Weekending

The Graduate! 

what a full and wonderful weekend! still recovering...need to get my second cup of coffee because that first one barely dented the brick mass that once was a brain. so excuse me if there are typos a plenty...

We started the weekend fun-o-rama with my niece's graduation party - just as i was starting to get over the fact that she is 18...boom! she graduates from High School. so nuts. I can't believe my brother has an 18 year old daughter. he seems like he is about that age himself sometimes :) but we stayed the night at my brothers and my boys love it there - swimming and getting teased by uncle jake - what more could you want?

my SIL threw the party for Katie and it was so nice - nice to see family and friends gather and have some time to actually chat (after the boys went to bed of course...before that i just kind of start a conversation and then run around chasing little people) i feel like most parties/gatherings i go to with my boys i can never fully participate at because its peppered with "MOM!" or tugging on my skirt or bruised knees or...or....or... - so its nice when we can stay the night somewhere and have some exhale time and catch up with people for longer than 5 minute spurts. There was a taco guy there too that was pretty amazing i must say. and i must...you will find that food will interject here and there because we write about the things closest to our hearts do we not? right...so...the tacos...the al pastor especially...yum! anyway...i had some amazing conversations and got to connect with people i don't usually get to. i am so excited to see what Katie does- where she goes, what she discovers. Such an exciting time of life, no?

The next day was my sister's baby shower. oh goodness - i didn't take a single photo. bad sister! i know some other people did though - so when they post them on FB i will just have to steal them :)

Such a lovely shower - thrown by my Aunt Stephanie and my cousin Missie...or Melissa, i guess - but to me she will always be Missie :) - they wrote the book on showers - every detail was touched by a loving hand - carefully put together for her because they love her and wanted to shower her with blessings and love. and they did and she was. Such a neat part for me was seeing all the women from our church growing up who raised children alongside my mom. at one point i was looking through my sister's baby book and there was a list of who gave what to my mom and so many of those women were there in that room...now giving gifts to that baby's baby...so amazing. it made me think of the women i have found in my church that i am raising babes with alongside right now. to share in that time. to have community like that - to know that these friendships will last a generation and longer - that is powerful and wonderful. i kinda feel like it might be similar to a war buddy...you go through something that traumatic and stressful together and you can't help but be kindered to each other. maybe motherhood is not like war...but you get what i am trying to say!

My wonderful husband had the boys for the day so i could spend some time with the women in my life who mean the most to me - cousins and aunts and friends and my sister of course! it was an emotional day and an amazingly beautiful shower - forever memorable!

Then...after that...it was Parent's Night Out at Bodie's school - we took all 3 boys to Bodie's pre-school from 3:30 - 8:00. we didn't have any plans...we came home from dropping them off and looked at each other, like "what do we do? its so quiet!" so then we took a nap. seriously. that is what we did with part of our PNO. sad. but also awesome. then...when we woke up we rode bikes down to 2nd street and enjoyed a meal together.  we ran into some old friends and new friends and the ride back to the pre-school i just had a big goofy grin on my face thinking about how much i love this place we live.

The next day after church we drove straight up to Ojai for a BBQ with our college friends. Our friends Jon and Anna recently moved to Ojai into the cutest little house with the best backyard. Our friends all kind of got into cooking around the same time...so its always amazing just to hang out because you know that not only do you get to be around some of the best people in the world...you also get to eat the yummiest food - julia made an awesome corn salad and that beautiful cake you see up there...rhubarb and strawberries and angel food - all from scratch...thank you...i brought some of my beer and this salad that i need to blog about and Solera brought the rhubarb strawberry crumble that i had to have seconds on...jon and anna made the most delicious salsa and roasted veggies and sangria...and everything was of course amazing. the day was lovely - there were a lot of boys (we missed you Hansens and Bartels!) but i deemed it a success that no real damage was done to the house (minus a now bubbly fountain thanks to bobby dumping a bottle of bubbles in it) and no real damage done to any of the children. are my standards now too low, i wonder? perhaps - but perhaps that is also why i am so happy!