Summer & School

I just realized that I never got around to posting about my last week of summer or my first week of school, so that's what I'm doing today!

My last week of summer was spent doing sorority stuff all day every day. We have Spirit Week each year before school starts to prepare for recruitment. The best part was being able to see my friends that I hadn't seen all summer! We ate dinner at Panera one night after our workshops and got dessert at a new frozen yogurt place a different night.....

On Friday morning I treated myself to a Starbucks because by that point I was pretty tired and needed some coffee to pep me up!

We had a sisterhood event that night at Kings Island and it was a blast! I hadn't been to Kings Island in years but I had been dying to go all summer and hadn't had the opportunity. This was perfect! There was a chance of rain and it was really humid, so the park was pretty much empty so we walked on just about every ride. It was a fantastic night to go!

We stayed until the park closed, and I snapped this picture of the Eiffel Tower while we were on our way out. Standing there looking up at the replica made me dream a little bit about when I'll be doing the same thing under the real Eiffel Tower in Paris..... ;)

On Saturday evening I went to a party for my cousin who is moving to Chicago. It was nice to be around my family after such a crazy and hectic week!

My request for my last day of summer on Sunday was to eat at my favorite restaurant.....Moerlein! So after church, my family headed downtown for lunch that of course ended with my favorite blueberry cobbler. It was a great way to end a fantastic summer!

This week of school has been a little crazy. After being out of class for so long, it's a little weird to be getting back in the routine of class, homework, and sorority meetings. I've already got a long list of things I need to get done this weekend for school! One thing that has been great about this semester though is that I have no 8 AM classes for the first time, so I get to sleep in a little every day. I'm already loving getting some more sleep and having a little extra time to cuddle with Coco in the morning....

I'm really looking forward to this holiday weekend - I hope you have a great long weekend as well!

Summer 2014

I start my sophomore year of college on Monday, and so this is my last weekend of summer. This was quite possibly the best summer ever. It was the longest summer I've had but it was also just filled with so many fun things.

I always like to do a little summer recap right before I go back to school, so here are some of the amazing things I've done this summer.....

Summer kicked off with my trip to Montreal (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). This was hands down the highlight of my freshman year of college. I had SO much fun with my learning community, and I still think of this trip all the time and wish I could go back. I loved pretty much everything about the trip!

I celebrated my 19th birthday!

I went to a few Red's games (here and here).

I ate Zip Dip a few lot of times.

I went on the best vacation I've ever been on to Alaska, which is my new favorite state. I know I've written this many times before, but Alaska was absolutely gorgeous, and I feel so blessed to have been able to travel there.

I spent a few days relaxing by the pool. This summer was actually a pretty mild one for the most part, so I didn't get to swim as much as I would have liked to.

I read a LOT of books, including re-reading the entire Harry Potter series. I'm planning on doing a post about all of the good books I read this summer soon.

I went to the zoo with my cousins.

I spent several days downtown with friends.

I finally started my baking business.

I spent so much time with family.

I went to Rita's a few times :)

I traveled to Georgia to go to my cousin's wedding.

And I finished my summer with Spirit Week with my sorority where we've been spending all day together preparing for recruitment.

This was an unbelievable last summer. If this had to be my last summer, at least it was a memorable one. The summer of 2014 will always be a summer filled with memories that I will cherish forever.

My Last Summer

As this summer is quickly coming to a close, I am starting to get a little sad about it being over. I'm always a little sad to see the summer end but even more so this year than in past years.

That's because this is my last summer.

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I've had nineteen summers of sleeping in, relaxing, having fun, and just being able to do whatever. And this is the last one. Forever.

I know that technically summer is just a season, and I will have many more summers. It will be hot and sunny again come next June, and I'll still go on trips and go swimming. I'll still go to summer concerts outside and take walks in the park. This wasn't the last summer that I'll eat ice cream at Zip Dip or go to Easton for a summer shopping trip.

But it was the last summer of sleeping in more days than not. It was the last summer of being able to spend Thursdays at home watching movies and going to the zoo on a Tuesday afternoon. And that makes me a little sad.

Next summer I will be in school full time. The summer of 2016, I'll be working full time. From here on out, I will either be a full time student or a full time employee. How has this happened already?!

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The weird thing about it too is that these summers of going to school or working 40 hours a week are going to continue on indefinitely. It's not like I get to try it out for a few years and then go back to the way things have been for the past nineteen years.

This is it. My last free summer until who knows when. Maybe one year I'll have another free summer if I'm ever a stay-at-home mom, or maybe my next free summer will be in 40 years when I retire (that's a scary thought!).

So I am a little sad knowing that one phase of my life is over and that it really is time to start being an adult. I'm just praying that when I do start working full time, it's doing a job that doesn't feel like work all day. I don't know what that will be, and that's a little scary. My time to be working full time is coming up fast and I still have no idea what I really want to do with my life. Yikes!

I'm just going to take it day-by-day and hope I figure it out eventually.

I also hope that being in school and working during the summer isn't going to be as bad as I think it will be. Because I really love my summers :)

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Birthday Fun

This past weekend was full of a lot of birthday stuff.

On Friday I worked on a cake order. This was actually the first time anyone has asked me to make a cake for them - it's always just been cake pops or cupcakes. It had also been forever since I had a made and decorated a cake anyway, so it was a lot of fun getting to do that again. I'm thinking the last cake I made (aside from cakes I crumbled up into cake pops) was my wedding cake!

And you want to know something funny? I have horrible cursive writing. Like really bad. If I sign my name with a pen, you can hardly even read it. But my cursive is pretty good when I write on a cake with a piping bag full of buttercream. I feel like it ought to be harder to write with a piping bag than a pen. Ha!

Last Friday, my cousin (well technically my cousin's daughter) celebrated her birthday by having a bunch of girls from her class over. My mom and I went over to help, and it was so much fun. It made me really miss being that age and having birthday parties with my friends. It was a Frozen theme (I'm pretty sure every young girl is going to have a Frozen party this year!). How sweet is this shot of them watching the movie? A part of me wishes I was this little again!

Love this picture! What's a party without cake?!

We had so much fun celebrating!

The rest of the weekend/week wasn't as exciting. The highlight of my Sunday was going to Target. They are having a huge movie sale (4 movies for $15!), so we snatched up some good ones.

My Monday started off with car trouble. Not the way you want to start off a new week. I was late to work because while I was driving there, a part on the bottom of my car came loose and was dragging on the ground. I had to pull over and wait for my dad to come and help me fix it. So crazy! After we dropped off my car at the repair shop that night, I had to make a stop at Graeter's. It had been a not-so-good Monday, and Black Raspberry Chip ice cream was just what I needed to end my day on a better note.

On Tuesday my mom and I headed out to lunch at Mellow Mushroom. I had never been there before, but I thought it was good. We also grabbed Orange Leaf next door since we had a Groupon that was about to expire before doing a little shopping.

I'm going to miss spending so much time with this dog when I go back to school.....

Wednesday was a great day! It was my last full day of work until probably December or January. Wahooo! I also had lunch at Panera and came home to a fabulous dinner of Blueberry French Toast.

I feel like this week has been the calm before the storm. From here on out, it's absolute craziness (like something going on every day) until September 20th. Yikes!

Easton Shopping: Round 2

Last week was a typical summer week. I worked Monday and Wednesday, went shopping on Tuesday, and did absolutely nothing on Thursday. That's pretty much been my routine all summer - a few days of work, a few busy days, and a few do-nothing days. Perfect balance!

It was a gorgeous day on Monday, and I had a lunch break to myself. I finished my lunch up fast and went for a walk around campus while thinking about this upcoming school year. It was a beautiful day!

On Tuesday my mom and I headed up to Easton for a day of shopping. I was just there a few weeks ago, but I'm always up for going to Easton. We ate lunch at some place we had never tried before and did some good shopping. I always like to stop at the little chocolate shop there called Le Chocoholique. They have the cutest chocolates in tons of different flavors, and I always like to try something new. Last time I was there, I saw on their menu that they had a Frosted Cupcake Hot Chocolate. It intrigued me, so I thought to myself that I would have to get that next time I was there. I ordered it this time, and it was SO good. It seriously tasted just like a frosted cupcake. It's my new favorite thing!

We also got some chocolates too. I really liked that blue one because it had a fruity filling in the middle.

The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping, eating ice cream, and doing more shopping. As we were leaving, we decided to be bad and stop at one of the Rita's up in Columbus. Ha!

I always order strawberry when they have it. They didn't have strawberry this day, so I was forced to try something new. I ordered blueberry (which I don't remember ever seeing before), and it was so good!

I didn't leave my house at all on Thursday. Sometimes that is just so nice! I worked on a cake (my first cake order ever!), painted a pot, read my book, and just got a lot of stuff done that I needed to do. It felt so good to be productive all day at home. Coco wasn't quite as productive as I was though...... ;)

I am SO going to miss those do-nothing days when school starts in a few weeks. I was looking at my calendar the other day, and I am pretty much completely BOOKED UP between this weekend and September 20th. It's going to be crazy!

Lumenocity

Last weekend was the perfect mix being busy and doing nothing. It's fun to be doing a bunch of stuff in the summer, but at the same time, sometimes it's nice to have some time to just lay around your house and chill. I did a little bit of both last weekend and it was great!

On Friday my mom and I headed out to do some shopping just to get out of the house for a little while. We went to an outdoor shopping center that has a Coldstone, and I just had to stop in and get my favorite Cake Batter with Oreos!

We stopped in at Hallmark, and I was admittedly a little excited to see that they have Halloween and Christmas stuff out already. It kind of makes me want to bake a pumpkin dessert and turn on Christmas Vacation ;)

I love spending summer nights watching a movie with this girl cuddled up beside me!

She likes cuddling with me while I read a book too.....

On Sunday night, I went to Lumenocity downtown. This is the second year they've done this event (I went last year too). The Cincinnati Pops and Symphony put on a free show, and they also put on a really neat light show using Music Hall as a backdrop. It was so popular last year that you needed a ticket to get in this year, and we were lucky enough to grab some even though they sold out in less than 10 minutes. They also have a bunch of food vendors down there, so we got there early to eat dinner and walk around before the show started. I was so happy my favorite gelato food truck was there again this year!

The show was SO good. They really changed it up for last year, which was neat. I definitely enjoyed getting to see it again.

Hope you have a great Monday!