The Beauty of the Great Outdoors

We have been continuing to love our summer days and nights--and our new car! We have driven it around the state in search of fun swimming holes this past week and then coming home to our growing garden. Life is grand.

So...Camden didn't like the water. AT ALL. Here he is swimming for safety.

LOVE this picture!

Clay and Camdem are into this picture, but me...not so much.

Two out of three ain't bad.

Isn't this gorgeous? Both the husband and the scenery!

Beautiful.

We tried to get him to swim again, but he just wasn't digging it.

The McC Garden! Cucumbers, Squash, Peppers, and Okra (tons of okra!) are growing like crazy! Hopefully these watermelons will be ripe soon.

Yesterday, I went over to my head coach's home to learn how to can tomatoes. Salsa and yummy tomato sauce, here we come! I am ready as soon as these guys turn red.

Our first eggplant!

Not bad to be split three ways...Clay and I enjoyed lots of grilled veggies last night. And we love cucumbers, but there is only so many ways you can eat them, right? Any suggestions?

Love to you all!

Auto: Pilot

As many of you know, one of my goals this year has to become more financially savvy, which includes everything from learning more about investment options and retirement plans to simply not spending money on things we truly don't need. I told myself months ago that if I could discipline myself enough to take advantage of extra work opportunities and not buy that really cute purse or tenth pair of beaded flip-flops that eventually I could dedicate some of those earnings and my savings from college towards a new car. Once I started car crushing on a black Honda Pilot, that goal came into even sharper focus and suddenly working summer camps and coaching track seemed doubly appealing. Clay was all for it (how did I marry the most supportive, kind man ever??), so when Bruiser Camp concluded on Friday after a fun day rafting down the Nantahala River, I jumped into my 1997 Honda Accord and cruised up to Nashville to check out Honda Pilot #1.

I arrived at 6:45 p.m. in time to see two older men smoking cigars on the front porch of a small used car operation. They allowed me to take a test drive of the Pilot while they checked out the vehicle history on my car. I liked their car a lot, but the interior was a tan/brown color, which I wasn't so sure of with a black car, and it had a quarter-size nick right in the middle of the driver's vision on the windshield. Liked the car a lot, but there definitely seemed to be room for negotiation. Well, I guess I didn't play my cards right because they didn't budge from the sticker price and wanted to give me $1000 for my car, which isn't ludicrous (it had some things wrong with it, which is part of the reason for getting a new car) but it made the final numbers out of question for me. Ten minutes later, I was back on the road, home to Louisville and the fun Brittany Valley Road garage sale and a weekend with the wonderful fam.

I did a little more research on Pilots in the Louisville area before calling about one advertised on cars.com. For anyone looking for a car, I highly recommend this site--its thorough, clear, and allows you to compare costs and options easily. I checked it daily for probably about two months (it perhaps became a bit of an obsession). A dealership in Atlanta had two black Pilots, so I called, told the salesman my price limit and trade-in and told him to call me back if he thought he could make it happen. He called back three minutes later. I tried to remain cool and collected; inside, I was stoked.

I returned to Chattanooga on Sunday night, had practice with the CC team Monday morning (we are swimming now--hooray!), and then Clay and I headed down to Marietta to check out Honda Pilot #2. We both loved the car when we test drove it, it had grey interior, and the mileage was reasonably low (44K). I started getting really excited. Could I have just taken my final drive in my beloved, but ailing, Accord?

We sat down to hammer out the numbers and our salesman put a number on paper that suggested to me he didn't remember our conversation on Saturday. Uhh, dude, remember that I said I can only pay this much? I immediately balked and pulled out all the printouts we brought on the BlueBook value of the Accord and the comp Pilot prices in the area, etc. and then we countered the offer. They countered again, we countered again, we almost walked out, and then...he tossed me the keys to the Pilot. Congratulations! You just bought a Pilot! We just bought a Pilot! Craziness. But so, so fun.

Ahhh Summer

No laptop + no motivation = no new blog posts since early June. I am so sorry! I honestly just haven't even wanted to look at a computer in a month! I know most people aren't afforded that luxury, but as this was my first summer since I started teaching that I haven't been in grad school and thus writing away my summer, I guess I decided to ignore the computer altogether! Yikes! But we are back and hopefully I can stay on top of things a bit better now that I have thoroughly enjoyed my month-long hiatus from the keyboard :-)

So what have we been doing? Hmm...we haven't been taking many pictures (I have been so lazy, haven't I?), but here are some from the beginning of the summer! I bet you can tell what we did for at least one week!

We loved riding our bikes around Hilton Head!

I just had to stop to take this guy's picture--someone did a heck of a job!

Cute Mom

Hooray for Brittany taking time off work to come down for a few days! She is a ROCKSTAR.

Our attempt at taking this year's Christmas Card picture in June.
I think I am going to veto this one.

Rather than writing down long descriptions of what has been happening since school blissfully let out in June, here's a quick top ten (I am still in vacation mode, remember?)

10. I tore my bicep trying to do one of Clay's workouts with him. I am not joking. I am clearly not cut out for Crossfit (to check out the insanity that he calls his workouts, click here)
9. Camden turned 1!!! Oh my gosh, he is the cutest dog ever.
8. I have been reading as much as possible. I LOVED Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (great rec, Blair)--the recipes are really yummy too!. I also flew through American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld and am almost done with my favorite read of the summer so far, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. A beautifully written book totally influenced by Hamlet.
7. Clay and I celebrated two years! I love him more than ever. We jumped off the tower at the McC lake ("taking the plunge") before enjoying an incredibly yummy vegetable soup and fresh bread :-)
6. Clay is currently in the middle of his second week of soccer camp and is constantly going from their 6:30 a.m. football workouts to his last soccer scrimmage at 8:30. He's a stud. I am currently in the middle of my third week of camp at my school, which leads to #5.
5. I had to tell an 8 year-old today that a.) punching another camper repeatedly is NOT okay and b.) sticking your head in the toilet and then flushing it is not an activity we endorse. Wow. These girls make me laugh and smile constantly, but man, am I sleeping well at night!
4. Exercise exercise exercise. It feels so good to be healthy, to sleep well at night, to have time to stretch and push our bodies and enjoy the highs of fitness. Football and cross country team workouts have already started (6:30 am for Clay, 7 am for Sara) and before we know it, the seasons will be in full swing...but its still summer and we are definitely not wishing it away!
2.5. Hilton Head with my family was super fun and relaxing. Riding bikes, reading in the pool, playing in the ocean, making dinners at night, going putt-putting...thanks for a great vacation, Mom and Dad!
2.5 We loved seeing all of Clay's family (except for John--but we will see him soon!) at Rachel and Joe's wedding in Birmingham on June 20. What a fun event! And seeing Ali and Fritz and meeting Bill were definitely highlights of our summer as well. They are dear, dear friends.
1. Sleeping, eating, watching lots of fun tv (umm, the Federer-Roddick match was insane), going on long walks with the Camdawg, reading, playing tennis, and enjoying our first summer together not at BreadLoaf. Do we miss the mountains of Vermont? Definitely. Do I miss the live Shakespeare in England? Definitely. Do we miss our friends in the program. Hell ya. Do we miss the reading? Sometimes. Do we miss the papers. Hahahahaha. We don't miss the papers at all.

Life is great down in Chattavegas--and we always love visitors!