Wonderful Weekend

I am so in love with having weekends off.  Now I'm kicking myself for not trying before this year to get weekends off.  It's weird how we just go on with life day after day without much thought on how we can make our lives better.  It took me quite a while (about six months) to get a schedule change at work.  But like all really great things, it took time to make it happen.  The reason for my giddiness is that I feel like I'm newly married again!  It's so nice to have time with Zdenek.  It's nice to go out together and enjoy each other's company.

This weekend was full of fun times together:

First of all, we had morning coffee together on the patio.  It's still pretty hot in Arizona so morning is the only time we can spend on our patio.  But soon, we'll be having dinners out there.

On Saturday, we went shopping!!!  I haven't shopped for clothes in so long so I really enjoyed it.  I loved that Zdenek could tell me if  an outfit looked good on me or not.  Normally I would only do this with my sister but once in a while shopping with a man is OK!  I just believe my sister is the best person to shop with.  She has excellent taste, knows what looks good on me and we always have fun.  But she lives in Florida.  She wasn't available this past Saturday!

OMG...I almost forgot the best news of my weekend!  On Saturday, my niece had her baby!!!  Now I'm a great Auntie!  Sounds so weird to me.   My sister, Cindy, is the first of my siblings to become a grandma!  Her daughter, Brittany, had a little boy named Archer:

My sister, Cindy with her new grandson, Archer

On Saturday, we celebrated Octoberfest at a local German restaurant, Brat Haus.  They have a great outdoor sitting area full of long and short picnic tables under shade trees and umbrellas.  I didn't get a picture of waitstaff outfits but they wore old time German attire, I think it adds to the experience.  So we drank beer and enjoyed a sausage meal:

In addition to enjoying a meal out, we headed over to the park to enjoy Ballet in the Park!  Every year Arizona Ballet Company does several performances at different parks on a Saturday evening.  This was the first year we could go.   It was a beautiful night, the stars were bright and the performance beautiful.

(Of course, I had to have some Kettle Popcorn!)

(photo from AZ Ballet Company)

I did have some time to sew on Sunday.  I'm working on a project for a blog hop that I plan to write a post about this week.  It's all about English Paper Piecing.  It's a slow process but really great for my soul.  I love that I can make something by hand with just small pieces of fabric and thread.  This pattern is called Star Blossom by Rachel Hauser.  Rachel has a tutorial on her blog, Stitched in color.

Now, I'm wishing every day was a weekend :)