The All-Inclusive Summer Post

For the first time since 1994, students are heading back to school...and I'm not one of them!

How glorious is that?

I actually liked school until I got to college (I realize that's pretty much the opposite for most people). Now, I would cry if you told me I had another year of classes and papers and projects. So glad I'm done with all of that. Seriously, SO glad.

However, as I have transitioned from school to the grown-up working world, the concept of "summer" (at least as I've always known it) has gotten lost in the process. Every time someone mentions that summer is almost over, I have this strange "whoa, I had forgotten that it was summer in the first place!" moment. Not that I've completely forgotten -- it's hard to miss summer when Raleigh set a city record for the most consecutive days over 100 degrees the week that I moved here. (Thanks for that one, Capital City). But summer in my world has always meant ten straight weeks of summer camp...or ten straight weeks of sleeping in ridiculously late and going to the pool all afternoon... and those summers are g-o-n-e! Womp.

Nonetheless, I think I've managed to pack my summer full of summer-y things, all the while earning a legit paycheck :)

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Beach: I kicked off my first official day of summer (the day after my last exam) in Wilmington with a bunch of people whom I love :) I even attempted surfing for the first time. And I wrote about it here.





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Vacation: My mom, sisters, and I went on a grand "Beth is moving away and getting married, and we may never get to do this again" trip to Atlanta at the end of May. We had a blast at the Braves' game, World of Coke, Six Flags, American Girl Store (oh yes, we went there), and even survived hiking Stone Mountain. Anddd... I wrote about it here.






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Graduation: Obviously, the summer kicked off with my own college graduation, which I'm sure I'll write about at some point, even if it is like, four months late. Whoops!

However, I also went to my cousin's 8th grade graduation... look out, high school :)




Anddd... my soon-to-be brothers-in-law (that's a really strange word to pluralize) graduated from high school and are off to college!

Zach with Gabe on the left & Ben on the right

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Camp: I might not have gotten to spend my entire summer at Camp Bethel, but you'd better believe that I got away for an evening. Gravel roads and hay bales are good for the soul :)



As are camp friends, of course.

image via Hannah Guisewite

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Birthdays: lots of summer birthdays in my family! My dad & sister, Zach's dad & sister, lots of cousins...whew!

We celebrated my Grandpa's 75th birthday at the end of June:





...and we just celebrated Zach's birthday weekend before last! I'm engaged to a 23-year-old... crazy :) We ventured out to Durham for birthday dinner at Satisfaction and then went to a Durham Bulls game complete with fireworks... followed by birthday desert at Cheesecake Factory, obviously :)

We even got to meet Tom & Jerry. Let's be honest - birthday dream come true :)

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4th of July: My first paid holiday, wahoo! Zach and I drove to Winston to spend the evening with my family. We went a little over the top with all things patriotic...





Including decorations...



Bald Eagle desserts...



Sparklers...









Captain America t-shirts...



And the yearly appearance of the dollar bin America stunner shades ;)




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Weddings: Summertime is all about some weddings, am I right? I think I know more people who have gotten married this summer than in my entire life combined.

I had the opportunity to photography my first wedding back in June:







And my cousin (and backyard neighbor) married his gorgeous fiancée this past weekend! Zach and I made our first trip to Campbell University to watch them tie the knot :)

Go Camels!

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So. Many. Pictures. And so many summer memories, even if I'm not sleeping until noon every day & I've only been to the pool once :)

Friday Phone Dump

Just stopping in for a quick Friday Phone Dump. It's been a while, but here's a glimpse at my summer via cell phone pics :)



You can follow my Instagram feed at @simplybeffie
Also, I'm being featured today on Laura Likes Design! Click on over to learn more about my life as an artist: my creative beginnings, style, inspiration, and advice for others interested in pursuing art :)

  Happy weekend, friends!

Wedding Wednesday

I'm really going to try to get back into the swing of posting more frequently on here. I've tried this whole "month without wi-fi at my apartment" thing, and I'm pretty much over it. Truthfully, I miss blogging (as lame as that might sound). So keep your fingers crossed, & hopefully you'll be seeing a lot more posts from me in the near future.

As for today...

This past weekend was pretty monumental in the world of wedding prep! For starters, it marked 11 weeks since Zach and I have gotten engaged and 22 weeks until our wedding. When I think of everything that we've accomplished in the past 11 weeks as far as wedding planning goes, and then think that we have twice as much time to take care of everything that is left, I feel pretty good about things. We've definitely checked off more than a third of our to-do list, so we're ahead of schedule, right? :)

Friday night, we ventured out to Target to begin the dreaded wedding registry. I'm aware that most people love scanning things, but Zach and I were equally unexcited about the evening. We despise shopping AND we're both really indecisive/over-analytical when it comes to making purchases. That may come in handy when we're getting a car or a house later on in life, but it makes shopping for apple peelers and cutting boards excruciatingly painful. I assure you that not a single item was scanned without a fifteen minute conversation... which may explain why we spent over four hours in Target and are nowhere near done.

As awful as I made that sound, we did manage to have a little bit of fun. Fun people can have fun doing anything, right? ;)

I went straight for the yellow ceramic cow creamer that I've been eyeing for a while. Shortly thereafter, Zach asked if he could use the scanner-gun for a little bit... and I didn't get it back until the end of the night.

Zach liked to see how far away he could stand from an object and still be able to scan it. (In his defense, the range on the scanner-gun was super impressive). He liked to scan me repeatedly. He liked to turn the scanner-gun sideways when scanning objects and yell, "kill shot!"

I am actually marrying a five year old at heart.

My favorite lines from the whole experience:

Me: Whoa, hold on... you completely skipped the art/canvas aisle.

Zach: IF YOU DIDN'T MAKE IT, I DON'T WANT IT IN MY HOUSE!

Me: After this wedding, let's never ever EVER get married again, because this registering thing is the pits.

Zach: Deal.

Me: I'm afraid that everyone who comes to our wedding is going to include Skittles with their gift just because of how we started dating. I mean, I like them, but I don't like them that much.

Zach: *scans a giant bag of Skittles*

After arriving back at my apartment:

Zach: I feel really unaccomplished. Like, horribly unaccomplished. We just spent four hours at a store and there's not a single bag to carry upstairs.

Five minutes later:

Me: Hey, Zach, go ahead & pull out the shower curtain and I'll hang it.

(pause)

Me: Just kiddinggg... we scanned the shower curtain. We don't actually have it yet.

Looking over the printed version of our registry on Saturday:

Me: Aw, man! Everything else is pretty much spelled out on the registry, but they abbreviated that Hershey's variety pack I scanned & put it in the "other" section. Nobody is going to know what it is!

Zach: No, you can tell that "HSYNKBX HSYSNACKBOX24-CT" is Hershey's.

While mom was looking over our registry five minutes later:

Mom: Why did you register for a hacky sack?

Four hours and three scanner-guns later, we survived. I even got a piggy-back ride out of the store and a celebratory dinner at Taco Bell. True love.

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On Saturday morning, we traveled to Winston & I then went down to Lexington with my mom and sisters for my dress fitting. Yay for dresses that won't fall off! (Actually, the alterations are super minor... it almost fits perfectly as is). We also made all veil/hair accessory decisions/purchases... another check off the to-do list! :)

Lastly, on Saturday afternoon, Zach & I had our engagement pictures taken! You can stalk the Facebook page and blog of our incredible photographer over the next few weeks to see a couple of sneak peeks. I can't wait to write more about it once we get the pictures back, but I assure you that it was infinitely more perfect than I could have ever imagined & I couldn't be more thrilled <3

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Yay for continued progress in the wedding planning arena! Next on our to-do list: wedding bands, save the dates, and wedding registry, part 2. Let's see if this upcoming weekend is as productive as the last :)