more reasons i love summer

1) The beach!
We went to Galveston last weekend with our friends Travis & Jaime to soak up the beach and see the sand sculpture competition. Have I mentioned that I love the beach? Yes, even icky Texas beaches. I love the jillions of people, the heat of the sun, the squish of the sand, the rolling of the waves...especially the waves. As world-class surfer Clay Marzo says, "Waves are like toys from God. And when I'm out here, I'm just playing." :)

Exactly. So we suited up, donned our floaties and hit the beach:

Ready to take on the waves, floatie-style

WAIT, wait...this water is coming to GET me! No one told me about this!

Holmes was completely comfortable in the water by the time we left. Trying to get him out of the water and away from the waves was tough. Good job, buddy!

Spa time at the beach - minus the seaweed wrap

Lovin' the sun!

2) We can wear our swimsuits all day long....and when you're playing with chalk, it's that much easier to clean up.

I got the idea for the pictures online, and mine are no where near as good as the ones I saw. But we had fun drawing together, and the kids thought it was funny that it (kinda) looks like they're flying, surfing and swimming.

3) Outdoor projects!
For a long time, I've wanted some kind of bench for our backyard, but we could never find one that we liked...or that was reasonably priced. But our neighborhood hosted a yard sale weekend recently, so we went walking around the neighborhood early on Saturday morning to see what we could find.

Around our place, Saturdays are "big trash pick-up days", so while we didn't find anything exciting in the yard sales (at least, nothing that was still available), we scored a sweet pallet from the neighbor's trash pile. :)  It's been sitting on our back porch for the last few weeks as we've contemplated what, exactly, to do with it.

See? Potential. Lots of good, splintery potential.

I'd thought of making it into some sort of wall art, like this or that or even this one.... or making it into a porch swing (areyoukiddingthisissocool)! But we finally looked at it last night, put two and two together...and Andrew has been making it into a bench today.

Me: Ok, I'm going to take a "before" picture. Give me your best Ty Pennington!
Andrew: My who, what?
Me: ....nevermind. Give me rugged, give me charming, give me "I'm going to OWN this pallet!

Andrew (several hours in): Woo! My arms are starting to get tired...
Apprentice Ibra: You just have to work it up!