Farewell, O Summer (Part 1)

So I just looked at my blog and realized that my last post was two days before Eric got out of school for the summer - and today is his first day back. Hmm. No correlation there at all, is there?
It's been a lovely summer, blogging or no. I was very sad to see Eric head back to work this morning (although perhaps not as sad as he was). It went down a little something like this:

• The week after school got out, Eric and I headed to Girls' Camp, me as our branch's Young Women president, Eric as our priesthood representative. It was all going very well (minus Eric locking the keys in the car and having to spend several hours trying to get the Pop a Lock guy to come out to the camp at midnight on our first night) until just after Tuesday night's snipe hunt, when I had to excuse myself to go and throw up. (Everyone was a little disconcerted by my calmly asking whether the bathroom was free so I could throw up - but I've had a weird stomach all my life, so I recognize the signs.) Turns out I had heat exhaustion, and I spent the next hour trying to drink water and not being able to keep it down. Eventually, my friend Jordan drove me down to the priesthood cabin. Eric came and gave me a blessing, and then he blew up an air mattress in the activity center and made me calm down and stop trying to drink water. I finally stopped shaking and fell asleep, but I spent most of the next day being useless, and a good part of the following day too. Other highlights: Eric and I set up an orienteering hike for the 4th year girls, complete with poetic clues fraught with portent, all guiding them to the pieces of their lunch; Jordan and realized we are THOSE leaders when we cried because our girls weren't as shy as we expected they'd be; on the last night, all of the leaders were freaking out because they thought the girls were going to pull a prank on them, so we pulled on instead . . . by pretending to be ghosts.
  
• After camp we headed up to Houston to see Brady and Kristi, but since Brady was studying for the bar, we mostly slept there, ate their food, and chatted with Kristi. We also got to go to the temple, see Noah and the Whale at a cool little venue called Fitzgerald's (a former polish dance hall) and eat at a place called Berry Hill Baja Grill, which had excellent fish tacos. On our way back, which wasn't really on the way, we went to Six Flags with our newly acquired season pass/coupons that let me get in for free with Eric's season pass. Oh, how I love a good roller coaster. 
• We went to Corpus Christi for our six month anniversary, which was very nice. Then we came back and Eric said, "I'd just about kill for some french fries." Of course he couldn't settle for McDonald's, which was right there, so we went to Whataburger, where a huge truck started to back up and didn't hear our honks and screams . . . and backed up over Stella's hood. Luckily, the guy had insurance. We didn't pay a cent of the $2400 repair, and we got about 3 weeks of rental car, and it got finished right before we headed out of town.
  

  

  Lovely Corpus

  
  

  

  Eric's art shot

  
  

  

  Stella!

• On the 4th of July, we went to what is officially the saddest parade I have ever seen. It was scheduled to start at10am. It actually started at 10:15, but that was probably for the best, since it was over by 10:22. The parade consisted entirely of cars (not cool old cars - normal cars) with "Happy 4th" painted on their windows in shoe polish, three horses with colonial riders, and one firetruck. We did, however, have a nice afternoon barbeque with some friends before going out to see fireworks at Padre Island - a decision that would have been great had we not decided that we'd just watch them from across the bay at Port Isabel. The looked like they were probably great, but they were too far away to really be very cool. To console ourselves, we bought some fireworks on the way home and set them off in the mosquito-laden grass before watching The House on Haunted Hill and going to bed. 
• Our bacon fell off the wall and broke. 
  
• Our hedgehog remained awesome.
  
  
  

  

  We did not squish her behind this. She crawled behind it and then started coming back and did this. Which is amazing.

  
  

• We went on an epic road trip. In the first leg, we went from San Benito to San Antonio, where we stayed with Eric's Aunt Annie. Then we went from San Antonio to Lubbock, where we stopped for a week to help paint a mural for a lady who works with my mother-in-law. Yes, even I painted, despite my lack of ability (I'm great with a roller, and I'm good at following directions.) The mural ended up being amazing, and it's possible we'll be getting another job from it. We also got to spend some good time with Porter, Katie, sweet little Nancy Kay, and Granny and Papa. (How does one distinguish between the grandpa version of papa and the other one? They're pronounced differently, but I don't know how to spell this one.)
  

  

  Nancy putting on the giraffe spots

  

  Eric working on the wildebeest

  

  Me putting some shadows on the mountains

  
  
  

  

  The Long Family Muralists by a completed giraffe

  
  

  

  By the tree and wildebeest

  

  The closest I could get to capturing the whole mural in one shot.

• From there, we drove to Albuquerque, where we stayed with my dear friend Jennie and her delightful husband Sean. They fed us delicious food and were great company, leaving us all wishing that we lived a little closer to each other. 

  

  On the road with my honey, unsafely taking pictures.

  
  

More to come in the next post, because this one is getting far too long.