College friends

About thirty years ago, I started college and made new friends. A group of five of us have been in each other's lives since then. The last time we all managed to get together was October 2019. This past week, four of us managed to get together to celebrate our 30 years. (Sadly, one of us couldn't make this reunion.) So very thankful for friends!!

We flew into Seattle. Melissa Lynn picked the rest of us up at the airport (she lives in Washington) and we drove to our lodging at The Camlin in downtown Seattle. It was lovely and we were able to park there securely and just walk the rest of the time. 

Overall, there was a lot of visiting, a lot of walking, a lot of yummy eats, and a lot of good times.

Along the way, we wandered down to Pike Place Market. I found this picture from the last time we were all there together in August 1999 and paired it with one from Tuesday...

...and here are other pictures from various moments at Pike Place and the waterfront...

(a bucket of mimosas, the disgustingly famous gum wall, getting pastries from Three Girls Bakery, down on the wharf, the beautiful flowers, and other pictures)

On Wednesday, we took the Underground Tour. None of us had done one before and our guide, Andie, was fabulous. We truly enjoyed it and learned a lot...

And here are some random photos from our time...

(on the monorail, at The Waterfall Garden Park (the birthplace of UPS), at the Seattle Center and at the airport)

While at the Seattle Center, we opted to bypass the Space Needle (we've done that before) and visited the Chihuly Glass Exhibit, which was very cool...

And then we all headed back to our lives and the rest of the summer...feeling incredibly blessed to have such good, lifelong friends. 

21

My Asher turned 21 yesterday. Twenty one. 

We didn't do anything overly exciting...went to lunch up in Old Town at 415 then got dessert at The Waffle Lab and Walrus...wandered Old Town a bit before picking up the week's groceries and heading home...and watched the third Hobbit movie. (We started rewatching The Hobbit on movie night this week, lol.) After dinner, we had some cookie cake. Good eats and good time together. :) 

Along the way, I tried to get some decent birthday photos. This was the best of the lot...

(I'm biased but he's pretty handsome, right? Maybe needs a haircut, though, lol.)

...but I also ended up with a lot like these...

Yup, he has a very expressive face and can definitely be a goofball. Also, he's way bigger than 21 years ago...

(Given that they're all mostly done growing now, I don't have height comparison photos this year.)  

So, let's see. My Asher is getting ready to transfer to UNC (University of Northern Colorado) after taking this past year off and learning more about himself while taking flight lessons and working at YMCA after school programs. It's been lovely to watch him...trying on different ideas and starting to listen more closely to what makes him happy. He'll be majoring in Sport & Exercise Science: Physical Education K-12 Teaching...is actually looking forward to some of his classes...and will be living on campus in a dorm but coming home (it's about 40 minutes away) at least some weekends to still participate in his karate demo team. He's been enjoying adding more tricking posts to his Instagram account (@ashertricks) and attending tricking classes down in Denver on the weekends. He still likes gaming online with friends and can be relied on to agree with me on movies moreso than his brothers, lol. 

Happy sigh. This guy. He's a hard worker...a team player...a great listener. We're looking forward to this coming adventure and hoping it brings him much joy and confidence.

Montana

We drove to Montana over the weekend to Nathan's parents' place and had a lovely visit. We spent about 13 hours on the road on Friday (about 11 hours of drive time plus stops) and arrived in time for the boys to get a quick tour before calling it a night (it was the first time they'd seen the new house).

Saturday, we drove up to Garnet Ghost Town. It was a bumpy ride and we ran into some rain to start, but it turned out to be a sunny afternoon wandering the surprisingly intact settlement. 

There was also some sort of festival going on but we apparently arrived at the tail end of that so didn't really participate beyond being impressed by the number of people who'd made the drive. 

And we remembered to take a group picture before leaving...

Aside from our trip to Garnet and some time on Sunday in Philipsburg taking John to a Father's Day lunch and then enjoying the famous candy store and a couple others, we mostly just hung out at the house...playing pinochle and listening to the rain.

Here are some more pictures...

...of the boys during our road trip (they sleep in strange positions, lol)...of Micah and Noah helping chop firewood...of us all managing to make s'mores between downpours...and of Asher, Nathan and I helping hang a few more pictures in the basement. We'd hoped to also help with starting Nancy's rock crevice garden outside but sadly the rain and temperatures didn't cooperate.

And now we're home again with Nathan and Noah back to work this morning. A short but sweet visit. :) 

Thankful Thursday: Mostly Micah edition

Happy middle of June! This week's Thankful Thursday is brought to you mostly by Micah...

1. Spartan Race. Micah ran another Spartan Race on Sunday. Last year, he and two friends did the 5K race and this year the three of them tackled the 10K race (10K running and 25 obstacles). Again, one of the friend's dads drove them down and managed a few pictures for us...

Notice how light and pink Micah's shorts were at the start and how brown they were by the end, lol. Fortunately this year I didn't just trust Micah when he said he'd rinsed everything before throwing stuff in the washing machine. We set everything out in the downpour we had that evening and it rinsed much of the mud away. Then Nathan and I both rinsed everything a couple times before finally washing things. My washer survived much better this year. ;) (Micah's shoes, though, ended up in the trash, lol. He needed new ones anyhow.)

So now the boys have done the 5K and the 10K. Their goal is to actually do some training and do the 25K next year. Thankful he has these friends to do things like this with...that he enjoys pushing himself...that the plan to train for next year will keep these three in touch even when they're at different schools. Thankful mostly, though, that Micah's been feeling well enough to have done this at all. If you'd asked us in March, there's no way we'd have thought he'd be able to run 10K, let alone run it with obstacles. 

2. Peonies. Okay, this isn't about Micah but just look at how crazy big my peonies are...

Once we finally had a minute where it wasn't raining, they exploded! And, for whatever reason, one of my plants had a single pink peony this year. No idea how that happened, as I know it's a white peony plant (and has been for like nine years). 

3. College shopping. The dorm shopping has begun. :) On Monday, Micah and I did some clothes and shoe shopping. On Tuesday, Micah, Asher and I went down to IKEA to beat the back to school rush. Asher didn't end up finding the things he was looking for (he has most everything he needs still packed away from when he lived in Omaha) but was a good sport and a good driver of our cart. Micah found a good number of things...which are now in piles in our front room, lol. Along the way, he took a break to chill in the children's area...

Thankful for the time together with my guys!

4. Little things. And finally...just thankful for the little things today. Micah and Asher helped a friend of a friend of mine with unloading a U-Haul this morning. Thankful they were able and willing to help, as I remember what a pain it is to move. :)

After that, Micah had another infusion. He was particularly thankful to order a bagel with cream cheese and a strawberry milkshake. (He'd recently eaten but was "willing" to eat again, lol.) 

He'd been planning to eat the last bagel earlier this week and had even hidden it away to save it for himself. But Nathan ate it. And Micah was sad (and a little salty, lol). So he was delighted to see it on the menu today. And he enjoyed the bendy straw. He's easily amused. :) 

And after we got home, Micah got the chance to feed one of our resident squirrels. This one, though, has no fear and has let Nathan feed him individual walnuts from his fingers. Micah, today, was a little apprehensive at this squirrel who didn't run away. But he held out a handful of walnuts and the squirrel picked one up right out of his hand and stayed right there to eat it. Micah was pretty excited. 

Okay. That's my list for this week. :)

Birthday and Mother's Day celebration

So, I mentioned that Nathan and the boys had something planned for yesterday to celebrate both my birthday and Mother's Day, and indeed they did. :)

We started the day at the movie theater and enjoyed the new Spider-Man movie, Across the Spider-Verse. It was awesome! Then we went home briefly before heading up to Old Town to do the Fort Collins Old Town Food Tour that they'd booked us on. It turned out to be us, the tour guide, and four others. We wandered Old Town, stopping at five different locations for good eats (and drinks for Nathan and I at three of the stops since he'd added on the cocktail ticket for us) and learning interesting facts and history about Old Town while we were at it. It was truly fabulous! 

We appreciated the time and experience together and loved our tour guide, Tricia, and the company's approach to food tours...promoting locally owned businesses and providing a range of options along the tour--including places where you can just grab a quick bite, places appropriate for special occasions, places for great drinks, places for dessert, etc. 

Considering that we've lived here almost 21 years, we were delighted to visit places we haven't been before. (To be fair, there are a LOT of restaurants in Fort Collins. It's overwhelming at times...enough that we end up frequenting the same places rather than trying new places. Nathan and I had been to two of the five places on our tour, so three were new to us.)

Specifically, we had pizza at Slyce, appetizers and drinks at Whiskey Steaks (The Still), green chili fries and drinks at Locust Cider, pies at Ginger & Baker, and pasta and drinks at Ace Gillett's. Even Micah got full, lol! (And, believe us, he would have eaten more if he'd been able.) Along the way, we learned some great tips and history about each restaurant, too. Highly recommended!

And then we came home and pretty much crashed in a lovely food coma. We watched a show and decided the firepit and s'mores planned for the evening was actually too much food at that point so just chilled. A wonderful birthday and Mother's Day celebration!