Vacations!

Sometimes I think it is harder to get ready for a vacation rather than actually going on vacation. I am in Colorado Springs spending a week with my daughter. Her husband is on a business trip to New Mexico so it is a perfect time for us to have a girls week. It seemed like I had a million and one things to do at work in order for me to leave. There are so many details that I oversee in my position that sometimes I overlook something. So I called the camp several times this morning to have camp folk do a few things for me in order to be ready for our guests this week.

So, I am here in Colorado Springs. It's cold but the sun is shining. Amy has our week planned. We plan on shopping for a dress to wear for Nick and Lindsay's wedding; go to Archivers to make a picture frame and drool over all of the fun things they have there; watch "Charlotte's Web' at the matinee; shop some more; and probably stop at Starbucks a few times. Since Amy works at a Starbucks I imagine we will stop by there several times.

I plan on taking naps during the day, reading a couple of books I brought and go through a bunch of receipts so we can get our taxes done. (That last part I don't look forward to but I have to get it done.)

I just read my friend Sherry's post about her trip with her "girls" to Seattle. I look forward soon to be able to do the same thing with my "girls", Amy, my daughter-in-law Melissa and my soon to be daughter-in-law Lindsay.

Lindsay's engagement ring story: When we found out that Nick was thinking about asking Lindsay to marry him I decided to let him know that I have my mom's wedding ring. If he wanted to look at it and give it to Lindsay for her ring I would give it to him. He looked at it and thought it was great, but we decided there was a few little things that could be "updated" on the ring. After all the ring is 64 years old.

So, Nick took it to Wayne's cousin who is a jeweler. They talked through what they could do with it, made a few changes, cleaned it up, reinforced it, sized it and it was ready to go. We took a picture of the before so we could see the difference. Wow, I wish I had the pictures here in Colorado to post, but it looks great. We saw the ring on Sunday and it looks beautiful. It still has quite a bit of the original ring design but with a modern twist. I told Nick and Lindsay that Grandma Ankeny would be pleased. I just about cried.

Milestones

Milestone #1 - We are nearing another milestone in our lives, that is my husband and me. Our son, Nick is engaged to be married to Lindsay Jacobs on May 20. He is our last child to be married and we are thrilled. It is very comforting when your children find wonderful lifetime mates. We feel blessed.

Milestone #2 - 50! I will be turning 50 this summer.

Milestone #3 - Wills! Drafting a will that is. We did that when our children were babies but haven't looked at it since. So, the camp had a representative through the NWYM to come out here to talk with us about estate planning. We made up a new will.

Milestone #4 - We are selling our Newberg house. Our renters recently moved out so we decided it was time for us to sell the home we bought before we came out to the camp and move on to something else.

We all move through these type of milestones in our life. We also have a choice as to how we move through these milestones, with gusto or dreading it. I am in the middle, between gusto and dreading. I'm leading toward gusto!