"And here is another shot of my plaid man shorts."

Oh heeeey! How's it going, girlfriend? Long time, no see! What's that? You say I'm terrible at communicating with the outside world? Well, this may be true. 

School starts two months from today and I've already been having first-day-of-school nightmares. It seems pretty far away still, but I'm sure the summer is going to fly by. So I'm determined to make the most of it. In between reading, playing Lego Harry Potter, and finally watching the last season of ALIAS (which Jacob finished, um, a year ago), here's what we've been up to:

But first, some backstory. (Is the suspense making your toes tingle?) My dear, darling, lovely mother joined something we daughters like to call "the gossip group" but what she calls "Sew What's New" years and years and years ago. Um, I mean, she just joined it years ago. She isn't that old. 

The premise of Sew What's New is that a group of women took turns hosting a craft night each month. The ladies would get together and make a craft and partake of delicious treats. I took it for granted that everyone in the world had the exact same decorations, because whenever we went to our friends' houses, they had the same seasonal decor as us! As time went by, the craft portion of the evening was phased out and the women just got together to partake of delicious treats (which we always asked Mom to sneak back home to us) and gossip -- I mean, hold highly intellectual discussion. 

Now, at the beginning of the year I was invited to join something very similar to "the gossip group." But of course, since we're young and hip, we call our gatherings "Pinterest parties." There's four of us in the group, and we take turns being in charge of the craft, the meal, and the dessert, all of which we find on Pinterest. And yes, we even have a schedule to determine who does what. That's how hard core we are. 

Over the months we've made festive holiday decorations, wrapped yarn wreaths, and even sewed a skirt as our craft portion of the evening. Last Wednesday we painted wooden blocks to create a patriotic flag. You may marvel now: 

The next day, Jacob and I headed to the SCERA Shell Theatre in Orem for a showing of Tarzan. We brought our blankets and snacks and settled on the grass for a splendid show. Except for the part where we had to crane our necks every once in a while to see around the people in chairs in front of us, it was a delightful time. 

I've come to the devastating realization that I'm starting to get a forehead wrinkle. I'm not even 25 yet! But I think I'm getting the crease because I'm constantly making faces like this:

I really ought to stop furrowing my brow like that.

 Friday we decided to visit Scheels, a sporting goods store that just so happens to contain a Ferris wheel inside. As it turns out, there were quite a few photo opportunities there as well. We cozied up to Abraham Lincoln:

Immediately after taking this picture, I told Jacob "Okay, I'm getting embarrassed now."

 And we encountered some wild animals.

It's another Cougar first down!

Big ol' bear hug.

Saturday we headed to a water park and spent a few hours riding the water slides. Which is something I wouldn't mind doing right now, since it's 89 degrees still nearly at 10 at night. (Arizona peeps: just let me complain! Hopefully you're less stingy with your air conditioning than we are and you're not currently melting into a puddle of despair.)