Around Here Twenty Eight: 07/07-07/13

A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this minute.

photo cred: Greyson Studer

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 332+ hours (of 1000)
Up only 20 hours this week, bleh.  Got some time in though through dog walks, mowing, and yard sprinkler fun.

Reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, still, floating my way through it and being really inspired to write.  Picked up a new book club membership with my sweet friend Lonnie and so much looking forward to our in-person book discussion later this month about The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (which I just re-read a few weeks ago, yay!), and thanks to Prime Day ordering (!) I received The Dry by Jane Harper just yesterday.  I opened the box, opened the cover and dove right in immediately.  Grey is slowly (a chapter a day) making his way through The Magic Treehouse Pirates Past Noon to keep up with summer reading.  He is right there at the cusp (of it no longer being difficult to read) and needs encouraged (heavily) every day to keep working at it.

Library Haul:  guess who skipped the library again this week (!!) but we have full intentions of getting back to library lunch this week!

Celebrating all the pets birthdays on Friday.  We catch everyone all in one big Pet Birthday Day 07/06 and give everyone a special treat after singing happy birthday to them.  It was all posted on my Insta Stories, so if you're in the market for weird little snipets of Team Studer - IG stories is the place to go.  LOL.

Date Night'ing two days in a row as we celebrated two beautiful and sweet weddings.  My cousin Michael and his wife Johnna were married at Bedford Springs on Friday night.  We had a great time, incredible dinner, and were so glad to spend some time with our cousins Adam and Lea who have been living in Abu Dhabi for the past three years.  (Lea has a blog you can follow all their adventures and travels there!)  Then on Saturday, we celebrated the marriage of our dear friends Lynsdy and Ryan at PNG Park.  Besides being friends and parents of besties (Grey & Kam!), Ryan is also Brandon's basketball assistant coach - so Lyns and I are #baseketballwives in the long winter months. So happy to celebrate both couples and get a few hours of grown up, alone time with my handsome fella.

Closing out baseball season officially with the last all-star tournament and end-of-season baseball picnic.  Grey was sad to see the season come to an end (baseball is his favorite sport), but it is bittersweet as we could all use some summer without any practices or games.  We all enjoyed the baseball picnic which was well organized and fun.  The players all got trophies, Grey and Gemma played Rundown for about three hours with their friends, Violet found her future babysitter (only three more years and Dani will be 12!), and Rust ate his weight in cookies and spilled an entire juice bag down his shirt (so he was shirtless for most of the picnic).

Saying goodbye to our sweet Lulu kitty.  I wrote about her and the situation earlier this week.  The kids painted some stones to add to her burial spot and we continue to talk about her and mention that we miss her daily.  Thank you so much for all of the support and love to us and especially our kids.  I read them your comments and it made them smile.  Sadness shared really is sadness halved, thank you.

Heading out to Idlewild for half a day to meet up with Abba, Chum, and Kitty who took the three big kids out early in the morning.  We spent most of the day at the water park and my parents had reserved a cabana which turned out to be an amazing choice.  If you're going to the water park for a large part of the day, definitely consider booking a cabana, especially if you're going with another family (rentals are only $56 on weekdays and $80 on weekends).  The kids had a blast in the wave pool and doing the water slides thirteen times in a row each.  I've said it a million times already this summer and I'll keep saying it - Idlewild season pass tickets are the gift that keep on giving from Christmas!

Dealing with Rusty's banged up head.  That kid and his melon!  I'm honestly coming to terms with the fact that his forehead is just going to be perpetually bruised for this season of his life.  I texted the picture of him and Brandon to Gigi this week and she responded with, 'what's on Rusty's head?' and I had to reply, "More bruises!"  To earn those black & blue marks, he's fallen down, scraped his forehead, pulled down a trophy from a high shelf while I was holding him, and tripped into walls.  His little low row of wild curls in the back of his hair is enough to break my heart though, so he gets a pass for his booboo head.

Soaking up as much Aunt Kitty time as possible in her last week in the States before her Bermuda move.  We swam and played with her at Idlewild, she babysat on Thursday morning, and then SCF (my sisters and I) met up for Happy Hour at El Jalisco followed by drinks at The Windber Hotel.  So much chatting, giggling, and Adams girl fun.  If you want to follow along with Aunt Kitty's Bermuda life, follow her blog!

Making Hawaiian meatballs in the crockpot over rice, Church picnic chicken and haluski.  Baking blueberry cupcakes for the end of season baseball picnic, and blueberry breakfast cookies for our house (still only barely making a dent in our blueberry haul from our trip to Stutzman farms a few weeks ago!)