catch-up.

• we had a lovely weekend.  lovely, but exhausting.  the weather was perfect & we're already missing the beach on ocracoke island.  i'm actually looking into renting a small cottage so we can stay longer than one week and bring the dog {who is named after a village on hatteras island, frisco}.
• adam & malia scored major brownie points with me -- they both found me whole scotch bonnet shells!  we also came home with a whole sand dollar.
• aidan skinned his left leg up from thigh to ankle within hours of us arriving at the campground.  he was quite the drama king, but he's no worse for wear.
• we came home to a sparkling clean house which was really nice - thanks mom & dad!
• we also came home to wilted flowers, but that's to be expected when it suddenly becomes ridiculously hot & humid overnight.  our garden also grew quite a bit while we were gone - we've got green beans, snow peas & sugar snap peas to enjoy and quite a bit of cilantro & basil, too.
• frisco has some mysterious spots on his legs.  we're not sure if they are battle wounds from when he tried to scale our privacy fence while chasing one of our cats or if it's some sort of skin infection.  my guess is that frisco is allergic to something.  i'm going to call the vet.  hopefully it won't cost me an arm or a leg {ha ha ha...pun intended}. 
• i suck.  i have swap pressies that i still need to get in the mail.  i'm honestly not that bad of a swap partner.  life just seemed to take over lately & all the fun stuff got pushed aside.  at least this has given me more time to get things together which means my swap partners are gonna "hit the jackpot" so to speak.
• adam & i bought new patio furniture {we got it for an even lower price because the store had conflicting advertisements & they honored the lower one}.  we also bought a gazebo/canopy for the backyard.  now our brick pavers won't be too hot on our feet and we'll have a cool, shady place to sit outside.
• we also bought a new washer & dryer!  it's sad, but i'm very excited about that.  we're replacing our nearly 13 year old top loading washing machine & our "it's seen better days" dryer.  both still work well, but the drum in the dryer {where you put the clothes} is actually peeling.  yeah, not good.  so, we splurged on brand new kenmore front loaders.  nothing fancy, but we were able to take advantage of a great deal sears had for the holiday weekend.  adam picks them up on friday.
• the kids have 13 days of school left & they couldn't be more excited.
• aidan lost one of his front teeth yesterday while in school.  he came home with his tooth safe & sound in a wee little treasure chest.  the tooth fairy brought him $2.  he said he was going to save that money because he will get rich as he starts losing more teeth.  i have a feeling he'll be spending that money soon because...
• aidan turns seven in 10 days and he wants to go to toys r us to pick out a present.  we don't have anything extravagant planned.  probably a cookout & water slide fun for the kids.
• i have an appointment next week to cut & color my hair.  i'm excited.  it's been nearly six months since my last haircut.  if any of y'all know me well, you know that i never go that long in between appointments!  i'm not sure if i'll go short, short or just get a trim.  i am thrilled that i'll be spending my morning at the beauty shop with this fabulous lady.  i love her!
• i start working in an office closer to home this week.  granted, it is only for one day a week, but at least it's a change from my routine and it breaks up my killer commute during the week!