What a relaxing and fun summer! It was definitely a little quieter than our last several summers have been. The slower pace was kinda nice.
The four of us went to see Shucked at The Fox a few days after graduation. We didn't have very high expectations, but we ended up loving it. It had us absolutely cracking up! I had no idea there were so many corn puns available, but they found every single one of them. I'm really glad we saw this.
A few days later, Lily left for Camp Crestridge where she was going to spend the entire summer as a counselor. Ryan and I flew down to Florida the day before she left so we could attend Uncle Hollis' funeral. We're very grateful we were able to be there. While we were in Florida and after Mia had gone to bed one night, Lily hit 100 tiny little numbered plastic ducks all around the house. We came back to sticky note instructions explaining our task over the summer was to find them all. What a fun little game! For the record, we found 96 while she was away. Crazy enough, she immediately found two when she got home. I randomly found 1 more all the way in October (yes, months later!). If you're counting, that's 99. None of us have any idea where number 100 is. Who knows if it will ever be found.
A couple of days after Lily went to camp, Mia and I headed to Knoxville to go see Back to the Future at the Tennessee Theater. This was one of her Christmas presents last year. I love getting to spend so much time with her. Look at the adorable little Marty McFly bear she bought!
I knew we wanted floor seats so we could see the Delorian car fly at the end. It was so cool!
We had plans the next morning to drive through the UT campus for Mia to look around before heading home. However, there was a different adventure in store for us! My car wouldn't start at all. The hotel had someone come with an emergency battery to jump it, and there was no luck at all. Thankfully, the Farris family isn't too far away from here, so I called Johnny Wayne. He very graciously sent a tow truck to bring the Jeep into the garage so his team could take a look at it. He was heading out of town just a few minutes after we got there, but we were able to give him a big hug and say thank you. He let us wait in his office while they worked. It was a blast from the past to be sitting in here. I remember sitting in this exact office so many times when we come up to visit my grandparents. It was fun to see Granddaddy and Pappaw's pictures on the wall. I mentioned to JW how I used to love going in to the office because Granddaddy always kept Mellow Yellows in a little fridge, and I thought that was the most special treat in the world. How cool that he still has the same fridge in there! It's stocked with waters and such now instead of Mellow Yellows, but it sure was comforting to see that again. The nearby bakery also had sent some chocolate chip cookies over for us to snack on, and they were delicious. Farris Motor Company is really good at what they do (hence being a five star dealer!), so they figured out what was going on and fixed everything up for us which was such a relief. Mia and I gratefully headed on out and headed on home.
Lily was excited to be assigned as a Hawksbill JET (basically, junior counselor). These are girls that have finished 6th grade and will be entering 7th grade. She would be in this same cabin all four sessions with new kids coming in every two weeks. She was assigned to work with four skills too: woodworking, grilling, water painting, and puppy skills. She learned a whole lot over the summer, especially regarding people skills and working with difficult individuals. I'm really proud of the attitude she carried throughout the summer and all the hard work she put in.
She decorated her corner of the cabin to be so cute!
The whole Hawksbill counselor group before session one began.
Lily and Kenzie! They became friends as SALTs working at camp last summer, and they are going to room together at Samford in the fall. I think they were pretty excited to be back together again!
I always love seeing the honor band pictures. Look at that colorful cape made of bands!
Lily has lots of sweet friends from Crestridge; we are so grateful for this camp.
Ryan and I took an overnight trip to Nashville for a concert at the Ryman. All we knew is would be Darius Rucker and "friends." There was no telling who the friends were going to be until we got there. I was so excited to see Luke Bryan on the list; he's one of my favorite artists! Morgan Wallen was there too; he's probably the biggest star in country music right now. The other four are up and coming artists, and we thoroughly enjoyed getting to hear them. I imagine we'll be hearing more from each of them in the years to come. Of course, we love Darius too. He played some of his country hits, some covers, a couple of new songs about to come out, and some of his hits from his Hootie & the Blowfish days. This was such a fantastic concert!
The Ryman is such a wonderful music venue. We always enjoy going.
I spent a couple of weeks on a secret project when we got home. Lily had a few extra graduation party invitations remaining, so I took her stationery and wrote letters to different people and companies as if I were her; I put an invitation in there too but put a sticker with our address over the date and time. I've seen people do this and sometimes they get some swag back. I thought why not, maybe something fun will come back. I sent it to: Chick-fil-A, Dr. Pepper, Olive Garden, Waffle House, Taco Mama, Rick Steves, Delta, Atlanta Braves, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, author Lauren Roberts, Rob Riggle, Rylee Arnold, the casts of Wicked, Hadestown, The Outsiders, Jordan Fisher, The Prince and Princess of Wales (Will and Kate), The King of England (King Charles), and the King of Spain (King Felipe). For the one to the King of Spain, I typed it out and then used Google Translate to put it into Spanish. Then I panicked thinking what if it said something weird, and I had no idea. So I reached out to Hannah Hanbury, our friend and Stonehaven's Spanish teacher, to ask for her help. She made a few changes to make it more formal and appropriate which I greatly appreciated. I then had Mia actually write this since she knows Spanish, and I thought that might be helpful. I had so much fun putting these together!
Lo and behold, a few weeks later several really cool items arrived. First letter to arrive had a Kensington Palace return address. It was a letter from the palace and a picture of Will and Kate! I was so incredibly excited about this; someone actually responded! Of course, it wasn't actually from them, but it was clearly an individualized letter response from their secretary which I thought was super cool. A few days after that a large envelope came from Spain. The King's secretary had written a letter and included a signed 8x10 picture of the King in it. How incredible is that?! The letter was written in Spanish of course, but Mary translated it for me.
Two more envelopes arrived a couple of weeks later. One was from Waffle House, and it included a coupon for a free waffle or hashbrown. That's a total score for a college kid! A response also arrived from Supreme Court Justice Coney Barrett, and I really think she actually dictated it and signed it which I thought was super cool. She is a strong woman of faith at the highest level of the law in our country; what a fantastic example to someone like Lily.
A month or so later, a box arrived, and it was filled with congratulatory swag from Chick-fil-A. Coupons were included here too; woohoo!
I was thrilled that five of them wrote back!
Ryan and I took Mom and Dad to The Fox to see Ain't Too Proud which is the story of The Temptations. It was very well done, and of course the music was fantastic. Mom said it took her back in time; the way they moved and sang was just like what she remembered.
Just a cute picture of Decker. He's such a good boy!
Wayne hosted us at The Marietta Country Club for lunch on Father's Day. This is always a delicious brunch; we appreciated the time together and Wayne's kindness.
In mid-June, Lily came home on a Wednesday, and we drove over to Birmingham for Bulldog Days orientation. She had the opportunity to stay in Vail which was fun. We attended different seminars as did she to learn all about transitioning to life there in a couple more months. Ryan and I skipped out a little early one evening to hang out with Tay and Jonathan which was a fun treat for us. To be fair, we feel like we have a pretty solid grasp on life at Samford. We can't wait for Lily to begin here!
July 4th was on a Friday this year, and it was the end of session two at camp which meant all the kids were going home. This timing worked out really well for us to enjoy a long weekend up in Asheville visiting Lily. It was so good to have us all together again!
We rented a tiny house (seriously so tiny) on Black Mountain. Ryan and I had a bed in a loft while Mia had a bed built into a window. There was one bathroom, a teeny kitchen, and small living room. There was a huge wrap around deck though which we loved, and a nice backyard with a firepit area. It was perfect for what we needed this weekend.
Lily invited several friends to come spend the evening of the 4th with us. It was great getting to spend time with them and getting to know them! What a fantastic group of young women. Lily has some pretty amazing friends. We made mountain pies over the firepit and then had s'mores and cookies for dessert. We ended the evening with some sparklers which is always a good time.
Look at these cute little July 4th cookies I bought from Goldbelly! We went to one of Lily's favorite breakfast spots on Saturday; it's called Recess and it was quite yummy.
We had the chance to go visit camp on Saturday as well. We drove up the mountain and had some beautiful lookout views. It was a gorgeous day. We also got to go play with the puppies who are absolutely adorable! Lily has been having fun with them this summer.
We also saw a black bear walking around which we thought was kinda crazy, but Lily said they had been seeing them a lot this summer. Glad everyone is staying safe from them.
A couple of weeks later, Mia finished her Tech Crew experience with Brylliant's production of Footloose. It was their first community theater event, and I thought it came together really well. Mia had a lot of fun being on the other side of the production this time.
Soon it was time for the annual New Smyrna Beach trip which I always enjoy. We stayed with Mom and Dad again, and I'm always thankful for that. We had hot dog day in the upstairs hospitality suite this year which worked out really well. This is still one of my favorite days of the year. I love this big old crew!
Ryan and teachers reported back to Stonehaven the week after we got back. It's hard to believe summer is over!
