Betsy’s Golden Birthday @ Cocktails & Canvas

My dear friend Elizabeth aka Betsy celebrated her Golden Birthday this past weekend. The poor girl just got out of a 3 year long relationship, so instead of allowing her to be sad for her Birthday, a group of girlfriends and I decided to plan a fun filled night out for her. We started the night off with Cocktails & Canvas. What is Cocktails and Canvas? Well, it’s this really cool place where you go and learn to do some acrylic painting on Canvas’ while hanging out with your best girlfriends and sharing a cocktail or two. The best part is, you need zero experience and zero artistic ability to do it and for all you non-drinkers, you don’t have to partake in the Cocktail part. I have to admit, I was SO super nervous going because I am the farthest thing from being an artistic person so I was really intimidated. Much to my surprise, their advertising is spot on when they say you don’t need experience. Is my painting a masterpiece? No way, but it came out cute, I had an absolute BLAST doing it, and it was a fun new experience to share with my friends. After Canvas & Cocktails (about 3 hours of it) us ladies headed down a few blocks in Cherry Creek to the Milwaukee Tavern where we met up with the guys and a few more friends that didn’t go to the painting part. It was a super fun night out Celebrating one of my Very Dear Friends on her Golden Birthday!

At Canvas & Cocktails they feature a different painting everyday. So when you make your reservation online you can see the painting you will be doing. The one we did is the Pink & Blue Tree Painting you see in the picture above on the right side. There is an instructor that stands up on the stage and give you VERY detailed step by step instructions on how to create your painting. You can follow her step by step or you can get creative and make your own version. SO MUCH FUN!!!!!

All set up and ready to paint with my glass of Vino! When you first get there you are instructed to go over to the ‘Pump’ Station where it tells you how many pumps of each color to get.

Left Pic: Liz, Betsy (Birthday Girl), and Sam. Middle Pic: Me & Betsy. Right Pic: Kelly & Betsy!

Painting Away.

During the ‘Break’ we decided to chit chat, be silly, & take some pics. Left to Right: Liz, Kelly, Betsy, Angie, Sam & Me.

Progress of our painting at break time. Left to Right: Mine, Kelly’s, & Betsys. Betsy cracked me up! The original painting had a couple sitting on the bench, but since she just got out of a long relationship there was no way she was painting a couple so she made some random people, the guy had on a sombrero and so did the dog. Lol, too funny!

And our Final Masterpieces. Again not professional, but not bad for my very first painting!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETSY!!!!!!

Me & Betsy getting photo bombed by Nate & Liz at the Milwaukee Street Tavern. The Chicken Quesadilla was AMAZING!!!

Me & Brandon on the way home. Such a fun night out with all the people I love!

I have REALLY hit the jackpot with friends here in Colorado. Don’t know how I lived my life this long without them :) I feel truly blessed!!!!!!!!

Some Highlights of our Week

Thank you all for listening to my Medical Rant a couple blogs ago. Felt good to reflect and rant. Went to the doc Monday and have a Medical Blog Update to do, but I want to keep things upbeat for a bit so I am putting that off for now. Sent an e-mail to my close friends and family to update them for the time being, and I’ll worry about catching up my ‘electronic journal’ later :)

As I mentioned in a few other blogs, the weather here has been super bipolar. Again, zero complaints here. Lot’s of people complain about it, but I happen to find it pretty darn cool that you can go play at the park & play in the snow all in the same week. It’s like the best of both worlds. So, that is exactly what we have been doing, park play days, snow ball fights, etc.

Picnic in the Park with The Oppenlander (keelan & Eisley) Family,

Autumn and her Bestie Eisley being silly.

The park we went to has a little amphitheater stage, so the kids decided to put on a show for us. Lol. Normally we get together with Keelan & Eisley during the week so their older sister, Sophia, is usually in school, but since it was a Saturday she was able to join the fun.

Ring-Around-The-Rosie

My friend Stephanie brought along some old loaves of bread so the kids went to town feeding the ducks.

 

Then, just 3 short days later, we had a afternoon playing out in the snow,

Typical spring weather in Colorado :) It has snowed about 6 inches every week so far in April. Crazy? Maybe. Great for the drought? Absolutely!

Owen and I setting up for our family snowball fight.

Eating our new little creation “Snow Cream”

 

And then, just a few short days after that snow, we were playing at the park again in pure sunshine. My love for this beautiful state grows more and more each day that passes.

My little crazies!

 

Other than that, we are keeping busy with friends,

Owen and Luke playing Twister. These boys could play game after game and never get bored.

And Owen’s down!

Whack-a-mole fun!

Autumn, Raylynn (her new little friend) & Owen having a ‘pretend’ sleepover. Lol

 

Last week we all made a trip to the Eye Doctor. Brandon and I haven’t been in over 3 years and since we pay for the kids to have eye benefits, we figured we should take advantage and take them. They both did great and have great eyes. They are both a tad bit far sided which apparently is what all kids are at this age. Who knew. As for Brandon, his eyes improved a bit, and mine, well they did not. She said I could really benefit from wearing my reading glasses more around the house. Bummer dude. Brandon and I both updated and got some cool new spectacles and the kids had fun trying on glasses even though they don’t need them. It was a successful family trip to the eye doc :)

We got some pictures of Owen, but Autumn needed to sit on our lap since she is a bit vertically challenged so we have none of her exam.

 

Trying on some spectacles. Autumn looks SO adorable in glasses :)

Since we all got our eyes dilated, we got some cool sporty shades to wear :)

 

And last night we had a wonderful family night. Dinner at Pei Wei and then reading and browsing through a local bookstore called Tattered Cover.

At dinner sporting my new glasses.

Daddy sporting his new glasses.

 

And today, we were hit with another round of snow :)

 

That’s about it y’all. Have a great week!