Monday, May 25, 2009

Wonderful Weekend

We had a wonderful holiday weekend - the best in recent memory!

We kicked things off Friday night with a visit from Cameron and Maria, dear friends who moved from Tucson to Mexico 2 years ago. They came over and spent the evening catching up and swapping kid stories over a bottle of wine and Mexican takeout. While our four-some wasn't quite complete without Brad and Veronica and a game of Liar's Dice, we had a wonderful time reconnecting with treasured friends.

Saturday, we took advantage of the cool (as in lower than 100 degree) weather and made our first family trip to the zoo. Eleanora was generally more interested in people watching than animal watching. She was a little scared of the zebras moving towards us at first, and then started laughing and kicking. We thought she was especially excited about the polar bear swimming, but then realized she was chuckling at the waterfall in the exhibit and ignoring the bear completely. It was a wonderful, rare, treat to have Ben available for such a fun outing!






Sunday was another fantastic day. We started the morning off with the three of us curled up in bed with Starbucks (Eleanora wisely chose to abstain). Ben then surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers for our anniversary. After church, we spent the afternoon with Cameron and Maria and their three adorable kids playing, cooking, eating amazing home made Mexican food (Eleanora chowed down fresh avocado, her current favorite food - she is a southwest baby!), and staying cool in the beautiful, shaded pool. Eleanora loved her first experience swimming, splashing and kicking like crazy. She especially enjoyed playing with and watching the older kids, always reaching for them and laughing whenever they were in view.










It was the perfect day and a wonderful way to spend our 6th anniversary, even if it meant our plans to go out for dinner didn't quite fit in (thanks for offering to babysit, John and Erin!). Instead of a fancy dinner out, we curled up on the couch in our cozy clothes for a quiet, relaxing evening together - perfect after an exhausting and wonderful day. I am so blessed to have such a thoughtful, loving, sweet husband who knows just how to soothe me, humor my craziness, put up with my ginormous failings and make everything more fun than it should be. He is an amazing father - so affectionate, patient, and caring. Eleanora's face lights up every time he walks into the room, whether it's been 5 hours or 5 minutes since she last saw him.

We brought the weekend to a close with a fabulously delicious and fun brunch with John and Erin. What a fantastic couple of days!


Exhausted after all the fun!

2 comments:

Christina Evans said...

awww Kara - so glad you guys had such a fun, fabulous weekend and anniversary! your last full paragraph about how much you love Ben and that he's such an awesome dad made me get all teary! awww..:) love you!

Elaine said...

No doubt this has to be the most special anniversay to date for the two of you, given the arrival of Miss Eleamora, Her Loveliness. This was our first wedding anniversary spent as grandparents and we are so ecstatic about the whole idea, we're still pinching ourselves. We love her so much! How beautiful can one little girl be--beyond description--that's how beautiful and that's Eleanora. She looks so cute and happy and even kind of proud perched on top of Ben's shoulders at the zoo. Love it! Love, Mom