Thirteen Favorite Memories Sitting with my husband in an outdoor cafe in Park Guell, Barcelona, sipping on sangria and watching this little parrot serenade us from a nearby tree, and not having a care in the world. Laughing and giggling with my big sister in a tepee at the foot of the Banff Mountains in Canada. We were so cold, but it was raining so we couldn't make a fire. So we sat inside the tepee, roasting marshmallows over little tealights, and told ghost stories. Chocolate Chip Cookie Nights with the Tudors. My hubby and I lived in married student apartments in our undergrad years, and we had a standing double date night with some good friends of ours. Whoever hosted had to buy the "break-off" Toll House cookies. We'd gossip and watch movies and play cheesy games. It was the best. Taking baby brother to a Mets game at Shea Stadium. We got all dressed up in our blue and orange and made a day of it. He was so excited to be there. My first glimpse of Venice. We had a rotten train ride in the tail end of the train, we didn't even have seats, and stepping out of the train station, all of that melted away. It is just a magical city that looks old but classic, full of flowers everywhere, and no cars! And it was my first time in Italy, too. We went, soon after, to a restaurant overlooking the Grand Canal to have our first true Italian Pizza. True Zen moment. The night my husband proposed. We were going to a show at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, so we were all gussied up and he asked if I would meet him in this private garden of the college we were going to. He met me with a dozen long stemmed red roses and began to quote from the song "All I ask of You" from Phantom of the Opera. He had the ring hidden in the middle of the petals of the center rose. Sweet, huh? I had no clue he was going to ask. (Another saccharine one...) Walking with my dad down the isle at my wedding. He had pride and love and joy just radiating from him. That was a really special moment for me. My Johnson City Halloween parties. Each of them were memories in themselves! They were all "Martha Stewarted" out, with elaborate costumes, crazy games, spooky foods, TONS of decorations, and lots of good friends from all over the country. The day Tim painted my kitchen yellow. We bought a fixer-upper house in TN, and man did it ever need fixing! Anyway, by the time we worked on the kitchen, we were about halfway there. The kitchen needed a complete overhaul, with drywall, flooring, plumbing, electrical work, taking out a wall, etc. And Tim did all of it! So when that paint went up finally, we knew that we had really accomplished something. My rainbow. My senior year in HS, I took a trip to Haiti to help with a medical missions team. About a week into the trip, I had an ultimate low - one of those lows that is physical, mental, and spiritual. We had a 24 hour. prayer watch going on and I was allotted a spot around noon on a day my low hit a new low. I was up on the roof of the compound in this third world country, it had just totally rained all over me, and I was sitting there trying to remember why I even came along. Then this amazing rainbow came out of the clouds and it was like an answer to all of my questions. Tim and I chased another rainbow when we were in Ireland! We were hoping to find a leprechaun, but we found the harbor at sunset instead, which was just as nice. Spending New Year's Eve in NYC with our closest friends, Rachel and Chris. It was our first visit to the city and we had planned on watching the ball drop. We never actually made it till 12:00, though. Both Tim and Chris had to go to the bathroom so bad that they just wouldn't have been able to hold it for another hour, so we hopped the fence and went to a cute little restaurant/bar in Greenwich Village and just had the best time celebrating a new year there. We found the best place to be too, because one of the restaurant owners proposed that night and had this huge celebration planned out. They dropped all of these balloons and had free champagne and the works! Waking up in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, in Estes Park, Colorado on my honeymoon. Tim and I had missed our original morning flight (that being a whole other story) to Colorado, so we had to take a really late flight in, putting us there well after midnight. Then we drove to Estes Park in the dark, so I never got to actually see Rockies in all their glory until the next morning. I tell you, there is nothing like (after a crazy week) waking up in a mountain cabin, deep in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by the smell of lilacs and the sounds of nature, next to the man you love. (Wow this was a long one!) Links to other Thursday Thirteens! Sherri... Lazy Daisy... Kelly... Shelli... Colleen... Uisce... Froggie... Ladybug... Novelist... Denise... Killired... (leave your link in comments, I‚’ll add you here!)

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