maui

i am on my way home from an epic girls trip. husband surprised me about two weeks ago – he shared the news that he’d been planning a trip to maui with six of my girlfriends. the main purpose of the trip was to give me some relaxation after one of my craziest years so far plus celebrate that i am almost-cancer-free. many of you possibly followed along via instagram, and you will see a few of those pictures again in this post. the pictures speak for themselves – we enjoyed everything that maui has to offer, adventure was our theme. my friend jenn has a home in maui and she was our tour guide, and host. we all agree, it could not have been a better week. the most gorgeous weather too! so hot and perfect.

what seeps out of these pictures is a deeply rooted friendship amongst seven women who cherish one another. all differences aside. bonds that are unbreakable. we have twenty-seven children between the seven of us, and we’ve survived years of challenges and happiness no matter the space that separates us. we’ve accumulated endless hours of laughter – we can be ridiculous in the best of ways.

during this trip, we had a theme song for this stage of our lives – brave by sara bareilles. i am going to continue this post with the words of the song…

You can be amazing
You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug
You can be the outcast

Or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love
Or you can start speaking up
Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do
And they settle ‘neath your skin

Kept on the inside and no sunlight
Sometimes a shadow wins

But I wonder what would happen if you

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave

Everybody’s been there, everybody’s been stared down
By the enemy
Fallen for the fear and done some disappearing
Bow down to the mighty

Don’t run, stop holding your tongue
Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

Innocence, your history of silence
Won’t do you any good
Did you think it would?
Let your words be anything but empty
Why don’t you tell them the truth?

Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave

I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I just wanna see you
I wanna see you be brave

***

crank up the song, here. collect good friends, and be brave. xo.

{photo credits: moi, becky kimball, and jenn granum.}

Posted in friends, girls trip, Hawaii, jane, travels | 12 Comments »

7.18.12

tennis camp

with little words and mostly photos, eight days in *southern california:

our typical day went like this: wake up, get ready, go to breakfast, drop myla off at tennis camp, watch her for a while, i would go to bikram yoga or go running, shower, get ready, rest, read, time on my computer, pick up myla.

then… we spent our afternoons at the beach, a little shopping, lots of food, myla would snuggle up on the couch to read & watch tennis, or we’d go to movies – while in cali we saw the amazing spiderman, katy perry: part of me, and the latest ice age movie.

one evening via trolley we went to the sawdust arts festival. it was so fun – and such a beautiful setting! myla created a cup/vase on a pottery wheel with help, we picked out matching rings, and myla got fitted with a toe ring with our little cousin! {these toe rings are SO tiny and cute!}

more tennis… more beach… more mother-daughter time…

mother/daughter-tennis-camp-trip to *southern california is synonymous with pure joy, a perfect week, and sign-us-up-again-please!

*we hope to move to this area of the country one day…

{all photos by me.}

Posted in california, girls trip, jane, myla, tennis, travels | 8 Comments »

5.20.11

…an escape hatch of laughter.

my friend suez, a.k.a. spicy, planned a going-away-sleepover-party for me with some of our dear girlfriends, this past tuesday. we stayed here for the evening, had a delicious dinner here, went to see this, and stopped by here for a final sugar high…

well, it was our final sugar high…

till we finished off two boxes of chocolate covered cinnamon bears somewhere around 2am. and some cake bites.

the entire evening completely blew my mind, my sleep schedule, and my waistband!

lots of delicious food with lovely ladies! {Ahem!}
…including a double chocolate milkshake that shan & i shared!

these ladies are quite adept at striking a pose for the camera. ::winks::

there are stresses in life, there are challenges, and there are girlfriends who create an escape hatch of laughter…

and love.

thank you, and much much love, m’dears! you will all be missed. greatly.

{however, i know our next sleepover will be in boston!}

*and, the oscar goes to:
our husbands! who had a total of twenty-eight children to take care of while we were out. they covered carpools, homework, extracurricular activities, dinner, and i’m positive they were all in bed on time too, right papa’s?!?

::smiles::

{all photos by me.}

Posted in farewell to utah, friends, girls trip, gno, jane, restaurants | 5 Comments »

1.15.08

Bahama Mama’s

Pure bliss. Daphne and I relaxed (an abundance of sleep), soaked up the sun (minor sunburns), worked out (2 a days on some), visited the spa (maybe indulged more than we should have), read (finished 2+ novels each), enjoyed live music (bahamian style), ate delicious food (especially the seafood). We have definitely started something that could be a yearly tradition!

This is Grand Bahama Island a.k.a. Freeport City as we were flying in. It is the closest island to Florida in the Bahamas, only 55 miles off the coast.
We found a little corner of the resort that was ours each day, between the infinity pool and beach, our little solitude.What I read ~ in our corner of solitude ~

I started this book back in November and then haven’t had the time to pick it up since then till this trip. Wow, it is so powerful. It gives such an amazing insight into the women of Afghanistan’s lives that it really made my soul feel like I have abandoned my gender on the other side of the world. Great reading – Between “Kite Runner,” and “A Thousand Splended Suns,” Khalid Hosseini is here to stay.Talk about a stark contrast to “A Thousand Splended Suns.” Sarah Agnes Prine of “These is my words” is a true to the bone early American woman! I laughed and cried through the whole thing.The main market was right across the street from our resort, so we walked there once or twice a day for meals & shopping. We had our own little routine put together, it was great to try each place to eat, shop, mingle with the locals.CURLY TAIL LIZARDS! I would have LOVED to bring one of these home for Myla, if that was legal & all. They were friendly little lizards running all over. Their tails would curl up tighter as they ran.At times like these when the wonderful whacky sisterhood is being enjoyed – things change… Daphne is a brunette now and absolutely beautiful! I LOVE how her blue eyes just sparkle! The sweetest part of the trip was returning home to all my LOVES – I was given an amazing welcome home… MY HERO!of course, my myla had a note for me next to my bed that I found at bedtime when she was long off to sleep. This is one of the things she made for me while I was gone, there was actually a whole pile of stuff…