July Pictures

We found coats for Germany! It felt strange to be buying these when it was nearly 100 degrees outside, but we found deals at the Eddie Bauer outlet. You will likely be seeing these in pictures a lot. 

 Power outage = reading by candlelight. More fun than the packing and laundry I was going to do.

Boxes!

I was looking at this bracelet I've had for years. It doesn't have my correct monogram anymore, but I still want to wear it. I was brushing my teeth when it occurred to me that toothpaste might help polish this sucker, and I was correct.

We borrowed Dad's truck for the month so we could sell our car. It was hard to get used to, but kind of nice to ride in a car with air conditioning and also nice to be so far off the ground!

Packing. 

They opened a new Pitaria near us and we love Pitaria so we had to try it out. Delish.

Meals we've had in July have been mostly "things left in the fridge" and dinners out. Not great quality. Here are chicken fingers. I don't even remember buying these.

More packing. 

More packing.

Carson finished three out of four comps in July. This was his language comprehensive exam and he aced it.

We had a gift card so we went to Red Lobster one night, for the biscuits. 

After the first round of boxes went in storage, it looked like we'd been robbed and ransacked. 

Josh took this of Carson when they moved things into the unit. Yikes. 

My Sorel boots had fur on them and I don't love fur, so I had Carson cut it out when I was supposed to be packing. Procrastination helps you get things done when you should be doing more important things.

Muuuuch better.

Here we are in 2009 the day before we got engaged, and in 2016, in the same place. Carson especially looks like a baby in the first one. 

And again, same thing. Becca couldn't make this picture but we took another when she was around!

Apartment B

We moved in on Sunday, June 22. I walked in and was immediately disappointed. In comparison to our cute, light-filled, full of character house in Cleveland, this apartment was brown. Brown trim, brown carpet, brown cabinets brown interior doors. It was dark inside even though it was a sunny day, and when we first walked in, the breaker had been flipped off so we had to search for it to turn the power on again so we could see. It felt small and dark and I hated it. 

I turned to Carson with tears in my eyes (the stress of moving brings on lots of emotions and we loved Cleveland so much) and said "we can't live here. We have to find another place to live." 

It felt too small, too dark, too brown. 

The furniture came in, pictures went up on the walls, and it began to look like a home very quickly because my parents came down to help us set up. 

At the end of their time, I began to see that while it was too dark and too brown, it was otherwise pretty good. The darkness kept it cool during the day (cha-ching), there was no creepy basement to walk into to do laundry, it was well insulated, it had two bathrooms (one for each of us, and yes, Carson used the guest bathroom), it had great counter space and great cabinet space, a pantry, a tiny covered porch in the back, and a fireplace and mantel I really liked. 

And well, now we don't live there anymore. We moved the last of our things out on July 27, and suddenly our apartment no longer looked like it belonged to us. It was bare and generic and brown, though I guess the latter had never changed. We no longer had a stamp on it and it was as it we'd never lived there. 

It's been a good 25 months in little old apartment B. We've had lots of visitors, discovered the fun of redoing furniture, and done a lot of growing in this little apartment. I'm thankful for this place and it's low rent, great layout, and ability to save money on cooling it off. I still don't love how dark it is, but that's not a huge deal in reality. Thanks for the memories, apartment B!

Beaufort Does the Beach

I try to get together with the Writing Class as much as possible, but it's really only feasible once a year. For the last few years, Jillian, Emily and I were having unofficial reunions (we had one in Virginia in 2013 and one in Cleveland in 2014), but last year for the first time we stepped it up a notch and went to Birmingham. It was so much fun and really neat to get away with just us, and Christina too, who we'd all for some reason not done a good job of staying in touch with when we all went our separate ways. 

Here we are in 2005. We wrote a play and recorded it to enjoy forever (heavy sarcasm), and also took this picture. 

So this year, we met up in St Petersburg! Christina lives there, and we were all craving some beach time, so it was PERFECT. Everyone got there on Thursday. Emily flew in with baby Tirzah early afternoon, and I didn't leave until after work but still arrived at the Tampa airport in enough time to pick Jillian up at the airport, and then we arrived at about 11. We chatted until very late in the evening.

Christina worked Friday until about noon, and then we all went out to lunch at a Thai place Emily found online. It was terrific and CHEAP. All four of us ate for around $30 with a tip.

We hit the beach after lunch. It's about five days from Christina's house!

After the beach, we walked to Publix to get some food for dinner.

We had tacos for dinner and then sat around and talked, not quite as late as the night before, but certainly not very early either.

We did the beach again on Saturday.

Tirzah was in need of a nap, so Emily took her back and then Caleb picked the rest of us up a little while later when it looked like storm clouds were coming in.

We had "finger foods" for dinner - sausages, spinach dip, and salad.

Since we won't all reunite for a year (they might, but I will be in Germany), we decided this was the night we were "celebrating everything". We ran out for party hats and couldn't find any, so we bought poster board at CVS and made them. I think we started this at about 10pm and we all were laughing at nothing in particular and also no one was good at making party hats. The late night and laughter took us back to many late nights in high school.

We made a fruit pizza as well. It was very good, but we didn't spray the pizza stone and Emily had to use all her might and chip it off the stone. Whoops.

Caleb was studying for the bar, but he came down to take our picture and we made him pose for one too.

We found a church to attend the next morning, and after the service and after lunch, we took pictures with Christina's nice camera. I'm used to using my iPhone for pictures because of convenience, but when I see nice pictures, I'm reminded how much of a difference quality does make!

The two pregnant ladies (Jillian is due in November and Christina is due in February).

The two non-preggos. We tried the sorority squat first.

We hit the pool one last time before we had to part ways.

I was the first to leave because I had to work on Monday, so we got one last picture.

They packed me snacks.

It was a great weekend. Relaxing, lots of time to sit and catch up, and of course too short. Oh! And I didn't get a sunburn (Jillian and Christina did, so this is notable). Can't wait until next year!