Photo of the Day: Week 9

The downside to traveling so much when you also have a weekly milkshare is that you end up with a lot of frozen milk and cream. The upside is that you make strawberry rhubarb oatmeal cookie dough ice cream.

A friend road tripped with me to see my grandparents and hike with them. Upon our evening arrival at their home, we prepared for said hike with massive carb loading – including plentiful booze and ice cream with buttershots.

My friend pointed out that it’s pretty awesome that my grandparents are in their 70s and still willing and able to tackle 5 mile hikes over rough terrain. She’s right. They’re awesome. Our Fat Tuesday expedition turned out to be the only day of the week filled with “winter” storms. We hunkered under umbrellas cringing against rain (and sometimes hail) three times. We didn’t get stuck in any flash floods. The day was so beautiful, I couldn’t shut up about it.

My sister’s friends and their son visited for her birthday, so the cuteness factor in the house nearly doubled. I couldn’t resist a snap of these boys and their bedtime wind-down.

Birthday/Christmas/occasion gifts stopped making sense to me at a pretty young age. So what did I get my sister for her birthday? Childcare. These boys loved the camera-mirrors game. Not pictured: cleaning up so much urine. So much.

What are these flowers?! Walking across the downtown college campus for a workshop, there were all these sweet reminders that spring has definitely come to the desert. Warm days, blossoms, and even an occasional warm night. I’ll miss it!

So serendipitous that avoiding the long drive between the workshop campus and ‘home’ led to spending time with my local bestie at her cave-house. Her great taste is half-buried under my chaos and accouterments, but trust me when I say her place is ridiculously well-appointed.