Our First Family Trip: Surprise, AZ

So I have started to write this post four times now and each time I find myself faced with the choice of blogging or sleeping. Well, sleeping always wins out my friends so blogging has fallen by the wayside. But I definitely have a lot of pictures to share so it’s about time I got back to it! Take that as a warning – this is a long post!

Last weekend we took our first trip as a family of three to visit my grandparents and aunts in Surprize, AZ. We left early Thursday morning. In fact, since my office is right around the corner from the airport, we actually drove in the same traffic and pretty  much drove my exact commute. It was kind of weird to be on the same route at the same time as normal, but not to be going to work. Weird, but not bad by any means! I was very happy to have two days off!

I can’t even tell you how well Rylie did with going through security and waiting for the flight. Our flight to Phoenix got switched from having one stop to being direct, which was awesome. Apparently US Air doesn’t allow people with small children to board first anymore. We had to wait until after Zone 2 had boarded. Strangest thing! The flight attendants weren’t very friendly, or as my mom would say, they didn’t seem to like their jobs. I guess there was some bad weather in Oklahoma because we were stuck in turbulence for over an hour. Rylie and Van were just sleeping away, but I had to wake Van up because I got a little scared. Rylie only cried twice during the 4.5 hour flight, probably for 2 minutes or so, even though it seemed like so much longer since there wasn’t really anything we could do about it! But she was a happy little travler and we were so very thankful!

I loved introducing Rylie to my grandparents and Aunt. These are some of my favorites pictures!

My grandparents live in a cute little community called Happy Trails. Everyone drives around in their golf carts enjoying the retired life. We took the golf cart out for a tour ourselves. We walked around a little bit, watched people play Pickle Ball and checked out the blooming cacti. We learned that it’s special when the flowers bloom because they only last for one day! Rylie loved riding around, but every time we went out, she fell asleep by the end of the ride! Right before we got back to my grandparents’ house, her head just dropped to my arm and she was out. It was the sweetest thing!

Rylie even got to go swimming for the first time! She liked it, but was a little tired when we got there. We went swimming on Friday and Saturday and I think she liked it even more on Saturday. She loves the bath so we were hoping she’d like the pool too! We didn’t stay too long to make sure we avoided any sunburn on her fair skin, but we had fun while we were there!

Rylie found the perfect chair for her naps while we were there too. She slept here for every single nap and it was just the right size! We decided that we need a chair like that and a golf cart since they are perfect sleeping spots!

My grandma’s roses were also in bloom. They were so beautiful and I couldn’t get enough of them! A quail had also laid eggs in their tomato plant and they should hatch any day now. My grandpa set up a ramp for the little birdies to walk down once they’re ready. so sweet!

We had such a great time while we were in AZ and we can’t wait to visit them again! We flew Delta on the way home and everyone was much more friendly aka they liked their jobs! We boarded first on both flights, which made such a difference, and Rylie received a pair of Delta wings on each flight. She was too tired to wear them though and slept and ate a lot! A guy who was sitting behind Van on the other side of the plane saw Van and Rylie playing and offered to take a picture. So nice!

We are thankful that Rylie did so well with traveling and adjusting to the time difference. We’re already looking forward to our next trip!

Work Fun

I feel like I say this every.single.time I post, but life is so busy! Last week was especially busy since I was traveling most of the week for work. Life just kept on going even though it felt like I was at a standstill!

Oh well. I had a great trip and stayed at an awesome Omni Hotel. I think it just opened late last year and boy, was it swanky! Floor to ceiling windows, a great view, a big fluffy bed and even a TV in the bathroom mirror! Check it out:

I mean, seriously!? It was pretty sweet. I even had a huge walk-in shower.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time to spend at the hotel. We were there for a Culinary & Marketing Summit and our days were packed full of presentations, panel discussions and of course, amazing food. I’ve been very lucky to get to go on great trips with work and we always eat delicious food wherever we go! It doesn’t hurt that I work for a company in the foodservice industry!

I essentially work on two teams and both of them were represented at the meeting and the Summit. Each had a booth showcasing a promotion we’re currently featuring or other happenings within the company. I was so proud of what everyone had done to make everything looks so nice. They really do a great job and make a huge impact in the company.

One of the teams I’m on is partnering with Jet Tila, who recently competed on Iron Chef, and it was really cool to see how down to earth he is. He made some amazing food and we’re hopeful that we’ll be seeing more of him soon!

I really enjoyed this trip. I learned so much more about the company and feel a lot better connected. I hope I’ll get to go again next year!

Work Trip in Asheville

I got home from Orlando on Thursday and had to leave again for another work trip on Tuesday. Thankfully, I was headed to the Inn on Biltmore Estate in Asheville! I was there for a Communications Forum and was really excited to be staying at such a nice place. We were in meetings pretty much the entire time, but managed to get a few pictures of my room and the beauty that surrounds the Inn.

The bed was so comfy! I could have slept here for days!

Check out the vanity in the bathroom! There was even a fresh rose waiting for me!

I didn’t have time to even try on the bathrobe, but it sure was a nice option!

When I first arrived, I went to the gym because I knew that it would be my only opportunity. It was super nice too!

There was even a fan built in (somehow) that blew air as I ran. It was lovely!

We had the best dinner that night and I wish I would have kept the menu to tell you all about it! But everything was local and the chef came in before to tell us about where everything came from. I think there were four courses – each unique and super delicious! The next morning we woke up to the fog settling over the hills and it was simply stunning. Too bad we had to go into meetings all day!

As the morning went on, it just looked more and more beautiful outside. I guess I’ll just have to come back when I can really enjoy it!

Working for a company that is all about food, and good food at that, we ate really at every  meal! Everything was so fresh too. We had dinner at The Market Place on our last evening there. Like the Biltmore, they are really big on the “farm to table” concept. I would definitely go back there! We also had yummy desserts at lunch (different days):

Overall, I had a great few days in Asheville. If you’re looking to take a special trip and wouldn’t mind spending a little extra, I would high recommend staying at the Inn! It’s an incredibly relaxing place and it is simply beautiful in the fall!

Nashville!

The morning after I got home from Orlando, Van and I hit the road for a weekend trip to Nashville for Erika and Lydon’s wedding! Erika and I met one of the first days at Elon and hit it off immediately. We lived near each other freshman year and then decided to move into an apartment together for Sophomore year (and the rest of college)!

Erika was stunning and Lydon was so handsome! My camera died right after the ceremony and this is the only picture I got:

But thankfully their photographer posted some more pics on Facebook! Look how cute they are!

We got to see a few of my other college friends at the wedding, which was really great. Thankfully Tyler was willing to take a picture of the bride and I. Not the best, but thankful to have it!

Congratulations to Mr. & Mrs. Small! I am so happy for you two and the love that you have found for one another!!

Other than going to the wedding and walking around Nashville a little bit, we didn’t do too much! All of the things I wanted to do were crazy expensive and for people in the process of buying a home, expensive touristy things just weren’t an option. But we enjoyed some yummy food and lots of time together, which is always wonderful!

We tried to go to a cupcake shop that I had read about called The Cupcake Collection, but after we walked/drove around looking for it, we discovered that they’re closed on Saturdays! I don’t get why in the world they would be closed all day Saturday. Total Bummer. It was cute from the outside!

But we did stop at a place called Fiddle Cakes we had driven by several times. I got a vanilla on vanilla cupcake and Van had a Cinnamon Roll. Nothing overly spectacular, but a nice treat nevertheless.

The trees were gorgeous for our ride home (unlike the icky rainy weather we had the entire way there)!

I’m looking forward to going back to Nashville sometime, but to stay with some locals (ahem, the Smalls) and do some of their favorite things!

A Trip to Orlando

In October I got to go to Orlando for work for four days to help with our Associate Recognition Celebration. 75 people from our company of about 150,00 were invited to attend so the event is a pretty big deal and they go all out to make the winners feel special. I was super excited that I got asked to help! We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, which was really nice!

We had lunch at the poolside restaurant while we waited for our rooms to be ready.

While we were eating, we got texts from the front desk that our rooms were ready. That was kind of cool! I had this room all to myself for four days:

There were fun little rock and roll touches all over the place. One night, I returned to my room to this loveliness:

I didn’t even realize the guitar bowl was made out of chocolate until the next day. So fun! Anyway, back to the work part. My main task was airport duty – for 8 hours! There were about 8 of us who stayed at the airport all day long with name signs and balloons to welcome the winners as they arrived. It was a long day, but it was definitely fun to greet everyone!

That night there was an amazing welcome dinner at Fulton’s Crab House. My company does the foodservice there and it was absolutely incredible! The pictures I took aren’t the best, but there were huge crab legs, shrimp, sushi, lobster tail and all kinds of other amazing food.

The next day everyone got to go to a Universal park of their choice. We chose Islands of Adventure since some girls in our group were just dying to go to Harry Potter World. I’ve gotta admit, it was pretty cool!

The cloudy weather made the snow look even more real! We enjoyed some deliciously expensive Butter Beer. I want to get that recipe – at least for the creamy foam stuff on top – yum!!

After a few rides, the sun came out and it was gorgeous!

The big celebration was that night and we rode over to Hard Rock Live on the water taxis from the hotel. I didn’t take many pics, but here are a few from the evening.

The picture above was our dessert – all chocolate! Can you tell that the big white thing with STARS on it is a piano? I was impressed! This was such a fun week! I’d definitely be willing to go on work trips like this more often, even though I was exhausted when I got home. Another great thing about the trip is that I got to meet up with my dad for breakfast on the day I left. He’s about an hour from Orlando so it worked out perfectly!

Oregon Trip – In Photos

We had so much fun last week in Oregon visiting friends and family. Van and I are missing the weather there so much! We loved sitting outside at my grandma’s reading in the cool morning and afternoon air and running with zero humidity. I’m already looking forward to our trip next year! Here’s a little recap in photos:

Ashley & TJ’s Wedding at Vista Hills Vineyard:

The Rehearsal…

Ready for an evening out on the town…

Ashley’s entourage…

Literally best friends forever!

Mr. & Mrs…

And with our super handsome men…

Fave pic of the wedding…

Marissa dancing with the life of the party, Uncle Ed…

My cutie cousins Luicee and Kaiden at Grandma’s…

A normal sight out Grandma’s window…

And of course a stop at The Bowpicker in Astoria. We weren’t able to go last year so we definitely had to go this year! All they serve is fish and chips and it’s so incredibly delicious. It doesn’t hurt that it’s owned by my aunt and uncle. So proud of their success with this business!!

The Honeymoon!

Well it’s about time that I posted pics from our honeymoon! We had a FABULOUS time relaxing in Riviera Maya and it really couldn’t have been any better. Our resort looked exactly like it does in the pictures on their website…so beautiful! Here’s our week in a few photos:

Those tans definitely improved over the course of the week! We had  so much fun and it was such a memorable trip. Can’t wait to travel with my HUBBY again soon!

Oregon Trip Recap

I think I was more excited to go to Oregon this summer than I possibly have ever been. Just the thought of introducing someone to the people I love and showing them where I’m from and all of the places I love to go made me giddy. I had no clue just how amazing the trip would turn out to be!

Tuesday:

We left San Diego on Tuesday afternoon and arrived in Portland at around 6. As soon as we landed I called Makenna and she said that she and my mom were stuck in traffic, but would be there soon. I didn’t care…we were in Portland! After waiting for maybe 10 minutes, we saw my parents and Makenna walking up. Yay! My mom had arrived in Portland a few days before and my dad’s flight came in right before ours.

Makenna made plans for us to go to Helvetia Tavern, one of our fave restaurants, later that night. We went to her house, dropped off our stuff and she showed me “a few things in her room.” I say it like that because there was really something else going on that I was clueless about. Makenna was just distracting me so that my mom could give Van the ring. Sneaky sneaky!

Arriving at Helvetia and the proposal followed. It was truly a magical evening that I will never ever forget. I woke up that morning with a boyfriend and went to bed with a ring on my finger! Wow!

Wednesday:

Ashley and her mom came over in the morning and we hung out for a little while before going to lunch at Juan Colorado, another traditional eating locale. Wedding dress shopping was next on the agenda (for Ashley) so Van decided to stay at Makenna’s. She had school that day so she had to join us later. We had a great time watching Ashley try on dresses and find the style that she liked best. I’d never experienced this before, so it was a great trial run before I started looking.

That night we had the annual Billings BBQ (Cookout for all you Southerners) and so many friends came. We all ate way too much, but had so much fun catching up with old friends. By far one of my favorite things ever.

Thursday:

Our friend got us into the Nike Employee store on Thursday morning and it was fun to see Van’s excitement and appreciation for that. He found some super soft workout shorts and I found some super comfy flip flops. We could’ve bought lots more, but we behaved ourselves.

After the Nike store we met up with my good friend Kelsey at Starbucks. We have been friends for SO long. I loved being able to catch up! She even bought me a wedding planning book! Aww!

We headed on to the beach (Grandma’s house) from there. Of course we stopped at Dairy Queen on the way. Another yearly tradition. It’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere and really you just have to stop. I always get a small vanilla chocolate dipped cone. Mom gets a medium chocolate cone. And Derek a large swirl. This was one another part of the trip where I really missed Derek. Sad! Van seemed to be ok with this tradition and enjoyed a Blizzard. Dad also didn’t complain as he ate his cone.

Grandma wasn’t home when we arrived, so we just unloaded the car and I gave Van the grand tour. Van and I walked down to Uncle Jeff’s house to borrow the bikes. Kim was there working on dinner for that night and I got to show off my ring. I loved how excited she was! After chatting for a bit, we took off with the bikes and rode around downtown Seaside and on the prom. Oh the memories! Grandma got home a little bit after we did and I was so excited to see her. Jenni also stopped by to drop off some treats. She was such a happy and calm bride-to-be! Later that night we (My fam, Van and Gma) went over to Kim and Jeff’s for dinner. Now this is something you ALWAYS look forward to. Kim is a fabulous cook and she did not disappoint! We had crab legs and smoked salmon spread for appetizers and oysters and more salmon for dinner. YUM! They also had champagne and we toasted our engagement! Aww! Kim’s a stewardess so for dessert we had those little spiced cookies that they serve on the planes. Too funny!

Makenna had class the next day at a place near the beach so she came and spent the night! She got to enjoy some time with us at dinner and then we just hung out for a bit when we got back to Grandma’s. I’ll take as much time as I can get…especially on such a short trip!

Friday:

This morning while we were eating breakfast, my cell phone rang. This could only mean ONE thing if it was an unknown number in Charlotte: it was a call about the job I had been interviewing for. I was ECSTATIC when my boss-to-be said that she would like to offer me the job! What an amazing week!! I still can’t even believe that so many wonderful things happened in one short little week! WOW!

After all of the excitement, we all played tourist in downtown Seaside in the early afternoon. Van got to experience Fascination for the first time. We can’t go to Oregon without playing that game…especially during the 12 for $1 special. Gets me every time. Van and I also played in the arcade for a little while and became obsessed with Deal or No Deal. So fun!

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing before we headed off to the rehearsal dinner party at my Aunt’s house. We got to see more family there and it was so crazy being able to introduce Van as my fiance. At that point I was still mildly in shock! My cousin Kaiden was adorable when we walked up. She said my name right away (she’s 5 and I haven’t seen her in a year) and then she yelled “Uncle Preston!” Van and my cousin Preston both don’t have a lot of hair and she saw Van and thought he was Preston. Ok. It was funny to us! The rest of the night was spent hanging out with family and laughing.

Saturday:

On Saturday morning my parents friends Nigel & Keri came to my Grandma’s house for breakfast. Nigel is Brittish and i just love listening to him talk. We hung out for the majority of the day and then headed to Astoria for the wedding.

Sadly, it was foggy and misting so they didn’t have the wedding at the Astoria Column like they had planned. Instead the wedding was at the reception site and it was still just as beautiful! Congrats Preston & Jenni!

We had a great time at the wedding and I loved showing off my future husband! I was able to catch up with a lot of family and really enjoyed the evening. Sadly this was our last night in Oregon 😦

Sunday:

We got up pretty early to head to the airport. Mom was staying for another two weeks, but she and Grandma drove us to Portland. I hated saying goodbye and leaving after such a SHORT trip, but I know I’ll be back. Especially since Van loves flying and has caught the travel bug! Woohoo!! Can’t wait for next year!

San Diego Adventures

It’s about time I give a little trip recap from our quick vacation to the west coast. Here are the highlights from our travels and time in San Diego!

Even though we had to get to the airport reallllly early, we were both in great moods and Van was excited to fly for the first time. He enjoyed the first flight and even said that he was excited for the next (long) one to San Diego. Thank goodness!

Lisa and ChristyAnn picked us up from the airport shortly after we arrived. We headed over to the marina where her dad docks his monstrous boat and waited for the boys to arrive. In the meantime we enjoyed some delicious treats Lisa had picked up at a bakery. This is where the diet started to go out the window. We spent the majority of the morning/afternoon out of the water. It was the perfect opportunity for the kids as well as Jeff & Lisa to get to know Van. I loved that we were able to go out on the boat!

The rest of the week was spent playing on the beach and with the kids. I love how even after so many years I can still visit the Jones’ and it’s like nothing has ever changed! Except for the fact that they’re all growing up entirely tooo fast!!

I love my Jonesies! And I’m so happy they got to meet Van! I definitely didn’t expect that we’d be getting engaged just a few hours after leaving San Diego!

He Proposed!!! And I Said YES!

I cannot believe that this is even reality…that I am writing about being proposed to!! It really couldn’t have been more perfect and I am seriously still in shock that it even  happened!

Here’s how it allll went down: We arrived in Portland on Tuesday evening and met up with my mom who had flown in on Sunday and my dad who had arrived a few minutes before us. My best friend Makenna came with my mom and I was so excited to see her there. The night before she texted me saying that she thought we should go to one of our favorite restaurants, Helvetia Tavern, on Tuesday since her family would be out of town until later that night. Sounded great to me! I was happy to have the plans figured out and didn’t think a thing about it.

We went to Makenna’s house before going to dinner so we could drop off our bags and then we headed out to Helvetia with my parents. The restaurant is pretty much in the country and not far at all from the Roloff farm (Little People Big World). The light was really pretty and so we took some pictures. When we finished we were getting ready to head up to the restaurant when Van asked if we could take another picture sitting on a rock. Of course I jumped at the opportunity since he doesn’t request pictures very often!

So we sat down and took the picture and before I know it he says “Oh and one more thing, Alison Marie Billings, will you marry me?” I of course said “YES!” followed shortly by “Are you for real!?” Makenna was smart and took a lot of pictures and even a video! I will try to post that soon.

To say that I was surprised is an understatement. I have known that Van is the one pretty much since we met. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to marry him. He is everything that I have EVER wanted in a man and I am just thrilled!!!

I was absolutely on cloud 9 when we walked into the restaurant. There was a guy standing by the door and I really thought he worked there so I was telling him that we were going to go sit on the bar side of the restaurant since there was more room. When he didn’t respond I was a little offended and thought he was so rude. After we sat down at our table, Van saw him walking to the parking lot with a carry-out box. Oops! I guess he was just another customer!!

As we sat and ate dinner my parents and Makenna revealed all of the planning secrets and all that went on behind my back. They did such a good job! My  mom even brought the ring to Oregon so that he didn’t risk it going off in security. She had it for about a week and didn’t even look at it! She also didn’t tell a single person, which is the real shocker!!

So, so happy! Now we definitely have to return to Helvetia and sit on our special little rock!

I love you Van Lambert and I am so excited to spend the rest of my life loving you!