Amanda's visit...

Me & Amanda in 1987 celebrating the birth of my chubby little brother David.

Amanda and Lauren (Amanda's boyfriend's little sister)

Amanda & me @ The Bump & Grind for Drag Queen Brunch. She loved it. Our waiter/waitress was awesome. Amanda even got her picture taken with him/her.

Amanda cutting glass.

Me sprinkling glass pieces.

Enjoying some Little Man ice cream on the glider. It's fabulous!
I am not sure we could be any more different.

The Little Man Ice Cream shop.

On Saturday after my dye job Jesse and I headed over to Pasquini's (yes, that Pasquini's the same place I went with my other cousins when they were in town a month ago) for dinner with my cousin Amanda and her boyfriend's little sister. Amanda is dating and Australian and since his Visa is up she figured it was her turn to get a Visa and move to live with him for a few years. She's moving to Australia next month and probably won't be back for a few years. Who knows when we will see each other again. It's not like we've spent endless amounts of time with each other over the last few years or anything, but we were pretty close growing up. See Amanda and I are the oldest of the McBroom cousins. She is just 2yrs younger than me, so it was just the 2 of us for a long time and we liked it that way. The funny thing is we couldn't be more different. Aside from having black eyebrows, brown eyes, and being unbelievably pale skinned we don't have much else in common. Amanda is crazy tall especially for our short family. She's taller than everyone besides my brother & my dad. I on the other hand am the shortest one. She's got long blond hair and I have short brown hair (almost black @ the moment). She is skinny as a rail and I'm more curvy. She's very business savvy and athletic where I am more day dreamy and creative. I think the picture of us eating ice cream really shows are differences, right down to our choice of ice cream. I was all into the cupcake flavor w/sprinkles and a waffle cone and she was Mexican chocolate with a plain cone all the way. Despite our differences we've always been good friends and we never seem to run out of things to talk about. Amanda's boyfriend Chris's little sister is a nanny in Broomfield, so Amanda flew in on Friday night and stayed with Lauren until we met up in Saturday evening for dinner. On Sunday Amanda and I had a busy day. Jesse decided to stay home and watch football while we enjoyed what he called girly time. We went to the Bump & Grind for Drag Queen Brunch. This seems to have become a tradition, taking the sweet innocent relatives to the shocking and often trashy, but oh so tasty breakfast experience. After brunch we headed to an adorable little boutique called True Love. They sell adorable and affordable, purses, shoes, and jewelery that I knew Amanda would love and since we had time to kill, why not go? Amanda & I did some, what she called accidental shopping. :) Then we headed off to my surprise for her which was doing some glass fusing at Ceramics in the City. She decided to make a plate with a definite color scheme and pattern where as I went for a total abstract hodge podge of colors in a wall or window hanging (see what I mean very different). We spent the afternoon lounging around the house, reading, talking, watching some TV, and talking some more. We occasionally let Jesse into our conversations, but I think he was pretty content watching his football and napping most of the afternoon away. That evening we went out ice cream @ my new favorite neighborhood hang out Little Man Ice Cream. It's fabulous homemade ice cream and gelato in a cute setting. The building is an old milk canister and you can only eat outside on their big beautiful patio. We opted for the comfy old metal glider rather than the bistro seats. I think it reminded us of Grandma & Grandpa McBroom's old metal glider and how we always used to set in it on their patio at night all the time growing up. We did a lot of reminiscing about things and people from our childhood which at times was tearful, but sometimes you need that. Amanda did a little more accidental or purposeful shopping @ Target. Surprise, Surprise! That's actually funny, because for those of you who don't know Amanda works for Target's head quarters in Minneapolis. She's the one who designs the displays in the women's athletic area for all the stores all over the world (pretty cool job). We headed home again and she helped me bake some banana bread before we hit the hay. It was an early morning this morning, we left the house @ 4:35am to get her to her 6:30am flight. It was a great visit and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I hope she did too. Jesse and I wish her all the best on her travels and adventures. Amanda, If we ever win the lottery or some how become insanely rich in the next few years we will surely come visit you & Chris in Australia.