Cinco de Mayo and Visitors

Cinco de Mayo:
Our friends threw a fun Cinco de Mayo party on, well, May 5.  There was a ton of yummy mexican food (including juicy carne asada, mmmm), a even a pinata.  I branched out and made a yummy new Mexican dessert for my food assignment- Tres Leches Cake.  I was a little worried about how it would turn out, but I have to say, it was quite yummy!  It was a lot of fun and I'm grateful to have so many wonderful friends here in Fort Collins!

Visitors:
Last week, my sister Jessica and her husband Brad came to visit us on their way out to Texas to sell security systems for the summer.  This was (sadly) the first time the four of us have hung out alone (without other family members around) since they met 2 1/2 years ago.  It was so great to have them all to ourselves and I'm so happy they made the time to stop by and see us!

They came Tuesday evening and left Thursday morning.  Unfortunately, I had to work on Wednesday and Brody had finals, so Brad and Jess were on their own the whole day.  They were troopers though to do some of the things on our list by themselves.  But Tuesday and Wednesday night were both a lot of fun!

We enjoyed eating out at the yummiest burger place, going for a walk, getting frozen yogurt, walking around Old Town, playing Rook and chatting late into the night (well, late for a week night :)

I love my sister a lot and I'm glad she picked such a great guy to marry so that the 4 of us can become great friends.  I'm sad we don't live closer so we can see them more often, but that just means we'll have to make the most of our short visits!

In other news:
Brody has successfully completed the first year of his PhD program!!  He did really well in all his classes, and they say the first year is the hardest, so it should be smooth sailing from here on out! (Oh, except for that big qualifying exam-- apparently, much like law school or medical school, PhD programs require that you pass a qualifying exam in order to get your degree.  Also, you only have 2 tries to pass, otherwise it was all a big waste. Yikes!! I think that will happen sometime next year, so maybe I'll wait until AFTER that to say 'it's all smooth sailing from here')