Photo-ful summary of summer

Gee whiz guys, it's been about ten years since I blogged. I feel like life has been pretty much the same story as my thank you cards from my wedding. I wrote lots and addressed them and mentally sent them, but found them a year later sitting in a drawer. It was too late to go back and send them. So, in a similar fashion it's a bit late to start updating you on my entire summer. I'll summarize briefly.

We moved. I know I covered that in my last post.
We took a simply lovely trip to Seattle with our friend Whit and Dave (thank you both!). Here are some photos from the journey. And Whit, I'll actually share the photos with you so you can have copies of ones you want. There are lots more...

Sunset improperly captured with my out-of-date camera. I still just love the colors and the water.

Visiting Seattle could mostly be summed up to: "look, a pretty tree!" times a thousand. But they really are pretty trees!

This one time we all went for a walk and I got tired and Neal wanted to see what was on the other side of a bridge. I made him take the camera to show me. Here it is, the bridge!

Neal, being all handsome and such.

I know I'm only like halfway through pregnancy at the point this photo is taken. Let's just pretend  I stayed the same size. I'm not roughly the size of a barge now, really!

The one pregnancy craving I cannot do without: pretzels. This pretzel cost way too much money and was purchased on a ferry ride. In terms of quality, what you see is what you get. It was like eating play food. But it tasted soooooo good at the time. Speaking of good, maybe I'll make myself some pretzels today. Yum.

Remember my comment about my old-timey camera? We kept trying to capture how incredibly beautiful it was on our ferry ride. This is the closest I ever got. I'm not a city girl, but even I can see the beauty of the city at night. 

Look! It's Mount Ranier (sort of)! We drove past the peak on our way home, but never saw it because of the clouds. It was an incredibly beautiful drive though, despite feeling like we might fall off the edge of the earth.

And onward in the summary of life. 

July happened. I'm not really sure what I accomplished other than lots of tv series and relaxing time with Neal. It was fabulous. I know you're all jealous that Neal and I get summers together. Perks of working in public education folks. Ya'll just think on that for a minute.

I got to see my friends from high school for the first time in a very long time. They were so lovely and happy and good parents. And it was nice to have time to actually see people. We went to Chick-fil-a together. 

I'll have to refer to my photos to remember the rest.

We went to the 4th of July Parade with family. My nephew Tommy loves me so much that everytime he sees me he just gives me a sour look and says, "NO!" And we live with them, so this happens quite frequently. Yup, I'm gonna rock at parenthood.

We ate waffles with white peaches. I'm not terrible at making waffles, these are just blender whole wheat waffles using whole wheat berries. They're snazzy but hard to cook in pretty shapes.

Good old Milton (my 1997 Buick Park Avenue) reached 100,000 miles. Way to be Milton! 

We grew pretty herbs that are still alive in September! And we may even keep some alive through the winter because they're perennials and we have faith.

We grew strawberries galore for a bit, until I killed the plant for the third time and it refused to revive. 

This photo is a symbol of my domesticity. I spent money on fake flowers (first time ever!) and a basket bowl thing for decorative but edible fruit. It's a pretty big step for me. 

We made hand crank homemade ice cream. 

Neal is pretty great at explaining that these are ducks. And even though I understand why we can no longer feed the ducks bread, I'm still bummed out that we can't show my niece and nephew how fun it is to do just that.

During our visit to the duck pond we found wild blackberries.

And the kids discovered just how awesome cottonwood looks when it's all snowy on the ground. Or they're looking at a bug. I'm not actually sure which.

If you were able to view all these photos then you have awesome internet. I will now create a second post so I can actually, you know, blog with words.