Summer Recap, Part 1

According to my calendar, there are still 3 more days left of summer before fall officially begins. I have to admit, I'm a little sad to see the Summer of 2013 go. We are settling nicely into a routine with preschool and BSF and I am definitely looking forward to cooler temperatures and the holidays around the corner, but we had a great summer! I was going through our pictures and figured I should recap what hasn't made it on the blog yet before fall arrives and I get more behind. It's basically going to be a photo dump of epic proportions so I will have to break it up into a few parts.

Starting from the beginning of our summer:

We had many, many days of fun in the sun.

trip to the beach

Our company was one of the sponsors at a crawfish cookout benefiting the Cystic Fibrosis foundation, so we invited Ben & Stacie and their crew to come along with us. I hate seafood and didn't eat any of it but we still definitely got our money's worth because when Rick gets the chance, he has to make up for not getting seafood very often. :)

intrigued by the band and showing off their dance moves

the boys decided to assemble some drums to help the band out

We took advantage of our backyard before it got too miserably hot to play outside.

Harrison finished out his first t-ball season. As you can see, this particular night he was really into it and brought his very best effort. Ha!!

See ya!

Now you have my attention!

his very first trophy!

 We had lots of play time at the house. You leave them alone for a couple of minutes and you never know what you're gonna find:

raiding her brother's shoes

this was his "tough cowboy" pose

We celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary in June. The whole family celebrated by going to dinner and then bowling. This was the kids' first time bowling and they loved it. Rick and I used to go bowling every Tuesday night when we were dating so our "family date" was very fitting.

I'm really glad we hadn't made fancy dinner plans because I woke up that morning with a bump on my forehead. It looked like a mosquito bite so I didn't pay it much attention. But when the kids and I got home from running errands and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror my reflection was quite scary...unbeknownst to me it has swollen up to the size of a golf ball. Can you say freak show?? Luckily I was able to get in with my dermatologist but she had no idea what it was either. It didn't itch and there weren't any bite marks...it was definitely an allergic reaction but I have no idea what to. Great timing, right?! So yeah, it was definitely a ball-cap and bowling kind of night. :)

Hi honey, am I as sexy today as I was on our wedding night??

This was our view as we were leaving Mamacitas...haven't seen a wall cloud like that since my OK days

approximately 30 seconds later

We always exchange traditional anniversary gifts. Year 7 is copper and I really love what I found for Rick. I looked up the longitude and latitude coordinates of our resort in Mexico (down to the actual gazebo we got married in) and had it stamped onto this hammered copper key chain.

I didn't take a picture but Rick got me a nice antiqued copper clock/thermometer for our patio. I love that I can look around our home and spot all of the gifts we've exchanged. Much more meaningful to me.

More glimpses into our summer fun:

library time...think she likes Mickey?

errand running buddy while Bubs was at VBS

blowing bubbles at Palm Beach

This boy and his dogs. They are so sweet and patient with him.

Stacie and I arranged for Rick and Ben to have a fun guy's night at the shooting range and then afterward they went to this German hole-in-the-wall restaurant and pub that he's been raving about ever since. He is always either working or with us and it's rare he gets any time to do fun things just for him. He really is a devoted and selfless husband and dad. I came home to this letter he left for me on the fridge. It made me laugh. We used to leave each other notes all the time but have gotten out of the habit since we've had kids and I started staying home. I'm thinking we need to start doing it again...every time I walked by the fridge it brought a smile to my face.