Cold

Just your standard, boring picture of an ice cube. I'm so creative.

Younger Me

Once upon a time, oh, about eleven years ago, my feets were about the size of the faded print on the right.... (even though you can't see the bottom of the print, but you get the point.)

And now, they're about the size of the print on the left. :) I often spent my younger days giving my grandparents heart attacks by scrambling up the trunks of trees until I was propped precariously on the highest, slimmest limb, and giving everyone else heart attacks by scrambling over the pool fence when nobody was looking. I liked climbing on things. Once I climbed to the top of a tree and wouldn't come down, because I didn't want to go to the dentist. Eventually I agreed to go when it was threatened that my beloved tree would be someday chopped down if I didn't get down right that minute. :D
     I spent the rest of my days hand in hand with my dear, gorgeous, oldest niece, like so:

(Of course, that's not actually my niece & me, that's two of my younger nieces, but it's a pretty accurate representation all the same. :) )
    Well, occasionally you'd find us hand in hand, actually. You'd more commonly find us in the middle of a fight, and probably not speaking to each other. Well, we know how to get along now, right? Right?? ;D

Yep, we're cool.

(Shout out to my other dear niece, whose fingers made it into the top left of the picture above. :D)

Inside My Bag

 Ah, my dear, old, worn, green Marimekko bag. And it is pretty old, dear readers. It is also very worn. The poor magnet inside for clasping it shut is hanging on by a thread. It actually fell off entirely already, but it just got tied back on a bit. So, the contents of my bag today:

Inside my bag I found:

• A green spiral bound notebook
• A green textured book
• A Bible
• A bottle of lavender oil
• A completely empty chap-stick container
• An empty gum package
• A single sock
• A hair brush
• A couple bucks
• $1.15 in loose change
• A leftover summer services booklet
• One pen
• One highlighter
• Assorted pieces of paper of questionable origins
• Assorted fruit snacks of questionable age 

I love my poor green Marimekko bag a lot. It's really perfect, and the only bag I've ever really been able to use. As soon as I am able, I'm planning to replace my dear bag with an identical one, only in red. :D

Photo a Day: Shadow

I have struggled & struggled for the past 3 days to find a picture of "shadow". I don't like anything I got. So, just so I can move on, here's a flash back to last summer:

All us looking down into the muddy, uh, mighty Mississippi.

Lunch Date

I enjoyed a lovely lunch date with my dear niece today. :) We also snapped some other pictures.

She's so cute.

Beautiful willow tree...

There I am :D I really, really love skirts. [Photo creds to Sasha on that one.]

Someone Who Makes Me Happy

Someone who makes me happy.  My dear older sister makes me happy. She always has. Back when she was in school, she once wrote a thing for an assignment called Things Sofia Taught Me. It's saved somewhere, although I'm not sure exactly where it is at this moment, but I did find a condensed quote I had written down for something else.
"Will you wead?"
"Not right now Sofia."
"Yeah," she whines.
"No Sofia, not right now," I say firmly.
[she has a fit]
"Okay, okay!" I yell over the noise. "I'll read you one story!"
Sofia smiles up at me and hands me a book. Well, maybe the smile was worth it, besides, how long can one story take?
That's my adorable, soft-hearted, ISFP(?) sister. :) She's the bestest, most caring person ever. She always has time for children & the people she loves, and knows how to make them feel amazing. And her adorable little daughters?? My sister is an amazing mom for the greatest little girls in the world :D They all make me very happy.
I love you guys!

Color

Bright pink swim goggles, sparkly aqua water, and neon green swim shorts: summer colors. :)

Happenings

I haven't posted here in awhile, have I? Time is quite a sneaky thing. It's the middle of summer already! Hopefully, I'll post more often on here now. I've thought about posting, but I just never know what to write about.

Well, anyway, I bought a new camera a couple weeks ago, and I'm having quite the adventure learning how to use it. :) Luckily, I have all kinds of adorable & willing models for me to practice with.

 It's been really nice to have the photo evidence of all my summer adventures so far though. I got it just in time for my dear brother's wedding too, so that was a bonus! :D

Their wedding was honestly SO adorable.

Two of their friends sang one of the most gorgeous duets I've heard in a long time. It was pretty amazing.

Mr. & Mrs. :)

"You made us for each other, God..."

They are such a sweet couple.

So, other than that, I also attended our church's annual summer services. They were SO GOOD. The entire place was filled with such joy as the little feet of so many children ran about & the singing of so many people filled every ear.

"Come and See."

It was really fun to have my dear oldest nephew out to visit for awhile. :)

Praying hands.

Beautiful Finnish flag

Lovely Swedish flag

AND my friends had a Harry Potter party. That was pretty sweet.

 Alright, I dare say I've rambled enough now. :) In closing, here's a little something in case you haven't seen enough cute puppy pictures lately.

Thanks for sticking around! :)