So the trip to Colorado was amazing, but the trip home was pretty rough. I realized, before we even boarded the plan in DIA, that I HAD to see my boys. Luckily, my schedule was flexible enough this week that I could take Monday and Tuesday off work - especially good since I worked 52 hours last week and really needed some extra rest time! Of course, one must always go through the dark in order to get to the light. In my case, this meant 21 hours from getting up in Fort Collins Sunday morning until finally pulling up in front of the house in Tacoma at nearly 3 am Monday morning. The last 3 hours were especially exciting, involving driving through fog from Portland to Tacoma with the windows open, music blasting, and eating ice cream in an attempt to stay awake. I can't even remember the last time I've seen fog, let alone driven in it!
It was all worth it, though, when my mother-in-law woke me up around 10 am Monday so I could join my special little guy for lunch at his school for the very first time this year. On the way out of the house, I had to stop and admire his "Mini Me" from Open House, who found a permanent home on the room of his door.
It was all worth it, though, when my mother-in-law woke me up around 10 am Monday so I could join my special little guy for lunch at his school for the very first time this year. On the way out of the house, I had to stop and admire his "Mini Me" from Open House, who found a permanent home on the room of his door.
Cute, right? I was pleased to find that school lunches have improved a LOT since my elementary school days, and then enjoyed joining Monkey's first grade class for a lesson on sight words and a trip to the library. Have I mentioned that Monkey is now attending the same elementary school my husband went to? You know that's adorable! I got some work done Monday afternoon and then, when both the boys got home, we enjoyed a big spaghetti dinner (courtesy of my ridiculously talented mother-in-law) and a rather over-competitive game of Monopoly. We made it a whole hour before we all got bored with it!
Then there was the matter, of course, of a certain little lady who I like to call my very best friend in the whole entire world. Aaah, Tay! We met in college, she was one of my housemates senior year, moved out to Virginia with me when I was starting grad school - and just HAPPENED to meet the love of HER life at that same university! - and is one of my few friends who has lived in as many states as I have in the past 12 years. The only downside to our combined wanderlust? Tay and her wonderful hubby are now living in Honolulu, so we don't get to see each other all that often. In fast, the last time we saw each other in person was at their wedding, in summer 2007. Let's have a visual flashback, shall we? And yes, my hair was slightly orange ;-)
I got a call the week before that Tay was flying to the mainland to visit her parents but - alas! - she flew into SeaTac the day AFTER I flew to Denver. Luckily, her visit was long enough that we could schedule a morning together on on Tuesday before I had to drive back to Portland. So I decided to finally devirginize Tay's toes - yay! Pedicures! We went to the best little nail salon in Tacoma and, coincidentally, the same place where my darling husband devirginized my own toes nearly a decade ago. Of course we had to be nerdy and take pictures to mark the occasion. First, Tay looking lovely and not nearly as nervous as I was my first visit here:
...and then me, with my legs that I'm only realizing now are kind of scary white. Man, I guess I really did depend on that Texas sun to keep me from turning vampire-esque!
The nail ladies were getting annoyed that it took us so long to pick colors, I think. Tay settled on a dusty rose-ish pink, very girly, very her :-)
I've had gray toenails for the last month (I know, so stylish, right?) and was going to try the olive green, but was advised against it as "too much like gangrene" by my darling friend. Instead, I settle on my old faithful - dark red. Call me crazy, but I always try to get a dark or bright oclor when I go for a pedicure, like something I wouldn't be able to put on neatly myself at home, you know?
We quite literally can (and have) talked for hours. One thing we agreed on that really stuck with me, though, was this: We haven't seen each other in person for four years and yet, when we are together, it feels like we see each other every day. That, my friend, is true love. I love you, Tay :-*
No comments:
Post a Comment