July

July: The month that taught me I need to take more photos.

Seriously, so many great things happened this month and I have no documentation! Well, let's muddle through this lacking-in-visuals-update together.

Independence Day was a Girl's Day this year. Joseph was working EFY, and Dad and Granger were at scout camp which left the female half of the fam to be patriotic on our own. So Mom, Kathryn and I packed our chairs and headed over to VMI for the fireworks show, where we were joined by our dear friend Caleb, thus adding some testosterone to our celebration as well as providing us with a personal photographer. Yay Caleb! It was a lovely night.

An incredibly exciting thing that happened in July is that BETHANY came to visit me. (I say "me", but her family lives here too, so... you know.) I have no pictures of this. None. And I'm mad about it. My fault. Bethany has a bunch but she and her camera are back in Arizona. But the visit was wonderful! More than wonderful, it was very needed and fun and happy and great. I luff her. Betht friend. May be she can send me some photos.... can she? Bethany? (I know you read this!)

I also spent some much-needed and very enjoyable time with my sister. I also luff her. We actually got to do lots of things together, and I took pictures of some of them!

This is from our trip to Sweet Treats in Lexington. For those of you who don't know, they sell really delicious sandwiches and they make the best potato chips I've ever tasted in my life. So good. Isn't she cute? Then for her birthday we spent the day in Roanoke at the mall, Red Robin, and a spontaneous late night movie.

(This next thing is just, you know, kinda whatever, Bob Dylan, blah, blah, boring. I mean, if you hate music or are only part-human then just skip this part)

Bob Dylan! Mom, Kathryn and I drove to VA Beach where we spent a few hours at the ocean and then spent a few hours listening to a legend do what he does best. It was amazing.

A very cloudy day, but it was the beach so even the clouds are more beautiful.

I mean, really, a beautiful day. 

The beach has always been a favorite for our family, but I think especially for the three girls. Anytime we have the chance we go, even if it's just for a brief time. There's something very restorative about the ocean and it was a perfect way to spend an hour or two! I think you can see from these photos how much we love being there.

Mom in her element. 

Dear boys who don't date her, you're seriously so missing out. All the dumb of you.

Oh, and also, Bob Dylan. With his big hair and dressed in black and sounding like a muppet and rocking the harmonica and being ridiculously good at singing songs he has sung for fifty years. I still can't believe we were there.

Bob Dylan right there. He's right there on the keyboard.

Yes, right there.

Thanks to someone gutsier than I, concert rules were broken and part of the concert was put on youtube. This is not really a Dylan song, but it is one of my absolute favorites and I freeeeeeeeeeeaked out pretty much as soon as they played that first little guitar riff. So happy we got to be there for this moment. Bob Dylan sang The Weight and we were there.

So after that adventure July could have just ended and I would have been happy. But first we had to celebrate Harry Potters birthday. So Kathryn really, really loves Harry Potter. I enjoy Harry Potter, but not to her level. As a matter of fact, I haven't read the books since they were first printed forever ago and of course I initially read them in crazed/sleepless 24 hour blocks, so I don't even remember them super well. However! I have recently made a rule that I can read them again but only at the gym and it's brought back all of these memories and Harry Potter happiness. So when Kathryn and I realized that July 31st was coming up (which is Harry's birthday) we obviously had to have a party. You guys, I got pretty excited about this party. Jessie and Bre, I thought of you the whole time. You should have been there.

Super fancy handmade sign, magic wands, and if you look closely you'll see a golden snitch.

Lupin stopped by of course. Such a lovely guy.

Yes, I made golden snitches. I'm so proud of those.

Sirius is my favorite so we had to be Azkaban prisoners for a minute.

But we were happy about it.

See how happy we were? Azkaban's the best!

We made bags too. Really, really awesome Harry Potter bags. We use them all the time.

 

My favorite part is that nowhere on this bag does it actually say "Harry Potter" so you just have to be like-minded people in order to understand without us explaining. Just in case you were wondering, this was Harry's 27th birthday. 

So July was another wonderful and memorable month. I loved every bit of it.

Bob Dylan.

Mission Accomplished (Pretty Much Entirely).

I am not really scared of bugs. I actually do pretty well with bugs. In fact, I have been referred to as "the spider killer" due to my reputation as "that one girl who kills the spiders and then freaks out afterwards if they were really big and scary but she was still okay to kill it first". True story.

However, I am terrified of these:

This is a camel cricket. They are disgusting. They jump fast and high, they can climb walls and hang on ceilings, they splatter everywhere when you do manage to kill them, they jump AT you if you miss, they are the spawn of Satan.

#69 of my 99 in 999 is to face camel crickets without screaming. (Please note, swearing is still allowed; not recommended, but definitely allowed.) This was a tough one. I don't know that I can expect to never, ever, ever scream while facing one of my greatest fears, no matter how hard I try. However, I've been slowly, surely, steadily progressing with this over the past few months. Now comes the big announcement...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I just killed nine of these. Nine. No screaming. Not a single scream. Granted they were not fully grown so they were less likely to jump away, but still, I am seriously so impressed with myself.

So while it is still not a guarantee that I will never scream again, in fact, I can pretty much guarantee that I will at some point, I feel like I have made incredible progress with this goal and I consider it having been achieved.

Because I'm pretty stinking amazing, that's why.

(Seriously, aren't they just disgusting? So gross.)