Happy Anniversary to Us

For Brian's birthday, my parents gave him two tickets to see Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer, and Bela Fleck at the Denver Botanic Gardens. The concert happened to fall on our 4 year wedding anniversary. We sent Sadie to her Nana and Poppy's for the night, packed up our gear and the AMAZING picnic dinner my mom had put together for us, and headed to the gardens for a romantic date night.

The music was so beautiful, and our enjoyment of it was definitely magnified by the fact that we were in the VERY front row...we could watch every move on Bela's banjo which was a real treat for Brian.

What a beautiful night it was, but it wouldn't be complete without a little rain. As we ran back to our car through the rain at the end of the night , we couldn't help but reminisce about our very rainy, but perfectly lovely, wedding day four years ago.....

Fingerpainting Fun

"Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life." — Mark Twain

Every summer I head for the mountains (or some other fun, regional locale) with my dear bookclub friends. This summer we rented a beautiful house in Tabernash, Colorado, which is just past Winter Park.

The house was in a fun, funky neighborhood, had great views, big decks for gazing off into the woods, and was comfortable and cozy inside.

There is really no way for me to describe how perfectly lovely these weekends are, but they are so good for my soul! I always feel refreshed, inspired, educated, connected, and peaceful (although not at all well rested) after spending a weekend with these women! There's just something so healing about having an uninterrupted stretch of time with WOMEN ONLY!!!

We split up the meals and had some amazing food, we (those of us who were not pregnant) drank as much as we could, we played games, and read, and talked talked talked. We discussed a book that I had read for the second time in preparation for the weekend, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. It's one of my favorite books ever, so it was great to discuss it with the group.

We discussed the upcoming births of babies Schleen and Bassin and celebrated one last weekend together before Nikki and Charlotte each became mothers of two! And now they are!!!

It's funny that we all describe each other as "bookclub friends", but the fact is that we've become so much more than that for each other. This summer marked 5 years since our first bookclub meeting. We've had some changes to the "lineup" in the past 5 years, but three of us have been there since day one. I am so thankful to have each and every one of these women in my life...I seriously don't know what I would do without them. They are my closest girlfriends and I look forward to every moment we spend together. Thanks ladies for being such great friends and for being such an amazing support system. I LOVE YOU ALL VERY MUCH!!!