this morning we left stillwater and headed to edmond, ok to visit brady, camey, hailey and hunter. we hung out with them for the afternoon — played with the kids, watched some stray cats interacting on the porch, and did a walking tour of their yard which we’d never gotten to explore. we were even loaned some legit walking sticks which made it feel more like an adventure.
hailey just started school this week. isn’t she an adorable first grader?
trekked down to guthrie, ok today. it’s a small town fueled by history (it used to be the capital of oklahoma!) there are lots of historical markers and even more antiques. it’s amazing to see how much old stuff there is everywhere. we were glad the stores we went in were huge so we could spend time inside instead of outside in the hot sun. but man, there’s a lot of junk in this world.
*last shot manned by adam
today, our girl hayley starts her life as a veterinary student. she got her white coat and stethoscope so she’s ready to go!
on our side of things, it’s funny to think about how she know’s she’ll be there for the next for years and we don’t even know where we’ll be in a month.
we spent today checking out stillwater’s finest — and wackiest — antique + thrift stores with adam. he’s moving into a new apartment and was looking for some stuff to fill it out. we all ended up finding some awesome, cheap treasures.
these are two of our favorite people to hang out with and we’re really glad to be able to spend the majority of this week with them here in stillwater. they’re two inspiring people who have both found what they love to do and are goin for it.
adam is a huge sports fan and can guaranteed school you on anything sports. broadcast journalism is right up his alley and he’s had internships and jobs as a sports writer, photographer/videographer, editor, and is killing it!
hayley has known since forever that she wants to be a veterinarian and has worked in lots of different facets of the animal industry from cats and dogs to apes and gorillas. she has a love for animals and it shows. we’re so proud of her for getting into vet school and excited to go to her white coat ceremony friday.
on top of all of that, they’re just awesome, fun people. we love these kids!
today was a driving day down familiar roads. ruby met up with the route that she took out to boston 2 years ago in tulsa, ok. we stopped there for a quick drive through the other way and a bite to eat before getting to stillwater for the night.
mountain home is a town nestled into the windy roads of northern arkansas. this is somewhere we would never have come if it weren’t for our friend chase pagan (who you might recognize from our blog). the fun thing about knowing people all over is when you end up in random places like this!
we stayed with chase, dawneen, & daylen on norfork lake in a house that’s only accessible by boat… sweet. it’s a beautiful lake with water the color of mountain dew.
we hung out at the lake and swam and boated. chase also took us on a tour through mountain home, where we were excited to score some vintage maps we’d been on the hunt for at a neat vintage store. we grabbed some snacks at the local health food store and hung out in a park eating and talking. for dinner chase cooked us up some a-mazing tikka masala which we ate on their beautiful, mosquito-free dock.
we did the classic walk down broadway again and popped in and out of the bars checking out the music. we found ourselves returning to the same venue we enjoyed last time we were in nashville, layla’s bluegrass inn. the same band was playing that we saw there two years ago which we thought was pretty funny. we enjoyed them just as much this time around — especially because when we were here last time we weren’t 21 and the bouncer just let us stand in the doorway. this time we got to enjoy a couple blue moons!
nashville just feels really alive, and everyone there is so nice! apparently east nashville is a hip area, but we didn’t have time this time around to check it out. that being said, we know this is definitely somewhere we’d like to spend more time pretty soon.
now we continue down the trusty 412 to arkansas and beyond for the next few days.
this is one of those cities that we’ve heard completely mixed reviews about so we were really interested to see it for ourselves. ziv’s dad’s college buddy, nevin, and his wife gail were kind enough to let us stay with them for the night and give us an insiders tour of the city. they drove us all around pointing out the cool stuff that atlanta has goin on, and we were really impressed with how much creativity seems to be thriving there. in his on time, nevin designs gorilla and other zoo habitats. since we love line drawings, we noticed a few loose drawings on his office desk that we posted here.
atlanta is really the poster child for urban sprawl. it’s a ginormous city but as you’re driving around it doesn’t seem so overwhelming. you pass through lots of pockets of town, which each have a sense of local pride and that creative flavor that we’ve seen popping up everywhere that we’ve been – cute coffee shops + artisan stores and the like. there is a booming music scene with genres across the board.
we went to the dekalb world farmers market, which was a market like nothing either of us have ever seen before. anything and everything you could ever want, you could find there. it wasn’t necessarily a farmers market in the sense of it being organic and local, but it was all fresh and cheap, with a diverse crowd of shoppers. save a few hipshots, the ‘no photography’ rule was heavily enforced.
overall, we were pleasantly surprised about atlanta and grateful that the lash’s could give us a fun little tour. here’s a portrait that we took of nevin, gail and one of their 5 dogs before we headed out to nashville for the night.
