Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you! I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos. I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to three little girls (ages 7, 4, and 1) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!) I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo
Girls Weekend in Colorado Springs
If you follow me over on Instagram, you may have seen that I spent the weekend playing around in Colorado Springs! The weekend was fast and furious and just the mental and physical recharge I desperately needed.
My friend Hannah, who I became really close with at Fort Campbell, flew into Colorado from Hawaii last week to fulfill some on-site grad school requirements. While she was finishing up on Friday, my good friend Meg and I left our sweet kiddos with their daddies here in Kansas and drove seven hours west to Colorado.
Meg & I both have very close Army friends from previous duty stations who live in Colorado Springs (Fort Carson), so having each other to road trip with was such a blast. We barely touched the radio and talked each other’s heads off the entire trip! Her homemade s’mores cookies only made the trip that much sweeter. 😉 I found the recipe for them on Six Sisters’ Stuff, and you can bet I’ll be making these the next time I need to bring a dessert somewhere!
Once we made it to the Springs Friday afternoon, I dropped Meg off with her sweet girlfriend Laura and headed to my friend Noel’s house. You may remember our trip to visit her & Jeremy back in January (found here). Hannah joined us a few hours later, and we spent the night eating sour patch kids, drinking wine, and talking until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer.
On Saturday morning we played with Noel’s kiddos before her babysitter arrived around lunchtime.
We then spent the afternoon getting lunch (while enjoying a gorgeous view of Pike’s Peak), sipping drinks, getting pedicures, and shopping. I hadn’t had a girls afternoon like that in a while, and it was wonderful! I love how the physical distance between us hasn’t touched our friendship a single bit. These friendships mean everything to me.
On Saturday night we took the kids for a walk and relaxed before turning on a DVRed episode of The Bachelorette and then calling it a night.
Yesterday morning we slept in (It was Heaven, I tell you…) before grabbing breakfast at Panera and hitting the road. Hannah needed to make her way to Missouri to see her family and friends, so she rode with Meg & I back to Manhattan before getting picked up by her friends and headed to Kansas City. Meg & Hannah had never met prior to our road trip back to Kansas, but they clicked instantly and we all shared a lot of laughs and good conversation the entire way.
Thankfully Hannah got to swing by my house for a bit to see Jamie & Hadley before heading to KC. Hadley and Teddy both warmed up to her immediately. They obviously loved seeing her again!
Hadley was also really excited to see what I brought home for her – a new step stool (it’s the little things).
All in all, we made some great memories this weekend and I’m super thankful for just a couple short days away to reboot. Any longer and I might have gone a little crazy missing my baby girl. 🙂
The Army is giving Jamie another day off today (so happy), so we’re planning to just enjoy it as a family – and by “enjoy it as a family”, I really mean fix my cracked windshield for the second time in two weeks and possibly pay a visit to the vet for Teddy’s hip issue. Whoop!
I hope you have a wonderful week! Oh, and keep your eye out for a whole new look to Whimsical September debuting tomorrow! I can’t wait for you to see it!