This Past Summer

I'm painfully aware that I have been noticeably silent as far as blogging goes.  So, here's a rather long post that has a summary of the things that have kept me so busy this summer.

The last time I posted was back in May.  Well, May was an eventful month.  Alan and I celebrated three years of marriage (where has the time gone?!), and one of my best friends tied the knot the day after my anniversary.  I was so honored to be in Brittany's wedding.  I still remember the first time I saw Brittany was when I was seven.  Her family came to our church and I watched as they walked by the aisle my family was sitting in.  I remember seeing her and thinking "She looks like she's my age. Maybe we'll be friends!"  Well, we became such good friends when we were little.  I remember taking turns spending Sunday afternoons at each others' houses between church services, playing dress up, building forts, practicing fainting for our future careers in acting, and playing pac man on her sega while we hung upside down on the couch.  Even when my family moved away, we kept in touch.  That meant so much to me.  I love her family.  They are some of the sweetest, kindest people I know, and their love for God shines through clearly for everyone around them to see.  Brittany was a gorgeous bride inside and out, and I am so glad I got to be there on her wedding day. 

Then we chilled in Maryland for a week.  Hung out with the parents, went bike riding, and swimming.  Well, Dad and I went swimming.  Alan didn't swim.  He stayed on the deck, muttering something about it's way too cold to go swimming.  That southern boy! I don't know what I'll do with him.  It was at least 70 degrees outside! 

The rest of June and July flew by.  We mostly worked.  I did experience mountain bike riding for the first time ever, and let me tell you, I am hooked!  It is such a rush trying to balance while going as fast as you can with not running into anything.  The first time we went, I took it fairly easy, and unbeknownst to me, Alan took me on an easier trail.  I flippantly remarked that I had no idea how he and Tyler had such horrific crash stories and always came back with bad injuries whenever they go mountain bike riding.  Little did I know, I was going to eat my words the next day.  I breezed by on my first day of trail riding.  So naturally, on my second day out on the trail, I took turns and hills with a little too much confidence and speed.  Suffice it to say, I got thrown off my bike six times, crashed into four trees, got two decent cuts, and sprained my ankle. It was awesome though.  My favorite wreck was the one where I didn't take the hill fast enough, started rolling backwards, hit a tree with my derriere (oh my goodness! I got that word right the first time without having to use spell check (I hate to admit this, but I just spelled spell check wrong.  Apparently it's not one word.  It's what I get for bragging.  Is this double parenthesis even grammatically correct? Oh well, what's it matter.  It's just a blog)).  Where was I?  Oh yeah, my derriere.  So I hit a tree with it, just hard enough that it popped me straight off my bike.  Anyways, needless to say, I am hooked to mountain biking and Alan and I have gone several times now.  Yes, we know that we are just at the height of cycling fashion.  In fact, I think we set the trend.

The end of July, I went back to Maryland for an impromptu family reunion.  It was fun and filled with lots of crazy people....ugh I mean crazy memories.  I also got to see one of my dear friends Joanna and her two sweet baby girls! We see each other about once a year on average, but it's always so much fun catching up with her! Since we started out as pen pals when we were kids, I guess it makes sense that we don't need to hang out to be such good friends.  Here's a picture of the part of the family that went to Md.  Also, here's an awesome snake that we found (gulp!) right by the side of our house. 

Then August came and went in a flash! We were so busy that month.  What I loved most about August, was I had three weeks "vacation."  To be completely honest, I was getting a little burnt out at work, and that vacation was exactly what I needed.  The vacation started with us driving down to Shreveport for Sarah's (Alan's little sister) wedding.  Unfortunately, Alan and I got there too early - everything wasn't set up yet.  ;) However, looking back, we would have missed getting to play on the lift! As you can, we were all serious business and no play. 

Okay. So you can't really tell in this picture that we were having fun.  I was intent on steering the thing (yes, I was a better driver than Alan and I have witnesses).  I remember wondering if we could go high enough that I could bang (lightly!) his head into the ceiling.  But, naturally, being the good person that I am, I refrained from this inner rebellious urge. My favorite part of the lift ride, was when we were at the top, and Alan's dad was trying to throw scissors up to us.  Let's just say it took several attempts, it would have been smarter (and faster!) to just take the lift down to get them, but nobody ended up with any cuts or scissors falling on their head.  

Sarah's wedding was busy and beautiful.  It flew by.  You'd think I'd post pictures of her wedding, but I don't actually have any.  I just have pre-wedding pictures.  After Sarah's wedding, we headed back to Searcy for our two weeks training for Avanti Italia.  Those two weeks were awesome, and will be posted in more detail in our Avanti Italia blog.  

Then it was back to work for us.  We've been busy trying to sell our furniture, pack what we are keeping, and get paperwork done.  We sold Jessie the Jeep already, so now Alan gets to enjoy riding his bike to work when he works the same nights that I work.  We figured I get dibs on the car since it's only 5 miles to his work and 55 to mine.  

We've been so busy this last month.  It's like we are trying to cram everything we never did here in Arkansas, in just a couple of months.  We've had so much fun camping/rock climbing with some dear friends that we are going to miss once we are in Italy.  Why is it that you always start to make really great friends with people right before you move? We've been cramming in dinners and game nights with friends.  We've hiked Pinnacle in Little Rock, gone to Hot Springs for Alan's birthday, and we've been up to Branson , MO.  

Well, that's all for now.  I'll try to post more often.  TTFN