Dragon Lights Reno

While we spent our day at work, with a baby-sitter and at school we counted down the minutes until we got to go enjoy the Dragon Lights display at the Wilbur May Arboretum.  Housing all sorts of light displays from animals, to traditional Asian dragons and folklore, the Wilbur May Arboretum is home to one of the most stunning light shows I've seen.  Through a walking trail of lights and displays, Chinese performances and creative activities we explored a whole world.  One thing is for sure, we immensely enjoyed this event!

And would you believe that Sister and I spent memorable days during our childhood summers exploring this very same arboretum and enjoying the Great Basin Adventure Park that no longer exists!  I never imagined that I would be doing this with my very own littles!

And while we are on the subject of Wilbur May, the gorgeous main building - now rotating museum exhibits - houses one of the largest taxidermy collections.  It houses some of Northern Nevada's most unique history.

Just a little slice of Nevada history.  I can never learn enough of our amazing Battle Born State.

This was such a fun evening to lead in to our amazing 4th of July celebrations!!

xoxo - j

Frozen Yogurt with Nonna

If you been reading this blog over the past 9 years, you likely know a thing or two about me.  One being that I love to eat and I looooooove ice cream!  One of our favorite places to frequent is Yogurt Beach - a delightful and delicious neighborhood froyo eatery.  Now, if the fun surfing inspired atmosphere wasn't enough to keep us going back time and time again, the fact that they have the best frozen yogurt and toppings surely would.

All that being said, we had the pleasure of taking my mom out for a delightful evening.  With marriage and littles and all the extraneous that come with being grown up, I truly treasure nights like this where we can be all together and simply sit back and enjoy each other's company.

Until next time...

xoxo - j

Beach Babes

One of the many, many things I love about Nevada is Lake Tahoe.  It's that laid back, mountain air kind of place that I grew up on and I just absolutely feel at home when I've got my toes in that ice cold crystal blue water and derriere in the sand.  With the 4th of July just around the corner and an old friend in town we took the opportunity to sip on ice cold Pepsi and ogle at all the colorful characters lounging on the beach.  I can't recall the last time I just sat on the beach relaxing, but I felt like the Queen of Sheba for a moment or two.

After we were sufficiently sun-kissed and nearly famished, we headed on back down the hill to bbq steaks.  We spent a good long while enjoying ourselves eating watermelon and playing backyard baseball.

You can take the girl off the beach but you can't take the beach out of the girl.  Thanks for visiting Lance!!  Perhaps the kids and I will find ourselves back in Tahoe soon!

xoxo - j

Keep Calm & Brunch On

The day we wait for each month with baited breath finally came.  There are 7 of us girls (on my mom's side) that live in town and once a month we try to get together for an outing, activity or meal to reconnect and check-in.  I was up early making final preparations for our cousins brunch this morning.

This month only four of us were available, Christina, Michaela, Shiloh and I...and the 7 littles between us, noshed on delectable brunch bites and sipped on hot coffee with a spot of cream while we updated each other on the past month of our lives.  Christina left before I remembered we needed to memorialize our April Brunch with a picture...clearly I'm the worst sister ever!!

Our menu consisted of a frittata, scones, biscuits and a variety of specialty spreads.  A ginger-orange punch and hot coffee comprised the refreshments.

I hope I sent the gals home with full tummies and hearts and tired littles!

It was a jolly good time and a gorgeous day in many ways.  Now we are looking for to our May outing!

xoxo - j

Pack Pride

The strength of the wolf is the pack.  The Law of the Jungle is the one of my favorite parts of the start of every Nevada game!  Today, escorted by own Nevada alums, we headed to Mackay Stadium for a fantastic scrimmage between the Nevada football first string and the rest of the team.

The second stringers started the game 27 points ahead and did a good job of holding their own in the first half of the scrimmage.  If anything dampered the day it was the wind, but I can assure you that  it did not stop the boys from having the time of their lives.

We are nothing but loyal to the silver and blue!  Go Pack!!

xoxo - j

Family History Crush

I have a crush.  A family history crush.  No, not in a creepy weird way.  Rather in a way that makes my heart smile when things are passed down to my family from an older generation.

Nearly two months ago I was sitting in my empty childhood home, rocking out to country music, carefully bubble wrapping all of my moms crystal and china.  And then I asked Trevor to move it all over to our house, which he lovingly did.

I carefully selected the perfect location for the handmade china hutch, built my none other than my super cool dad!!!  Now before you go getting sad and sentimental I have to say Sister and I carefully split the family heirlooms in half.  She got bedroom furniture, couches and my moms cedar chest.  Plus loads of other, smaller things that held sentimental value to her.

The next step was to put all the china back into the hutch...but I just couldn't do it.  I don't know if it didn't feel like it belonged in my house or if it was the finality of my mom living in assisted living, but I just couldn't do it.  And then my grandma died and I felt like my world kept crumbling.

Finally, I came out of my fog and decided I was sick of all the boxes sitting in my front room...again.  Much to my delight Trevor understood that I needed to do this in my own time, so when I announced last night that I was ready to get rid of the boxes I don't think he truly believed me at first.

But since I have instant gratification issues and no plans to work through them anytime soon, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

In unpacking all these boxes, I unearthed loads of crystal stemware and vintage bar ware.  I also had Trevor reconstruct our very own Lumiere, a candelabra that was on the mantle of the McDonald Drive home 18 years ago.  Love!!!

A view of the completed project, and note I wanted to keep it as uncluttered as possible.

And now that it's all said and done, my family history crush has turned in to a full fledged love affair.

We also enjoyed a very fun impromptu dinner with K and M - dining on tatertot casserole and strawberry shortcake and hours of laughing  - and now it's time to start my Sunday!

xoxo - j

All Dolled Up

Spring seems to finally have started and one of my favorite days is always Easter.  Trevor had to work today so I needed to come up with something quick, cute and easy to execute by myself.  To complicate the matter ever so slightly, I agreed to help with Sunday School at the 9 am service.  Who wants to get up at the crack of dawn anyway?!  Thankfully the Easter Bunny showed up at The Nook a day early and hid loads of eggs in the backyard and out did himself on the pipsqueaks' baskets!  So, we started our morning with waffles and church where we got to do a super cool science experiment to show the littles about Jesus' resurrection and then we did loads of crafts.  After that was all said and done we were famished!!  Well what else could we do but go to Doughboy's for some delish donuts?!

After picking out the perfect donuts we headed home to spend our day playing outside, riding bikes and having a good ole fashioned game of backyard baseball!

This ah-dorable table awaited us at Aunt Liz's house when we arrived for dinner.  While the adults ate appetizers and had cocktails the kiddos hid eggs for each other and had a blast finding eggs filled with jellybeans and starbursts!!

What makes holidays oh so worth it are when these three little boys come up to me and tell me "thank you for making Easter so fun!"  I love making everything as fun as I possibly can for them!!  I just hope the weather stays nice so we can do more fun things outside this week before we head back to school!!

Happy Easter y'all!!

xoxo - j