nice weekend

Aaaah, we had such a nice weekend. We had no plans whatsoever and were just wide open. We found out that Jackstraw was playing at a little art festival down in St. Maries. Jackstraw is my (and Anna's) favorite blue-grass band; they're from Portland and are very good friends with our favorite people in the world, Rod and Julie. David had never seen them play, so we had to go! We loaded up the car with chairs, a picnic, and Anna's animals. She made sure they were safely buckled in, of course. The festival was in a little park along the GORGEOUS St. Joe River; an amazing setting. There are very few things in the world that I love more than spending a warm summer evening under the trees listening to live bluegrass. Really, is there anything better in life? It was so fun and they sounded great.

Sunday we went for a hike along the Liberty Lake Watershed trail, with it's lovely shady creek. There were hundreds of butterflies and dragonflies on the muddy bank; Anna was in heaven!

I love summer and am so grateful to live somewhere that I can enjoy it. If nothing else, our time owning the business on the Oregon Coast made me appreciate every minute of sunshine and free time that is summer. I will NEVER take it for granted again.

OH! And the most exciting part is that I found a wedding ring yesterday! David and I wanted to do something unconventional (go fig); we didn't want to just go to some big-chain jeweler in the mall because we wanted to feel good about the origins of any stones or metals we purchased if we purchased something new. We were thinking about having rings custom made, but the more we talked about it, we came to realize that our taste in rings is about as different as our taste in rugs. Which is to say that I have taste and, well, David doesn't. (Hi honey! I love you!) Anyway, to make a long story short, I found a gorgeous, sweet vintage ring in the "fine estate jewelry" section of my favorite local funky vintage clothing/jewelry store. It is art-deco style, oval-shaped with tiny saffires around the edge and a c'nardly diamond in the center. (That's what my sister calls diamonds that are so small you "can hardly" see them). But it is very pretty and sweet and it just felt exactly right the minute I put it on. I LOVE IT!!! It's going to be hard to wait until September to wear it...