Summer Solstice 2017

I love to document the longest day of the year, for me it's as fun as Christmas only without the work, the planning, the expense and cooking.  There is always the potential for a beautiful long day of sun, some time at the pool and time with friends.  This one started out just that way, a beautiful morning at our summer pool, Springboard, where we had an optional 9-12 year olds swim practice before they went off to one of their last days of school.  The pool is just the right temp these days and I was in working with them on open turns for the upcoming Saturday meet.






Then I came home, grabbed Dubya and Bella and my girlie and we took the dogs for a lovely walk around our neighborhood.  They enjoyed reading the doggie newspaper and leaving their comments.  These two have a lot of comments on a lot of street corners, bushes, fences, mailboxes...they get out a lot. (side note you can follow them and their cushy lives on instagram @dubyaandbella )

Sarah's first 9 Round
workout

Me and the
Birthday Girl 

Then, the rest of the day, and this post in my blog becomes more of a documentation of my dear friend Vanessa and her birthday.  I love that I have such a good friend who has her most important day on the longest day of the year (and I admit to being a little envious of it too.  I am the gal that states my own birthday is a holiday in our family).  The first stop with Vanessa was our new favorite gym, 9 Rounds and a 30 min workout with JT.  I had invited Sarah, who is home from college and is my awesome assistant swim coach at Springboard too.  30 minutes of burning calories, great music, lots of punching, burpees, kicks and planks.  We love this place!! https://www.9round.com/fitness/springfield-va

Had to head home and shower before I met up with Vanessa again for a lunch date with friends our our dear friend Beth Monroe, who was enjoying a stress free summer vacation after years of pouring her blood, sweat, tears, heart and soul into our children's school, St. Bernadettes.  Fun lunch catching up at El Paso and it wouldn't be complete without a little singing, sombrero and dessert for the birthday girl!








Had to finish up lunch and head home to play with the dogs and do some quick gardening.  I feel a little bad, the past three weeks we've been at Springboard every afternoon for swim practice and the dogs have been a little lonely, they are so sweet and live to play ball, and bark.  I also had to get my girlie and take her to swim practice.  She is having a good season, two competitive weeks and 4 weeks of outdoor training into the season, but that's another blog post in a few months.  Aren't these two dogs adorable?




I'm the head swim coach at Springboard Pool this year and thus I am my daughter's coach.  I think so far so good, she looks pretty happy at practice on the 21st right?  I had to snap a quick photo because I was leaving practice in Sarah's hands and heading out to dinner and a show for, yep you guessed it, Vanessa's continued birthday celebration.

Me, Tama (aka DJ Tricky Tama) and
Marcia. 

 Here we all are at dinner, I think we did better than usual with 12 for dinner and 13 total for the show, which was RENT at the National Theater.  We only got seated 20 minutes later than our reservation time, none of it was our fault, it was obviously traffic going into DC.  Those tourist and everyone else out enjoying the Summer Solstice.  We ate at Old Ebbitt, an iconic and classic DC haunt and I think everyone else was eating there that night too.   Since it was still Vanessa's birthday we had to have a birthday dessert.  This dessert is a signature cake at Old Ebbitts; raspberry chocolate and it was delicious!! As you can tell by this point Vanessa was clearly saying, "No, no it's okay please sing happy birthday one more time."
















Finally, with 14 minutes before the opening curtain we walked to the National Theater, took a few selfies and found our seats for the show.




And then, just like that, it was 10:30 pm, the show was amazing and sadly over and we managed to get one last group shot.  If any of the husbands had been with us most of these pictures would not have been possible.  We love them, but they do not roll like us when we are in a group and they do not understand the importance of a few pictures here and there.  ( I have at least twice as many pictures form this entire day that I didn't even use).

I love this day, June 21, and I love that I get to document it every year and I was able to spend so much of it with Vanessa and celebrate her day with her.  I love these gals I can call friends and am able to spend time with and have these crazy nights and adventures with too.  

I hope you enjoyed the 2017 version of Summer Solstice.