Summer 2019 Recap
Every summer I have high hopes of blogging and doing home projects with all four boys around, and each summer I fail horribly. So this summer I wizened up and just decided not to worry about the blog or getting anything done on the house. If it happened, great, if not, that’s fine too. And you know what? Nothing got done, and it was great.
Anyway, now that the kids are back in school (two in elementary school and two in mothers day out two mornings a week) I’m refreshed and excited to get back to projects and blogging. Before we do that, let’s do a little summer recap, shall we?
We took a few trips this summer, and the first one was to Flordia for a week. We rented a car and drove, taking just the older two boys. Two kids is so much easier than four, and Adam and I want to be able to enjoy some time with the older boys without little ones hogging all the attention. We stayed with friends and had the most amazing time….anyone remember Kelly and Andy from the DIY blog View Along the Way? She doesn’t blog anymore, but her archives are still there (and awesome). They are also building a custom home right now, and if you want to follow along you can keep up on Instagram! They are just getting to the fun part, picking out tiles and paint colors and all that jazz that gets people like us all excited. Here is a smorgasbord of photos from that trip…
In July my older boys (they were the real winners this summer, they did a ton of stuff!) also went on a weeklong road trip around New Mexico with Adams mom and step-dad. They had all sorts of adventures, which I witnessed via photos –
Then a few weeks ago Adam and I spent a week in Cancun, at an all-inclusive resort as a late 15th wedding anniversary celebration. It was awesome and we did absolutely nothing… just lounged around, ate and drank too much, and didn’t get called Mom or Dad for six wonderful days. We took two pictures the whole time…one on the plane, and one the morning we left after realizing we hadn’t touched our phones or taken any pictures the entire time.
Other than that we had lots of swimming days, days where we did nothing, and days where I almost pulled my hair out because the boys would just not. stop. fighting. My boys also went to four? Five? VBS camps in an attempt to keep them busy. It sounds helpful to have them go to that many camps but it’s really not, since only my older two boys are able to go and it’s only for three hours each day. But they love it, so I’m all about it.
My two year old also managed to color on every surface in the house over the summer, so that was fun. He’s adorable and sweet, but holy crap does he get into stuff. He’s a small sample of his artwork (yes, that’s pen on my leather couch…more on that in the next post).
Also, some news. Adam and I finally got tired of owning super old cars (both were 03’s), so we decided to sell everything and start over. So we sold both of our cars, Adam’s motorcycle, and the RV. Yes, the RV that we just remodeled. We camped in it a handful of times (and it was used as a guest house constantly), but Adam and I decided that we jumped the gun when we bought the RV, by about five years. We have lots of great memories from camping in it, but mostly it was just hard. The kids are just too little, we can’t do family activities because they can’t all ride bikes, swim, hike…anything really. Naptime in the RV was the worst, and no one slept at night. It got to the point where Adam and I would be planning our weekends, and all I was thinking was “please don’t want to go camping”. When he admitted to thinking the same thing it took us about thirty seconds to decide to sell it.
We agreed that we have zero regrets about buying it or remodeling it, and will likely buy another in the future…when it will be more fun than work. Anyway, we made a profit and used the money to buy two new (well, less old) cars. I just had to get that off my chest, since so many of y’all followed along during the remodel. If you missed the series you can find the reveal post here, which also has links to each individual project/tutorial.
Anyway, that pretty much sums up our summer! It was great, but I’m also really glad to have the kids back in school and get back to our routine. I’m also super excited to get back to projects, which is a nice change of pace…Adam and I were feeling pretty burned out earlier this year. If you follow me on Instagram you’ve seen that we are working on the laundry room again, so those projects are what you can expect on the blog next. It will be nice to have another room in the house completly finished!
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Ok, so I’m going to be totally blunt and point out the elephant in the room, i.e. your abs. Four kiddos and those killer abs? Please feel free to delete this entire comment if it’s too inappropriate… OTHERWISE – girl, please do share the secret/instructions/tutorial and please make it a step-by-step!!! I swear I will follow to the tee like I do with your other tutorials lol
Hahaha! I’m not going to delete it, and thank you for the compliment :) I don’t have any tips or tutorials though, I’m honestly just really lucky (my mom is the same way). I mean, I eat decently and am pretty active, but nothing special.
Oh MAN! The RV!!! I miss it, haha! It was such a cool project. A full makeover in a small space that didn’t take forever! Seems like it had a very good list of pros *and* cons. As soon as you said you sold it, I thought “I hope they made a lot of cash off it!!!” So glad you did! And new cars are a great exchange! I got my first car in 2005 and it was a 94 Camry and I drove it until I moved across an ocean in 2010. It still had a good amount of life in it. The AC worked really well (huge plus in the South, right?!), and it really ran smoothly with few issues. But it was so nice to have a newer car afterwards!
Summer sounds like it was great! And you didn’t do nothing! You moved a lot of rocks around the yard! :)
It really was a fun project…I kind of want to do another one! Our house is such a huge undertaking and feels like it will never be finished, but an RV…so quick and satisfying.
And I did move a ton of rocks! That landscaping sat unfinished all summer though, and last week my boys decided they need some money to buy nerf guns. So I offered them $25 to finish it, and didn’t expect them to actually finish or do a decent job. They did a great job though! I feel like all those years of having them watch Adam and I work our butts off is about to pay off in a big way!
Looking forward to reading more posts from you! I missed your instagram over the summer!
I was a drawer when little too. My aunt had a couch cushion that had pen marks on it until my teens!
Please tell me you kept that string of pearls! One of my favorite faux plants ever!
!!!
It’s too funny that you mention the string of pearls, because I sold everything with the RV (literally everything), but there was no way I was letting that plant go. It’s the best fake plant ever and now resides in my bedroom :)
Girlfriend, I so relate. I’m not much of a DIYer but pretend like I am. I’m also a mom of lots of young kids and it’s impossible to focus on anything for more than 10 min, so the fact that you get ANYTHING done AND blog about it is amazing!
Also kudos to selling the RV. Maybe y’all could have a side business flipping the host of hideous RVs in the world! ;)
Flipping RVs sounds like a ton of fun to me. I was actually thinking that not too many years from now my boys will be old and handy enough to do do it themselves, as a way to earn money. They would learn so much by doing it…how to manage time and money, run a business, and lots of hands-on skills.
Lovely pictures, fun summer! I was a tiny bit shocked that you sold the RV because I read the final RV post like, yesterday or something, haha! It sounds like it was a good decision though. And having more reliable cars is so important. I think that RV-flipping side business sounds like a brilliant idea! And that would be a blast for the boys to do. Happy fall, you guys!
Looking forward to reading more posts from you! I missed your instagram over the summer!