What the Rest of July Looked Like

We're almost always driving across the country in July.

This month, we stayed more local.

First Friday concert in Jamestown.

We unexpectedly ran into Tony and Kevin and Kelly and Tom.

It was SO much fun to hang out with them for the

evening while there was live music playing in the background.

Cute girls hanging out.

This has been one of my VERY favorite

pictures I've gotten all year. I sent B-train 

some groceries and treats for his birthday.

I included a cheesy t-shirt and they substituted

a size SMALL for the EXTRA LARGE that 

I had ordered. Ha!

He still managed to squeeze his buff

body into that SIZE SMALL!

This picture makes me laugh so much!

I still crack up looking at it.

Old Toe River Rd

Interesting name.

The multi-talented Caroline has gotten into

candle making! That girl can do anything!

I LOVED this sentence that I

got to learn in Duolingo:

Tennis is my favorite sport.

Yes!

Andrew and I met Chris and Lisa Frandock through the

Piedmont Bird Club. They took us out birding and showed

us all of their equipment. It was great. They are SUPER

nice. As a thank you gift, we gave them Wingspan.

And then they invited us over for dinner to teach them how to play it.

The food was AMAZING and the company was fantastic.

Not sure how much they loved our game, though. :)

Caroline wanted her picture with the fisheye backup cam.

Ha!

We have lots of blue herons around her, but not 

many egrets. It was fun to see this one at our lake.

I saw this mystery bird in our backyard.

Never did figure out what it was.

Speaking of mysteries,

Angie and I went kayaking out on City Lake.

It was a beautiful morning and I loved visiting with Angie.

While we were paddling along,

we saw a man walk up to a bridge and throw something in.

It made a big, loud splash.

And then a van came and picked him up and 

they drove away. What???

This is what he had dropped in the lake.

It looks like a beautiful piece of furniture

that had been disassembled and tied up.

I tried to google that sign that is written in red

and I think it might have been some sort of Asian

purification ritual for your home???

More beautiful silky-silk pics.

My camera broke on my phone!

What the heck?!

Look at how awful it is!

I didn't even drop it or anything.

It just randomly started happening one day.

So I googled all the things to try to fix it,

but none of them worked.

So I had to order a new phone.

Boo.

I took Care Bear and Piper down to Lazy 5 Ranch.

I was nervous to take my new car there!

I didn't want to get dented from any crazy animals.

But we survived without any damage. Yay!

Can you see the brace on my arm?

I fell playing singles one night this summer.

I finished out the match, but it hurt worse as the night

went on. So I went to see a doctor. It wasn't broken. Yay!

But he had me wear this brace for a month. He said I could

play tennis in it, though. That was pretty fun.

I think I somehow played better with it on than off.

This mama rhea with all her babies was so cute!

Love their blue eyes.

These BIG guys were the ones I was most afraid of.

Thankfully, they kept their horns away from my car.

Emus are so creepy.

This one had funny hair.

I feel like they can look into my soul.

The giraffes didn't want anything to do with us.

Action shot of the ostrich eating.

Zebras are so beautiful.

We could only see the bison way out in the distance.

After we were done driving the loop,

you can park your car and get out to walk

around and see a few other animals.

These lemurs were my favorite.

Especially this baby who was so energetic.

Look at that leap!

This male peacock was also super entertaining.

He was really trying to win over those females.

He was shaking his tail feathers!

They were kinda loud!

And so pretty!

Feeding goats

After Lazy 5, we stopped by Patterson Farms on our way 

home for ice cream and slushies. Yum!

Beautiful barn quilt there.

Gas is finally below four dollars. Yay!

Cool green car at a stoplight.

B-train was in Salt Lake and stopped by 

to see Grandma and Grandpa for a bit.

He's officially taller than Grandpa these days.

When Care Bear and I volunteer at Breakfast for Friends,

there's a corner farmer's market that we pass on the way home.

We've stopped a couple of times.

Once we bought these adorable little veggies.

They're called cuca-melons.

They're tiny cucumbers, but look like baby watermelons.

They look better than they taste. Ha!

Brandon's girlfriend, Morgan, made me homemade

vanilla extract for Christmas. I finally finished up

my other bottle and got to start using this one. Fun!

Copperhead sighting!

These are the only venomous snake in NC.

And we saw one on our driveway as we were backing out

one evening. Andrew had to kill it. Not fun.

Gas prices keep dropping. Hooray!

Family dinner out at La Fiesta. So good.

My van said it was ONE HUNDRED EIGHT degrees.

I don't think it was right.

But it WAS really hot.

Andrew and I used some of the money we've earned 

from being advantage gamers on Space Invaders to buy

ourselves fancy binoculars and straps that keep

them within easy reach. I also bought a new little point

and shoot camera that has good zoom. After they arrived,

we decided to go out birding around the lake one evening.

The light was fading too fast to take good pics.

But we did get to see some cool birds.

Osprey.

More Egrets.

And a green heron!

Whitney worked her last day at Chick-fil-a.

It has been such a good job for her for the past

year and a half.

We stopped by to order some shakes and

see her on her last day.

We've been talking about going to a Cobras Arena Football

game all year, but we keep forgetting to look up their schedule!

Andrew finally did and found out that their last home

game was that weekend! We got tickets and had a fantastic time.

I loved that they had a team prayers before they played.

They won and got to go to the playoffs, but were the lower

seeded team, so they didn't get to host any games.

Glad we got to catch that one!