girls' nights, out and in

this weekend has been one filled with girls' nights, all of which have been positively lovely so far.

the jazz

yesterday, i made my way out to Jazz in the Garden in downtown DC with natalie and jenelle (from my small group) and some of jenelle's friends from work, sarah and mary, and mary's friend merideth. we met up in georgetown and walked all the way down there! it was a super long walk, but was good exercise and we got a nice little tour of the area along the way.

the sculpture garden

the girls (plus festim)

the umbrella huddle. natalie and festim, how are you two so cute?

the sculpture garden would have been fun just fredor the people watching (read: men in seersucker pants, interpreting couples' body language and watching others who have had too much to drink talk about art), but there was good music, a pretty fountain, food and drinks as well. we found a nice place to sit on the grass, avoided the rain with our collective umbrellas and just chatted as girls do.

jenelle and mary in the umbrella hut.

after the jazz jenelle, mary and i went to get a bite to eat and i made my way home to exercise the kitty and get some well needed rest.


tonight was another equally as good girls' night with sara and athena. i rented the Secret Life of Bees and we made air-popped popcorn, ate frozen yogurt, M&M's and drank lemonade. it was a wonderful collaboration of (junk) food, friends and entertainment. the movie was a little sad, but i highly recommend it. it was a period film from the 1960's and sara and i both LOVE period films. dakota fanning, queen latifah, jennifer hudson AND alicia keys were in it! i had no idea any of them were in it when i rented it- i didn't even know what it was about, so once i watched it and learned that it was star-studded and was a good heart-warming story, i was pretty ecstatic.

my synopsis: it was about a girl who lost her mother at a young age, and was brought up with an abusive father and a hired hand (jennifer hudson) to raise her. she and her caretaker run away by her own promptings and her yearning to discover more about her mother and her mother's past. they end up staying at the beautiful BRIGHT PINK country house of three sisters (queen latifah and alicia keys are 2 of them) who make their living by farming honey. the girl earns her keep by learning the trade, and learns about her mother and love in the process. it was a really sweet story, with a little bit of sad and lot of love (the family kind, not the romantic kind). i also liked the story because it crossed the boundaries of race in a time when those lines weren't often crossed. again: i highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it. i may even read the book after seeing the movie, which isn't something i usually do.

tomorrow heidi comes home, and i think sara will be visiting one last time before i head home to wisco and she makes her way back to the motherland, london, england. sad! i'm excited to see the sis, but i think mia will be even more excited for her mommy to return home.