Life On Madison: Calendar party

It's a Calendar Party!

I wrote about the history of The Calendar Party here and decided to keep up the tradition.

{Never mind that I forgot to do it from June to July...and who knows if I will remember next month...but here I am now! :) }

My month of July has been delightfully ~~lazy~~ relaxing.

I hung out with the kids

Read a lot and went to pools

Went to lunch with friends

Had lots of ~~drinks~~ dinners with friends

Went to Rapids Games

Survived a garage sale {barely}

Saw my nieces and nephews

Hiked with my best buddy

Stomp, clap, clap, clap, clap, stomp.

And now on to August.

Oh August.

I sort of ~~hate~~ dislike you.

There are many reasons why, but this year, I am going to give you a chance.

So.

Since I am back to work, let's make the most of this space, K?

I get to see this girl

And. I .Can't. Wait.

We'll go to Brian's company picnic that will feature his home brew.

Our family will celebrate my baby brother's 40th {!!!!) birthday.

{He lives in Italy with his wife and so it will be a remote par-tay!}

We hope to go camping, attend more Rapids games, pack fun into the weekends, and enjoy what we can from silly old August.

Stomp, clap, clap, clap, clap, stomp.

During my first year of college, I lived in an all girls dorm.

It was amazing.

Toby Kendal at UNC housed about 30 girls.

It was there that my concept of having deep, meaningful, important friendships with women blossomed. I didn't really have that many close high school girlfriends, so this was new to me, and frankly,
it was life changing.

This space in my life deserves a whole series of sorts on this blog, so I will wait on that but
what I can't wait to write about is a ritual that was started by a few of us in that dorm that I think about every single turn of a new month.

The Calendar Party!

I' m really not sure who started it,
{Umm, this was 23 years ago, folks, 23 years since my freshman year in college! YIKES! No wonder I can't remember!}

but over the years, we perfected the recipe for the perfect Calendar Party

and I am going to share it with you now.

{Aren't you lucky?!}

Either on the first day of the month, or the last day of the month gather together your best friends and dress in a silly costume.

{Yeah, I'm not totally sure how or why this evolved the way it did, but we LOVED this part!}
Holding a calendar, go around and share something that you are grateful for from the last month.

After each person shares, stomp once, clap 5 times and stomp again.
Stomp, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, Stomp

Yes. That's an important step.

Then, go around the circle again and talk about something you are anticipating in the upcoming month.

{The stomp-clap-stomp is quite necessary after this share too.}
Finish by changing your calendar to the next month at the same time.

These Calendar Parties were mildly ridiculous but I will never forget the impact they had on me. I cherish the habit of becoming reflective and creating a sense of true community within that reflection.

I love that we celebrated and commiserated over things in our lives together.

It was a precious, important time in my life that I find myself cherishing even more now because life gets busy and often we forget to reflect and anticipate the goodness of our lives.

So.

All this is leading to my own Calendar Party of sorts.

{I know it's June 2, yesterday was N.U.T.S.!}

May was filled with wonderful times with friends. We celebrated Brian's 40th birthday, our wedding anniversary (4!) and the end of my 4th year of teaching!!!!

We celebrated the wedding of Calley and Aaron--it was perfect.

I got to meet my "nephew" Kai for the first time.

{Yeah, that's a smile...don't you think?}

It was topped off by a PERFECT night at Red Rocks with my friend Hannah.

This month I also got to see one of my friends from my Toby Kendal days
{and possibly the Calendar Party starter...not sure, though (23 years!!!???)...} at her son's graduation.
I don't have a picture, but it was extremely special for us to reconnect.

When thinking back to May, I find myself so very grateful for my close friendships.

These people truly love me as I am--no matter what--and this is amazing.

Stomp, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, Stomp.

And now it's June.

Oh June. You might be my most favorite month.

{But don't tell the others!}

What am I looking forward to in June:

CABIN!!!!!!!

Many of you are good sports for putting up with my CABIN! antics.

I can't seem to post enough pictures, {of the same thing, I know...}

tell enough nostalgic stories, or anticipate the pure R&R that is the CABIN!

This year, the CABIN! anticipation is on steroids {if that's even possible!} because not only will I be spending 22 days there, {I KNOW!} I will be spending those days with these people: