Iceland! Five long days to drive around the entire island!