Last weekend was, hands down, one of the highlights of my year.

Ever since goat yoga became A Thing last year, my BFF Meg and I have wanted to try it.

There was supposed to be a goat yoga popup in Brooklyn and we were READY to get our tickets. And then all of our goat yoga dreams were dashed when we found out it was a no-go due to some permit hurdles. But her birthday is coming up, and I was DETERMINED to find a place for us to do goat yoga. (Alpaca yoga is a thing in Cleveland and I may need to go to there.)

I found a place upstate offering goat yoga, and I was ON it.

We rented a car on Sunday morning and began our trek upstate to near Oneonta/Cooperstown. We broke up the drive both ways with foodie stops. On the way up: Keegan Ales, a brewery in Kingston that’s home to the epic Joe Mama’s Milk, a delicious imperial stout with milk and coffee. Hell yes. Also delish: Hurricane Kitty, a SUPER hoppy IPA. Unsurprisingly, we spent just a bit too long at the brewery and walked into goat yoga just as it was starting.

HI WE’RE HERE!

We laid out mats and fidgeted and craned our necks in search of the moment we’d all been waiting for — the releasing of the goats!

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE GOATS HAVE ARRIVED.

I do feel bad for the instructor, because we obviously all freaking lost it when these cute little bleating babies ran in. WHY ARE THEY SO CUTE. (And please don’t tell my alpaca friends I’m cheating on them.)

I honestly don’t remember the last time I felt this level of sheer JOY.

I MEAN HI BABY GOAT ON MY BACK. (This was a chatarunga before I literally collapsed in laughter.) Also, excuse the quality — the other photos were on my real camera, and this was a phone picture.

There’s just something about watching/playing with baby animals that makes me happy like a little kid. How can you not be in the moment with an unpredictable-but-friendly baby goat crawling all over you?

They also really like hair…and I have a lot of it.

My mom used to make this same face <3

The barn is also used as a wedding venue, and it is GORGEOUS. (And, um, totally designed with Instagram in mind?)

Oh, it wasn’t BYO-Goat? Huh.

The views. They were OK…

This is a barn.

And then after, we glamped. I hate that word… but. It wasn’t real camping (because, I’m sorry, I just don’t think I could hack it), but it certainly wasn’t a hotel room. We had a real bed, electricity and real floors. There was a wood-burning stove for heat (baby built her very first fire at the age of 35!) and also a little propane-fueled unit.

And then Meg became a local celeb and ended up on the front page of the paper, NBD.

This was absolutely up there in the top five best days of 2018 so far. (And I spent the first nine days in three different countries, so that’s saying a lot!)

Are you you also a sucker for baby animals?

On a more serious aside:

I remember writing here on a few Mother’s Days how lucky I knew I was to have time with my sweet mama, and that my heart went out to those who couldn’t celebrate with their own moms. I still can’t believe that includes me now, too. Although I’ve certainly come far in my grief journey in the last month or so, I still still still can’t wrap my head around this in many ways.

Claire Bidwell Smith + Hope Edelman are hosting a conference call on Saturday May 12 that any Motherless Daughter can call into. There’s also Motherless Daughters brunches across the country this weekend: you can find more here.

I’m sending so much love to other women who’ve lost their moms as well as women who are hoping to be moms and aren’t yet. Please make sure to do something kind for yourself this weekend;