Girl & Guy Time

With 5 little ones now in the family, the majority of our time spent in Albuquerque was centered upon the kids' schedules and their needs. We did, however, take the luxury of planning a specific girls' outing and a guys' outing for the adults. What a nice respite this was!

Mom spoiled us by taking the ladies out for an afternoon tea.

Our room was such a cozy, quaint little space. It definitely gave a sense of privacy and welcomed relaxed conversation.

Upon entering the tearoom, we each selected hats for ourselves from St. James' collection.

The tea began with a gentle, ringing bell promptly at 1:00. We were served a traditional black tea to start.

We took turns trying to elegantly drop sugar cubes into one another's cups, though this brought about several accidental "kerplunks" and splashed tea. Guess we have a bit to learn before we would fit back in this era... :)

Soon after we started tea, our server came with the food. It was served in two "acts" with an intermission, all themed upon The Nutcracker.

We were impressed with our server's ability to recite off all of the food's specific titles (as some were quite lengthy!). She explained each food item all at once, and then left us to enjoy the tea at our own pace.

 Act I was the Savories. It included beef wellington, a cucumber tea sandwich, truffled ladyfinger potatoes, a cheddar quiche, and creamed sprouts and mushrooms, all served with black tea (though mine contains quite a bit of cream & sugar by this point!). While the food samplers may certainly appear to be dainty, this portion of the meal was surprisingly filling-- and VERY tasty!

We took our time sampling each treat and enjoying some peaceful, uninterrupted conversation.

The intermission was made up of our breads-- soda bread and a cream scone with clotted cream and cranberry curd. This course was served with a sparkling sugar plum black tea. I was an especially big fan of the cranberry curd. Yum, yum!

Sarah got tons of great pictures of our meal. We're thankful for our creative, risk-taking photographer. :)

The last portion of our meal was Act II: Sweets. This selection included framboise custard, a Russian truffle, a sugar plum, and the waltz of the snowflake, all served with ginger peach white tea.

Believe it or not, we were all stuffed by this point! Two hours after our starting bell, a waitress roamed the hallway ringing another small bell, signaling the ending of our tea. The waitress brought us warm towels so we could tidy up. :)

What a relaxing, enjoyable afternoon!

These three ladies are such wonderful influences in my life. I value their faith, their creativity, their talents, and their love. My life is so enriched by each one of them-- I love you Kim, Mom, and Sarah! It was SO great to have this extended time to visit with you!

A few days later, the guys enjoyed a fun afternoon of their own. Believe it or not, their outing looked a bit different than the girls'! I'll let Jason share the details of the Guy Time...

Matt, Andrew, and I (Jason) have developed a tradition of participating in some sort of athletic competition while celebrating holidays together.  Most years, these competitions have involved frisbees.  This year, the competition only involved football.  We called it the Ru.P.K. competition which stands for Run, Pass, and Kick.  We used pee-wee sized footballs for our three-part event which was all based on the time it would take to run, kick, throw, and run.  Below, I was very unsuccessfully trying to throw a football across a basketball court and hit a backboard.   

Here, Matt exercises his inner-college soccer skill and sets up for one of four field goal kicks.  If you look very carefully, you can see plastic cups lining the middle part of the backstop.  Yes, we created our own version of goal posts using dollar store plastic cups.

Our final Ru.P.K. picture is of the 2013 Champion as he approaches the finish line nearly 3 minutes ahead of either of his competitors.  Ian is cheering his Daddy to victory!

We celebrated the injury-free end to another boy-like competition by meeting Dad for a glorious lunch at Tucanos.  The ladies had dainty food and delightful conversation.  The guys had meat, more meat, and an unbuckle your belt type resolve to make Tucanos lose money on us.  We're pretty sure they did lose money.  Dad did not participate in weighing himself while working at Church before we met him.  Matt, Andrew, and I did weigh ourselves before Tucanos and after.  We will let the numbers speak for themselves...we three Ru.P.K. competitors gained 13 lbs. together over lunch.  13 pounds.  The meal wasn't amazing simply because of the various meats wrapped in bacon, the massive salad bar, or even the sweetly glazed and grilled pineapple.  It was extra wonderful because of the caring conversation we shared as men.  We listened to each other (easy to do when stuffing your face full of manly "delights"), talked about the past, and dreamed together about the future.  Thank you, Dad, Matt, and Andrew for another glorious trip to Tucanos where the food was great and the company was even better.  I love you all.  13 pounds.  Wow.