A beach is a beach to me

Every summer my family heads up to a small body of water in the northern Utah mountains called Bear Lake. Since it is at a high-altitude and consists mostly of snow run-off, Bear Lake is usually pretty chilly - even in mid-July. This was the case a week ago when my family reunioned there without me. I called my mom and she said she was sitting on the beach freezing. It's cold and you usually don't leave Bear Lake without a sunburn. We always say that it's just too close to the sun. I'm sure it has more to do with the fact that you don't apply sunscreen because you don't feel like you can get sunburned when your teeth are chattering.

Despite this less-than-perfect beach situation, Bear Lake is one of my favorite summer destinations because I have so many great memories there of good times with both my family and friends. I was sad to miss out on the tradition this year but our little family has come up with a beach tradition of our own, though at a beach much different from Bear Lake.

Each summer we face the risk of getting poked by a needle in the sand and head to the closest beach to us in Ocean City, Maryland. Our local friends wonder why we would want to go to such a trashy place. Yes, it's true that Ocean City ranks highest in hotel filth and features more naked lady tattooes on fat, tanned-to-brown biceps than any other place in the world. I'll admit, that's part of the allure for me. I am a champion people watcher and there are plenty of interesting people to see there. And it's not like we are anywhere near the Jersey Shore-esque bar scene. We just go with friends and enjoy the warm sand, boogey board on the rough waves and watch our children have the times of their lives. We went a couple of weeks ago to do just that.

Only, it was strange because it was really windy and we were cold! It was sort of a bizarro world as typically wave-terrified Ethan got in the water (and loved it) and the rest of us just sat in the sand and shivered. No one even swam.

But, just like my old family tradition in Bear Lake, I didn't need hot temperatures to have fun. The people-watching was superb. And the kids didn't complain once.

Bookmarked for hopefully-not-too-far-in-the-future reference

You have probably seen this apartment before as photos of it have graced design blogs for a few years now. I have had links to these photos of Kate Spade's place bookmarked on my computer in hopes that one day I will have a space of my own (and a leeetle bit more money) to decorate like this one.

I often define my design style (what very little there is) as ecclectic and I guess I sort of say that because I like so many different styles and I always want to put them all together - in the same space. Ha! So I loved seeing the classic shapes mixed with more modern textiles (I want that headboard!) and art. And I have been searching for a mid-century modern dining set like that since I discovered Craigslist.

Oh, and the stripes - don't you love all of the stripe accents?

The Fourth

If you know me at all, you know that I am obsessed with fireworks. I love to sit underneath them and absorb the vibration in my chest when they burst. I want to watch them fan out and to feel like they are going to sprinkle down on top of me. We were able to get a good, close view of them last year when we took my sister and her family down to the National Mall to watch them. I was pregnant then and the bathroom situation wasn't exactly ideal (and by un-ideal I mean a 30 minute wait for a Port-a-Potty sans toilet paper). Since we have a recently potty-trained kid with us, we decided to stay closer to home and are fortunate to have a great look-out point just a couple of blocks from our apartment. We had an amazing spot, but had to be there early to save it (and sweat it out in 90 + degree weather). The kids got a little restless...

Luckily, we were there with fun friends. These two are such good buddies. We all watched the traffic on I-395 slow. Soon, the cars in each lane stopped moving and then people got out of their cars to watch fireworks. It's pretty amazing to see such a huge freeway at a complete standstill, abandoned cars (well, for the moment) and all.

Of course, our amazing spot got taken over by complete strangers. We still had a pretty great view (better than this photo portrays).

We watched for a while and all seemed OK and then both children started crying at the same time. I sent Ryan home with the kids and stayed to watch the finale. He knows how much I love fireworks.

p.s. I don't choose what Google advertises on the side of my blog so don't judge me that right now, there is an advertisement for "Elephant Dung Collector." I almost feel like clicking on the link...

Perfecting the crawl

Love this girl

A way to keep busy indoors (and another reason to put off cleaning your house)

It is around 100 degrees outside right now (go ahead, roll your eyes, Las Vegas family members) and I decided that we would spend our time indoors today. This is strange for me, as we are at the park almost every morning. We hit up the fabric store instead of the park today. As I thumbed through the patterns, I happened upon these cute ones and bought this first one:

I'm hoping to make two dresses out of that pattern. I didn't buy the second pattern, but isn't that jacket cute? It is so detailed and I worry if I made it, it would look homemade since I am such a novice sewer. But if this heat keeps up, I'll be a pro in no time.

Another skirt, another post

Guest blogging about my second solo clothes-sewing experience over at Aunt Spicy's today.