Must be...

A few of these,

A bit of this,

Some monsoon sky's,

Favorite smell of the season,

A buncha this,

A couple towels on my leather seats,

A few of these,

And a lot of this,

It must be summer

And to celebrate, I'd like you to enjoy my favorite summer song this year

There might be a little (or big) part of me that wishes I was the girl in this video

LOVE it. LOVE summer. Love this stud muffin.

Here today, gone...today

Let's begin this post with a little honesty, a little reality 101, shall we?

I have a sweet tooth.

Did you hear?...

By the way, chocolate (or a carton of ice cream) for breakfast is actually the smart way to go, because then you have all day to burn it off. ...Totally justifiable.

Anyway, have you ever had a series of those weird, kinda freaky instances where you feel like maybe God, or the universe, or the chocolate god's are trying to tell you something? Lemme break it down for you: 

Nate hides candy from me. 

Like, straight up, hides all the goods: twizzlers in the safe, takes the cookies to work, etc. etc. He tells me that's the only way he'll get to eat any of them. ...Not sure what would make him feel that way or anything...

Anyway, he got mad at me this weekend for finishing off his Reese's and Twix left over from his weekend hunting trip. Then, yesterday we went over to Nate's parents house for Dinner and my mother-in-law mentioned that they had some snickers in the freezer for dessert, to which my father-in-law pipes up from the other room

"No, they're gone...I ate 'em all when I heard Carissa was coming over."

Next, on my way home from work today listening to the radio there was a commercial for, I kid you not, over-eaters anonymous. Like, a legit, 12-step, "learn to take control of your life" program.

hmm...

Lastly, Nate came home from the grocery store tonight to replace his stash of sweets in the fridge that I had originally polished off. 

 Now every time I open the refrigerator door he asks,

"What are you doing?"

Usually followed by a,

"Don't eat all the candy."

Given the above-mentioned comments, all occurring within a weeks (ish) time, I'm wondering if maybe it IS time to reevaluate the severity of my sweet tooth, to dig deep and understand my inability to control my portions.

...

Nah.

Remember how I mentioned Nate replenished the chocolate in the fridge tonight?

New High Value Target #1

  

   

"There is no chocoholics anonymous, cause nobody wants to quit."

A.K.A

The other night Nate and I were making fun of Gunther for one reason or another, when I thought out loud to him,

"We have a lot of nicknames for Gunther, you know?"

This is a true statement. You see, Gunther is a funny dude.

 He makes funny faces, swims kind of funny, stares at you for long periods of time, sits funny, jumps kind of funny when he gets really excited, and a bunch of other funny things. His funny traits seem to have made him vulnerable to a plethora of nicknames, some of which include the following:

Gunny

Gun-dog

Gunny buns

Pal-a-zona

Gun dog millionaire

Bubba gump

Funny Gunny

Gunther Dik-dik

(Gunther dik-dik?? You might ask? We didn't even make that one up, apparently it's a real species, and it lives at the Zoo!)

 ...moving on...

Buckwheat

White boy

and one of my personal favorites, his Indian moniker,

Gunther Little Buns

Anyway, I got to thinking about it and I said to Nate,

"We don't really have that many nick names for Maycee."

to which he replied,

"Maycee is a strong black woman, she doesn't need a lot of nick names."

Well then,

Go on which yo bad self Maycee Guuuurl

ANGRY BIRDS

HAPPY DOGS

News

Old News: 

Phoenix had a HUMUNGO dust storm this week

New News:

A big huge dust storm, like the above-mentioned, is actually called a Haboob.

...heh, habooooooob

(I'm an adult, I promise)

Good News:

For a limited time only, free microderm abrasion for all valley of the sun residents: Just step outside your door and the wind and dust will do the rest!

(totally wish I could take credit for that one, but my cousin Melissa actually came up with it first...you go girl!)

Better News:

My dad, photographer extraordinaire, got pictures of the giant haboob

Get ready, it's-a-comin'

Hell hath no furry like that of...a haboob scorned

Gone Fishin

Occasionally when Nate or I can't find something we're looking for, or need to go searching for something we haven't seen in a while, our best bet is usually the garage. Seeing as how we never truly and/or completely "unpacked" after we moved from our apartment into our house (I'm working on my procrastination issues), the garage has become a treasure trove of all things forgotten. 

"OOoh I forgot I had this!"

"THERE's where that went!"

"Hey I've been looking for this thing!"

Not too long ago, Nate came traipsing back into the house with this big honker:

Not sure how you can overlook a giant stuffed fish, but it got lost in the shuffle somehow and we had truly forgotten about it. Nate had been eyeing one of these for a long time at Bass Pro Shops a few years ago before he finally bought one, so needless to say when he rediscovered it right it our own garage he was pretty pumped.

Cue big fish parade:

The Dogs, on the other hand, not so pumped. They probably wouldn't have been so bothered by the huge stuffed bass had it not been for Nate taunting them with it for his own amusement (...it was kinda funny though, I will say...).

Nate gave him the name Henry. It seems that we have an affinity to naming inanimate species that land in in our household (i.e. Bucky)

weird.

Nonetheless, amusing all the same.

Hook, line, and sinker

Independence Day

The 4th of July is quite possibly my favorite holiday, right there in the running with Christmas...that's right, I said it. But really, there's something about having a spouse in the Military that kicks up your patriotism about a million notches...that and plus a man in uniform, mostly MY man in uniform, is pretty dang cute. We say the pledge of allegiance together every morning before we go to work. ...just kidding, but that would be pretty intense huh?! My kitchen is Americana, the flag flies out in front of our house, and I have an app on my itouch that tells me all kinds of fun facts, quotes, and biographical information on our founding fathers (don't judge me. It's a really cool app ok?). So when the 4th rolls around each year I make sure to soak up as much red, white, and blue as I can! 

With that being said, this year we were fortunate enough to spend the holiday with the other half of our "original quad," the Haro's. We seem to have made the 4th of July a tradition for the four of us dating back to 2005 watching the fireworks at Tempe Town Lake. Since then we've taken our show on the road to various other firework infested skies, but we've always managed to spend it together...as evidence by the fantastic photos below...

Pretend Abel and Tyah are right next to us, we can't seem to find their photo from that year..tragic, I know.

2005

2006

2007

2008

We seem to have been having too much fun with our sparklers to take a good picture that year, but hey, it looks like Nate is pooping fire, so I think it's a fair trade.

2009

Heber Fireworks

2010

2011

And this year was no disappointment either! I volunteered my parents house for this year's shindig, after all, they are the ones with the pool. So after some wonderfully prepared hot dogs and hamburg's by the boys (and by wonderfully, I mean they survived a full-on fire) we were ready for some serious pool time!

Oh, and let me show you the super cool banner I made for the occasion, it reads "Freedom." Very "4th of July" wouldn't you say?

...I'm pretty pleased how it turned out, if I do say so myself

...moving on...back to pool time!

And who says white men can't jump? You go Nate, you go

Nate and Abel had a pretty creative round of "HORSE" going on...

Abel seemed to have eventually succumbed to the pressure

While we were swimming I came up with the genius idea to ask my dad for his waterproof camera. The following photos are the product of my genius idea.

I like to call this one "The Mermaid"

And this is my best impression of the Baywatch Babes, on my way to rescue a drowning swimmer...actually Nate couldn't grasp the concept of letting all his air out in order to sink to the bottom, so he kept floating up at me, and in all honesty...well, I shoved him down to the pool floor. Whatever it takes for a good picture right??

There was another, REALLY funny photo of these two, but I wasn't sure I had permission to post it on the world wide web, so you'll have to enjoy, what I like to refer to as, the  "Sitting Chiefs," for now...still pretty funny if you ask me...especially since Nate is still floating to the top 

After we were done frolicking in the water, we capped off the afternoon with desert

Not too shabby eh?

I promise I'm wearing clothes, if you look closely you can see the strap to my bathing suit around my neck. Next year I will  make sure whatever I put on display is not blocking any article of clothing!

And then we were off to Tyah's parents' house for even more food and best of all, fireworks!

The Ferguson's have a new house out in Gilbert that sits behind Central Christian Church. The Church decided to put on a first annual big fireworks display, so we "ooo'd" and "ahhh'd" at the fireworks from our very own driveway! No crowds to fight, parking wars, or dirty porta-potty's, just a front row seat for the best part of the day! 

While we were anxiously awaiting the fireworks, Abel was playing with these popper things and kept throwing them at Tyah, to which she replied, and gave us this great one-liner for the night: "Quite throwing explosives at my feet!!" Love it.

   

What a fun holiday to celebrate all things American!  Let's always keep in mind, freedom is not free, and for that I am thankful for the people, like my husband, who are willing to fight to preserve all good things our country was founded upon!

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."-George Orwell

Here's to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit...

"I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet through all the gloom I see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth all the means. This is our day of deliverance."-John Adams 1776

Ditto Mr. Adams, Ditto