Best Day

In my family, we are all pretty attuned to the closing of summer and the advent of fall--that lovely time of year when we all start having anxiety nightmares about bulletin boards, nagging parents, lesson plans, schedules, cleaning classrooms/offices, etc. Yes, we're all teachers. Our body clocks sense the ending of August and rebel against it violently, but alas, it comes every year. To cope with our inherent grief over the end of summer, we instigated our "best day" tradition, wherein each of use takes a turn around the dinner table and reminisces about what each of us remembers as our best day of the summer.
Lucky for me, this was the kind of summer where I can't pin down just one day, so I thought I'd share some of the highlights (in no particular order)...

1. Finishing my half-marathon, my 30th birthday, and my scooter, all rolled into one fun week.
2. Home improvement fun with the parents (Utah & Kansas).
3. Garage sale-ing with Taunya, Dan's mom :)
4. Having my mom down as a guest lecturer at Westminster
5. Coffee with Jones at Alchemy
6. Body surfing with Dan on 42nd Street
7. Beehive Tea Room for Sassy & E-bomb's 31st Birthday (God, we're old!)
8. Riding roller coasters until we were sick on 4th of July with Dad
9. BBQ's with new friends
10. Hiking Timp & Albion Basin
11. Hearing Tom Petty & Jon Mayer cover "Panama"
12. Afternoon movie matinees in 100-degree heat
13. Concert at the Gallivan with my new hip LDS posse (actually, it's Naomi's posse; I just tag along)
14. Dinner with James & Theresa at Mazza
15. Watching Zuz & following along with the Olympics. Go world!

Summer of the Scootie

My darling husband Dan teamed up with my parents for the big 30th birthday and bought me a scooter! My mom got one for her birthday a few years ago, and just last weekend, my mother-in-law Taunya got one as well. If my sister-in-law Karina gets one, we can be a family scooter gang. I am visualizing pink satin jackets or similar. Ahhh, yeah.

Top 5 Reasons I Love my Scooter

5. It has retro white-wall tires.

4. All the construction workers replacing the concrete on our street wave at me when I go by. Amongst other things.

3. I get all the good parking spots everywhere.

2. I filled up the gas tank yesterday. I had gone almost 90 miles without getting gas. Filling the tank this time around cost me $3.68. That's right.

and ....

1. If I really squint while I'm driving up Laird & Harvard Aves., I can pretend I am in Italy. La vita e bella!