Kelly graduates college!

yesterday my baby sister graduated from university.  i want to devote more time to fleshing out a more appropriate post to express how very proud i am of her. until then i'll leave this photo, taken on saturday night at her birthday + graduation party as it pretty accurately conveys how i feel:

My Birthday 2013!

This year my birthday was on a Saturday which was really fortunate for me.  I was embarrassingly spoiled by everyone I love for three days of parties and celebrations and cupcakes.  

The Friday before my birthday I spent the day alone shopping and spa-ing and it was fabulous.  Patrick and I went to Whole Foods and ended up with a huge pizza, wings, and a banana cream pie just for me among other things.  It was delicious.

The next day on my actual birthday we did all of my favorite things including a Costco run and dinner with all of my best friends at Hopdoddy with cakes from Hey Cupcake afterwards.  

Sunday we drove to San Antonio to celebrate with my family.  It was so good to see everyone and spend some time eating cake and catching up.

As someone who really loves birthdays, I was pleased as can be with how mine turned out this year.  I am so very grateful to have such a loving and considerate group of family and friends looking after me. Thanks to each and every one of them, most especially my favorite, Patrick, for making me feel very special and loved indeed. 

Steamboat Springs, CO

This year was the first annual Quinn family ski trip and we had way too much fun!  We went to Steamboat Springs, Colorado and after a week in the mountains were seriously looking at available real estate, I love it that much.

We stayed in Nelson Carmichael's place and it was the perfect house for our group. The floor plan was airy and open and it had everything we could possibly want to make our little vacation a fantastic one.  We enjoyed the house so much we already have plans to book it for next year's trip - unless we get our own place there first (haha).

I hadn't been skiing in over 10 years and was really nervous as to how I would do.  I wasn't going to be winning any medals and my form has really gone downhill but I had a blast and did much better than I had thought.  PQ is an excellent expert skier and really impressed all of us - including me! - with his elegant form.

Besides skiing and generally enjoying each other's company we also went on a sleigh ride to a working cattle ranch, went on a very scary yet memorable snow mobile tour, and explored the adorableness that is downtown Steamboat.

All in all we had an excellent trip and cannot wait to do it all over again (except maybe for those snowmobiles...) next year.