President's Day weekend with Dad & Mom!

Good morning! I hope you are all having a good Wednesday so far! Halfway through the work week- yay!

As promised, here some of the highlights from our recent visit with Mom & Dad Butler that I wanted to share. We had such a wonderful time together and wish we could see each other more often.

Dad, Mom, and Buddy arrived on Saturday afternoon and we had a fun time catching up. After a bit we decided to venture out and show them some of our favorite places in Birmingham. As you might guess, the first stop was the library! I love that place. Yes, I'm a dork I guess. It is such an awesome library with tons of great resources. We had fun showing them around and ended up checking out some DVD's that we could watch in the evening.

Next, we drove over to 2nd and Charles, a large used bookstore. Daniel had some books to sell and we all had fun looking through the many, many various books they have. Mom & I wanted to walk around JoAnn's so we left the guys at the bookstore and headed a few doors down to JoAnn's.

Outside of 2nd & Charles

Inside of 2nd & Charles (how cool is that book display??)

Mom & I had a blast looking through the material and all of the other sewing supplies. Mom is a veteran seamstress and is amazing at sewing (among other things!). I have a little bit of experience with sewing, but I am still learning. Mom gave me a sewing lesson while she was visiting and I learned how to thread the machine, thread and install a bobbin, and change out the needle. Up until now I could use the machine, but if the thread or bobbin came undone it was all over- I had no idea how to fix it! Recently I was working on sewing a table cloth when the bobbin came undone.. I ended up finishing the tablecloth by hand (not ideal). So this was a fun learning experience for me! I loved walking around JoAnn's with Mom & learning more about something she is so good at. Mom bought some material to make a new skirt for her skirt purse and I bought some material to try to make a small banner for our front door. I also bought some scrap booking paper to make a banner which I'll show in a later post.

After satisfying our JoAnn's sweet tooth, we headed to Jim'n'Nicks for some good old bbq! Jim'n'Nicks really does have some amazing food and we all ate well that night.

Dad & Mom in our booth at Jim'n'Nicks

Daniel & I in our booth at Jim'n'Nicks

On Sunday we got up and went to church and enjoyed a lovely service. It was the first Sunday of Lent and the church service was a beautiful reflection and challenge as we enter this season. After church we stayed for fellowship and had fun introducing Mom & Dad to some of our church family.
After church we went home and had some Skinnytaste Chicken Parmesan. I am a big fan of Gina's Skinnytaste recipes. All of the ones I've tried have turned out to be delicious and fairly simple to create. I paired the chicken parmesan with roasted broccoli, cheesy garlic bread, and pears and we were all set! After much needed naps we headed back over to the library to take a walk on their nature trail. I think little Buddy enjoyed it the most, but he was pretty tired out afterwards!

Sweet Buddy

On Sunday night we had Community Group (our small group from church) and were excited for Dad & Mom to get to join us. It was a sweet time of fellowship and was special to share that with my parents. After Community Group we came home to watch Downton Abbey.. I had heard what was going to happen, but I was still so sad. I won't say anymore in case someone reading this has not yet watched it. Let's just say we had to watch something a little happier afterwards because we were so bummed! I hope next season will be a little happier. I thought the picture below was hilarious! That is kind of how I felt when PBS put the donation phone number at the bottom of the screen before the episode was even over.

Right?

On Monday morning we got up and had some cinnamon rolls and got ready to go visit the Lakeshore Foundation facilities. I had never visited and my parents were interested in taking a tour since it is an Olympic and Paralympic training facility. We really enjoyed taking a tour and seeing all of the wonderful resources they provide. After our tour we ate lunch at Panera Bread, headed home for Mom & Dad to pack, and said our goodbyes. We were so sad to see them leave, but were thankful for the wonderful weekend we had together! Thanks for making the trip and sleeping on an air mattress, Dad & Mom! Love you guys!

So, that about covers the highlights of our weekend. Did you do anything special this President's Day weekend?

Love,
Laura