Date Night

My favorite thing about my husband Zac is that he is my best friend.  I truly enjoy being in the same room as him.  He can make me laugh with his silly antics, and sometimes he knows how I'm feeling even before I do.  Our relationship started off as friends, and that has remained our core over the years.

One challenge that parenthood has brought is that we don't have as much time as before to hang out with one another.  Some days in the course of the last few months I have looked at him at in the evening as we are slumped on the couch, dozing off from an exhausting day, and said, "I miss you."  Even though I have seen him or have spent the entire day with him, we don't have the time to actually look one another in the eye and have a conversation.  I miss my best friend.

Enter Sunday.  We got the go-ahead a few weeks ago from the attachment specialist that we could have a babysitter for Feven.  My sister, brother-in-law, and niece came over to our house and Zac and I ran out the door! 

Well, not exactly.  We did the proper thing by getting Feven used to her caregivers for the night, we spent time saying our usual goodbye to her, and then we ran out the door!

What freedom there was in leaving our daughter in the great care of my sister and her family!  What freedom there was in having a whole 2 hours to spend with only each other!  What bliss! 

We purchased sandwiches and brought them to a lake near where we lived when we were first married.  We had our supper on the grass near a waterfall and people-watched for awhile.  We then went to Grand Ave in St. Paul to get ice cream and walked down the street hand in hand.  Simple, yet amazing.  What a great night!

Olympics

I am really getting into the Olympics this year.  Not only am I excited to cheer on our American athletes, but I'm also excited to cheer on the Ethiopian athletes.  Zac and I have been closely following the running events with Ethiopians competing.  It's been so much fun!  I think our interest has certainly been heightened by our trips this year to Ethiopia, but also because we are starting to understand how important running is to this country.  And, of course, there's Feven.  :)

The races thus far have been aired during Feven's naps, but the women's marathon was on Sunday morning from 5am-7:30am.  We watched the last 4 miles together as a family and it was so exciting!  We tried to teach Feven to cheer for Ethiopia.  This is what we got:

Not a bad start!  That last picture looks like she's practicing her finish.  Maybe we'll have a runner on our hands!

Bare Feet and Blueberry Pie

Last year when my friend showed me pictures of a house she and her husband were considering purchasing, the front porch caught my eye.  I told her that looks like a great porch on which to sit and drink wine coolers together.  I made her promise that if they got that house, we could spend an afternoon or evening doing that very thing.

Yesterday was the day.  And while we didn't have wine coolers (she happens to be 5 months pregnant!), we did have cookies, sweet tea, fresh cherry tomatoes, and blueberry pie.  I took my shoes off and we leaned back in our chairs and began to catch up on the many things that have happened in our lives since we talked last.

I can't think of a better way to have spent the afternoon.  It was glorious for so many reasons.  I think one of the best things was the temperature.  It was in the high 70's after a stretch of two months of heat and humidity.  Our town has seen more days in the 90's than any other summer I can remember.  I have talked with others who have "cabin fever" because it's too hot and humid outside to do anything!  Finally the heat broke, and I got to enjoy the afternoon in the company of a cool breeze and a great friend.  Summer.

The Library

I'm a complete book nerd.  I know I've talked about my love of books before, but it's worth mentioning again: I love books.

Summer childhood memories for me are filled with trips to the Bookmobile, our public school library which was open a few days a week in the summer, or the BIG library in the neighboring town.  Ooooh, it was so much fun to look at all of the books on the shelves, examine the covers and read the summaries on the back!  Which stories would grab my attention?  Who would I meet in the stories and what would I learn from them?  It was all I could do to not get sucked in right there amidst the library shelves!

Yesterday got to be a loooong day, so Feven and I went on a trip to the library.  She has a ways to go yet before she can fully appreciate the library, so I chose the books this time.  When we got home, I put the book bag on the floor and went to the kitchen to put away some groceries.  I came back in to find Feven taking the books out of the book bag and paging through them.  Yahoo!  A book lover in the making!  I joined her and began paging through the new books myself.  How exciting!

Feven and I read at least 9 books together each day.  You can imagine how quickly we read through our own collection at this rate!  These fresh books were such a treat for both of us!

The Zoo!

We've been making good use of our zoo membership this summer.  It was an incredibly thoughtful gift given to us for Feven's first birthday.

Yesterday we visited the zoo with our good friends, one of whom was celebrating her birthday.

Here's Feven, all ready for the day!

We got to watch a diver give a lesson on the fish from inside the tank!

Probably the coolest thing we did was go through the butterfly garden.  Butterflies fluttered all around us and landed on the most colorful flowers.  It was incredible!

Here's Feven and I in the butterfly garden.

And we had to stop and see the goats.  Feven gets braver and braver each time we come.  This time she wanted to touch the goats, but as soon as one popped its head out the openings in the fence, she'd run back to mama!

What a great day at the zoo!  It was so good, in fact, that Feven was asleep in the car by the time we got to the end of the zoo's driveway!  Score one for mama for a quiet drive home!