Catch Up!

I've decided that blogging is a lot like working out. When you've gotten into a good routine, it becomes something enjoyable and naturally part of your schedule - you even start looking forward to it. However, just miss a few days and suddenly it becomes this dreadful cloud hanging over your head.

Speaking of working out, I'm also trying to get back into that too. I'm doing a Jillian Michael's DVD. It's one of those pretty intense workouts that packs in strength, cardio and abs in a short time, keeping the heart rate up and working several areas at once. So they say. Well, let me tell you the best way I've found to bring your heart rate up - having a ginormous cockroach scurry past you while you're on the floor doing the abs part. I moved faster and my heart was beating quicker than any of those other workouts.

Ok, back to blogging. I've missed updating for a couple months, and they would've been good ones to do. We were super busy, so I'm just gonna catch up with pictures. Lots of pictures. Starting with...

VACATION! My parents got a house in Wild Dunes for a week. We had a crowd! My parents, our family, Rachel & two of her friends from Colorado and many people in and out all week. It was a blast filled with bike rides, pool & beach time, relaxing, eating, watching HGTV (remember, I don't get it at home? Sad.) and just hanging out. It was especially awesome having my sister there since she's in Colorado. The week went by faster than any other I could think of.

So much fun in the water!

 

 

 

  

Raquel.

 Hanging on porch, telling Dad stories about the beach.

 Daily activities.

 Finn holding the fort down at the kids table (with the help of the iPad).

 Melts my heart.

 Cool tan line.

 At the marina.

 Lemon face. Never gets old. At least for us.

 Pool time!

 

 Parting family shot.

Projects. I got the itch for doing projects. So we uprooted our shrubs in front of our house. It was something we'd wanted to do for a while, but was a spur-of-the-moment decision to do it right then. They were harder than Jeremy expected to get out of the ground. So he and Rhett tied a rope to the roots and Jeremy's truck. Jeremy drove, the shrubs succumbed to the Sequoia. I'm sure it was quite a scene for our neighbors. Then I replanted with new shrubs. Whew, yard work is hard work! I know why people pay people to do it! 

 Only picture I could find quickly with the shrubs we tore out.

My little helper.

Now they just need to grow quickly and fill up that area!

I also painted our laundry room and built a couple tables. A couple because the first one broke. I took an old wine crate and tried putting legs on it. Decent idea, really bad construction. So I had to learn from my mistakes and try another. This was just a simple side table build and probably isn't built much better. (Lord, help this one to stay in tact.)

Old one. RIP.

New one. Please don't break.

 Charlestontowne Landing. Took a morning and went to see the animals with Mrs Nilsa and her little ones.

There's a bear coming!

Poop. Gross.

Rain! It's really rained a lot here back in June. So we have had to work with it. I need to get Finn a rain jacket and boots.

Saturday Special Reunion. I met with a handful of girls every Saturday morning for a couple years. They named our time Saturday Special. I cannot even express how much I love them and what they mean to me. Most of them graduated this year and my Saturdays are definitely feeling a major void. So I was super excited when I got a call from Katie saying she and Alyssa were on their way down from NJ and wanted to see if they could stay with us. It was so much fun!

Babysitting. Most of our friend's kids here are girls, so we were glad to get to keep a couple dudes (+ Addie) for a day. We went to the playground, painted, made play-dough, watched Toy Story and ate.

Boat. Jeremy's always wanted a boat. We finally got ourselves a small, fixer-upper. It's nothing too nice & needs a lot of work, but I love how it'll be something he's done. I can't wait to get out on it and make memories.

Love this. Finn with Jeremy while he's working.

Watermelon Festival. This is one of my favorite things we would do as a kid. My dad is from Hampton, where they have the annual Watermelon Festival. There's a big street dance on Friday night and then a parade Saturday morning. My best memories of a kid there was running to get as much candy as possible that they'd throw from the floats. This was Finn's first and he was in awe of the trucks, sounds, floats, clowns. We had a lot of fun!

 Firetruck coming!

 

 Sweaty!

 

Whew, that was a lot! If you made it this far, thanks for hanging in here!