wknd recap // little brothers prom

currently sitting here waiting to board my connection from Detroit to Buffalo with a final destination of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada with a shoddy wireless connection, thus I am writing this from my fancy iPhone. And so it shall be short and sweet.

I had a lovely weekend that was full of family, diet coke, rain, wine and pictures. I headed back down to the dirrty south of albert lea Friday afternoon to be home for the young pups senior prom. Cannot believe he’s gonna be graduating in just over a month. I was so happy to get to be there to overwhelm him and his lovely girlfriend with an obnoxious amount of pictures. Got a little teary thinking about how grown up my notsobaby brother is. And also realizing that my senior prom was 7 years ago. Back when we took pictures on digital cameras. And took selfies before selfies were a thing. Cray.

Always hard I leave my family even though this was the 3rd weekend in a row id spent with them. But I had to head back up to see [b] and #starksthepup and pack. Yayyyy. Thankfully this is the last trip for about a month. I think #starksthepup is the most excited about this. He was not pleased as I left this morning.

hope you all had a wonderful weekend and a glorious start to your week.

xoxoxo

wknd recap // happy easter

 even though Easter was about as late as it could be this year, it still didn’t feel like Easter. one of the joys of growing up i suppose. this weekend [b], #starksthepup and i packed up the prius and headed down to good ‘ol albert lea. the amount of joy spending time with my family gives me is off the charts, so i was very excited.

highlights in words:

we got stuck behind an accident and were dead stopped for 30 minutes on I-35

my parents friends threw [b] and i an engagement party with oodles of food and beverages

took full advantage of the gorgeous day and went on a few walks with the pup and played ball in the backyard

celebrated the risen Lord at Easter service

took bunches of pictures

enjoyed a long walk; pretty much dragging a tuckered out pup along with us

watched Wolf of Wall Street (spoiler… it’s terrible)

highlights in pictures:

i hope you all had an enjoyable weekend filled with good food, great people and lots of laughter.

happy monday!

tales from my {very} merry christmas

i can hardly believe that one week ago tomorrow was christmas eve; quite honestly it feels like it was a month ago already despite the fact that we still have our tree up at home. (which is crazy because i was raised that christmas decorations should be taken down the next day, if not the day of. true story) but with being out of town and busy i just felt like i haven’t fully gotten to enjoy it so i opted for christmas to extend until new years and i’m feeling very pleased with that decision. the older i get, the harder it seems to get really into the christmas spirit – all part of growing up i suppose. but it certainly helped raise my spirits to be home for the holidays and get to spend them celebrating with my family and my favorites. so, here’s the breakdown of my holiday season, it was full of love and laughter; wine and food; family and sarcasm. and i wouldn’t have it any other way. i hope that yours was a holly jolly, merry and bright kind of time.

christmas 1: durby side christmas

our first christmas celebration of the year began the saturday before the holidays when we got together with my mom’s side following my big brothers graduation from st cloud state (YAY!) [b] and i hosted and i realized how much work it is to do that (mad props to my aunt cindy who ususally does it each year) but i loved having our home full of family.

christmas 2: christmas eve with the dahls

 the second celebration of christmas was on christmas eve when the entire dahl clan. 4 generations worth of dahls got together for the first time in about 10 years. it was so great to get to see everyone and to see how happy it made my grandma to have her house filled with her kids, grandkids and great-grandkids – priceless.

christmas 3: christmas morning

the third celebration of christmas is hands down my favorite, because the events of that morning are one of my most treasured traditions. the morning begins with breakfast of an egg bake, monkey bread and fruit & marshmallow dip with beverages of orange julius, and now that (most of us) are of age; bloody marys and mimosas. (soon, carter, soon). then we head downstairs to open presents. the rest of the afternoon is spent hanging out and playing games, this year it was the app, ‘heads up’. and then we eat our dinner of pork tenderloin with maple mustard sauce, strawberry salad, and green bean casserole. a truly wonderful day and i loved getting to share my traditions with [b] and #starksthepup.

christmas 4: call with brandons mom

since i’m an “adult” now with a job i’ve had to start heading back to the cities christmas evening. so we packed up the car and headed up to the burbs. when we got home we made some tea and called [b]’s mom who lives in new mexico so that we could open up presents “with” her.

christmas 5: our christmas

after calling [b]’s mom we got to have “our christmas” together and exchanged gifts followed by watching polar express and staying up until i couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore because i didn’t want christmas to be over. it was the cherry on top of a wonderful christmas. though i’ve gotten older and find it harder to get in the spirit, i still absolutely love christmas and how it brings everyone together.