Halloween:
Well technically this happened the week before Halloween, but I have to brag about Peter and his total Cake Boss-ness. We were celebrating Ethan's 3rd birthday, and for three months straight he's been praying for a Thomas the Train cake. Like literally, praying every night at bedtime prayers, "...and for my Thomas cake? In October?" So I was on the phone with Whole Foods trying to figure out if they could make a dairy-free Thomas cake for us when all of a sudden I hear Ethan piping up in the background, "I want an Olaf cake!!!"
Seriously? Seriously.
So I change gears and ask Whole Foods about an Olaf cake, and they start telling me about all of these licensing issues and how they can only make a snowman cake with similar features. At the same time I here Peter saying, "It's fine, I'll make an Olaf cake for him out of Rice Krispies. It'll be easy!" So I try to stall on the phone with the poor lady in the bakery, while giving Peter the raised eyebrow look that says "I'm past my cake baking days so if you say you want to make a dairy-free cake, you're on your own, champ." But even with The Look, Peter meant business. So I said goodbye to Whole Foods, and on the morning of the party I woke up to this:
Actually I woke up to Peter showing me a picture of the cake, so I asked sleepily, "oh is that what you're going to try from Pinterest?" To which he answered "that's our kitchen, silly!" Ten million kudos to my husband, winner of the 'I-can-create-dairy-free-Rice-Krispie-treat-masterpieces-like-a-boss' award.
Onto real Halloween:
Marie wanted to be Elsa--imagine that!!! (we didn't play the game but we should've)--and Ethan wanted to be Olaf (see above story) and Erik said he supposed he could be Kristoff. So we decided that the rest of us might as well play along because this is probably the only year that we could get anywhere close to pulling off a family theme. Frozen-ween it was. Peter wanted to be the obscure character Oaken (yoo-hoo!) which left me to play Anna. Oh and we subjected Samson to some Sven antlers, because why not?
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| Blood, sweat, and tears, people. |
I made the mistake of deciding to make two of the costumes--mine and Erik's (you think I would've learned from that errant period when thought I would be the mom who makes all their birthday cakes). And I made the hat for Peter's costume as well.
So much.cutting.and.sewing.
So.little.patience.
But it all came together in the end and we had a fun night trick-or-treating, Frozen-style.
AnniDrill-iversary:
The day after Halloween conveniently happened to be an Army Reserves drill weekend for us (and my first official drill). So we packed up the kids immediately and drove them to my in-laws for bedtime (we dropped them off the night before since Peter and I had to be up at 4am the next morning). The weekend also happened to be a 3-day instead of 2-day weekend, which meant the third day fell on our Anniversary. Happy 7 years of bliss to us! But I was more than thankful that we were together, and even got a sit-down lunch together; I'd say that 4 out of 7 anniversaries together is pretty darn good considering all the couples we know who have had to be geographically separated for a lot more than that!
So much.cutting.and.sewing.
So.little.patience.
But it all came together in the end and we had a fun night trick-or-treating, Frozen-style.
The day after Halloween conveniently happened to be an Army Reserves drill weekend for us (and my first official drill). So we packed up the kids immediately and drove them to my in-laws for bedtime (we dropped them off the night before since Peter and I had to be up at 4am the next morning). The weekend also happened to be a 3-day instead of 2-day weekend, which meant the third day fell on our Anniversary. Happy 7 years of bliss to us! But I was more than thankful that we were together, and even got a sit-down lunch together; I'd say that 4 out of 7 anniversaries together is pretty darn good considering all the couples we know who have had to be geographically separated for a lot more than that!
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| You know how they say couples start to look alike after so many years together? |
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| Anniversary roses from my love |
Charleston:
Of course we couldn't just leave our 7th anniversary at that. I mean, seven is my favorite number and all and I'm all about making a big deal out of seven years, so we jet-settled off to Charleston, SC the next weekend for a getaway after depositing the kids at my generous in-laws' house again (they are racking up some major sainthood points, these grandparents!). It was actually a getaway with a purpose, though--my old college roomie was getting married, and I had the great honor of being a part of her beautiful wedding!
So Peter finished out his last day at the VA on Thursday, and we took off bright (dark) and early Friday.
It was a lot of travel since we flew into Columbia and then rented a car to drive the rest of the way to Charleston. But the weekend was a blast, and we even ended up getting a sweet Camero out of the deal! (It was either get "upgraded" to that or a pickup. Now we know to never, ever, ever get one--you know, just in case we somehow manage to consider a low rider during a future mid-life crisis).
We had fun at the rehearsal dinner and catching up with everyone afterwards over some drinks. Then it was wedding day! The bride was absolutely stunning...and it was so good to hang out after so long (we've only seen each other once in the past seven years)!
The wedding just as lovely, and after the ceremony the wedding party got to ride around downtown Charleston in a sweet vintage bus and take pictures.
Speaking of pictures, my classmate and beautiful mom friend Vanessa (who I also haven't seen in person in seven years!) took these seriously amazing pictures of us. Can you tell that she has a background in photography? She is SO talented!
Another cool aside: my kind mother-in-law let me borrow some of her grandmother's vintage costume jewelry for the wedding. When I went to pick it up, she had pulled out this photo of her grandmother wearing it. It was so neat to have the connection and see it in person!
But back to the wedding: we took bridal pictures around Charleston until sunset and then drove to the Francis Marion Hotel, which is where we stayed and where the reception was. I might add that Charleston is stunning--I've been in the area before but not the actual city, and for how much I love Colorado, I do miss the colonial influence in the architecture and the character that older cities have. It just doesn't exist in the same way out west, so Peter and I both appreciated the deep history of the area and were blown away by the beauty and character of the city. Not enough to ever leave here, but enough to definitely plan for a future trip!
At the wedding reception we had so much fun connecting or re-connecting with classmates and friends after so many years, and even though some of them were only acquaintances at school or people we didn't really remember. I think that's one of the coolest things about having the unique kind of Alma Mater that we do--we can easily relate to one another and genuinely enjoy our time together, even without knowing each other that well, because the experience we've all shared is has bonded us in a way that few others can relate to.
The festivities ended too soon, but we had fun going out together afterwards with some friends until it was time to turn in our old people cards and head to bed.
Belated Anniversary
The day after the wedding, we planned a full day for our belated anniversary celebration. We went to the Cathedral for church, walked around downtown Charleston, got brunch, did some shopping, and then got ready for a nice dinner at a well-reputed steakhouse.
The festivities ended too soon, but we had fun going out together afterwards with some friends until it was time to turn in our old people cards and head to bed.
Belated Anniversary
The day after the wedding, we planned a full day for our belated anniversary celebration. We went to the Cathedral for church, walked around downtown Charleston, got brunch, did some shopping, and then got ready for a nice dinner at a well-reputed steakhouse.
I was really excited for our dinner from the moment I called to make the reservation the week prior, because the host not only asked if we would be celebrating an occasion, he also asked "are there any food allergies that we can be aware of?" For those of you who deal with this in a regular basis, you know what a big deal that is. For those of you who don't, imagine the restaurant scene from When Harry Met Sally when Sally (who doesn't think she's high maintenance but really is) orders her lunch. Then imagine getting to be just like her every.time.you.eat.out. It's miserable.
But I digress. While I was excited about the service and that people cared about my food issues, little did I know that I should be more excited about my impending first celebrity encounter. The waiter seated us, and we were the only couple so far on the third floor dining room, but soon there was a flurry of activity setting up the table behind us and the staff all seemed to have this suppressed sense of urgency. Soon a few more people started floating in, including a group that sat down at the table behind us. I was facing away from them, but it took all of two seconds for Peter to excitedly get my attention and whisper "THAT'S BILL MURRAY!" Of course I didn't believe him and thought he was trying to play some silly joke on me, or infer that the older man in that group behind us just looked like Bill Murray or something. But I snuck a peek and, nope, not a look-alike--it was totally him!
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| At the hotel before dinner |
But I digress. While I was excited about the service and that people cared about my food issues, little did I know that I should be more excited about my impending first celebrity encounter. The waiter seated us, and we were the only couple so far on the third floor dining room, but soon there was a flurry of activity setting up the table behind us and the staff all seemed to have this suppressed sense of urgency. Soon a few more people started floating in, including a group that sat down at the table behind us. I was facing away from them, but it took all of two seconds for Peter to excitedly get my attention and whisper "THAT'S BILL MURRAY!" Of course I didn't believe him and thought he was trying to play some silly joke on me, or infer that the older man in that group behind us just looked like Bill Murray or something. But I snuck a peek and, nope, not a look-alike--it was totally him!
I sat there grinning stupidly at Peter for awhile, incapable of carrying on a normal conversation other than an "I can't believe it!" and "he's really right there, crazy!" Peter could see more of what was going on than I could, but there were about five people total in his party (including two teens/preteens) and another gentleman who joined them a bit later. We heard him talking about the game Pass the Pigs and the movies (apparently he's filming again) and telling George Clooney stories. We were too chicken (and thought it would be too rude and annoying) to disturb him when he was out to dinner with who we thought could have been family. All the other parties at the other tables either agreed or they didn't realize it was him. Either way, there was no big commotion, just us secretly googling stuff about him from our phones. Eventually we both recovered enough to act normal and have a nice anniversary dinner between the two of us. But I did get a selfie that he "happened" to photobomb, as well as a picture of dessert. Because you can't sit next to a celebrity for over an hour and not have proof!
Return to the Polar Vortex-pocalypse
We flew back the next day, and obviously someone thought I was whining too much about how cold it was in Charleston (sweater weather and lots of clouds/rain when I wanted it to be sunny), because we returned to perfectly-iced roads and a cool Colorado breeze of -3 degrees.
I was *thisclose* to taking back what I said about never leaving Colorado. But we finally did get our 50 degrees back, even if it took a whole week. Peter took the week off and we both jumped back into the busyness of real life until it was suddenly his first day of work at his new job:
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| Yep. At 10am. |
I was *thisclose* to taking back what I said about never leaving Colorado. But we finally did get our 50 degrees back, even if it took a whole week. Peter took the week off and we both jumped back into the busyness of real life until it was suddenly his first day of work at his new job:
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| His caption, not mine: "Boy, that commute from the kitchen was rough!" |
He hasn't actually spent much time in his home office during the first two weeks, though--he's been busy running around to meetings and visiting his clinics. But let me tell you, seeing him occasionally at lunch and being able to eat dinner a whole hour and a half earlier--together--life-changing!
Oh, and I also got my hair chopped after we got back:
Hair this short is a huge deal for me since I've only ever had it this short once before in like middle school. But I've been wanting a mom-bob/lob for awhile now. It only took me 3 years to work up the courage to go through with it...no regrets! I love it!
No more updates, either...that about covers it for the past month or so! Hopefully I'll be back again in less than a that for the next update. Ha. Haha.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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