family celebrations

after spending the day jamming at mayfest T, my mom and i met up with my brother and dad at my cousin's house for a family cook-out to celebrate her son, josh's, graduation from high school!! (that's him in the blue shirt..ready for next fall at OU)

we all gathered around after yummy food to watch him open up his grad gifts and crack a couple of grad jokes :)

then my little cousin lyla decided to pay peek-a-boo with us, which was pretty funny to watch until she realized i was not playing along. then i of course needed to drop my camera and play along :)

 

the next morning before T and i headed back, we celebrated mother's day with some amazing mini creations my parents made for us to try. seriously amazing! i really think the day my parents make something that tastes terrible is the day i hate ice cream...and i love ice cream for the record so that day will never come :)

mmm...i've been dreaming of this combo ever since!

it was of course followed by gifts for my momma and grandma stephanie as well as some great storytelling and laughs. moments like these are what always make me miss home and get excited to return!

between all of the family time and mayfest, it was a fun, busy-bee of a weekend and i loved it!
happy monday!

mayfest

the weekend before last T and i went to tulsa for some family time (i'll post on later) as well as check out mayfest/blue dome art fest. both festivals are held downtown about a block away from each other and feature great local art, goods and music.  

i love walking through both fests to check out all the great art that's featured. one of my regular art favorites is based out of chicago but always makes a trek down here each year. (unfortunately, i was not allowed to take any snapshots of the art but i love her mix of fantasy and real-life...kind of a new take on alice in wonderland) if you would like to see a little taste of what we viewed, check out her website

after awhile though, the 90+ degree heat started to get to us so we sat down to enjoy a few drinks, cool off and catch a little of the live music playing...

we then hopped over to a little gelateria nearby where they had my favorite of all flavors, stracciatella! (the italian version of chocolate chip but instead of chips, chocolate shavings..mmm!)

(and this gorgeous entrance way is where we got to enjoy our gelato...built in the glitz of the 1920s, i.e. beyond intricate details and amazing material)

after gelato we walked back towards the festivals and stumbled upon this: a local dance troope decided they would boogie out to the lindy-hop in the middle of the street and they.were.good!

then, over to blue dome where we saw this local artist and their beautiful glasswork, and tried some local oklahoman wines. the wines were great and i love the story of the vineyard owners renovating an old, abandoned schoolhouse to help bring tourism to a small town! T and i have decided we will be making a trek out there sometime this summer for another tasting :)

i love this shirt by Darby & Dash. they had boat loads of great shirts like this with oklahoma themes including one with the lyrics to the song oklahoma.

we were having such a great time but i needed a rest! fortunately i found this seuss-like chair to take a breather from all the walking which T made fun of, saying it looked like i was sitting on a bolt. i guess he didn't find these chairs to be as cool as i did ;)

then we were off to a bbq to have some much needed family fiesta time!

pup diaries

so my mom may have told you but i got a new brother. he's pretty fun and i like his puppy toys...they're squeaky and easy to steal from him. but sometimes, i just want to play with my toys. like this stick.

and i won't be distracted...

unless he goes for my tail!

boba

lately..

[T and i had an impromptu dinner al fresco and one of our local favorites]  

so the past week+ has been some what of a crazy whirlwind blur...in a good way though! so i figured i would give a photo recap of our life lately :)

[we fell in love with little solo..especially me :)]

[T and i enjoyed a director-like viewing of a new summer flick]

[i whipped up my favorite pesto-filled chicken recipe..mmm]

[i tried oysters for the first time and LOVE them]

[my sweet friend indulged my daring interest and we had a girlie catch-up. love.]

[solo found his new favorite place to nap. i didn't mind too much.]

[we spent mother's day with T's family and i witnessed one of the sweetest moments ever...seriously, even i teared up]

[i baked an old childhood favorite]

[i had gotten a stomach bug and found peppermint tea was my only relief]

[boba and solo have found new sweet ways for us to love them even more]

[we found a new way to kick up summertime wines...by adding in frozen peaches. yumm.]

[boba helped supervise solo's first bath]

[we cheered on big boy moments with solo]

[and we took advantage of recipes using prosciutto and asparagus...a dream of flavors]

this weekend we are excited to head off to tulsa to celebrate mother's day with my family and check out mayfest/blue dome art festival. for those who don't know, these two festivals are held in downtown tulsa less than a block away from each other. it's kind of amazing and we can't wait! (i especially can't wait to see my family!)

happy weekend!

the new addition

soo i've been buzzing with excitement lately as T and i have a new puppy addition to our little family! please welcome sweet baby solo....

for anyone who is curious he is a 6 week old white-blonde lab with the prettiest blue eyes you will ever see. i am kinda in love :)

we had to wait a WHOLE week before we could bring him home so we could get everything ready for him and believe me, no one was more excited than boba. seeing all the puppy stuff around, he knew something was up but then, solo and i came up to the door and boba went nuts!! he was so happy to play with his new brother and since we brought him home, they have been the best of pals. (boba's tail just happens to be solo's favorite chew toy)

hip-hip-hooray! we couldn't be more thrilled and can't wait to see him and boba grow up together!