Ooof

I know that most of the country is having a ridiculous heat wave right about now, but this is seriously hotter weather than I've ever experienced before. You would think that growing up in Florida would have prepared me for this, but amazingly, living near the beach always keeps temperatures below 100 degrees. Because of the weather, this week was one of the toughest I've had in awhile. Camp can be very dangerous with the heat as high as it's been, so in an effort to avoid heat strokes, the kids spent more time inside than normal, aka, tearing apart my art room and making my brain spin. Granted, this week's pitfalls didn't all have to do with the kids being crazy, I also need to learn to say no to people and not spread myself so thin all the time. Regardless, I'm ready to step into this weekend with an attitude of renewal, so that I can return to camp on Monday with a refreshed spirit and the hope of a little less sun... (did I mention I had to tie dye 300 shirts out on the playground all day for the most indecisive kids ever? I was not using my patient voice today haha)

On another note, the intense heat has made me think of a few things that I am EXTREMELY thankful for this summer, which include:

• our new house, and central A/C. I get sweaty just thinking about how miserable we would be in our old house right now. 
• having two cars with working A/C... again, we've been through a hot summer with no A/C in the car and it is just miserable. 
• living in a country where we have access to clean drinking water. I have had close to a gallon of water today and I'm still feeling dehydrated. I don't even want to imagine what kind of state I would be in if I had to be outside without being able to stay hydrated. Scary scary thought. 

Because of those three things I feel like I have a lot less to complain about... sure it's hot, and definitely uncomfortable, but we could be a lot worse off. Here's hoping that we can convince mother nature to cool down a bit so that we can actually enjoying being outside this summer... at this rate we're going to be on the couch for the next couple months just racking up an electric bill haha 

Summer Foods

Tonights dinner, grilled pizza: homemade whole wheat crust, tomato basil puree as a sauce, thin sliced zucchini marinated in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, oven roasted chicken, minced green onions, goat cheese and heirloom cherry tomatoes. Only thing that didn't come from our Avalon Acres CSA is the flour and yeast for the dough, and the oil and vinegar. This is what summer eating is all about!

Time Warp

So in light of Apple's move from Mobile Me to iCloud I have been forced to sort through all of my old photo albums that I hosted on my Apple webpage and save them to my new computer. I thought that this was going to be a long, tedious task but it turned out to be really fun and SUPER nostalgic. Bare with me now as I take a walk down memory lane with a crazy amount of favorite photos that I discovered along the way... in no particular order:

Dance parties and photo shoots in the Windwood apartment

Janelle sandwich

Cleveland trip to visit Ryan T, Lindsay and Kelsey

Zombie time with Andi

Marlins game with Sam

Harry Potter book release party with Andi and Amanda

Family photo

Beach days with Amanda

Flying kites and watching the sun set on campus

Zoo days

Video game time in Amanda and I's campus apartment

Just a bunch of Elephants

More brother Christmas card outtakes haha

Campus roommate Christmas time

Ridiculous parties at Jake's apartment

Trips to Savannah to see Tamara, etc.

Going to the beach in the winter! Miss that so much.

Mini golf with Matt

Riding bikes through the halls of the art and letter building

Trips to Boston to see our favorite band

More zoo trips, with Robert and Amanda

Strawberry picking with Paul

DDR in the living room

Soccer watching at the pub (and day drinking haha)

First time I saw Keith without his mega beard! Mustaches with Trent

The day Keith took me to buy a "big girl blanket" (he hates my garfield one haha)

Beach days with my boy

Our first time voting!

Visiting Philadelphia for the first time

Georgia Aquarium date

Coca Cola Factory with Jonathan and Christopher

On our way to Key West for my 21st birthday

Perfect way to ring in my 21st year haha

Keith graduating college!

A fancy date to the Art Museum in Atlanta

Hahahaha doing Florida touristy things

Karaoke nights with Nickie K

Bill Cosby Party 

First trip to Wrigley Field to see the Cubs

The papier mache Arbor Mist bottle Andi created for my birthday... she's a genius haha

The Pentapus Andi created for our campus kitchen

and the fox I had on my door. 

One Week Ago

Last weekend was packed with good friend time both Friday and Saturday nights. Friday Keith and I got off of work and started our weekend with a couple beers at Yazoo, our local brewery and then had a delicious burger at Gabby's with Tytus. The main event for the night though was to see our local minor league baseball team, the Nashville Sound's because our friend Bennett was slated to throw out the first pitch dressed as a giant tooth haha. Unfortunately it rained like CRAZY... ALL night! so the game was cancelled, but we did drink all the free beer that we could before they made us leave the stadium... what can we say, we appreciate a free beer! I do wish that we had gotten to see Bennett in his tooth suit, but we got to spend a lot of time with him and McKel just hanging out while we waited for the call on the game. Afterwards we went back home to change out of our soaking wet clothes, and later met up with Trent, Jordie and Sammie for drinks. Great night!

This guy LOVES baseball :) so sweet.

Goofing around in the hospitality tent while we waited out the rain. 

POURING

Bennett playing around with the water on the tent

NOT dressed as a tooth

Tytus

Saturday night we grilled up a delicious dinner out back, enjoyed some time with Bennett and McKel here at the house and then once the sun went down we drove to the other side of the city to join the party honoring our friend Sammie's birthday! We danced on the porch, took photos in the photo booth and laid on blankets in the yard just talking. It was a really nice night to be outside, and to wish Sammie a happy 25 years! So glad we could be there to celebrate with her!

Before we left for the party Theo was being real sweet and sitting with me on the couch

Trent dancing up to our car as we arrived (blasting R.Kelly, duh)

The boys... getting down.

They look like such party animals... I promise this was a tame party haha

Trent drew everyones pictures on the glass door to Sammie's house.. I felt ours were pretty spot on.

Especially Keith's haha