Thank Goodness for Girlfriends

Good morning! Sorry that I didn’t post last night—I didn’t get home from girls night until 12:30—that’s really late for this old lady!

But before girls night, we went to the park for another party…a dog party!

My mom, Ryan and I walked Ella, Baxter, and Sugar over to the local park, where we met up with my aunt and uncle and their three children (plus their dog Bethany), my other aunt, and my grandmother (plus her two dogs, Sam and Tutu).

It was a true dog party:

The big dogs enjoyed running around:

While the small dogs mostly sat around.  And Baxter did a lot of this:

Here’s my mom with her mom and two sisters.  Lovely ladies!

A good time was had by all.  Especially by Bethany, who found a big mud puddle to roll around in right before we left.  Gotta love that!

After we returned from the park, Ryan and I pumped up the heat in our bedroom…and did a hot yoga class that I downloaded from yogadownload.com!  It was the same 26 Bikram poses from our hot yoga class in Seattle—I don’t usually like the audio downloads, because I like to actually see someone doing the poses, but because we were already familiar with them, this audio was great.  We both liked it! Our room didn’t get nearly as hot as the yoga studio, but even without sweating buckets, the yoga felt good!

It was a 90 minute class, so I cut out about 10 minutes early so that I could shower and head over to girls night!  GN was hosted by my friend Stefanie, and included gumbo, salad, appetizers, mini pecan pies…and lots and lots of wine.  I didn’t take pictures of my eats over the night, but rest assured that I indulged in all of the above (except the gumbo, of course!). 

My friend Ellie violated the rules and brought a boy along…her new puppy, Mr. Wilson!  She just got him on Sunday, and he is so, so cute!

He got acquainted with Stefanie right away:

Girls night started out innocently enough:

But soon enough digressed into this:

…and this:

….and this:

After a while, Mr. Wilson got fresh with my friend Ellen:

Careful, buddy.  She’s a married woman now!

The group:

I love being a newlywed, but sometimes you just need a good night with the girls.  There’s nothing like moving 20 hours away to really make you appreciate your girlfriends.  I’m lucky to have a group of such strong, lovely girlfriends—I can feel the love radiating from them, even all the way up in Altoona

Not sure what’s in the cards for this Sunday.  We might go to church…or we might just lounge around!  It’s a beautiful day outside, so I’d like to get a run in at some point…but I need to hydrate from the wine I enjoyed last night.  I’m feeling a little parched

Hope you had a great weekend!