Stay the Night - Jeremy Groves

What do you do when one of your best friends releases a single on iTunes? PROMOTE IT, of course.

Technically, it's Matt's best friend, but I'm going to promote it nonetheless. Please check out Jeremy's Groves' new song on iTunes or Spotify (sorry I'm not technically savvy enough to hyperlink to Spotify, just search for it). He's the perfect combo of contemporary John Mayer mixed with a dash of Hunter Hayes. 

To give you a little background (in Matt's own words): Jeremy and I have been friends since our first biology class as freshmen in high school. My fondest memories with him began on the baseball diamond as teammates but we quickly established a friendship off the field as well. I've seen him grow from casually playing the guitar within our circle of friends to watching him perform live at open mics to this first single (sold on iTunes!!!!). I'm excited to see his musical career take off in a small town called Nashville (wish you lived closer, buddy).

Jeremy - we are so excited for you, and can't wait to see what you else you've got up your sleeves :)

Giving Thanks

Last year, Matt came up from San Diego to spend Thanksgiving with my family in San Francisco. He experienced his first Thanksgiving with my family, a small San Franciscan condo filled to the brim with family members and all types of food (turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, rice, sweet and sour pork, noodles, etc). Then we drove over to Reno and did Thanksgiving all over again.

What a difference a year makes. 

This year, we are sitting at home in our own apartment in San Francisco, watching football, prepping some side dishes (twice baked potatoes and sweet potato casserole) and waiting for my mom to pick us up to head over to my aunt's house near Pier 39. Same thing as last year. Tomorrow we'll be driving to Reno to do the same thing with his family.

We live together (in the SAME city) in San Francisco, all the time. We commute to work (him to Sausalito, and me to Mountain View). We both have full-time jobs at companies we adore. He has (finally) graduated. Last year, he was still in school, and I was still hating my job at Morgan Stanley. This year, he works at the firm that he has been interning at for two summers. I work at LinkedIn and my coworkers are some of my closest friends now. Matt bought a car that he couldn't be more happy with.

I'm grateful for the little things in life, having the day off today; our casual walk to Starbucks and grocery store this morning; how beautiful it is in the city today; seeing my brother in a few hours.

I'm also grateful for the things that are constant in my life: Matt, my family, his family, my friends, my job, our home. I love all you amazing people and thank God for you every day in my life :)

I'm excited to see what the next year brings (including a new niece or nephew!).

Best Birthday Ever

I think everyone must say (or think) this. But I really truly believe that I have the best friends ever. I turned 25 on Friday (yikes), and I honestly didn't know whether to smile or cry. I mean I love birthdays just as much as the next girl, but I heard that it all goes downhill from 25 (okay....I'm sure those people were being dramatic though). I was excited, but at the same time apprehensive. But luckily for this girl, I have some really great friends who made me feel loved all weekend long.

Friday started with the birthday bomb on my desk. I named the dinosaur Walter (and I love my LinkedIn family!).

Then the best guy ever took me on a date night at Panta Rei in North Beach, followed by cannolis for dessert and Rogue beer for a night cap (I'm looking at you Matt Evans).

But the best part was the 24 of my friends that loaded onto a party bus to go wine tasting in Sonoma. We hit up Robledo Winery (wouldn't go back there again), Viansa (where I could live for the rest of my life), and Nicholson Ranch (with its beautiful lake and amazing hospitality). I can't thank these wonderful friends enough for the amazing  and fun (and crazy wild) day we had. 

He is the best

 

 

Morgan Stanley fam

LinkedIn family

Best friend

Amazing beautiful wonderful friends

We capped off Saturday night with dinner at Osha Thai and drinks at Local Edition (btw, I am obsessed with this bar....so fun!!!!). 

And then on Sunday, I came home to these cupcakes from Miss Meghan all the way across the world (ok well across the country). AND Matt and I watched Despicable Me 2 AND Monster's University (life win).

Plus who could forget the calls/text messages/surprise hugs/messages/emails from everyone else. And if 26, 27, 28, 29, etc are anything like this birthday, I can't wait for the rest of them. Thank you lovely friends and family for loving me so much on this birthday!

5 days until Graduation!

Do you ever want to start a new blog post, and then you decide not to because there's so much you need to blog about that you just get overwhelmed? Well that's kind of how I feel right now.

From our 5 year anniversary, to Matt's birthday in May, to Ping and Jon's wedding, there is literally SO much I want to blog about. But to be honest, I have had zero desire to blog lately. So for now, I am just counting down to Matt's graduation instead, which will be this Saturday. It's crazy to think of all the things we have conquered and endured and just plain survived over the past few years, and it's crazy to think about how everything is happening exactly how we wanted it to.

So like I said, for now, it's 5 days til Matt's graduation! Here's to hoping that I find the energy to blog about all the other cool stuff that has been happening.

Cheers!
Margaret

COUNTDOWN WEBSITE

Top 5

Lately (for whatever reason) I've been thinking of my top five music artists/songs.  This is kind of a spontaneous post, but I got really excited to write it because it's something I find myself talking about with friends often enough.  "If you were stranded on an island and had to fill your ipod with only 5 musical artists, who would make the cut?"

My Top 5 consists of artists that, at any point in time, I can turn their music on and enjoy with unwavering passion.  Most of these artists are pretty popular so I'm sure you have heard their music before, but if that is not the case I strongly recommend you check them out.

Top 5 musical artists:

1.  The Fray
2.  John Mayer
3.  Trevor Hall
4.  Mat Kearney
5.  Ben Howard

*Honorable Mention
Brett Dennen
Ed Sheeran

Top 5 songs:

1.  How to Save a Life - The Fray
2.  Other Ways - Trevor Hall
3.  Give Me Love - Ed Sheeran
4.  Slow Dancing in a Burning Room - John Mayer
5.  Over My Head - The Fray

I can't wait to come back in 5-10 years and see if any of these top 5 have changed!  Feel free to post your Top 5's of anything!  We'd love to hear from you.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the awesome amazing beautiful wonderful and incredible moms out there who love their children unconditionally all day every day. I know sometimes we can be selfish and annoying and big pains in the butt, but you guys still love us. So thanks for sticking it out with us, we love you times a trillion.

Happy Mother's Day to my beautiful mom, and Matt's beautiful mom, Connie! 

WE LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

PS- Kid President says Happy Mother's Day too!!

VERY (SUPER) EXCITING NEWS!

MATT EVANS GOT A JOB!!!!!

That's right, starting July 8th, Matt will be the newest employee at Backen Gillam Kroeger. He just accepted his job offer the other day (and he still has almost 6 weeks of school left). Needless to say, he is a complete rockstar and I am so incredibly proud of him. For those of you who don't know, he started interning for them the summer of 2011 (and then the summer of 2012), and has been working remotely for them from San Diego since then. We really truly love this architecture firm and all the amazing things they are doing, and we are so excited for Matt to get his start here. 

This leads us to our second piece of exciting news. As you can tell from the letter, the firm is based in Sausalito, CA (which is right across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco). That means...Matt will be relocating to the Bay Area!!!!! Which also means....we won't be the token long-distance relationship couple anymore!!!!! We've known for a few weeks already, but even typing that our right now makes me want to cry (in a really really good way). We are very lucky, and I feel like God has blessed us with so much. We've had our ups and downs like every couples, but really this is probably the most "Up" up ever. Stay tuned for more updates from us, but like I said before, we are so excited to share this news with everyone!!!!!!!!