Summer squared {2013}

It’s September, ahh! Can you believe it?! While the first official day of fall is not until Sept. 22, and the weather is certainly still summery here in Texas, something about kids back in school, football season starting, and Christmas stuff at Hobby Lobby make it feel like summer is over. I thought it would be fun to do a little recap of summer time 2013 in instagrams, AKA: My summer squared. And give y’all an update on what the heck we’ve been up to here in Casa de Dorobek.

So, let’s talk about my birthday month, June… I volunteered at BlogHer Food in Austin. Super fun blog conference complete with lots of yummy food. Oh and I got to meet the Pioneer Woman… true! And Andy shattered his iPad screen, but learned how to fix the screen himself!

Andy and I scored big time on a craiglist trip! And then I got the chance to attend Alt Summit NYC at Martha Stewart’s studio! Yes. That’s right, I was in Martha’s studio. I even got to take a tour with my blog friends and see where Martha sits. Diane put together a fun post and shows you Martha’s office! Brad Pitt could walk in a room and I probably wouldn’t notice, but Martha makes me giddy!

While I was in NYC, I spent a week teaching summer camp at my friends gymnastics gym. I’ve been teaching summer camp in NYC for at least one week a summer for the past 10 summers. I love just walking around the city, eating cupcakes and drinking lattes, I’m really into chai tea lattes at the moment. Here’s a list of 29 fun, free things to do In NYC, if you are interested.

Andy even got to come visit me while I was working in NYC. We did a lot of wandering around too. How about that man stoop sitting with his parrot? And I got to use a curling wand for the first time which was pretty fun! I need to get one of those suckers. Anyone else ever used a curling wand?

My burfday is at the end of June, June 29th to be exact, and we had a little housewarming/ birthday BBQ to celebrate. Oh and I turned 29. Which I’m A-OK with. But, 30 seriously freaks me out. That means you’re old. And I don’t wanna be old. Oh and Andy built corn hole boards for us, which I have not gotten around to blogging about. I sewed up that Happy Summer time bunting in the very top pic for the par-tay. We had the free patio furniture sprayed white, which also needs to be blogged about, but in case I forget, do not use Wal Mart paint. The paint sprayers do not like it.

The day after the big shin dig, we packed up the car and went on a 2 week road trip to Ohio! 88% of Andy’s extended family lives in small town, Ohio. In our 7+ years together I had never met one of his 2 grandma’s or any of his cousins. Crazy, right? So, we seriously drove all. over. the. place. We spent the 4th of July touring our awesome country, well at least some of the mid west. And visiting the fam!

This picture must be big. It was my first buggy sighting in Amish country and I snapped a pic. Check out the hand waving. I’m pretty proud of my iPhone out of the window pic!

We got to spend a few nights at Andy’s aunt’s lake house on Middle Bass Island. There are snakes in that water, and nobody cares. I swam with snakes. And I liked it! That’s Andy’s grandma and his aunts dog, Snickers : )

I learned about a fun new site, called RoadFood.com that highly recommend. We found yummy, hole in the places like Young’s Jersey Dairy in OH (eat cheese curds and thank me later!), Craig’s BBQ in AR, and Ed and Kay’s in AR.

On our way back to TX, we took a minor detour to visit my grandparents in Shreveport,LA. I used a fly fishing pole for the first time, rode 4 wheelers and enjoyed hanging with my grandparents. I helped paint that bard when I was a kid!

I hosted a blogger brunch for my Austin blog peeps at my house the day after we got home! I love hanging with my Austin blog peeps. Andy and I got our house back in order, did lots of laundry, we rode our tandem around town like big dorks, I cut all of my hair off, did a few projects like cleaning the brass bar and hanging the super heavy mirror… oh and Andy got a new job! Super exciting news since the job we moved back to Austin for involved lots of travel which meant Andy was gone 6 nights a week. I was not a fan. But, before he started his new job, we took a little trip across the Atlantic to the Mediterranean!

That brings us to the end of July… Andy and I took a jet plane across the Atlantic and plopped ourselves down for 2 weeks in the Mediterranean. We swam our hearts out, ate lots of yummies, and explored the tiny coast towns of France and Italy. Why can’t all towns hang up pretty, colorful buntings in their streets?

The day after we got home, Andy started his new job, he gets to wear jeans and that makes him super happy! And his mom and brother came to visit us in Austin for a week. We did lots of fun Austin things, like see the bats fly out of the bridge, play putt putt, and hike on the greenbelt.  I got back to work on this ol’ blog, attended a cute monster 1 year old birthday party, and just realized it is September! Wowzers. I heart summer.

How was your summer? Jam packed I’m sure! Anyone take any road trips? Use roadfood.com? See an Amish buggy for the first time? Swim with snakes? And like it, ha?! Any other June 29th birthdays out there? Anyone else attend any blog conferences this summer? Who’s excited about fall and Halloween?! You know I love me some handmade Halloween costumes! I’d love to hear…