Catchin' Up: July

Y'all remember one time when I had a blog and wrote stuff and posted pictures and it was a general documentary of our family's lives and fun memories?  Yeah, me too.  Good times....

The summer was crazy busy, but fun.  The fall brought a whole new routine for all of us with preschool for Clara and a new job for me.  And the further behind I got with The Hardy Life, the more daunting it seemed to catch up.  So, I just watched a lot of TV instead.  Not proud, but that's the truth.

However, I can't let this project die; it's all I've got to document these precious years.  It would be dozens of posts to catch up properly and I don't have the time or energy for that either, so I'm going to try to do it all in four relatively long, yet still highlight-y overviews of the past four months and get us caught up to present day.
Here's (the rest of) July.

Our dearest family friends, the Jacksons, welcomed their second grandchild (first baby girl!) into the family.  We were so thrilled to go meet little Paige and visit her sweet mama Sarah at home in her first week of life.  I couldn't stop snapping photos of this sweetest little face, but I'll just share a few of my favorites...

 Clara ooed and ahhed over Paige, but also had lots of fun outside playing with Jack.  He may be younger than she is, but he has a lot to teach her about baseball.

And she was pretty smitten by him!

We were all smitten by this little bundle.  Congrats, Sarah and Dan! (and the rest of the fam, too!)

We headed to Camp Ridgecrest for their 85th reunion.  Robert and I met there ten years ago and it is always fun for us to go back to a place that is filled with such special memories of romance and love, but also a place with deep spiritual significance for both of us.  Not to mention some of our very favorite people in all the world are camp people and it's always good for our souls to be with them again.   Some of them had met Clara before, but for many this was their first time seeing the little spitfire they'd all helped pray for.  It was a very rainy, very joyous weekend indeed!

If Robert ever dies (please, no!), Will is my backup plan.  This is what the replacement family will look like.

Some of my favorite buddies... (and missing you, Mere!)

One of the coolest things about returning to camp at this stage of life, with other alumni, was watching all of our kids playing together.  They were images I'm sure none of us could have imagined a decade ago and they warmed my heart in a way I don't have words for.

Clara had her first Nibble Nook experience.  Hard to explain to anyone who's not a camp person, but if you are, you'll know what I mean.  We grew up on this stuff on Sunday afternoons and it was fun to share it with her!

And just in case that wasn't enough ice cream, she got to sample some Dairy King, too.  Yum. Yum.

 We were home a little bit in July and on one of those days we went to go visit the newly re-done Science Center in Greensboro.  They've added a small aquarium with some cool stuff and these girls had fun checking out the fish, sharks, penguins, stingrays, otters and more!

Quick snack break before heading out to the outside animals...

Clara and Chloe took their goat grooming duties very seriously!

Back on the road again... we headed to Atlanta to celebrate cousin Eleanor's third birthday with a super fun pirate party!   Here are a few highlights from that...

Then, it was back to the beach, but on the way we stopped in Raleigh and I grabbed a little photo shoot with my littlest niece, Audrey, at about ten months.  There are some great ones, but I'll just share one!  How precious is she?

This was a girls' only beach trip for Caroline, Clara, Sweet Mama and me and we had a fabulous time.  Not a ton of photos, but we had so much beach time this summer, there's no need.  You get the idea.  Cute kids, cute bathing suits, cute sand creations, etc.

Of course, if we put them in matching outfits and attempt super cute just before sunset beach pictures they will revolt and refuse to cooperate or smile.   Oh well.

And that's July!  August includes two more beach trips, so stay tuned for more!