Parental Week

After our trip to France, Jeff flew home with the kids and I got to stay in Denver to spend 6 days with my parents! As the second of five kids, I treasure my one-on-one time with my parents. I have exceptional parents and I loved my time with them. We didn't DO any extreme or earth-shattering activities during my visit, but we did enjoy chatting over dinner every night, just the three of us. 

My Dad and I went on a run together. My Mom and I did our daily artwork together, and one day we even went to a local art show to view Colorado artists' submissions to a competition. 

On the night when Mom was gone teaching her ESL class, Dad and I sat on the couch and talked the whole time she was gone. I felt like a total celebrity, soaking up all of this quiet one-on-one time with my parents!

Mom and I watched all 16 episodes of our favorite K-drama: Crash Landing on You. It was our second annual epic K-drama quest watching this entire show in a week. We laughed, teared up, and swooned at all of our favorite scenes. We have basically declared a yearly screening of this show to be our own two-person tradition. It made me so happy.

We tried several flavors of new ramen noodles--every day for lunch, we made a different kind of noodles and then ate them while watching our show. 

I indulged in unlimited uninterrupted piano playing on my Mom's gorgeous Steinway piano, and my sweet parents were very kind to listen to me repeat all of my favorite songs more than three times. 

I wrote this sentence in my journal one night while I was staying with my parents, which sums it all up perfectly:  It's just so companionable when we do simple things together and talk. The phrase "goodly parents" barely scratches the surface when it comes to my mom and dad.

Mango Bingsu (shaved ice) for dessert at the Korean restaurant. It was like a creamy icy haystack, and it tasted so good. This ended up being the only picture I took with both of my parents during my visit. 

Noodle lunch with plenty of veg on the side!

Running with Dad: he showed me a new loop near his house.

I ordered a pair of my favorite Adidas carbon rod running shoes for my dad, and we wore our matching shoes on our run.

This matching shoes picture turned out weirder than I expected, haha.

Using my Dad's workout room, I did my best to keep up with my physical therapy in between K-drama sessions. 

My cute Mom has a mini desk vacuum! It made me laugh and was so quintessentially MOM, I had to take a picture of her vacuuming her desk. She got it to get sticky icky pollen off of her desk and shelves because traditional dusting methods aren't effective enough against that allergen.

More noodles, about to watch a lunch episode! On several days, we ended up watching a breakfast episode while eating oatmeal, and a lunch episode while eating noodles.

I drew several scenes from our show in my sketchbook during our daily art sessions.

Colorado does alright at sunset.

Art on a Sunday afternoon.

PIANO.

The best Mom and friend in the whole wide world. Seriously, not everyone gets to be pure kindred spirits with their parent. I don't know how I won the parental lottery.

Returning to the house after a morning run.

I enjoyed several runs on the Greenwood Village Canal pathway. A nice flat path with plenty of shade: perfect for an out-of-towner running through the mile-high altitude and blazing intense sunshine.

I had to draw the ensembles of characters from our show. It made me laugh and I had so much fun, even though I butchered so many of their faces!

Finger heart finisher's picture! I know at races people take finisher's pictures. We decided it's part of our tradition to take a finisher's picture at the end of the last episode. It was surprisingly hard to get even an ok picture with a projector screen behind us, and we took close to a dozen, laughing our heads off at how hard it was.

More art inspired by our week.

Love.