Best of July

Serious question.

WHERE DID JULY GO?!

I guess it was probably swept up in birthday celebrations, BBQs, cabin adventures, family fun and seriously more dessert than I probably ever need to eat again.  This month has been such a whirlwind of pure summer fun.  It’s my favoritest month of the year for that reason, but really, does it always have to go by so fast?  One minute it’s the 4th of July, the next, it’s the last day of the month.  Wah wah.  I guess the only thing left to do is relive the fun one last time with a little “Best of July” recap!

The month started off with a low key 4th of July — if you can call an all day bike ride “low key” — that once again reaffirmed my belief that the best things in life are free unplanned.  Spur of the moment backyard movie nights need to happen more often!

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After all that low key-ness, it was time to celebrate my birthday for.ev.er!  Or so it felt 🙂  Many wonderfully thoughtful gifts, delicious dinners (REMEMBER THAT PIZZA?!), self-pampering and an overall showering of love was almost more than my heart (and stomach) could handle.  Almost.

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The first Mother-Daughter Book Club meeting was a smashing success, complete with passionate book talk — um a group of ladies talking literature gives me all the feels — and an outdoor breakfast to go along with it.  Naturally 🙂

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Months of excitement and planning culminated in our “First Annual Mountain Trip” to Breckenridge!  We got drenched on our hike, the boys all sucked at starting a fire, the girls couldn’t win a game of Catchphrase to save our lives and we broke the dishwasher.  But it was all PERFECT!

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And because July always saves the best for last, the month ended with a birthday celebration for the ages; my mom’s 60th!  My NOLA family made a surprise — well it was a surprise to my mom, at least — visit and for three blissful days we lived it up Colorado-style, with a Pearl Street dinner, Chautauqua picnic, family putt putt competition, hawk sighting at the Denver Botanic Gardens and the general soaking up of family togetherness.  My perfect mother deserved such a perfect birthday weekend 🙂

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Seriously though, it has been so hard readjusting to “normal life” this week.  Like wait, I don’t get to see my family every day?  That, coupled with the trade of my favorite Rockies player, has been making me all sorts of sad.  Someone hold me.

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention all the little things — because let’s be real, the little things matter just as much as the big things — that made July feel like eternal summertime.  We saw Wicked, my sister and I finished watching True Detective, Joey and I started half marathon training and I finally got my little hands on our wedding album.

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Oh and honorable mention goes to my porch swing which I have decided has an impenetrable force field of tranquility around it.  Sitting in that thing is magical.

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Today is sort of bittersweet because I hate seeing July come to an end — the feeling that summer is slipping away gives me serious anxiety! — but I’m also kind of looking forward to August.  August is summer’s last hurrah.  It’s less busy than July, which means there’s plenty of time — and summery weather — to do all the fun things I still want to do.  I’m so excited for that!

Happy Friday!

Mother-Daughter Book Club: Flowers for Algernon

As with all book posts, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT.

My mother, sister and I met for our first ever Mother-Daughter Book Club discussion on Sunday morning (over breakfast, because: duh!) and it felt like the cutest things we’ve ever done.  Our first book was Flowers for Algernon and I’ll be honest, before this, I’d never even heard of it before.  Turns out it was totally thought-provoking, heart-wrenching and worth the read!

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If you’re like me and haven’t heard of it, it’s about Charlie Gordon, a man in his 30’s with an IQ of 68 who becomes the second subject (the first being a mouse named Algernon) to undergo surgery to increase his intelligence.  It’s written journal style, so you get a very personal look into Charlie’s mind as he becomes increasingly intelligent, deals with his stunted emotional growth, struggles to understand traumatic events from his childhood and ultimately, as he reverts back to his original IQ.

Though we all liked the book, I’d say my mom and sister loved it and I didn’t feel quite as passionately.  But I could see why they loved it so much.  You have a character that you end up really sympathizing with and rooting for and the plot just brings up so many ethical questions that it’s at once interesting and sad.  We all agreed that it was the perfect first book and I’d say our first book group discussion was a success!  Up next, “the epic 1984,” or so my mom is calling it 🙂