May iPhone Pics

• Summer time = baseball time.  Look at that batting stance and swing Brody has going on!  He's quite the little baseball player already!

•  6 weeks after surgery, I got my stitches out.  I totally could have done that myself!

• Got some new sandals!  They had good reviews and have a solid footbed with lots of support -- exactly what I need for my poor foot.  It's in rough shape after two surgeries in two years!

• I had so many text messages that looked like this in May.  Scott would send me his location, and I would pull it up on my iPad (while FaceTiming with him on my iPhone) and figure out how far it was to his next destination -- or find him a hotel or a rest stop or whatever it was he was looking for while driving across the US!

• This was one of his planned routes.  I think it changed some in the end, but this one was close.  That's a LOT of miles on the road!

• It doesn't happen all that often, but when I get my work email inbox to look like this, it's a good day.  Empty is good. :)

• Lunch date at Whole Foods with my high school girls!  

• Hadley and I did her last KiwiCrate activity box in May.  I think it was a hold over from winter, but we finally found time to put together a Frozen themed lantern!

• Since I decided to sell my house, lots of projects have been on the To Do list.  I finished re-staining the deck in just a couple of hours.  It might not be the best job ever done, but at least it looks good at first glance!

• We had several really good sunsets in KC this month.

• As the house projects continued, I spent one fun Friday night shampooing carpets.  Good times...

• Jason and Kelli went out for a kid free dinner date, so I took Hadley and Hudson to Chik Fil A and then to Antioch Park for the evening.  It had been cloudy and rainy all day, but the sun finally came out and it was a gorgeous night!

• More house projects:  replacing ceiling tiles and repainting.  (I had to recruit my much taller roommate's help for the ceiling!)

(Can you tell I only repainted ONE wall?)

• Aaaaand it's LISTED.  

I tried For Sale By Owner for a couple of weeks and eventually caved to a realtor after not much success.  (In hindsight, I wish I would have held out a little longer and paid for an MLS number myself...but whatever.  It sold. And I'm out 6%.)

• One house project that was NOT on the list was repainting all the kitchen cabinets.  I started to touch up a couple...and then just decided to go for it and do them all - inside and out.  

• I held an open house and had some cute helpers to assist with the signs and balloons!

• Apparently no nap and lots of running around in the heat will knock a kid out.  I literally could not wake Hunter up.  I mean I was wiggling his head around and wasn't quiet at all as I slammed doors an carried him inside ... and nothing.  I had to check for breathing to make sure he was still alive!

(Hadley was so sweet and held his head up when he fell asleep and slumped over on her shoulder.)

Memorial Day Weekend

Instead of me flying to meet Scott somewhere, he came back to KC for the long Memorial Day weekend.

I don't even remember the last time I spent a holiday weekend at home, but it's not so bad when you have someone fun to spend it with. :)

First up:  Training

Scott is training for a 50 mile race (yes, FIFTY. MILES) in the mountains in July, 

so we spend a lot of time doing this. ^^

Him running and me riding my bike beside him.

Up next:  House projects

I am in the process of getting my house ready to sell, so he got put to work scraping a border down from my bathroom.

Sunday night, we did manage to stop working long enough for some fun.  We went down to Union Station to here the KC Symphony and watch the fireworks show.

The symphony blew my mind - I'd never heard them before and thoroughly enjoyed the whole event.

And of course you can't go wrong with fireworks behind Liberty Memorial!

Monday: Yard work.

(I told him I was putting him to work if he came to KC, and I wasn't kidding!)

That night we went to dinner at Houlihans with my whole family.  

It's rare that we ALL get together outside of birthdays, so this was a fun treat!

Of course, Cool Aunt Terri had to take ALL FIVE of the kids out for ice cream after dinner.

Nothing says "welcome to the family" like wrangling five little ones with sticky hands and ice cream running down their faces! ;)

I think Scott enjoyed it just as much as the kids did.  He handled it like a pro!

South Carolina Wedding + Road Trip to Florida

I mean, it's only JULY now... So figure it's about time to post about a few of the trips I went on...back in MAY!  

What can I say... it was a busy summer!

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Scott left Kansas on Mothers' Day (May 10th) and drove half way across the US that next week to photograph a friends wedding.  I flew in to Charleston, SC, on Friday night and he picked me up there. 

Landing in Charleston at 11pm

We were both too tired to drive to Pawley's Island - where the wedding was - so we parked the good 'ole Sprinter van in an apartment complex parking lot, crawled to the back, and went to sleep.  (While most of my girl friends would disagree, I seriously think this whole van life thing is just the coolest...)

Saturday morning, after a quick Wal-Mart stop for some groceries and a bathroom, we drove on to Pawley's Island.  Found a spot to park in the shade along the beach and Scott made some breakfast.  In the van!  See!?  The coolest...

With a few hours to kill before he had to start photographing, so we took advantage of the beach.

I said I didn't want to get my hair wet before the wedding.  

Yeah, that lasted all of about ONE WAVE.  

An afternoon nap was sounding pretty nice after the late night, so while Scott went to take pictures of the bridal party getting ready, I somehow managed to fall asleep in the 100 degree van.  

I woke up drenched in sweat with crazy salt-water hair...and about 5 minutes to be ready for the wedding.  Yikes.

Is he not the cutest wedding photographer you've ever seen??

(No, I haven't showered...)

Besides it being hot (ridiculously hot), it was a perfect day and the outdoor wedding went off without a hitch.  Even the dog - who was the ring bearer - did exactly as he was supposed to!

I was going to take pictures of the wedding, too, but it was far more entertaining to take pictures of Scott in crazy positions while HE got pictures of the wedding instead. :)

"King Tide" at sunset on Pawley's Island, SC

Turns out being a wedding photographer is actually a lot of exhausting work!  But we did manage to spend a little time on the dance floor before calling it a night.

Well, we didn't actually call it a night just yet.  We had to sneak down to the beach one more time.  There's nothing like waves crashing, the moon and stars shining, and having the whole place to yourself... 

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Sunday morning - after another delicious van cooked breakfast, of course - 

- was more beach time. But this time, we blew up the paddle boards and took them out.

It was so fun to paddle in the ocean, but let's just say Scott fared much better in the waves than I did.  It took me several tries to actually make it through the break and out to a little calmer water.  In fact, I got smashed and drug in to shore so many times that people on the beach were actually cheering for me to make it.  The GoPro died and neither of us had our phones, so no pictures of any of that! 

We had planned to hit the road fairly early that afternoon and make it to Florida by night.  But once Scott uploaded the wedding pictures and the family got word, it was a non-stop slide show of all the photos.  Which took a looooong time.

Oh, and the van got just a little unorganized... 

We took our time and made a few stops along the drive..and somehow hadn't even made it to Georgia  yet by that evening! 

After debating for too long on where to stop to paddle at sunset (we debated too long and completely missed it) and then doing the same thing for dinner, we finally settled on pulling in to a nice campground to do some laundry and cook up something to eat.  

In the five minutes it took me to run up and switch out the laundry, Scott had somehow managed to find the perfect photo op and have his camera all set up to capture this:

My new favorite :)

Before leaving the camp site, I convinced Scott we needed to go jump in the pool they had there.  And once we got in, I thought I needed a picture.  You know where this is going...  While trying to take a picture, he dropped his phone in the pool...and we watched in disbelief as it sank all the way to the bottom.  Needless to say, that phone was no more. Oh, and it's his work phone.  He kind of needs that when working on the road.  :/

With a couple of hours left before we thought we would need to sleep, we kept on driving...and finally made it to Georgia shortly before midnight.  We found a spot along the river to park the van, found an open bar that had a bathroom, and went to sleep.

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I must have been out, because I woke up on Monday to this view - and no Scott: (He had gotten up to find a bathroom)

We made a couple of stops in Savannah:  Starbucks for breakfast, Panera for internet, AT&T store to try and get a new phone...

Somewhere along the way, we discovered that we both used to LOVE Hardees cinnamon raisin biscuits.  I wasn't even sure if they still made them - neither of us do fast food - but after a quick google search, we found out they do.  So when we drove right by a Hardees, we knew we had to make a U-turn to go back for them.

I'm not going to lie -- they were every bit as good as I had remembered.  

Until we looked up the nutrition facts.  Then we both wanted to throw up. 

To counter that fat bomb, I attempted to make a smoothie -- while we were diving down the interstate.

It was interesting to try and get everything out and in the cup without spilling, but it worked.  The blender, however, did not. We hadn't used it yet, and it turned out the battery it was supposed to run off of wasn't quite strong enough to power it.  So we got a very chunky, but mostly blended up smoothie instead. 

Selfie time -- somewhere in Georgia...   You have to pass the time somehow! 

I found a couple of spots along the way I wanted to try and check out.  One being Saint Simons Island.  So we made the treck off the interstate to get to it...and half of what we wanted to see was "private."  Meaning we couldn't get to it!  I'm not a fan of the South...

Just shaving while driving.  No big deal...

We finally made it to FLORDIA Monday afternoon --

--and went straight to Atlantic Beach in Jacksonville!

Yes, he's holding a Polaroid camera ^^   They're so fun!

We had too much fun on the beach with the GoPro:

We even got a good workout in before rinsing off at the outdoor shower and finding food.

I had to head to the airport that evening...where my flight was delayed, of course.  Because that's definitely the norm these days.  But I did make it home late that night -- with a tan, lots of awesome pictures, and a full heart from an amazing weekend on the road. :)