Gypsy Summer

Gypsy Summer is finally over! 

I know that Summer doesn't technically end until September, but in my little world, it ended on August 1, which happened to be the day that we closed on our new house and stopped being homeless vagabonds.

July was the craziest, busiest, most randomly specific, most fun month ever--as long as you're cool with living out of a suitcase and sleeping in about seventeen different beds in one month. 

We did so much stuff. Including a lot of gratuitous Snapchat.

Awkward family photos

We moved out of our house the first week of July and stayed with my parents in South Georgia for a few days to catch our breaths. 

Not weird at all

Then we drove up to Atlanta to crash in Alex's mom's basement spend time with our family up there. While in Atlanta, Alex and I took advantage of the grandparents and had a date night at Chastain Park, where we saw one of our favorite acts--Flight of the Conchords (also known as New Zealand's fourth-most-popular folk-rock parody duos :) ). It was hilarious, and we had such a nice time hanging out in the sweet summer heat at beautiful Chastain.

 

Not long after that, we said adios to real life and took a little vacation down to Mexico, where one of my best friends had an amazing wedding weekend. I've never been to a destination wedding before, but they're pretty much the best things ever. It's like getting to go on a vacation of your own to a beautiful beach with all of your friends, and then you also get to enjoy a wedding at the same time. We stayed at a really nice, adults-only, all-inclusive resort, where we drank entirely too much, ate six meals a day, and gave a whole new meaning to the word gluttony. Seriously, we took way too much advantage of free 24-hour room service. 

I woke up after this and directly ordered room service at 3:28 am with no shame.

The wedding was simple and stunning, and my friend was the most beautiful bride I've ever seen. I loved the simplicity of the whole destination wedding concept: you invite everyone, but only the people who really want to be there are going to go. And in return, you have a great, tight group of people there to celebrate a wonderful union. I'm so thrilled for them, and we had such a blast being there. But I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I literally have no idea what is happening in about 84% of them.

As your wedding pictures should be. 

After Mexico, we returned to the beasties and the grandparents in Atlanta and spent the next week recovering from our hangovers and swimming in many a neighborhood pool, country club pool, and lake. Bobby's favorite new habit is to completely drop trou in front of total strangers after he finishes swimming. Once he's finally had enough, he will get out of the water and just casually take off his swim trunks and walk around al fresco with not even a little bit of shame. And while he's doing that, Vivi will go from person to person scavenging for food like a little raccoon. Pool time is not embarrassing for us at all.

Once we had completely recovered from Mexico (and another bugger of a kidney stone for me) and had watched as much as we could handle of the RNC, we said goodbye to our family in Atlanta and began the delightful drive down to check on our new home in Jacksonville. Well, it probably wasn't especially delightful for Alex, who drove the SUV with the kids and had to listen to Finding Nemo about 67 times. I drove in the other car alone with the windows down and blared Led Zeppelin for 6 hours. The kids finally got to see the house for the first time at our walk through appointment, and they were so excited! 

Although Viv was really more excited to be a cat.

After our stop in Jacksonville, we drove down to Miami to visit Alex's brother and family for a week, while making an overnight pit stop in Port St. Lucie to see more family. Seriously, this was the busiest month ever. But it was great to see so much family, and all of the kids are in the same age range, so we just let them go to town playing. While in Miami, we took an outing to the children's museum, ate some ah-mazing Mexican food, went to see Bad Moms (which was hilarious and confirmed that I'm the baddest mom in town), and had a lovely day playing at South Beach.

  Lots of thongs, lots of thongs. 

Also, Vivi had her first Nutella experience, and it was as intense and delightful as one would expect. 

Ah, just how your first time should be.

Once our time in Miami was over, we make the long trek back up to South Georgia to drop off the kiddos with my parents for a few days while we headed over to Jacksonville once again to close on our new home and start moving in. 

And that is how Gypsy Summer finally came to a close. 

We are no longer homeless, although I still look that way about 75% of the time. 

We've been spending the last few weeks unpacking boxes, painting walls, hanging curtain rods, and doing a few other fun projects that I can't wait to show y'all!

Happy Friday!