I'm back to my old, never-posting ways, aren't I? I suppose it's not a crime to fail to blog. Chris and I stay busy with one thing or another, but I suppose you don't want excuses.

In the month of June, Amy moved to Atlanta, I went to a bunch of boring meetings, Chris and I and Mom and Dad went to Charleston for a wedding, our small group had a party at the lake, and we had car trouble.

It has rained a lot lately. It has also been exceptionally hot. The rain, I should clarify, doesn't always actually happen. It gets crazy windy, very dark, and we get storm warnings. These pop-up storms are difficult to locate. Chris and I live in a bit of a valley, so we often miss the actual rain completely. Occasionally, however, the storms look like this...

For his birthday (technically, we did this in May), I took Chris to a Braves game, as usual. I find Braves games more relaxing than most other sporting events, because the end result of the game doesn't really affect me too much. I'm a fan, don't get me wrong, but I don't express extreme distress over the loss of a game. For the record, the guy behind us was just making this face for fun, because the game hadn't started yet. 

Also, we sit in the same spot every time, so I have a lot of pictures from this angle. 

I've had the nursery quite a few times this summer. The three-year-olds are a handful. Especially when they are all in there together rather than the usual split services. Seventeen. That's a lot. This particular day made me want to scream. See the boys fighting in the back? But the girls got in the baskets and that made me laugh.

 I've done quite a bit of knitting this summer. Finished a sweater, and some other things. Most of the pictures can't go here because they're Christmas presents. But here are a few. This is a cowl. The green really can't be understood in a picture. It seems to either wash out or get too sharp. It's very richly green.

These are some fingerless mittens I made to keep my hands warm at the lab. It's cold there. 

I took this picture while we were in Charleston for Bonnie and Chad's wedding. I'm a huge fan of symmetry. The wedding was fun and it wasn't too hot in town that weekend, so I'm declaring the trip a success. Also, mom got dad to wear seersucker pants. Granted, he did buy that ugly belt...

We had a party at the house on the 4th. Ozaria (and Chris) helped me make these fun streamer things for decoration. We just paint stamped a star on each and we were good to go! Much fun was had by all and the fire didn't burn down the neighborhood.

 And that's all the news from Lake Wobegon. We're recovering from the party and should be ready to go by the time the next one comes around!

Some of the Wedding Photos

I've kinda got a lot of photos from the wedding. It's mind-boggling. And, because Craig and Lindsay are the best, ALL of the photos are fantastic. But there are a few that stick out for various reasons. Allow me to share a few.

This is mom's absolute favorite ever. She had Craig retouch it twice, and this is the beautiful result:

This one. Good grief, how can your heart not break when you see this one?

 

We framed this one. It's so dramatic!

This is one of my favorite A-to-Z photos of all time. I think it's because Zach looks like he's eating Wendy's head.

Cool, huh?

The only picture that actually shows the rain. You'd never have thought it was raining all day if it weren't for this one. And I love it.

The appeal of this one is obvious. Can I just point out how fantastic the sepia is? We love it. 

I got that gigantic family photo that I asked for. Thanks everyone!

I like the angle and colors in this one. Very fun.

Oh small group. You make me smile. :) See? 

I would love this one anyway, but Jess' face in the back makes it even better. I don't even know. Also, Aunt Rose is having a Stevie Nicks moment. But this photo is beautiful.

Pure art. The lovely Miss Serena. Could this photo be any more beautiful?

I had to stop somewhere. What I love every time I go through our photos is how much fun it looks like everyone had. Which is what I wanted to see. There are so many moments. Plenty of happy smiling faces to go around. This last photo is epic. And doesn't even tell the story of mom and the massive pile of sparklers. :)

Ummm...the entire month of May?

Hi folks. Been a while. I know. But Chris reminded me to post, so here I am. I think next time he reminds me, I'll point out that his name is on the blog too now. Perhaps I should let him post. It would be quite entertaining. Anyway, I figured it's a good time to post. Chris has taken an absurd interest in the NHL playoffs. I feel the need to remind him we live in South Carolina. I'm a southern girl. The only reason I've ever paid attention to hockey was because of the fights. And the Grrrowl. They were fun, but I wasn't paying for tickets. So, while Chris gets his hockey fix (For the record, I actually do know which teams are involved and stuff. Vancouver just won their series. Right now, Boston and Tampa are playing what is actually a pretty fierce game.)

So, the good news is that I do have pictures from the last little while. Because I rock. Let's start with the Orange and White game. Everyone loves a good Clemson game, even when the team is playing each other. On the bright side, there's always a Clemson win! And, this year, Chris didn't get sunburned!

The next weekend was Jess and Ross' wedding. We had a good time hanging out in GA for that. Jess and I did some major mall-walking the morning of the wedding. Hey, we had to do something. 

With all these storms going on, the closest we've gotten is this:

In case you can't tell, that's a softball field. For some reason, the interstate is the line along which the storms part. It storms and hails and everything NORTH of 85. And we live south of it. But Chris plays softball north of the line. This game was the Tuesday after Jess and Ross' wedding. I learned something here: adult softball leagues do not follow the same rules as public pools. You'd think they'd be worried if there's thunder. I can understand playing on in the rain unless it begins to flood the field and make it unsafe, but thunder? Really? It monsooned off and on during this game. And we three fans huddled under the teensy overhang of the utility building and attempted to keep the score properly. Not too pretty, those skies.

We had Chris' family over to the house for mother's day. We had pot roast and strawberry shortcake and it was delicious. Also, we got our our china and crystal for the first time, just because we could. 

And then there was graduation. That's right, our Amy is officially a Clemson graduate (which is the only way to go). We had a telephoto lens and a lot of fun. We also lost several members of the family at one point. here are Chris and I, holding seats before things started.

 

After what felt like hours, Amy's row finally got their turn. We'd been texting Amy and Chris had started playing hangman on his phone at this point. Can you blame us? The ceremony was 3 hours long. The poor folks in the morning ceremony went 3.5 hours. They barely got out in time for us to go in. 

You can see it well here, Amy and Claire put black glitter on their caps. Very sparkly. We could find them across the room.

I had Dad text her and tell her to lean out and look right. She gave us quite the pose. 

I rather like this photo, despite the fact that my camera was still set up for the inside of the arena. Whoops!

 

And at dinner afterward, G-pa gave Chris and I our owls. I think he might have exaggerated my lack of height a bit. But they've taken up their spot on our mantle and look quite at home. Thanks G-pa!

The whole party, sans Mom, the photographer. That box in Amy's lap is her new letterpress tool (because Chris and I are awesome). She clearly went out for ink this week, because we just got a fantastic letterpressed thank-you card. Very cool!

 

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I've taken up a new hobby. I cut our friend Darren's hair for him, because all he wants is a buzz cut. I've offered to cut other people's hair, but they seem to not want a buzz cut. But this time, I played around a bit before I cut it all off. Yep, I just left the top. Next time, he's getting a mohawk, at least long enough for everyone to enjoy it.

I went to work late so I could watch the shuttle launch live. I'm a dork. But it was awesome.

And I'm rather excited about this last one. I've worked at the AMRL for like 5 years, and we've never had a sign to tell anyone where our building was. So we finally got these cool signs this week. Fantastic.

If I get time this evening, I'll also share a post of my favorite photos from the wedding. I have a lot of those.