Early summer brought two trips: the first to the place where I first met my late friend, Jeni, and the second in my own hometown.
Atlanta for Work
My new position with Family to Family Support Network™ took my colleagues and me to Atlanta for AWHONN’s annual convention of nurses (Association of Women’s Health, Obstetrics and Neonatal Nurses). We presented a workshop on our Unique Families Program™ and held a board meeting/planning session.
Rebecca, Dixie, and me on our way to present. 
We Welcome All ❤︎ 
Jacket makes it legit. 
Rebecca , Janelle, and me at the after-disco. 
Peachy! 
Our training benefits women, healthcare professionals, and communities.
I am thrilled to join this team of passionate and super savvy women in training healthcare professionals to empower moms at such a crucial and significant time in their lives.
We didn’t make it to either Coca-Cola or to CNN. Or even to the Original Chick Fil-A. But living in the memory of Jeni, I did miss her even more than usual.
For more on our our exciting growth, check out Family to Family Support Network’s Summer Newsletter.
Denver for Family
Every year my parents and I, my sisters, our husbands and our children (4 of 7 of them now legal adults) get together somewhere. This year we opted for a staycation (for most of us) in downtown Denver.
You can always get to know your own city better. We walked around as tourists, depended on public transportation, ate many yummy meals together (and unlike in previous years, meals that no one had to plan for, shop for, prepare, or clean up after), and visited the Downtown Aquarium. Cousins reconnected and sisters delighted in it all as grandparents celebrated 60 years of marriage.
Sisters 
Everyone 
60 years!
And yes, my teens have let me know that selfies are SO 2017, and that this entire post is an abomination.
Lori Holden, mom of a young adult daughter and a young adult son, writes from Denver. She was honored as an Angel in Adoption® by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute.
Her first book, The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole, makes a thoughtful anytime gift for the adoptive families in your life. Her second book, Standing Room Only: How to Be THAT Yoga Teacher is now available in paperback, and her third book, Adoption Unfiltered, is now available through your favorite bookseller!
Find Lori’s books on her Amazon Author page and catch episodes of Adoption: The Long View wherever you get your podcasts.
8 Responses
I’m glad you had a good trip for your exciting new job, you clearly have a passion for it! And it seems so bittersweet to visit your friend’s stomping grounds without her there, but also a nice way to honor her memory. You made me laugh so hard with the comment at the end about how this whole post is an abomination! 🙂 What the heck is the selfie replacement? The snapchat nonsense? Now I feel behind the times! It looked like a great visit with family, despite the horribly embarrassing selfie shots. 😉
Ha! I had to ask my son the same thing. Apparently you’re supposed to ask someone to take the picture FOR you. The younguns laugh at Instagram images featuring an Interesting Thing in the background and the face of a middle-aged woman in the foreground (more often than not in a lower corner!).
Congratulations on it all, Lori! Work hard, play hard is my motto and it looks like it’s your’s too!
xo
Someone let my 12 year old know that selfies are SO 2017! But I did notice that my 20-something niece wanted shots of herself taken at a distance, with a nice background behind her. She also took selfies, though.
On our tour through Italy when *I* was a 20-something, we decided to get someone’s head in all the pictures, to prove we were there, usually in the lower corner. Of course, that was back in the dinosaur age of film cameras…
Can’t wait to hear more about your new job and programs! Sounds like you’ve had some great trips this summer.
Congrats to your parents on 60 years! That’s amazing…
Oh, my. How would today’s teens fare with having to take a selfie and wait DAYS to see how it turned out??
Ha! I’m laughing at the last sentences. Selfies are an abomination, but that message didn’t get through to all those people in Japan, Korea and Vietnam! (Selfies with friends etc are surely fun and acceptable?)
Glad you had a great trip away, and an excellent staycation. Jess said exactly what I wanted to say about Jeni. It was sad that you missed her, but how lovely that you had those good memories to cherish, and that she was – in a sense – there with you.
I am laughing so hard at this: “my teens have let me know that selfies are SO 2017, and that this entire post is an abomination.” A staycation sounds brilliant.
I LOVE our time together. Priceless.