Life Lately- July

Somehow, someway another month has come and gone!

July was a month for us that was a lot of making plans and waiting for those plans to happen, such is military life I suppose!

Shane was home a lot this month; since he got back from MARSOC training and before we move, he's kind of at an in-between with his job. He has to go to base each morning to check-in, but he doesn't really even have an office anymore. He just talks with the guys, works out, and then leaves an hour or two later once he can't take it anymore. This has gone on for 2 months, and Shane is a go-go-go guy, so it's been tough on him. It's been nice to have him home a lot more during the day, and he's been productive, but it does somewhat impede my own work productivity!

I'm kind of at an in-between with my own work and not working nearly as many hours, so I've spent a lot of time job searching and tried to allow myself some lazy summer days as well. 

As you can see, Cash was all on board with those lazy, laying around days!

So this was super fun- Brian and I had a babysitter, Jim, for many years growing up. It seems like Jim was with us all the time when my parents worked, had bowling, etc. We hadn't seen him in many, many years (he claimed I saw him at unofficial once at U of I years ago though...), and his family happened to be vacationing on Topsail for a week, so his mom texted me and we made sure to get together!

My parents are good friends with his parents and still see them frequently, but it was my first time seeing them and Jim's sister Diana in probably 20 years! It was great to meet Jim's wife too. Shane loved meeting all of them and hearing many stories- namely when I used to lock Jim out of the house all the time...sorry, Jim.

We played cards, caught up, reminisced, and just had so many laughs one evening. I loved looking out the windows onto the ocean too!

So Shane has a weekly appointment with his barber and she INSISTS on him bringing C&C every time. They just roam around the salon, say hi to everyone there, and get lots and lots of treats. This is my 20 minutes of solitude all week long!

She is so sad about us PCSing that she asked for pictures of them that she can blow up and print poster-sized on the wall of the salon to keep there forever, hahaha oh my gosh. We have left our mark on Surf City I suppose! 

Lunch lately has been big salads. Now that we're moving, I'm getting motivated again to actually eat healthy and get my appearance and body back on track, hah. I threw a bunch of vegetables in with my salad at the beginning of the week, added pickles (the best addition to a salad I've realized recently!), some swiss cheese, cheddar crisps, and I eat on that all week. I also throw in leftover meat each day, typically from dinner the night before. This one week's salad had leftover Mississippi Roast (shared on the blog!) on top of the salad. YUM! This was one of the best salads I've ever made, although I'm not quite sure it looks so appetizing.

Our friends here, Amber and Andrue, gave us their kitchen table and chairs, along with a bench that goes with it. Shane plans on updating it for us to use until we eventually buy our own. 

Here’s a pic below showing the natural wood color I'm asking Shane to do with it. Let's see if he'll work his magic. Stay tuned!

C&C joined us on many trips to Lowe's to pick out wood stain. There were many attempts and returns to get the perfect look of wood stain, let’s just say. 

Can you tell how happy they were?! I'm about to drop them off there every morning so they can be greeters there, hah! They get so much attention which they lap right up. My very favorite was the cutest little girl who pointed to them and said "A mommy and daddy! But he's sad..." referring to Cash's natural face that many always comment actually looks very mad and angry 🙃

We ran into my barre teacher here too one of the times actually. It cracks me up because I feel like I rarely leave my house and know few people in this town, but I swear I run into people I know about half the time I'm out. Small town living!

Lowe's next top model...

Shane devoted many days to working on this table! I'm so eager for the finished product.

Shane and I had a date night one Friday and went to see Elvis. I rarely hear about movies coming out now, but I had heard about this one, and I'm so glad I did! It was so good! It started off with a lot of weird graphic and chaotic camera angles, but that lessened as the movie went on. The actor who played Elvis was fascinating and incredible. As all celebrity movies seem to be, it was extremely depressing, but we learned a lot. I also realized Elvis sang many more songs that I'm familiar with than I realized! We definitely recommend you go see this one.

There's something about a cozy, dark movie theater on a weekend night, with popcorn in hand, that I just crave sometimes!

Also, Shane accidentally led us to the wrong AMC in Jacksonville (there are 2), so that was quite the debacle, but we ended up seeing Elvis when all was said and done... 🙄

We got together with the Potts' for our usual dinner out at Camino Real, a Mexican restaurant right by Shane's and my neighborhood. It’s not Texas level Mexican food, but it’s a good attempt! 

Our weekends together were dwindling! We'll see if they eventually end up in Quantico too...

After dinner, we headed to the island to all of our favorite ice cream place. Everyone on the island gets their beach houses for the week on Saturdays at 5PM, so traffic around here that time in the summer is NUTS, but we thankfully headed to the island after the traffic had died down.

We'll for sure miss Hot Diggity Dogz ice cream!

After ice cream, we all hit up a tourist shop randomly. Then, Willa had to go to the bathroom so Shane, Amber, and the girls headed back so Shane could let them in while Andrue and I stayed at the shop to finish up buying our purchases. When we walked in the house, Elizabeth had a warning for me....and we walked into this...

Cash has gotten into the garbage once before when we were home for a crock pot liner, and apparently that's what he was after again...oh man, they had been SO SO good lately, but they were definitely in trouble. Cash was hiding behind Amber trying to stay away from us…rightly so!

In their defense, we always put calming music on for them when they are left home alone. That has eliminated any and all destruction from separation anxiety. We didn’t put the music on this time…and we won’t be making that mistake again!

We enjoyed the rest of the night out back with the kids and guys playing Cash's favorite game- roof ball- with C&C.

It's not a monthly update without adorable pics of these two!

One Sunday, Shane and I got to church before we realized that we were completely matching, sigh. Disclaimer: I was dressed first! I was so embarrassed walking by him there, haha. We had to snap a pic after to send to my mom to show just how matching we were.

The rest of that day was a rainy Sunday, so I read under the umbrella out back. So lovely!

And Shane made us a nice rainy Sunday lunch. Panera soups at the grocery store…so good!

Zero personal space for me ever, like ever...they come up on me all the time all on their own. I mean, I don’t hate it!

Right when Cash finished blowing his winter coat, Caylor started blowing hers...

Did I mention I have no personal space or alone time, like...ever?!

These two are always up in each other's business and tagteaming trouble! They can never let one play around or check out something without the other one right there in the thick of it with them. We still swear by it that 2 is much easier than 1…at least for this breed!

Well, I made my last trip to our library and dropped off these books. I was in the mood for slightly lighter and/or older ones (as in- a year or two old!) but I only got around to reading one of these before having to return them in preparation of our move. I'm looking forward to checking them out again at our new library!

My grand total number of books I've checked out from just this library location in the past 2 years? 277! I used a few other farther library locations on rare occasion too 😉

We've had some crazy storms and rain lately! I always compare it to Florida... with us being so close to the ocean, we can get torrential downpour for an hour each day this summer and then the rest of the day is perfectly sunny and nice. These storms sure roll in suddenly and quickly…

We spent the month soaking up and savoring our beach while we can...

Ugh, the flies! I've said it before and I will say it again- I think the worst part of living in North Carolina is the house flies this time of year. They are unreal! At least in our “woodsy” location. Thankfully, they've been much better this summer with intimidating fly-killer Shane and the electric fly swatter around. I wouldn't mess with this guy!

As always, Shane has kept me laughing! So grateful for him and his sense of humor...and having him here with us this summer, unlike last summer!

That's it for July! Here's to one more month of bright, sunny, summer days! Uhhh what…?! Cash can't believe August is nearly here already.

Here's to wishing you and yours the BEST last month of summer! We’ll be coming at ya from a new location next month!