Another nice visit

Summer is in full swing here. Our summer days have been very relaxed with friends and family dropping in to visit. Our Atlanta girlfriends recently came by for a few days for some Asheville fun. The girls had a great time catching up and so did the adults! We've had some late nights, early walks, and of course some shenanigans!

Happy Summer

We welcomed the summer solstice with a low key celebration. We usually do something more elaborate, but this summer the theme is "simple".

We decorated our seasonal mantle as we do with the beginning of every season. We use articles that are of importance to us that are connected with the current season. We read our summer book, The Longest Day, by Wendy Pffefer. I highly recommend her books as she had one for each season. We just spent the rest of the day outside, business as usual, aware that the season has just begun. 

One notable conversation I had with Marlee as we finished our book was how she noticed the celebrations in different parts if the world. She found it interesting that 1,000 years ago when civilizations and countries were not connected all over the globe, people still celebrated the longest day on a very similar way. They were in awe if the sun's magic and it's change with every season. This makes us all connected.

Very observant, my child, and very true. 

Happy summer!

 

A nice visit

Last week my parents came to visit. We had a nice relaxing time, as I am anti-plan, anti-schedule this summer. We took many hikes (Brevard waterfalls & Mt. Pisgah), hung out at the homestead, and even caught a baseball game. Of course, we got wrapped up in a shenanigan or two as we rooted through a neighbor's trash to take home that perfect tap dancing stage! We also worked on getting our new addition, Violet, used to her new home. It was a good week.

Summer Un-planning

School just let out for the summer on Wednesday. Mya just finished kindergarten, Marlee- 2nd grade, and me- my 1st year back to work after a 7 year hiatus. 

The day was fun-filled with the usual last day commencements, and the after school party was business as usual at our neighborhood park:

Our neighborhood throws a full scale shindig with complete ice cream buffet and giant slip & slide. The kids welcome summer with great friends and great memories in the making.

 

Of course I had all kinds of aspirations of a bucket list, agenda, daily plan, etc., when we slowly approached the end of the school year.  See this post about all of our elaborate plans for last summer, then check out this humble post about what really happed by summer's end. I suddenly stopped to realize how much I've been slowing down and moving away from commitments and friendships that no longer served me well.  This past year was full of healing and reevaluating. I am learning (finally) that the plan for us is to maybe not plan at all, just let the days roll by this summer, see where the wind takes us. I have also learned not to keep my plate so full and to say 'no' once in a while. I have decided to consciously "un-plan" these next few weeks, in hopes of finding the wonder and appreciation of lazy summer days.

End of Year Gifts

With school ending this week, the gals and I decided to bust out our crafting supplies and make some gifts for our fantastic teachers this year. We have had several special teachers this year and because we actually started our crafts early, we were able to make a few different projects.

First up was an easy project.  We had all the supplies right here:  fabric scraps, empty wine bottles (of course!) and Mod Podge.
We cut up some fabric scraps, covered the bottles in Mod Podge, placed fabric on the bottles, and covered the fabric in Mod Podge.  The end result was a funky vase.

 

 

 

 

We also thought a few of our teachers could use a beverage (or three) after this long school year.  We decided to make accessories to go along with those beverages.  We pulled out and old favorite from our files.  You can click here to see the previous post I made that has instructions on these awesome alcohol ink tiles.  We had the ink and primer already and the tiles cost 44 cents each at Home Depot. I glued felt squares on the bottom of the tiles and they will make perfect outdoor drink coasters.

 

 

Lastly, I decided to reconnect with my Singer, as it's been some time. I made two casserole carries and etched the glassware with my Silhouette machine.  Oh how I love that machine...it makes me look so fancy ;)

 



 

 

We have been so lucky with the girls getting phenomenal teachers since they started school. We just wanted to show them small tokens of how much we appreciate their hard work and dedication.