Folks Fest

We waited in line in a field, we played cards, we drank and ate and played video games at Oskar Blues, and we read and relaxed by the river.....

We hugged and laughed and cuddled with each other.....





We soaked up the peace and serenity that the St. Vrain River has to offer and played on its shore...


We listened to, danced to, and watched some GREAT music...



We drank mimosas Friday morning in camp and toasted our five year anniversary....



We ran into the festival grounds with a not so small or light baby strapped on....

We took naps....


We got naked!...


We rejoiced in the experience and said goodbye to another wonderful festival season. Until next year....

My favorite things about this quiet, simple weekend....

image credit

We did a lot this weekend, but for us, it was a quiet weekend. We were close to home, didn't have TOO many things on the agenda that took us away from home, and spent plenty of time doing nothing. Weekends like this are too few for my family...I say that I'd like every weekend to be like this, but realistically with our hobbies, interests, both immediate families who live in town and who we love to spend time with, etc...it's unlikely. So, I just have to enjoy it as much as possible when we get a quiet relaxing weekend like this. A few favorite things...

• Dinner with my family Friday night to celebrate my mom's birthday at Brio. Great food and service, but not too fancy that I was nervous about a wild two-year-old doing her thing during dinner.
  

• Saturday morning at the Castle Rock Farmer's market. Visited with neighbors and friends, and listened to the boys play music for the market's patrons (they made $45)!
  

• BBQ with extended family that we don't see very often, including an uncle that I loved very much growing up and haven't seen in at least a decade.

• Picked up my mandolin for the first time in months. I mostly enjoyed it.

• Popping my own popcorn! It's something I've never done, but have always wanted to. I'm sure this stuff that I usually eat is full of cancer-causing chemicals. I bought a bag of corn kernels at the farmer's market and experimented a bit until I found a temperature and amount of kernels that made a nice big batch.

• Skipped dinner all together Saturday night, but covered my bowl of popcorn with paprika and lime juice. Poured myself a big glass of water, cut up a cantaloupe and took my snacks and drink to bed at 8:30 p.m. Curled up with my laptop to start watching Season One of Weeds..my new favorite show!

• Went for a short run Sunday morning without any significant knee pain. Visualized myself being successful this coming Monday as I run my first half marathon!

• Hung out on the couch with Sadie, iced my knees, and watched Ree Drummond's new Food Network show, which I've been very excited for.
  

• Went out to lunch with the family at Garbanzo, YUM!

• Washed the dog (she needed it, Sadie told me last week that Lily smelled weird)

• Grocery shopping..within my budget! (I'll never get tired of the satisfaction I get from that.)

• Worked in the garden (and harvested a TON of tomatoes, squash, lettuce, and chard) with a big smile on my face the whole time.

• Sunday dinner of grilled salmon and green beans from the Farmer's Market.
  

Meet my new friend....

His name is Niles

You may know this about me, or you can read all about it here and here and here. But this is SERIOUSLY A BIG DEAL!

These pictures represent the culmination of the hardest work I have ever done to change something about myself. This day is on par with the day I got married and the day I gave birth as far as big deal days in my life go. Seriously.

(by the way, I never held him on my own...but I did hold the back half of his body and touched/petted him). I felt and watched his tail (do snakes have tails?) wrap around my finger (that sorta gives me the willies still....) I got up close and took some of these pictures. I checked out the tiny, intricate symmetry of his patterned skin. I watched his body expand and contract with either breaths or heartbeats.

And I continually thanked my therapist for finding the absolute tiniest snake that has ever existed for this exercise.

And I left there feeling on top of the world....I was SO pumped up. I can't stop looking at these pictures. What an amazing life-transforming experience this journey has been for me.

Now, I'm not saying I like snakes. And I will most likely NEVER touch a snake again or get that close again. And if I come across an 8' rattlesnake while hiking in a canyon near my house I will be traumatized.

But I now have the tools, skills, and confidence to live life in a world that is also home to snakes. And if I see a small snake, or even a big snake, I know I can get through it. Before I started working to conquer this phobia, seeing a snake was absolutely NOT EVEN AN OPTION.

And one year ago I would have never in a million years considered even walking in the building if I knew Niles was inside, much less touched and admired him. Wow.

A New Bench and A Handsome Husband

I LOVE this new front porch bench that Brian gave me for our five year anniversary! What a thoughtful and delightful gift....I plan to spend A LOT of time here and hope to be sitting next to this same man on this same bench on our 55th anniversary.

Five

Today is the fifth anniversary of the day I married the love of my life!

Random thoughts about marriage this far into it. And I know I have a lot more to learn, experience, and figure out.

• Marriage is hard. Really hard.
  
• It's really worth it.
• I'm married to an amazing man. Really the perfect man for me.
  
• He puts up with a lot
• I do too (probably not as much as him).
• Isn't that partly what it's about?
• We make good parents
• I think we make good parents because we really love each other and usually treat each other with kindness and respect.
• My husband is sexy.
  
• And funny.
• And a really good banjo player
  
• We are blessed with great friends and family who help support us in our marriage

Happy anniversary my love. I'm thankful every day that we found each other.

Poppy's Boat

So, in the next 12-18 months, you'll probably hear a lot about my awesome dad and his big adventure on this blog (and hopefully on his very own blog!).

Sneak preview: my dad is retiring soon...very soon. He'll be happy to tell you exactly how many months/weeks/days/hours/seconds until he retires. Sometime next June he'll be done working hard after a successful, interesting, and varied career. And a week later, he'll embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

He'll be taking a boat trip from northern Montana to Key West, Florida. Seriously. On inland waterways (rivers, etc.) the entire way. More details to come. And while we, his family, have been (just a little bit) ignoring him and tuning him out while he talked about these big plans for the last few years (maybe we weren't sure they'd actually happen...), we now know that this is really happening! Because he's the proud owner of this new boat!

He and my mom found it in the Pacific Northwest a couple months ago, and my dad and Uncle Al drove it back from there a few weeks later (after the manufacturer pimped it out a bit more...).

And now it resides in my parents' driveway. Unless it's out on the water. We were the last of the immediate family to find time for a test drive of the boat a couple weekends ago. And what fun we had. We spent the day tooling around 11-mile Reservoir near Lake George, CO.

And Sadie LOVED it! Which amazed her mama and dada. She must be taking after her Poppy, who she likes to tell us "is a boat guy".