Life in the PNW

Dear Blog,

You know how each company has different acronyms for phrases they use all the time? I'm slowing getting used to the lulu lingo and PNW is thrown a lot. I'm very lucky to be opening a store in the Pacific NorthWest because lulu is growing like ca-razy up here and everyone snatches it up like hot coldcakes. Speaking of coldcakes, today it was so cold here. It didn't even get out of the 60's!!! I wear a jacket everyday and I usually take it off at some point but today I was all kindsa bundled up in my jacket and regretting my sandals choice.

I'm slowly learning that everyone who lives up here (disclaimer: that I've come in contact with, clearly I have not met everyone here) LOVES it up here with a passion. I mean a hot, fierce passion. So hot and fierce that the PNW wants to secede from the Union (whoops, that was South Carolina!!!) alright so the PNW wants to secede from the United States and form their own country; Cascadia. That's right, Cascadia. And just for clarification, I'm talking Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. I could have dual citizenship, y'all!! I will keep you posted on the success of this new country in my coming posts. BUT, in the meantime, read all about it HERE I'm already practicing my pledge of allegiance to my new country!!

I head back to the Vancoov (Vancouver) on Sunday for my last round of the Groove and I guess I'm not dreading it but I'll be glad when my one week here, two weeks there routine is over. Somedays I feel a little misplaced out here, lots o' crazy hippies!, but everyday I'm getting more and more used to it. It's been a great experience so far!!

Here are some pics from the weekend my mom was here!
Dang blogger isn't loading pics, it'll have to wait.






















xoxo,
Alison

Vancooooooooouuuuuuver

Dear Blog,

I love the internet. There, I said it. I can sit and be on the internet for hours and hours and hours looking at everything from facebook to craigs list to gofugyourself to all of my peeps blogs to on and on. The internet has especially been helpful in this endeavor across the country that has now taken me into another country. Alas, as soon as I got into Canada my trusty iBook ceased to work. Panic, panic, panic. I mean, pure panic ensued. I had to interrupt Aaron's dinner with friends because I was having a LARGE panic attack about my laptop...is that normal? How am I going to stay in touch with my peeps, how am I going to check facebook, how am I going to blog?!? Well, when you stop doing those things you become somewhat detached from them. Although, I managed to wrangle myself a loaner lululemon laptop. Say that 5x fast. Anywhoodle, I will have to get said iBook fixed but needless to say not having a laptop is not the end of the world.

As I'm sure you all cared so much about my laptop dilemmas, I will move onto other topics. I APOLOGIZE for being so completely out of touch. My schedule with this move has been absolutely crazy. I will break it down for you.
July 7-13th in Seattle training at University Village Store
July 14th-19th in Vancouver to beging my Groove Training (yes, that is what they call it)
July 19th-20th in Seattle to help Mom and Ron unload the Penske
July 20th-25th in Vancoov to continue the Groove
July 25th-August 3rd in Seattle training at U. Village store
August 3-August 15th in Vancoov for last of the Groove.

Now, with all of that going back and forth you can imagine why I have not been in better contact. Hopefully next week I will get my laptop fixed and will be able to holla at my peeps but until then I'm stuck. I can't use my phatty iPhone because I'm in Canada and that's all international and crap.

So, onto this Groove training. There are about 6 of us here and they have us in these swank apartments in downtown Vancouver...and we all have roomates. At first I was like, WTF?!? A roomate? But now, I love my little roomie. She's 25 from San Diego and a fun girl. We've bonded and it almost feels like college again. She drank my milk and I had to apologize for leaving little piles of stuff everywhere. It's been interesting to say the least.

In other news, Mom and Ron safely made it here!! I'm so proud of BOTH of them for driving across the country in a 22 foot Penske truck, with the Jeep on the back and a Bella in the middle. That's crazy!! There weren't any setbacks and I was waiting at the apartment when they pulled up. They were soooooooooo happy to be there and I was too. We spent all Saturday unloading the truck and getting stuff semi-organized in the apt and then had a fun day on Sunday. We took Mom downtown to the market and the waterfront and I think she promptly fell in love with it :) I'm trying to convince her and Dad to move to the Northwest to nanny my children when/if I decided to have them :)

All in all, I have to say I'm liking this change in the pace of life. I've become a lot more independent throughout this process and that is something that was definitely needed.

I've taken some great pics but posting them will have to wait until I get my computer fixed!!

xoxo,
al

Techin' out

Dear Blog,

I most definitely do NOT consider myself a nerd, I mean seriously. I do not think I could even pretend to be a nerd. But, this week I've enjoyed two very nerdy things. First off, I had a surprise in the mail on Thursday! The front desk called me and said I had a package! As I made my way to the lobby I was like hmmm...what could it be? Lo and behold, Aaron bought me an iSight for my laptop! Although, due to some technical difficulties Aaron and I were unable to talk. BUT, we were able to hook it up so that Leigh and I could video chat!!! Yay I was so excited to see my bff:). So, if anyone has a MacBook with iSight then please holler at your girl because that is my new Fave.

Next on the list of geekiness is the new iPhone! Oh wait you didn't hear? Yes, the newiphone has arrived. I imagined that I could just breeze into the apple store and get myself hooked up. I had no idea that peeps would me spending the night outside of the store!!! That is insane and kind of dorky...sorry to all dorks out there. So anyway, the following day the lines were looking smaller and so I braved the line. Lucky for me, I only had to wait an hour! It was so simple! Only an hour and I was in tekky heaven! Seriously everyone needs to get one because they are awesome! I think I'm in love! I'm actually blogging on it right now.

Right now I'm in vancouver and I think I like it, not sure yet. I will fill you in as the week progresses.

Xoxo,
Al

Where are you from?

Dear Blog,

Well, here I am. Sitting in my hotel room in Seattle watching E! on television as I blog. I'm pretty exhausted right now but I just wanted to check in and let everyone know that I'm here safe and sound. I'm not gonna lie folks, Monday was seriously hard. Knowing that I was traversing the country with a one way ticket out there was damn right scary. I kept thinking about now...how am I getting back to the airport to go home? OHHHHH, that's right. I'm not. I'm like, out here. For good. I had a couple panic attack moments and tears were shed as I was sitting in the airport alone but then I was like, THIS SUCKS. I am not going to be that girl who can't move more than 100 miles from her home. I'm out here now and I'm gonna rock it. So, as soon as I made that my mindset I've been rocking it.

I LOVE my job. I love the people I work with and they love me and we're just in love. No really, everyone that meets me gives me a huge hug, knows my bio and then we skip off into the Seattle sunset. Alright, well not that last part but the other two parts are true. Right now, working is the best part of my day because I spend the rest of the day alone. And we know how much I loooooooooove that.

BTW, the sun has been out and the temp hasn't gotten out of the 70's, it's been beautiful. How's the weather been in NC/SC?
heehee

xoxo,
Alison

Fun for all ages!

Slip 'n Slide for the under 21 crowd.




Drink 'n Dive for the over 21 crowd.


Either way, everyone had a blast!

xoxo,
Alison