August and September 2019

My goal is to get all caught up with the blog by the end of Thanksgiving Break, so here goes nothing.

August and September brought the end of summer, the beginning of the school year, and lots of fun memories!

We paid a semi-impromptu visit to Lissie's godfamily in Atlanta just before school started.  On our way down, we stopped at a tasty dim sum restaurant on the recommendation from some of my mom's good friends.  That first day, we also enjoyed a trip to the botanical gardens and a tasty Mexican dinner on the recommendation from other friends who used to live in the area.  Saturday was spent hanging out with Amy and her family - we even ventured on the freezing Chattahoochie to go tubing!  We always love spending time with them that we even made a plan to go camping with them the next month!

Nuevo Cantina Loredo with my favorite people.

The start of school, as always, was a whirlwind.  Lissie started third, Xavier started second, and I stayed in first. 

With some of the fabulous third-grade moms who helped pull off an amazing Welcome Back picnic for the school!

Yet, even with all of the back to school activities, we still managed to go to the Williamson County Fair, albeit just for a little bit before the downpour began.  I did feel bad since the kids spent their own money on their unlimited ride wristband that I compromised and told them that we could go back next year on my dime.  

At least we got our annual photo before the rain!

We still had time for other adventures like bike rides to an old one-room schoolhouse, a trip to a friend of a friend of a friend's alpaca farm and some end-of-summer pool trips.  The most fun was venturing out to a waterfall swimming hole over Labor Day weekend and stopping at a hole-in-the-wall Filipino restaurant nearby.

Halo-Halo!

Switching gears to September where our weekends were filled with cross country meets galore.  

Probably the only two kids to celebrate a cross-country meet with a flu shot from their dad!

We also had our camping trip with Lissie's godfamily, which was probably the main highlight of the month.

We also went to Cheekwood Harvest to enjoy the scarecrows before I let our membership lapse, had fun at the Father Ryan Homecoming game with friends, a birthday date night, and hosted another successful meatball night to benefit the Gilda's Club in honor of their Lola!

Phew!  What a whirlwind of a few months!

July 2019

Summer may seem like it was eons away (although the weather still feels like it!), but one of my Fall Break goals was to update the blog with all of our monthly memories.  I don't think I'll get through all of my missing months (as always, we've got a lot of fun packed into one week!), but I can at least do one!

Just as a side note, I finally caught up on the new season of This is Us, and there was one episode where the mother is having a flashback to the summer where her kids are in 7th grade.  The parents force a family fun day, and the kids were not excited about it at all.  The mom keeps thinking back to when the kids were even younger when pool days and family fun days were the norm.  It made me sad to think that, yes, one day it will be inevitable that my kiddos won't want to spend time with me anymore.  It made me teary to think that our pool days and random road trips won't be so fun for them anymore.  But, you know what?  All the more reason to live it up and enjoy it while I can.  That's why 2019 is the year of Memories....because too soon that's all this is going to be!

Oh, July.  That time in the summer where I can still feel freedom, but my mind starts drifting back to the reality of a new school year looming quicker than I'd like.  Thankfully, this month was riddled with fun and excitement and, of course, lots of adventures!

Two of the weeks in July were spent at camps.  They did another round of Totus Tuus, which was made even sweeter because we were able to spend time afterwards exploring different treat joints in Nashville - we tried a cookie dough bakery, a cookie bakery, and of course had to have some Bobbie's!  They also did a week at Widji, of course - Lissie at ranch camp, and Xavier did his traditional day camp where he received the coveted Widji coin for the third straight year in a row.

post-Totus Tuus cookie dough!

July was also the month of our big family vacation.  We spent a week in Myrtle Beach at the same spot we had gone 4 years prior when Justin had his first ear infection.  This time around was not much better for Justin, as we spent part of the trip going to two middle-of-the-night trips to ERs and an ophthalmologist where he was diagnosed with a bilateral corneal abrasion that put him out of commission for the majority of the trip!  Needless to say, Justin is done with Myrtle Beach!  We did, though, manage to have some fun without him - eating all the good eats, mini golfing, Pirate Adventure-ing, and of course beach-ing!

Quality time with Lolo and Lola

Unfortunately, Justin missed out on Pirate Adventure.  It was an amazing dinner show!

He was finally feeling better in time to indulge in our seafood dinner!

Mini-golf!

While the rest of us had a blast, Justin says never again Ocean Boulevard!

We were home for not even a week when we decided - at just about the last minute - that we were going to drive up to Michigan for a whirlwind weekend for my cousin's wedding shower.  We left Justin at home because he was working (seriously, July was not his best month) and trecked the 8-ish hours up to Ann Arbor, stopping for dinner of course at Skyline Chili en route.  The next day we went to Mass, checked out Zingerman's, found a fun park, and enjoyed some quality family time with the people we love.  The next day, we woke up crazy early and made two pitstops - one to IKEA and another to the Louisville Zoo - before ultimately making our way home.

With just a few of my bajillion cousins!

The toilet paper groom

The toilet paper bride

I love my family!

Stopped by the zoo on the way home!

In between all of these adventures, we found time to spend with friends at the pool, the Farmer's Market, Tenessee State Museum, and Bicentennial splashpad, a canoeing trip, spa day (for me!), eat ube ice cream, celebrate cow appreciation day, and take trips to Cheekwood and the zoo!

Whew, July!  What a month!