my birthday vacation

I was spoiled this year. We took a little trip back to Cleveland and I got to spend by birthday there! We dropped the kids off at Grandma's and headed East. It was a little weird to be there at first. Our move West was pretty sudden, and after only a short time living in OH, made it feel crazy to be back and realize how many memories we had made there in such a short time. It felt like a dream, like "did that part of my life really happen?" And yet, that was a HUGE part of our life, and we did so many things, traveled to so many places, and made some wonderful friends.

Our purpose to going was to get things in order with our house, meet our renters, do some cleaning, and enjoy a day or two just Scott and I. We had a great time. Scott got to play golf with some friends, we enjoyed an awesome meal with some of our best friends, and we got to see lots of familiar faces at church. My sweet friend Elyse even made me one of my most favorite cakes, Chocolate Sheet cake. It was divine.
Above: after our delicious meal at Lola's. What a "vibrant" street..... this is what Grant was calling it. A little sarcastic, since the rest of Cleveland doesn't look this "up and coming." Poor Cleveland, they have struggled for so long. We had a great night, and we loved the food we had at Lola. It was amazing.
We called our dinner to Lola's my birthday dinner. They were even nice enough to put a candle in our lemony dessert. It was fantastic.

We missed our boys, but had a great weekend. We have a lot of great memories of Cleveland and our time there, I guess that is why it was kind of hard and sad to be back there for a few short days. Especially to see our empty, quiet house. I'm not used to that, and i'm glad that's not how I remember it most of the time. I remember being filled with chatter from my two sweet boys, full of friends, Thursday night pizza night, a warm cozy winter time, and enjoying having our own back yard. I know we will have all those things again some day, and I'm looking forward to that.

Thanks to everyone who helped us have such a great weekend! And special thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for taking great care of our boys!