I Love Sunsets

Especially in McCall...

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth - I'm just on vacation :-) I'm in McCall with the fam for the rest of the week. Pics to come next week...

True or False:

The thermometer on my car got up to 121 degrees today. Yikes!

MB + CB = <3

(I'm still behind on my blogging, but I am trying to catch up. Here is another late entry...) .

We celebrated our third anniversary on April 29th. Three years - can you believe it?!?! In some ways the last three years have absolutely flown by and in other ways it seems like we've been man and wife so much longer. .

I love this picture. I don't remember what made us crack up so much here, but I love both of our expressions. I also love that we still make these faces on a very regular basis. No one can make me laugh like Casey and I hope that no one can make him laugh like me. We have fun together and I think that is such a crucial part of our relationship.

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To celebrate our first 1095 days of wedded bliss we went out to a nice dinner at a fabulous restaurant - Wildfish Seafood Grille. When we made our online reservation we mentioned that we were celebrating our anniversary. They greeted us as Mr. & Mrs. Babendure (they even pronounced our name correctly) and offered their congratulations as they seated us at our table covered in red rose petals. So romantic! We indulged in some incredible wine and scrumptious food (scallops - my favorite) and just when we thought we couldn't consume anything more they brought out our complimentary dessert - rum soaked pineapple upside down cake, flambeed at our table, served with butter pecan ice cream. Heaven! They even wrote out "Happy Anniversary" in chocolate on the serving platter. What a perfect ending to a perfect meal.

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At this point we were running a little late for the show. We bought tickets to the third installment of a comedy series we love - Late Night Catechism III: 'Til Death Do Us Part. We had originally planned on driving to the theater but after we had a little more wine than we had planned on with dinner we decided to walk. Well, run/walk as we were cutting it kind of close. My feet didn't enjoy this so much in heels but we made it on time! The show was hilarious and centered around marriage which was of course the theme of our night.

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I love being married and there is no one else I'd rather be married to.

Casey I love you and look forward to the rest of our life together!

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Quilting Fun

I spent the weekend sewing, looking out at the mountains and at the deer that came right up to the window. See him there behind my machine?

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So yeah, here is a post that should have been written, oh 2 months ago. I know they say better late than never, but YIKES! Anywho, back in April I had the awesome opportunity to hang out with the ladies in Casey's family and a few of their friends at a quilting retreat at his Aunt Sharon's beautiful home in Buena Vista, Colorado. Mountains + Family + New Friends + Sewing = FUN! I had never really quilted before so I wasn't sure what to bring to work on at this quilting retreat. (I did take a beginning quilters class this spring, but that turned out to be semi-disastrous.) So I decided that because I was going to be surrounded by people who are much more experienced than I myself I would take advantage of their knowledge and skills. I brought a kit for a colorful table runner that my grandma had given me for Christmas. It was a small enough project that I thought I could get completely finished in one weekend so that I could go through all the steps with help nearby if needed. And lo and behold my plan worked - I actually finished it. I even did free motion quilting! That part was sooooo fun. I actually made a quilt! It's a small quilt/large table runner. I'm still not sure what to do with it - it's currently sitting in the guest room/sewing room awaiting the perfect location. Besides all of the sewing we also took walks in the evenings and ate some TASTY food. One of the best parts of the trip was being up in the mountains. The change of scenery was very welcome after the last year and a half in Arizona. We even got snow! And of course, it goes without saying that it was wonderful to spend time with so many wonderful women. I especially enjoyed road-tripping with Aunt Kate. Good times, good times.

A bird's eye view of the creative chaos.

Kassi contemplating block placement.

All the ladies with their finished projects.

Aunt Kate showing us her torci (sp?).

We wore Carol out.

Kassi celebrating that she finally got those dang triangles right.

Dee showing off her baby quilt.

These are the fabulous, colorful, energizing fabrics for my project.

Work in progress.

I did it!