life is totally fair.

{Word-light, pic-heavy post today. I'm absolutely drinking in life this week and absorbing it as much as I can, which means as little "computer time" as possible.}

Yesterday, my family spent the evening at the County Fair.  Whoo hoo! One of my favorite parts about "our" county fair is that concerts of minor (or has-been) bands are included in the price of admission. Whoo! We saw Jars of Clay, which was one of my brother's and my favorite bands when we were younger.

We were really excited to re-live our childhood.

 Our little fairgrounds amphitheater is called the "Safeway Amphitheater". Isn't that cute? haha

 When the concert was over (they were a lot better in my memories; sorry guys), we wandered the fairgrounds.

 Brother and I went on a quest to find pretzels and churros.

 I stole a bite of his pretzel when he wasn't looking... He didn't even notice until he saw lipstick on his napkin. "um, what the heck?"

It was a pretty great night. Low-key, definitely, but it was pretty darn exhausting after a long day of VBS.
I love my family.

anatomy of a trip

Happy Wednesday, guys! How has your week been going? I've missed you so.

I've been staying with my parents for the past few days, and man has it been crazy! I've loved spending time with my fam, just hanging out. We're going to the fair tonight :D. Miss Tim, though!

The story behind my spontaneous visit home? My mom's on the committee/council thingy for our church's Vacation Bible School, and it's been really really hectic. (think three churches, almost 400 workers, and a thousand kids; that kind of thing. It's quite the undertaking). Anyway, she and the rest of the committee have been running around like crazy people because of a bunch of reasons, and I figured why not come up and help? It's not like my schedule was packed or anything.

It's been awesome. I remember VBS being one of the highlights of my summer when I was in elementary school. When I was too old for the program, I would work as an assistant and then a teacher. VBS has occupied two weeks out of my summer from second grade until I was a college first-year. This has been quite the trip down memory lane.

Don't get me wrong, it's been incredibly insane, too. We're on our feet all day long, and running around dealing with different departments. And I thought being a VBS Teacher was difficult! Who would have thought that working with adults would be more exhausting than working with children (and that's saying a lot. One year, I literally passed out from sheer exhaustion as soon as my last kid got picked up. It wasn't pretty).

Wanna know the best parts, though? Knowing that the kids are hearing the gospel. Seeing how much fun they're having. Getting to work with Mommy. Sitting in the first row at the Spirit Rally.

Guess it's all pretty great.

musings of a lone road-tripper

 

Today, I made a somewhat spur-of-the-moment solo road trip up to visit my parents. Because that is something I can do when I'm not working, whoo! Tim has to work so I had to leave him behind.

Because it was my first solo road trip in a long time (I'm thinking a year and a half or so, which is crazy!), I rediscovered some benefits to traveling alone. The first was the newfound ability to stop whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted, and as many times as I wanted. I've gotta pee? Let's pull over! I'm kinda hungry; Let's pull over! I did notice, though, that stopping early in the trip for a large Diet Coke greatly increased the number of stops later in the trip. Those things are hard to finish alone!!

However, one of the greatest parts of traveling alone is this: I was my own DJ. I could play the songs that I normally skip over out of common courtesy to Tim, like, say: Averil Lavigne, Lady Gaga, and the Backstreet boys. And Taylor Swift. And the soundtack from Wicked. 

I've noticed, lots of people sing along to their radios when they're driving. I, on the other hand, take Car Karaoke to a whole new level and drive a lot like Winston from the show New Girl:

We're all friends here, there's no shame in this whatsoever.{PS does anyone else love that show? It's one of my faves.}

I do miss my road-trip buddy, but it sure was fun to mix up the ipod playlist while he wasn't here!

solstice weekend recap

Oh man was solstice cuh-razy!
We took our little off-brand Vespa downtown to catch the parade (Side note? Where in the world aside from California can you get away with riding a scooter in a Maxi dress? I didn't get a single weird look.)

There were lots of feathers (and sequins, and not much else, eep! It was like Vegas in Santa Barbara, sort of.)

...Some really creative costumes and floats (many on the whole 2012, Mayan Calendar, End of the World thread).....

...and some really, really weird ones that made absolutely no sense.

 

Yeah, those guys were wearing denim skirts and flowery bucket hats.

Elvis, though, I can't explain.

As is tradition, Tim and I enjoyed Sangria after the parade.

Then we met up with some more friends and explored the park that marked the end of the parade. That was..... quite the adventure. My camera battery died right about then, so I wasn't able to capture the madness that was Alameda Park, but imagine Disneyland on its most crowded day, and then decrease the square footage by a bazillion percent. Awesome.

In all, it was a great people-watching experience. We ended the day with tri-tip, margaritas, and friends, which is the best way to end any weekend, is it not?

Happy Monday!

happy {belated} summer solstice!

Did you know that Wednesday was the official start of summer?

This weekend (along with fourth of July and our Anniversary) marks one of my favorite weekends of the summer. In Santa Barbara, although we "celebrate" summer starting on Memorial day, it doesn't really feel like summer consistently until now. "June Gloom" usually ends right around this weekend. And we have a parade.

Image source

Aah, the Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Parade. Where people-watching becomes a sport. And wearing glitter during the day is expected.

This is the first year that we're actually able to go to the dang parade. Last year, I think I went home that weekend to work on wedding plans. The year before that, we completely missed the parade because we couldn't find a parking space (I don't know what we were thinking...).

It wasn't a huge bust, though, because we ended up running into friends randomly and went wine tasting.

 

I will forever be scarred from that day.

You see, it was hot, and we went to a couple different places, and I'm a lightweight. So my judgement was slightly impaired.

I thought it would be funny to run up to  Tim and jump on his back. To let him know that I was coming, I shouted "Head's up!!!!!", right as I was in midair.

He ducked.

I went sailing over him, and ended up skinning both elbows and both knees. I have scars on all four.

Tim's side of the story: "Who the heck calls out 'heads up' when they DON'T want someone to duck?!?" (he's got a point, but I'll never admit it to his face, haha).

Here's to never doing that again, and enjoying the parade. What are you planning on doing to enjoy the first official weekend of summer?

yosemite trip photo recap

Our trip to Yosemite was really fun. Aside from attending the wedding of two really good friends and making new ones, we got two quick days to explore the park. SCORE!

If you've never been to Yosemite, you should make the trip. Pretty much everywhere you go is absolutely breathtaking. 

 We ended the great day by soaking our feet/legs/arms/heads in the river. It was glorious. Note to self? Toms aren't the greatest hiking shoes.
Oh and just for fun, I'll include the polaroids from the wedding:  

d'awwwwwww

all tied up // diy

We're back! And oh mah golly, what a great wedding. The bride was beautiful, the groom was dashing, the view was spectacular! And it was a fabulous celebration of a Christ-filled relationship.

Oh, and as promised: the easiest DIY fashion project ever. But first! Cutsey-but-blurry snap of the "guestbook" Polaroid picture we took:

Now, let me draw your attention to Tim's fabulous neckwear.

...Yup. That is the project I'm talking about. Seriously easy.

Here are the deets. Tim had free-reign on most of his attire for this wedding, and among other things, he wanted a non-solid black skinny tie. DONE.

Like this one from Kohls, only patterned.

Originally, the plan was to use my fledgling sewing "skillz" to whip one up, since a tie was just a couple straight seams and a few layers of fabric. Plus, I thought it'd be fun.

I found a free skinny-tie pattern online (since I'm an expert at pattern-following now, of course) and started looking for the right fabric. Thing is, though, I had the hardest time finding fabric that I thought was perfect (I'm sure what I found was fine, but the final product would be displayed on Tim at a wedding. I was really picky).

All RIGHT all right! I was totally chicken.

(if you're braver than I am and want to make a tie from scratch, go over to see Kate sew for a great skinny-tie pattern)

I had studied that pattern for EVER, though, and my wheels started a'turning.

1) Tim already owned at least two black (or black-patterned) "regular" ties
2) A skinny tie was really just a thinner version of a regular tie.
3) (does he REALLY need two nearly-identical ties?)

Ya see where I'm goin' with this?

With his permission, I borrowed one of my sweet husband's solid black ties on which I could practice surgery (he wouldn't let me use his favorite patterned one until I proved myself, smart guy). Check it out!

A little crooked, but not too shabby! The one on the right was the tie he wanted to wear for the actual wedding.

 It really wasn't so scary! See, at most, all that makes up a tie are the lining fabric, the tie fabric, and some interlining (that's sewing talk for "stuff that makes your tie hold its shape".). All I had to do was open it up, trim the interlining until it was the right shape, tuck it back into place, iron, stitch, and Tadaaaaaa! A "brand-new" skinny tie!

Okay, so hand-stitching a bunch of fabric that's miles and miles long was a pain-in-the-you-know-what, but it wasn't difficult. HOWEVER, seeing the "practice" tie turn out okay made Tim more comfortable handing over his precious wedding tie.

YAHOO!! And on the map of Yosemite, no less. Winning! haha.

The first tie took about an hour (although I was watching the Bachelorette while working, so I kept getting distracted), and the second took about 30 minutes, since I had a ruler to help me iron (ironing's the WORST) and I had a little more confidence. And it looks waaaay better.

This time, rather than eyeballing it, I cut one side first, then used that trimmed part as the template for the second side. This tie was made with a LOT nicer material than the first, which helped.

 

Plus, the center seam was a lot more centered! (You should have seen the other one, sheesh!)

After the tie was finished, I frantically lengthened the pants Tim bought for the wedding, because he somehow selected a size two inches shorter than he normally wears. What the heck. Normally we would have just returned the pants, but it was like days before the wedding and we only have a women's Jcrew nearby. So, I learned how to hem dress pants. In five minutes. The day before we left. (It wasn't pretty). Haha.

But he looked purty ;) Sorry. Couldn't resist. But they did stick him with two ladies, so......
What do you think? Would you ever undertake something like this? Would your man have trusted you? Mine totally didn't.