What a weekend!

This weekend was one of the best I've had in a long time. I think the extra-greatness came from a combination of finally starting to feel better, warm, warm weather down in Phoenix, and being able to spend two whole days with my family, both immediate and extended. My Uncle Brian and cousin Daron Grace flew in from New York and we spent the weekend eating way too much, looking at so many old, amazing photos, and catching up. My sister and I also decided we were feeling brave and took Daron shopping for some clothes. Keep in mind that she is 12-years old- that should help you make sense of the "brave" part. I had no idea it was so difficult to find modest length shorts for a little girl!

Saturday was also my sweet mama's birthday, and she turned 58! My Aunt Pat and Uncle Bob came up, and we all celebrated together with a big meal and a delicious ice cream cake. Afterward Henry had a bit of an early Easter and made out like a bandit, thanks to my parents. He's super into Elmo right now and my sister and Abe got him the cutest little singing Elmo doll too. He's a lucky boy.

Some of my most favorite parts- the long walk my Mom, Hank, Henry and I took Sunday morning, the Greek yogurt onion dip my Mom made, watching Henry get so excited over his new treasures, dinner at Nando's Friday night (I could live on guacamole), and seeing how happy my Mom was to be surrounded by almost all of her family. It was such a good weekend. 

We have a busy, busy week ahead and I can't say enough how excited I am to be (almost) back to normal. If you remember I had that crazy food poisoning in San Francisco, followed by that weird prolonged sickness, and then this whole wisdom teeth thing. I'm never, ever sick, so it's been a very weird past couple of months...and to to say I have a new appreciation of feeling healthy and happy is an understatement.

Here are some Instagram photos from the past couple of days. Enjoy!


my still swollen face on Day 9, Mexican food with the whole family, smoothies and shorts- it almost felt like summer! shopping with Laur and Daron, Lauren's "I'm done" smile, the guys and the dogs heading to the park to throw around the football.


the birthday girl, Carvel ice cream cake- so good! Uncle Brian and Daron, our 2nd frozen yogurt trip of the day, our big family Sunday dinner, and Henry zoning out while watching basketball in his new chair from Grandma and Grandpa.

Sick day!

my dearest girlfriends for 10+ years, celebrating on Saturday night: Autumn, Erin, Shirley, me, and Alana.

I think sick days should be outlawed on Mondays. Poor Hank...we had the best weekend but then last night around 7pm his stomach started bothering him. We made it home, but around 1am the throwing up started. Yuck. I feel terrible to see him sick, but luckily he was able to stay home today and recuperate. Needless to say it's been a long day taking care of my two guys but now both of them are napping and I thought I'd take a moment to type out a little update.

The weekend was great, and we got to celebrate three of our friends' 30th birthdays on Saturday night. Erin and Alana had a joint party that started in Scottsdale with a scavenger hunt all around town, complete with Hummer limos.  Hank and I skipped that activity in favor of stopping by the party later in the evening (we're such old people sometimes) but it was fun to hear all about the wild day our friends had. After leaving Alana's house we went over to Canteen on Mill Ave. in Tempe to meet up with Sarah and friends, and we had a great night celebrating her as well!

It was weird because earlier in the day I popped over to CVS to pick up some cards, and found myself looking at the "sweet 16" cards in serious amazement. I've written about turning 30 probably more times than necessary, but I don't think it was until Saturday afternoon that it really hit me. For some reason those cards made me realize just how long ago my "sweet 16" actually was, and I think I probably stood in that section of the cards for 20 minutes too long, staring wistfully off into space, remembering my 16-year-old self, my sky-blue VW Passat, and how I thought I knew everything. It's insane that was over 15 years ago. Where did the time go? I swear, sometimes I still feel like I'm a teenager and I don't even know how I got here. Deep thoughts from the card aisle, I guess.

But anyway, yay for birthday fun. But not yay for me not taking any photos the entire night with my regular camera. So in lieu of those I have some iphone photos to share from the weekend, as much as I hate to share yet another IG collage. I prefer real, pretty photos to the washed out graininess of phone pictures, but beggars can't be choosers I guess. ;) I'm happy to at least have these.

I hope you had a great weekend! xoxo

Henry kills me with his cuteness // family photo // a delicious. super healthy pizza at my Mom's // Sar and me //

Auntie Lo and H. shopping at Whole Foods // heading out on Sunday morning // Sunday dinner - garden

fresh veggies and quinoa // some of my favorite people - Nat and Sar // Grandpa, Grammy and Henry

Pieces of Our Weekend

my wild man tearing across our library // a beautiful sunset from our front porch // Henry's breakfast- he'll eat anything right now and I'm loving it // part one of our bedroom makeover - a new super-cozy all-white bed setup // the face of a boy at Kindermusik class, touching every button on the teacher's CD player as I tell him not to. Of course. ha! // our every-changing mantle // my first night back at the gym, post-food poisoning...I was so excited // an evening walk and a stop at the pond in our neighborhood // early morning comfy, cozy Yo Gabba Gabba in bed

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It's been a great weekend and I am so excited about lots of things on the horizon. FOUR of my friends are turning 30 this month (insane right?) but I am really looking forward some great celebrations. I also have some fun dinner ideas to try out and I'm happy to be back in the swing of things. I'm never sick so when I am I feel like it really, really throws me off. Last week was kind of a bust with the whole post-San Francisco illness thing so here's to a healthy week and here's to NOT throwing up. ha.

Oh, and I wanted to write a little about our new bed set up- we originally were going to get the West Elm Cotton Pintuck duvet but then discovered that Target had a remarkably similar one for half the price. We have quite a few WE linens in our home and after seeing both in person I didn't see much difference between Target's version and theirs...so we went for it. I'm totally happy and my wallet is a lot happier too! I've had a lot of feedback on Twitter and Instagram about the bedspread so if you've been lusting over the gorgeous West Elm duvet, totally check out Target's version. 

I'll be back tomorrow with a Music Monday post and a Clean-Eating Challenge wrap up. Until then! xoxo

San Francisco

What a weekend! I'm trying to totally ignore the fact that the last half-day of our trip and traveling home was filled with the worst food poisoning in the world and just focus on all of the good parts. Because there were a ton! I feel really grateful that we were able to spend some time on a mini-vacation and as always, Hank and I had the best time together. We missed Henry likes crazy but it was good to have some "us" time, and sometimes shaking up your scenery is just what you need to make home feel even better than it does. And as much as I enjoy time away, there is nothing like coming back to our little town. I could never, ever live in a big city. I'm more than happy to visit, but give me my 35 mph roads and restaurants where the servers know what we order.  I'm a small-town girl all the way.

But like I said above, our big-city visit was fantastic. Our dear friend Alex hosted us and showed us around his city, and pulled out all the stops. We ate wonderful food (minus the food-poisoned vegan tacos at Gracias Madre- yuck!) and I stuck to my no-sugar plan. Hank got fulfill one of his childhood dreams and spent some time with "the man" George Lucas and nerd out at Lucasfilm. We facetimed with Alex's adorable girlfriend, met his lovely friends, tasted some of the most delicious Gouda of my life, and strolled through the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. We attended the Super7 art show on Saturday evening, and I got to do a few things I've always wanted to do while in SF, including visiting the Full House hill and taking photos in front of the Golden Gate bridge. And if you were ever curious about the type of girl I really am, just know that yes, I did YouTube the Full House intro so we could listen to it during our picnic.

It's weekends like these that I am incredibly grateful to be married to my best friend. Hank is without a doubt my most favorite travel partner, co-adventurer, and person to share new experiences with. He also put up with my wretchedly-sick self all the way home on our return flight. So as Andy Cohen would say, "Mazel, Hank!"

Here are some photos from our trip- and thank you again Alex for making our visit so enjoyable. We love you!

30th Birthdays and Early Christmases

What a weekend! It's been such a good past couple of days and despite a trip to the mall, my holiday spirit is still in tact. Friday we headed down to my parents' to spend time with family, get our Christmas shopping completed, celebrate our friend Jeffs' 30th birthday, and have an early holiday on Sunday with my Aunt Pat and Uncle Bob. Needless to say the last two days have been busy, but definitely in a good way.

Friday night we headed down south and spent some quality time hanging out with my parents' before heading to bed early. My Mom has converted the two upstairs bedrooms into guest rooms, so Henry sleeps in what used to be my sisters' bedroom and Hank and I sleep in my old room. It's a far cry from what it used to look like in junior high and high school (I had pictures and posters plastered in every corner of the room), but it's still fun to sleep up there- I'm always flooded with so many memories. If I'm feeling especially nostalgic, my big closet is filled with boxes and boxes of photos, notes from friends, and various treasures from back in the day. There have been so many nights I've gotten lost in those boxes, and it's incredibly fun (and usually embarrassing) to sift through all of it.

Saturday morning Hank and I headed out on a little daytime date. We first stopped by Green for lunch then spent the afternoon Christmas shopping. This year I tried to do most of our shopping in town, but there were a few items we had to pick up while down in the valley.  It was such a fun day though, and I most enjoyed just walking around and spending time with Hank...and ending our day with frozen yogurt.  I need to talk about this frozen yogurt trip for a minute too because it was probably the best combination I've ever had- Yogurtland's Madagascar Vanilla Bean with their Kona Coffee flavor. Delicious!



After shopping we came home and got ready for Jeff's 30th birthday party, whose wife Erin is a good friend of mine.  I've written about her many times before, but Erin and I met my freshman year of college at NAU when we both lived in Sechrist (one of the freshman dorms). We instantly clicked, and both ended up rushing, pledging, and joining Pi Phi. We spent all of college side by side, and have had some great times together. Since we all graduated from NAU back in 2004 our group of friends has stayed in tact, and it's pretty neat to go through so many of life's milestones together. Erin and I even had our sons just months apart. This past weekend her husband Jeff turned 30, and Erin threw him a Mad Men-themed party. It was a ton of fun, and all of the little details she put together were awesome. I'm not a big drinker and Hank doesn't drink at all, but it was still so fun to see all of the signature cocktails being made. Hank even got in on the action with one of the fake cigarettes pictured below and a Shirley Temple. :) It was a great night spent with really great people.

Then today we had an early Christmas with my Aunt and Uncle since we won't be seeing them next weekend. We ate a big dinner then had fun watching Henry open his presents. I know I've probably already said this 100x, but celebrating holidays with Henry is the best. He makes everything so much more fun. My favorite part of today though would definitely have to have been sitting around the dining room table with my Grandma, Mom, Aunt and sister girl-talking about everything and anything under the sun. We probably scared Lauren from ever wanting to have babies (birth story overload) but it was just so much fun talking for so long.










So, that was our weekend! I hope you had a great one too. xoxo