Summer Drives, Life Changes, Angel in Blue Jeans

I haven't really blogged about this, but some of you may know, my parents and youngest sister Olivia recently moved from Kansas to Arizona. This is a huge change for us, and there is now about a 20 hour drive between the cities. I won't lie, it's been really rough.

We had the garage sale, the auction, picking out what we wanted to keep, packing the uhaul, unpacking the uhaul. Spending as much time as we could together before they left. We've never lived more than a 30 minutes drive apart... so  this has been quite the adjustment. And the O, she is just so little, it's hard to be away from her. There have been a lot of days where I'm really sad, and also a lot of tears. #emotionalgirlprobs

All this being said we are lucky that we get a good amount of vacation days at our office, and that there are a few airlines that fly from here to there really inexpensively. So, look forward to lots of desert pictures coming your way for the rest of forever, because you can bet that we will head South whenever we can. ;)

Before all of this, for my mom's birthday we all chipped in and bought her six tickets to see Train at a fun theater in Kansas City. Jess and I grew up spending summers in the car with my mom. We went to the pool, the library, garage sales, all over the place. I remember sitting in the car, windows down, flipping through my library books, hair dripping with pool water, "Get To Me" blasting from the speakers. The soundtrack to these days was always Train. She loves them, we still love them, it just made sense to get her the tickets. At the time we didn't know when they would be moving, so mom and OE had to fly back for the show, over the past weekend. I am SO glad that they did. It's been really good to see them, and I am glad that we got to spend more time together before they left for Arizona again today.

It was a great concert and a great way to spend time together, to have us almost all together (Hi dad!) and spend a night doing something fun and special. They played lots of old songs, so we were able to re-live our summer car ride days. It was so fun to sing and dance and laugh together. Most of all I hope that it gave all of us, especially my mom, the opportunity to just relax and not think about anything but the show. (At least before we started driving home... more on this later)...

As much as I love old Train.. (a bunch)... I'm kind of obsessed with their newer single: (plus Hannah Simone is just adorable, and this video is hilarious) 



What are your favorite memories of family time in the summers?

Happy Weekend!!

XO,

Alexandra

Back From Alaska // #allthejetlag // July 2015

Well hello, I hope you all have had a lovely week.

We are back from our Alaskan adventure and work week up north.

We spent a few beautiful days exploring Anchorage as well as a few hours north and south of the city. We saw the tallest mountains I've ever seen, some of the tallest in the US. We saw fjords and glaciers, whales and puffins. We had some of the best seafood EVER. Alaska is a beautiful place!

Being a night owl already, the constant light just fueled my desire to stay up and play. Yet, my internal clock still had me waking up on Kansas time, which was about 4:30 AM Alaska time. So... not a lot of sleep. Note to self, when you get dizzy, that's a good time to make yourself say goodnight.

However, adjusting to Alaska time was nothing compared to adjusting back to Kansas time.

Mr. Jet Lag wants to be my best friend.

And while there are few good things about long flights, lots of reading time is definitely one of them. I finished two books from the Summer Reading Challenge I joined!

I'll start working on posts soon, though you know... I still haven't posted about Nashville... from January.... (just kidding, it's linked in now!) In the meantime you can see some AK pictures on Instagram.

See Full Alaska Posts Here: Anchorage, Talkeetna & Wasilla, Seward & Kenai Fjords National Park, Whales & Glaciers.

What have you all been up to?!?!

XO,

Alexandra