The ghosts of weekends past.

Finally got around to uploading some photos from Mother's Day.
We went to my parents house with my mom's family, and my dad's mom/sister.
I decided instead of waiting for photo opportunities to present themselves, to create some of my own.

 

Lucky is silently saying "help me!" with his eyes. 

Speaking of Lucky, he's such a chill cat, when it's nice out we've gotten into the habit of bringing him out back so he can sniff the air jubilantly. 

 

Just loved it. 

 

And in an effort to not edit my mom out of my life unknowingly, I took the time to snap a mother's day picture. She doesn't much like her photo taken, but, I'm happy I have this photo. :) 

 

[Edited to add: if you see the top left corner of my mom's mattress pad, no, we do not have moth balls. Lucky is a little fatty and if people aren't feeding him to his liking, he'll start eating things. Usually it's just the newspaper/magazines that sit on the ground by my dad's couch... but you can see what his latest treat has been. O_O....]

 

My 3 favorite guys. Ever. Period. (M, dad, brother). 

This past weekend we had our marriage retreat.
It was long, there were times I had to elbow M because... while I guess I'd consider myself Catholic, I don't necessarily subscribe to the same "doom and gloom, errybody is going to hell" outlook as most Catholics. I.e., M and I live together..and..well.. you can do the math on the rest.

There were some really good sessions, though.
It's not as though I haven't put thought into the future of our relationship when the wedding is over, but unless you go through some sort of marriage retreat, counseling, etc., I'd be willing to bet most couples don't sit down and dedicate time, during the wedding planning process, to discussing the state of affairs of your relationship. It was just a good reminder that we need to make it a priority, what's important, and to support and not criticize one another.

It was also nice to be on campus.
UST, where we had our retreat, is where we're getting married, too.
At the end of the retreat we had confession and mass, and as we walked up the steps we saw that a wedding had just gotten over. The bride was standing just outside the chapel doors, with all her bridesmaids, in a beautiful ivory gown. It made me quite anxious for my turn. almost down to 4 months! That both seems like a long time, and no time at all.

Some scenes from campus:

 

Sitting outside the chapel. 

Last weekend we also had M's sister's graduation from the U of M. 

She'll be attending law school at the U in the fall. 

M's grandma and aunt:

 

M's mom and step dad:

You can see Katie waving in the middle :)

21st Century commencement: 

 

Love these two. So cute. 

In totally unrelated news, M was diagnosed with high cholesterol recently. Since I'm the one who meal plans, shops, and plans most our meals... he told me there's no way he could rehab his eating without my help. I've wanted to start eating better, working out more, and just feeling better anyway, so we took this as our chance. 

I went grocery shopping tonight, and if you were to open our fridge right now, it'd look like someone chopped up a tree and put it in there. so. much. green, and I love it. I also bought grapes, strawberries, a few plums and an apple. I've found that we eat better if it's easier to access, so, we chopped strawberries tonight, plucked grapes off the vine, and have them in an open bowl in our fridge. I also chopped carrots and celery and packaged it up (along with grapes and strawberries) for lunches for the week. I love opening the fridge and seeing all the fresh fruit and veggies. There's something about warm weather and summer that always rejuvenates my desire to eat healthy.

So, there you have it. I feel slightly more caught up on life at this point. 

Hope you all had a good weekend!