celebrating tricia.

this weekend i got to go home for the first time since thanksgiving. and for a good reason: tricia's bachelorette and bridal shower!

here's the venue we hosted at. it's a old schoolhouse. there were awesome photos on the wall with a listing of students who attended in the early 1900s. they all had cool names like norman and stella.

school house style! our theme was sand and water, since tricia originally wanted to elope to a beach. her mom's idea - funny, right?

her mom had saved and framed the first photo they ever took together. and those cupcakes are from my favorite, buehler's. so delicious.

my fellow host and i, mary ann! i've known tricia's mom for as long as i can remember. cute story: that was a question on the quiz i created for the shower. "how did tricia and her maid of honor meet?" tricia and i BOTH thought it was at girl scouts, even before school started. luckily, mary ann can remember back to the late 80s - we were apparently in ballet together. 

yay, me and the star of the weekend.

gift opening photos taken by the lovely bridesmaid, casey! my favorite moment of the day was when tricia's future mother-in-law presented her with a gift in a victoria's secret box! she was so unsure of what would be in there, but it was very nice {and demure!} undergarments.

and my gift, a custom hanger with her future last name!

and after the shower, it was time to head to downtown cleveland for a ladies night out! here's the view from our hotel room.

the only photo i got of our great shirts that casey designed.

but you can tell from the thumbs up that she was ready for a fun time! and it was so fun we don't even have any appropriate pictures to share from it. you'll just have to take my word for it.

a good life lesson, or how the best things we do in life will never be awarded.

{something b should be awarded for: his awesome pizza!}

the other day i got a panicked text from one of my bff's shari. she wanted to talk on the phone. i was at work, but could tell she was upset, so i called her. last year she relocated to las vegas for a job {i went to visit her here}. before that, she had been at her previous job since we graduated in 2008. a project she had worked on was entered for a big award. it won. awesome, right? well, her former boss didn't include her on the application, thus, it's like she never won.

i think we all agree that sucks. it's rude and disheartening and really unfair. but, i told shari that she has two options: contact her boss and tell her what's up or just get over it. after all, she knows she worked on the project. she knows she won. so do i. so do her parents. and now so do you.

i think she was surprised i was so calm about it. but that's because some of the best work i've ever done hasn't had my name on it. articles i've ghostwritten, newsletters with no bylines, designs with no mention of the designer. and, i've learned that probably the most award-worthy stuff we will do in our lives will never earn us a round of applause.

so, cheers to the great moms, awesome friends, best sisters, volunteers/employees/genuinely good people that never get the recognition they deserve.

and a high five to you, blog reader, you make my day.

denver zoo.

on easter, we went to the denver zoo!

there were bears. 

and gorillas. {who i'm pretty sure totally wanted to kill us. i kind of don't blame him. zoos make me sad.}

nope, don't know what's going with my hair, my funky farmer's tan or the front of my dress being all poofed out. my mom will enjoy seeing a photo of us, though, so here you go mom.

omgg. the brown bears were all wound up. this little girl was itching her back and running around and playing on her tire in the water. i cried it was so cute.

snugglin'. 

making coral!

b's favorite, the komodo dragon. he apparently wrote a report about it in fourth grade and told me more details than were on the little sign next to their habitat. {warning to mrs. b: he just said, "i bet my mom still has that report - i will ask her!" haha, too cute.}

bye bye!

instafood. or, what's on our phones lately.

brunch at snooze. they boast an hour plus wait all. the. time.

happy hour with anna lisa at lala's. 

photo by b. one of the most-used gifts i've ever gotten him. {glasses from west elm.}

pho from pho 95! still not as delicious {to moi} as miss saigon, but pretty yum, and b gives it two thumbs up.

happy hour with a new friend at bar car.

and one of my hunny bunny! hope you all had a great easter!

jelly.

legit, i think my dream job is food critic.taking pictures of it, writing about it, eating it, etc. that's why the good eats section on here is so grande. unfortunately, the only place i've written about since we've been in denver is wokano. and that is because a bunch of places we've gone have been no bueno.

so when anna lisa asked us to go to jelly with her, we said "no way, jose". the reviews online are amazing, but we had tried to go when we visited denver in december and the wait was an hour and a half. in december. outside.

she talked us into it. her friend eric was visiting from out of town! the wait was only 20 minutes. {which isn't bad in denver for brunch. i have no idea why brunch is such a thing here, but it is.}

sunday funday bloody mary.

the specialty at jelly - besides the homemade jelly - are the freshly made doughnuts. we split an order and got to try a vanilla, jelly, chocolate and cinnamon sugar. we knew it was going to be a good meal at this point.

side of french toast. on challah bread.

okay, and here is why jelly is the best place i've eaten in all of denver: vegetarian biscuits and gravy! i have been thinking about biscuits and gravy FOR THE LAST YEAR AND A HALF. i'm done with pork for life, and the staple of this dish is typically sausage. this hit the spot. delicious!

and we had amazing service.

jelly: four stars from this food reviewer. {and you all know that's usually reserved for taco bell and homemade pizza.}

chautauqua.

last weekend we once again spent saturday out hiking. {yep, we wore tons of sunscreen.} we planned to go to a trail in boulder, but never did find it. instead, we ended up driving to the top of the mountain for this view.

um, i saw an episode of "i survived" where a woman had her face in the jaws of a mountain lion, so i won't even make a joke about this.

we did see some wild creatures though. look at this little guy doing his best kamakamakarma chameleon.

on the big rock. i mean, do we not look like natural coloradans already?!

hellooooo boulder! 

then, we came down to the bottom of the mountain to walk around the park. we read that in the 19th century a chautauqua was an organized gathering to introduce people to new ideas. there are only three left in the world, one of which being in boulder! this field used to have a ski lift in it.

there's the big rock we took photos by!

up the trail we went. it totally was even harder to breathe in boulder than denver. but have you ever seen such a clear, beautiful sky?

it's supposed to be perfect weather this weekend and we'll be out hiking again. somebody pass me my inhaler.

april fooling.

unfortunately, this post has nothing to do with april fools jokes. although i had not one but two facebook friends announce they were pregnant on the first and they really are! then the people that made comments like, "you didn't trick me, no way you'd have a baby!" are the ones that really got fooled. 

for the past two weeks we have had amazing weather here. warm, even hot for a few days. then on tuesday we woke up to three inches of snow. so maybe that was mother nature's little joke. good one, earth, now bring back the sun.

look who got his hair cut!

and he's rocking the ou sweet 16 shirt. #represent

i've been doing sunroof photography again.

my mom sent me the best package this week! easter candy, the hunger games and {my favorite} a stack of magazines.

our street at sunset.

it's been two months here already. can you believe it?