A Family Friday update being away from my princesses – the irony! Mark and I are currently in Cancun, trying to soak up whatever sun pokes through the rain clouds. The wind has been fierce – no need to blow dry my freshly showered hair after reading for an hour on the balcony…that part I like! We’ve only been here a day and we’ve had intermittent rain and lots of wind. The forecast for the days ahead looks grim…until the day we leave, of course. Oh well, making the most of it and fully acknowledging that our little corner of the world back home is cold, snowy, and dark.
Any fun drink suggestions? I’m generally a beer or wine kind of girl…but I feel like I need to expand my horizons. Someone was walking around with a mudslide earlier and I also saw a chocolate martini that looked divine! I’ve been unimpressed with the mojitos and margaritas at Breathless Cancun Soul (all-inclusive, adult-only resort), so spam me with suggestions, please! 😉
I’ve been reading quite a bit which has also limited my alcohol consumption (by vacation/all-inclusive standards, anyway). If I have more than a drink, I’ll fall asleep trying to read, EVEN if the book is amazing. Speaking of amazing books, I’ve been hitting the jackpot on those. You can find my brief reviews on my Instagram, but Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reed, TL Swan’s The Stopover and even better, TL Swan’s The Takeover are HOT, and for some historical fiction, The Midwife of Auschwitz by Anna Stuart and The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel were great. This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub was good but not great, in my humble opinion (but as I shared in my review, I think it would be good for book club discussion). I’ve read 39 books so far this year and my goal was 36, so yay!
The final season of Yellowstone started – cannot wait to get all over that! That show is probably one of my all-time favorites and I’m so sad it’s ending! Any recommendations to ease me from the loss of Yellowstone?
Last weekend was incredibly busy with all things social — Thursday night was book club, Friday night was dinner and Thunder from Down Under with girlfriends, Saturday was jam-packed with soccer games x2 and getting ready for the Gala Mark and I attended, and Sunday was church, family Christmas pictures, and hockey. It was lots of fun, all of it! Thunder from Down Under definitely brought their C-team to Kalamazoo, Michigan but one of our girlfriends sat in the aisle and ahem, got plenty of attention 😉 Good times, good laughs. We got home late and I was up and at’em for Shea’s first indoor soccer game that started at 8am, getting us out of the house earlier than we would need to be on a standard school/work day. It was her first co-ed soccer game and she SAID she had fun, but she looked a little overwhelmed 🙂 Let’s just say that little boys and little girls, generally speaking, have rather different approaches and intensities with which they play. It’ll be exciting to see her gain confidence and intensity as the season goes on. Maybe she’ll grow up to play sports with guys well into adulthood, just like her mama. We posed for a photo after my game and a rather sexy goal by yours truly!
The Gala was the dressiest event Mark and I had ever been to, including our wedding which was most definitely not black tie. He looked handsome in his tux and I was super happy with my Amazon dress that arrived with enough time to be shortened in length. I went to the salon for an up-do (classy low bun) and used Pinterest and YouTube to teach myself how to do a smoky eye. I even wore lipstick for probably the 3rd time in my entire life. Like I said, FANCY. Within the first 20 minutes of arriving at the gala, Mark looked at me and said, “This is so your thing and so not mine!” I love talking with people and making small talk, whereas he’d rather do anything else. I told him I hope to go back next year and he gave me stink eye. We’ll see! The gala was in support of nurses and the hospital foundation where I work and we sat at the table of Mark’s employer, so it was really for BOTH of us 🙂
Piper was a little tearful two nights before our departure for Cancun. She has been a bit of a mama’s girl lately, but she is saying funny things like “HUG ATTACK!” and at bedtime asking if it’s morning in Mexico, to which I replied, “No, it’s the same time there as here” and to which she replied, “NO way, you are so wrong!” HA! She sang with all of the other kindergarteners at her school for the Thanksgiving luncheon last Monday and it was soooo cute to see! I’m glad she’s still of the age where it’s cool for mom to be at her school. I can tell Shea (2nd grade) is easing out of that one slowly. She doesn’t snub me yet, but I feel it coming! Probably because I won’t let her have a smartphone (duh). But she keeps asking for one! Sigh…
At least they had some solid beach glass hunting days in November, prior to the snow flying. Fall sunsets are pretty epic!
Vacation feels especially good and I am so happy to just BE after the start of this week. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were all chaotic and crazy with Wednesday being the worst of it. I’ve worked in my building for nearly 8 years and we’ve never lost power. Wednesday we lost power for 4 hours — we were seeing patients in the near dark and the building was getting chilly. I ate a bagel for lunch because I couldn’t warm my leftovers and I was trying to wrap up loose ends before vacation. I see a lot of surgery patients and so with deductibles met, there’s always a rush at the end of the year to get surgeries done and it creates some chaos, for sure. I’m trying to check out of work for the most part and not bringing my work laptop was a good choice (at least so far). I also took off push notifications for Outlook and Teams on my phone – that’s big for me!
I hope my crew — all 3 girls, Harlie, too — are doing well. I’ve gotten a few pictures and videos and they’re looking cute as ever! I miss them all already 🙂
Happy weekend to all!
Be well,
