C A T C H I N G | UP - part 2.

A P R I L Continued:

My absolute favorite thing about April was our trip down to Ft. Lauderdale / Hollywood Beach. Seriously one of my favorite trip/best times we've had since we've been married!
We took a long weekend down to make it to the Ft. Lauderdale Temple Open House.

Can you believe this is an IPhone Picture? Seriously Gorgeous Place!

Holiness to the Lord | The House of The Lord

After attending the Open House, we headed back to the hotel, gathered our things and headed over to Hollywood Beach! We spent the night on Boardwalk (right on the beach). We spent the day doing a lot of people watching, jet skiing, and trying to find the most delicious food to eat.
We generally succeed at finding good food!

Before Jet Ski'ing

the most amazing Shrimp Tacos

Crepes for Breakfast

M A Y: 

May meant the end of one semester and beginning of another! May also meant 12 more weeks until Blake graduated. May was a happy month! A month where it finally sunk in... Blake will be able to make some money soon! Talk about a Happy Dance! And a Date Night... or four :)

We also got a little Dirty in a Mud Run. Let me give some words of advise for all my fellow ladies out there. I chose to wear a nike sports swimsuit underneath some running shorts. That was a horrible idea. After the race was over - there was enough mud, in the liner of the swimsuit, to build my own mud course. I kid you not - I couldn't take my shorts off, because my swimsuit didn't touch any part of my bottom. Yeah, we swam though some mud!

a weak Cannon-Ball!

Swimming Through Mud 

May also meant Wedding Time for one of my first college roommates, Alise.We played volleyball together at PJC  & her family is an absolute HOOT! They had the rehearsal dinner at Vulcan Park in Birmingham - Such a pretty place. Her little 8 year old cousin, Madison, took tricked Blake and I into taking the stairs to the top of the observatory. Once you get to the top, you walk out on this "grater' looking thing to look over the city of Birmingham. It's a beautiful view, just not so beautiful walking on the grater. I was too scared. I don't particularly care to walk on things that I can see the ground 100feet down right under me. Not my cup of tea. Madison held my hand and said "it will be ok" - what do you do when an 8 year old tells you that? You suck it up and face your fears.

Rehearsal Dinner: Alise, Madison & Me

Birmingham: From Vulcan Park

The "grated" floor. I couldn't even take a picture looking straight down. 

Blake and I busted some white people moves at Alise & Taylor's Reception. Pretty sure we were born to never dance. It was fun nonetheless. Their reception was gorgeous, I didn't get any good pictures, but it was pretty. And ended with a big Bang of Fireworks. 

The Dancing Machine @ the Reception

Fake Eyelashes make me feel pretty.

The night ended late - like Midnight (which is like 3 hours past our bedtime). We got to our hotel to check in, and the guy told us they were out of rooms so he would put us in the executive suite. Yeah, Ok, whatever that means. First off we got in our elevator and had to have a key to go to our floor. Then we make it to our room, with a double door entrance and a side door entrance. We walk in, and are pretty sure we just won the lottery. All of our plans of getting up and leaving early to waunder around birmingham have changed. We now decided we need a late checkout. Who wouldn't do that with a two-story hotel room? We wake up - go to breakfast (which is on the 16th floor, only for exclusive guests, which included us and some SEC baseball coaches) and layed around our room until check out time. Check it out. I even made a video, but decided to spare you all. 

Upstairs Foyer

Small Portion of Bathroom

Downstairs Living Room

We seriously were giggling and saying is this real life for about an hour. We were pretty sure they were going to call and say they made a mistake. Now you can see why we didn't want to leave!

Saturday we met up with some friends from Tallahassee - The Rudder's. They were kind enough to let us crash their house for a night. They took us out to Chuy's, we enjoyed some good food, and window shopping. . Check out their adorable baby though, isn't she the cutest?

Us & Lily

We spent Memorial Day doing a few loads of laundry (lame). And out by the pool - I enjoy any day out by some water. Blake did some fishing, which has become his latest hobby! He's after a monster fish out their he keeps losing. And we got to see a few nephews.

J U N E

I feel like I'm cathing up - and it feels weird. In June we spent the evening in Tallahassee celebrating Blake's Mom's Birthday! We got to see another one of our Nephews, which we always love! And spend a little time with Blakes family. 

The other two nephews came up, Camden & Layne, and it isn't a trip to Chipley without a ride on the Kubota... And EVERYONE wants to drive... at one time. So as usual we take a trip to see the cows, and this is what it generally looks like!

We also went out for my Mom's Birthday in Panama - the only way to get our whole family to one place is on the Motorhome. It's our preferred way of travel. Even for just an hour ride. Blake thought it would be a great time, with 10 people on board to learn how to drive the motorhome. Dad surprisingly agreed and let Blake jump in the drivers seat. Everyone on board pitched a fit (which B blames on me) - but I just didn't want to die that way, that night. I recordered a short little snippet of his driving, right before I had to throw up... almost...

Camden spent the night with Blake & I and made Mimi a necklace for her birthday at our house. It was the cutest thing! He told me the length he wanted it, and he definitely wanted to make sure it fit. He also wanted to make a matching necklace. My mom even wore it to church!

J U L Y:

July meant fireworks. and camps. It meant loads of volleyball, and teambuilding, and the winding down of Blake with school! 

July started with a 7am Volleyball run with the girls. Something about that humidity at 7am. I can run in the evenings ( not that I always do) but I've never been so out of breath in my life. We had the girls run from the High School to Subway for breakfast. They had no clue why or where they were running, and why we told them to bring money. But they listened, and we were all happy to make it to food! After breakfast we did some teambuilding games - and played tag. Nothing else I would rather do at 7am!

We spent the Fourth of July once again, out by the pool. We literally did nothing until about 3. Headed down to panama to see Blended (coming from a movie hater, I enjoyed it) then headed over to my brother-in-laws office to watch the fireworks from the Bay! 

There were some gorgeous sunsets

we made some pretty tasty food

I said tasty - not appealing

and then I did adult things and chaperoned at Youth Conference. Once I found out it was 6am breakfast, I questioned why I said Yes to this Chaperoning gig. Needless to say, I learned, felt the spirit and was happy to be there.

I also went to "Team Camp" with the Volleyball girls. We took the team to Florida State University's Team Camp for High School Volleyball. Another three days of camp. 6am - 9pm really makes for a long day, and a really tired Erica. The girls had a pretty solid first day, not so good second day and then ended the camp strong in the team tournament. 

Can't believe July is coming to an end. Didn't the summer just start?

& to top it off… Today was Blakes Last Day of College!
& being the good wife that I am… I even ironed his shirt.. whoops!