a visit from grandparents (giggles included)

my parents came into town a couple of weeks ago, and i'm finally getting to blogging about the visit. they were a bit early. annie and i were in boulder for a girls' night out--dinner at pei wei, then i introduced her to anthropologie. we were in the midst of trying on dresses when my mom called to say they were in thornton! slight panic, boulder's about 40 minutes away, and annie was trying on this dress:


mom said not to hurry, they'd go get some dinner and relax. phew. so annie finished trying on the 5 other dresses she'd picked out and decided that she like this one the best. at $138, i knew i'd have to crush her hopes, but she did it for me. "mom, i wouldn't LET you buy me a dress that cost that much, it's just crazy! but maybe we could make it!" i used to be quite the seamstress, honestly, but i didn't think i could replicate this particular dress w/o a bit of difficulty. my mom, on the other hand, i knew she could in a heart beat. sure enough, when we got home and annie showed her the picture, my mom stepped up to the plate and started drawing plans. i love my mom. now i just need to get that fabric in the mail to her...

we didn't do anything terribly exciting on saturday or sunday, but monday we went to the benson sculpture gardens in loveland, colorado. this is one of our family's favorite places, my kids could spend every weekend here. it's a place i've wanted to bring my parents since we found it two years ago. we finally got the chance, and i do believe they loved it as much as i'd hoped. we had lovely weather-- not too hot and a nice breeze. it was the perfect way to spend the day.




this is a sculpture by an LDS artist named gary price. one of the kids has a CTR ring on :) i love that my dad gets into the spirit of the art!

my dad's been a thespian his whole life, it was fun to see him enjoy this particular sculpture. this was taken just after he'd checked to see if the mirror was real. it is.
new friends.
hiding under charlie.


this is my favorite sculpture in the entire park because it makes me giggle. it's called nocturne. i proudly admit that i got my sense of humor from my mom, she calls it the "williams in her." it's where you laugh at very inappropriate things, like passing gas and well, funny sculptures of plump naked women. so when we got to the gardensm i prepped my mom that there would be one sculpture that would make her giggle. as soon as she saw this one, she started giggling. i love my mom.

so there you have it, our trip to the sculpture gardens. it was a precious time. my mom's health isn't the best anymore, she has something called post polio syndrome--the result of contracting polio when she was 7. so to have her here for a short visit was delightful. and with my dad being a bishop, well it's just as much a treat to get his undivided attention.

on tuesday we went to paulino gardens and bought some rose bushes and perennials. my dad loves a project when he's here, and the only one that i had on my docket was to move rocks and plant another section of my back yard with perennials. back story: when we moved in to this house, the back yard consisted of grass, 2 junipers, 2 lilac bushes, and two columbine plants. rock surrounded the grass and held the other plants. rock is nice, but it's really hard to garden in. it was drab to say the least. every year i've moved rock to the side of the house and planted things. one year i convinced my sweetie to build me a raised garden bed (our soil is not really soil, it's more like clay, not good for growing things in.). anyway, back to the visit... i didn't think he'd want to do it, but by tuesday, the rocks were moved and he got most of the plants in the ground. we moved one of the lilac bushes because it was too symetrical and i figured why not? it's not doing too well, but hopefully will pull out of the transplant. i'll post pictures, i need to get a couple of daylilies and another few grasses to balance it out, but all in all, it's going to be lovely.

they left wednesday morning. i miss them.

tomorrow i will have been married to this fabulous guy for 17 years. now that's something to smile about :) he's pretty cute, huh? he's been home all week and it's been wonderful.
and tomorrow is my sister's birthday. isn't she lovely? happy birthday juie :) it was my bright idea to get married on her birthday. i still feel bad about stealing the day from her, but she insists that it's OK. she's a good egg.