Friends!

Andy's friend Brian and his wife, Anna, are in town! We have friends! Andy and Brian have known each other since Kindergarten and they are two sides of the same coin.  I really liked getting to meet Brian before the wedding and I'm glad to finally know some of Andy's friends.  I just wish they didn't live in Texas.  If you were at our wedding, you probably remember Brian:

Best. Wedding speech. Ever.

Needless to say, I had to prepare myself for a lot of laughing.  The two of them together are completely hilarious.  


On Saturday, we picked them up to hang out.  We decided to take the dogs out to Flattop to wear them out.  Brian and Anna's dog, Nuka, is a 10 month old lab/shepherd mix.  She needs the wearing out.

Brian had a new camera - Andy enjoyed taking pictures of him messing with it.
There was a lot of maturity displayed on this little outing

Me and the dogs.

 The weather, as it has been all week, was perfect.  Maybe a little windy, but otherwise awesome.  More of the same great views along powerline pass:

backside of Flattop

A new flower - I got a book so now I know what I'm looking at.  This is called False Hellebore.
It's really pretty, and apparently, also poisonous. 

The dogs made fast friends. I think it helps that they look alike.

 Ripley showed Nuka how to play in the water - she wasn't too sure about how cold it was and the fact that it was moving.  They don't have rivers like this in Texas, apparently

Such a nice day!

After our hike, we went back to our respective houses (by the way, Brian's parents live in our DREAM neighborhood...they might be getting us as neighbors when we're ready to buy), and then met back up at one of the Saturday Markets in Anchorage.  (we didn't take the camera for this part of the day) This one was downtown and is where most of the tourists go.  The stuff to buy is mostly kind of cheesy - a lot of touristy t-shirts - but there are some nice local people who sell some awesome handmade stuff.  There we met up with Brian's parents, his brother and sister-in-law, and his aunt and uncle - the whole gang! They were planning to go to the air show later, but somehow the plan morphed into enjoying the weather on the rooftop deck at the Snow Goose, a brewpub in downtown Anchorage.  We had a great time with the family and enjoyed a couple of beers and a lot of laughs.  Thanks, Riordans!! Hopefully we can see a lot more of them before Brian and Anna head back to Texas in a couple of weeks.