Wedding Weekend & Road Warriors

March was a fun, well-rounded month! I had dinner at Kendall’s house and my friend, Julie, started up something called Selfish Club. The idea is that 12 girls get together once a month at someone’s house to socialize. The host provides all the apps and wine and everyone else shows up with $20 to put in the pot. At the end of the night, one person’s name gets drawn and whoever wins is supposed to take their earnings and buy something selfish (new pair of shoes, a massage, etc.). Basically, you can’t spend the money on someone else, groceries, or anything remotely practical. Throughout the course of the year, each person wins and has to report back as to what they purchased. I won in March and ended up buying a new purse, which I love (yet haven’t even used yet). I love the idea of Selfish Club because I’m getting a chance to meet new women who are becoming friends. It’s really fun!

Brayden went to Great Wolf Lodge with Cora for Marli’s birthday party. They had an absolute blast, stayed up late, and ate non-stop…sounds like the perfect day to me! Hanleigh and I had dinner with the Mantaks, grabbed some donuts, and then went and saw Jack ride his unicycle at the UNCC basketball game. I have never tried riding a unicycle, but we were very impressed. The balance it takes to do something like that is pretty incredible. Trent had a Y Guides dad’s meeting, and Brayden attended a party at her friend Katelyn’s house.

We hosted a very important event at our house…Mom’s wedding!!! My mom married Jack, a fabulous man she met last year in Louisville. They absolutely adore each other and we were lucky enough to be asked to host their big day, along with about 50 of their closest friends and family. The weather was nice, yet cool, and our backyard provided the perfect setting for them to get married underneath a floral arbor. My cousin, Lawman, officiated the wedding and did an excellent job! It was laid back and perfect. Everyone enjoyed the delicious spread of food that was prepared by a collective group of us, the music was great as was the dancing, and there were smiles everywhere! The party extended until around 11:00pm with whiskey and cigars on the back porch and then we all crashed. What’s great about this is not only do we have a super amazing stepdad, we also now have a stepbrother (Brad), stepsister (Tacia,) and two new cousins for our girls (Margaret and Meredith). Congrats, Mom and Jack! They also moved into a gorgeous new home…lots of exciting rites of passage that happened in March!

Hanleigh attended her friend, Nina’s, birthday party. I flew to Scottsdale, AZ for my annual conference planning meeting. We stayed at the Fairmont Princess, where our event will take place, and it is by far, the best property we’ve had in the 17 years I’ve been coordinating this event. Even though the grounds are sprawling and it will take a long time to walk around, it is gorgeous. There’s no doubt it will be a successful conference! We hung out one evening with the Farrell’s since the first part of the year has been so hectic and we haven’t seen them much. It was nice to get my Tonya-fix, plus Maxie and Myers had a chance to play! We had some beautiful, custom bookshelves added to our downstairs office and they look incredible. Finally, we are now able to hide our printer, file cabinets, and other unnecessary clutter that was contributing to the mess in that room. Now, I just need to paint and accessorize that room as well as clean out the furniture that was removed as a result of them being built. Updating a house is definitely a marathon, not a sprint!

Trent took me on another date night to an undisclosed location. We went to dinner at Bistro La Bon, then ventured to take in a quick Queen City evening skyline view at Peculiar Rabbit, followed by a shared beer at Common Market (who knew a beer/food dive market would be so popular and chic!), then to the Neighborhood Theater to see a jam band, and lastly to our local “Peach Pit”, Bradshaw’s. It was a well-rounded evening of delicious food, drinks, music, and dancing! The next morning, we went to the Unitarian Universalist church where the service was conducted by the high schoolers. Even though we don’t go that often, it seems like every time we do go, the service is incredible. Something tells me it’s like that every Sunday!

We received an email to see if we were interested in Brayden’s joining a cotillion. Although I never did this as a child, I do think it’s extremely valuable to learn about things like manners, respect, dining etiquette, dancing, etc. as you never know when you’ll need those life skills and it’s good to be prepared whenever the time comes. When I first brought it up to Brayden, she freaked out and was in no way interested. I mentioned it was likely that some of her good friends from school would be in the program, so we attended an information night together…lo and behold some of her friends’ mom’s were there signing up. Brayden quickly was on board not because of that, but because cookies are served at each meeting (in an effort to teach them manners during serving lines, etc.). She’ll learn all sorts of dances in the year-long program, which will conclude with a five-course meal where they will be expected to apply everything they learned. I think this will be a good experience for her in terms of learning about respect, manners, etiquette, etc.

The month concluded with Trent participating in the Palmetto 200…a pretty big accomplishment! He was part of a nine-man relay team that ran from Columbia, SC all the way to Mt. Pleasant, SC (a 200-mile race!) in a 24-hour period. They had one van for just those running in the next couple of hours and another van designated for sleeping. While Trent may have gotten some sleep over the course of the race, it wasn’t consistent and wasn’t very long. Once the race was over, they all rejoiced over some celebratory food and beers, walked to Cooper River Bridge, and crashed around 10:00pm. He had a great time spending time with his close friends, exercising, and making memories!

Hanleigh-ism

• She is studying geometric shapes in math and calls a parallelogram a “pella-lella-gram”. When she said that, I said, “it’s parallelogram” to which she said, “My teacher knows how to say it because, well, she’s an adult so she knows…she’s 65.” She may be 42 at the most. I love how kids have no concept of age!

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