We Are Family
This summer is flying by at a rapid pace and our girls are growing up too fast. Hanleigh moved up in the world and is now in the pre-K 2 class. Hard to believe that she’ll start kindergarten next year! We kicked July off with the most fabulous Spurlin family reunion in the beautiful mountains of Asheville. We shacked up in four cliffside swanky log cabins (ours was called Margaritaville and even had a tiki bar inside). There were about ~47 people in attendance including aunts, first and second cousins. This family keeps growing exponentially and every one of them is completely awesome! Even though the weather was dreary, we ate like kings and got to participate in lots of fun activities such as ziplining, whitewater rafting, and visiting the Biltmore Estate. One day, a majority of the cousins made a trek to the Sierra Nevada Brewery for a tour of their facility and some “day drinking”. The tour was so incredibly impressive; from the composting system to using reclaimed water to flush all of the toilets, they are one of the few LEED platinum-certified buildings in the country and you could just feel the love. Let’s just say that a number of us had a hot buzz during the beer tasting and during lunch. Good times! Each cabin took turns cooking dinners for everyone else, so when it was our cabin’s turn, it was July 4th, and we grilled some hot dogs and hamburgers and made lots of delicious sides. But, the best part of it all were the accessories, and by that, I mean hairnets, wigs, and fake moustaches! That was your ticket to eat. Everyone donned them and was laughing so hard! Needless to say, the reunion was an incredible five days with an even more incredible family. We are truly blessed! Love you, Spurlins!
Brayden continued her camps and took gymnastics, junior pro cheer/dance, cooking, yard art, dance, splash, and crossfit. She was pooped at the end of each day for sure! I had dinner with my friend, Tanya, who lives in Austin and it was like a day hadn’t passed since I saw her last. I had fun stand-up paddleboarding at the US National Whitewater Center with some girls from hip hop class, both girls took swim lessons, and I enjoyed a staycation with the Kensington Krew of girls and some other friends downtown one night. We ate lunch out, spent some time by the pool, enjoyed a delicious dinner, went dancing, spent the night in the hotel and capped it off with breakfast together. It was SO much fun that we decided we need to do some sort of a staycation once a season!
I traveled to San Francisco for the InterSolar conference for work where I got to see my great friend from college, Alison. I am not sure the last time I saw her, but I think it was around eight years ago. Her mom was in town and the three of us (and a couple of coworkers of mine) were able to eat some delicious meals together at Foreign Cinema and State Bird Provisions. The stars must have aligned the night we ate at State Bird because Alison was able to snatch up reservations the day before, something that usually has to be done 90 days in advance. This place has a line out the door around 4:30pm each day and you may wait in line for an hour only to be turned away at the door because they have no more reservations available for that night. Apparently, they book half the restaurant with reservations and the other half books up via the people that line up each day. The food is served dim sum style, so there are all these little carts they push around with the prices for each small dish on a stantion. Needless to say, you end up having about 15 different bowls/plates on your table at any given time, so you get to sample numerous types of food in smaller quantities. This place is right up my alley. It was so much fun!
Trent’s parents came in town and we celebrated Terry’s 70th birthday with a delicious dinner out, followed by cake back at the house. He’s looking pretty darn good for 70! I enjoyed another girls’ night out to see Magic Mike XXL (no elaboration needed here) and Trent and I went out for restaurant week and “saw” Jurrassic World. I say “saw” because after dinner, we went out for drinks to a local bar and the movie didn’t start until 10pm. I missed some critical scenes during the movie because I kept nodding off! Mama can’t hang with the late-night movie/drink combination! The month concluded with an annual trip to Spokane for a global marketing meeting. We worked hard and played hard (dinner cruise, golf outing, dinner at a coworker’s house).
I realized I didn’t have any Brayden- or Hanleigh-isms this month! I’m sure they said tons of cute things…I just didn’t capture them very well! Until next month’s post. Hope everyone is doing well!
