Life Lately- June

Well, this month's life lately has us finally back at our house in North Carolina! We somewhat spontaneously came back a bit earlier than originally planned because my parents were unfortunately heading out of town for a funeral for my step-cousin. So many prayers and love to the Matzens and Lees <3

As soon as we were home, we were reminded of how much we love our house. It was so nice to have our own space again, to see our home decor again, and to enjoy the spaciousness of it all! The first thing we did the day after we got back was get up, be productive, and then head to the beach!

I have to say, I do love summertime this close to the ocean. There's just a certain feeling here during the summer, with all the excitement of all the tourists. It was pretty crazy because when we left town it was spring, but we most definitely came back to summer in full swing.

Knowing we may be leaving the beach, sure makes me appreciate it even more, so we've been soaking it all up with many more plans to!

On this first beach day back in town, the Potts joined us.

My mom got me on sparkling water this summer. This one is a new one I tried out...pineapple coconut, like a pina colada. So good for being beachside in the summer!

Someone has been prancing around and all smiles to be home...

Right outside our neighborhood, there was previously a popular coffee place. They moved onto the island, so another coffee place (with ice cream now!) took its place. Shane and I walked C&C there one evening after dinner and tried out the ice cream.

You picking up on the small town vibes yet?

Sometimes you just need to finish working at 4PM on a random Tuesday, jump in the car for a quick 5 min. drive, and head to the beach for some R&R...

...and some playing in the waves. We have to live this up now while we can!

And sometimes, after a huge deadline for work is met, it's time to start work an hour or two later than usual and start the morning outside with some pajamas, coffee, and a book...all that happen to be matching, hah!

No shame in my backyard game. So grateful for our privacy fence at times! Aunt Sue made these hats for me, her, and my mom. Sometimes I just have to block the sun while still in said pajamas with coffee...

Shane headed to Maryland/Pennsylvania for a bachelor party and sent some gorgeous pics.

Meanwhile, Cash, Caylor and myself were holding down the fort andddd the air conditioning completely broke. I spent a full day on the phone with Shane, with the leasing agent, with our landlords, and with an AC repair guy. There were many visits from all of the above (except Shane) as well. I'm always cold and don't mind being hot, but I was worried about the puppies in the 90+ degree North Carolina summer. Our landlords were absolutely incredible about this whole ordeal! 3 days later, we ended up getting a whole new unit with a Nest thermostat (too bad we're moving soon!)

Our landlords have a husky too, and we've established great rapport with them, so they went and got a window AC unit and installed it for us so the pups and I could at least have one bearable room in the house.

We bought this pink bed and Cherry made this pink pillow for Caylor a long time ago, but look who ends up using it more often...he was soaking up in the air with his girly pink belongings.

Saturday afternoon/evening was brutal, so we broke out the pool.

Meanwhile, my parents got together with 3 of my dad's sisters, their husbands, and his cousins for the first time in a long time! So sad we missed out on this. My dad's huge extended side of the family used to get together every month for birthdays throughout my childhood, and I have so many amazing memories from that. Now everyone is all over the US, but I do still wish we had that tradition going for our future kids!

The pups were chilling inside during these hot days of summer.

Little Miss Long Legs over here...

Story of my life...

Brian celebrated his first Father's Day and these outfits cracked me up. Brecken is replacing me as Brian's 2nd player, but Brecken will be in good hands as Luigi and the yellow Diddy Kong.

We used to take the dogs to the nearby dog park weekly, but they hadn't been in a few months, so we fixed that. I couldn't help but notice these new signs that have been added since we were last there, yikes.

Ms. Congeniality, friends with everyone Caylor and super-selective, rather explore alone or play with humans Cash

Shane's been getting home from work at like 11 every day, since he's in-between jobs and there's not much for him to do here before the move, so we took the dogs to the vet one day (so nice to have Shane there to help and not have me wrangle both of them solo- like I did many times during deployment!) and then the two of us headed back to the beach before dinner.

Gonna miss this part of NC living!

Still having military ospreys fly over frequently which are sometimes so low they shake the house and tilt all of our pictures on the walls!

Just a usual scene of my work from home life. Work has lightened up this past week or so (I can't remember the last time I had a few days or a week off!) so I've been trying to enjoy some summer life.

Aunt Sue was inspired by my outside coffee, so she sent me a pic of her taking a moment the next day! One of the best things to come out of COVID (and probably me getting older) is how much closer we've gotten. We still text every day and Aunt Sue, my mom, and I had another Yahtzee Zoom night when Shane was out of town! Love her so much.

Shane and I headed to Virginia for a Friday to check out areas we would be interested in living in. 5 hours there, ALL day in the car, stopping at a hotel outside of Richmond at night (that turned out to be the worst hotel I've ever seen so we immediately left with a full refund and ended up driving back home that night) led to another FULL day in the car.