Catch-up: July

In my still sleep-deprived brain, July was so long ago.  Back in the beautiful days of summer, when Owen started sleeping through the night, before he decided to stop sleeping through the night. 

We spent lots and lots of time outside in July.  One of our favorite places to go was Julian Price Park off of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  There's a beautiful creek that runs through it and lots of places where Morgan could just play in the water and with rocks til her heart was good and content, which she could do for hours.  Give that girl a bucket, a shovel, and a little tractor and she is happy for 2-3 hours at the park.  Owen and I could just hang out, enjoying the shade or the sun, he would take a little nap, Morgan would maybe stop playing long enough to have a snack, and then we'd go home happy and content.  These days reminded me of summer days spent at the "bridge" of Harkers Island, playing in the sand and splashing in the sound with friends, cousins, or siblings.  Just not as hot.  The warmest day in Boone this summer was barely over 80, and those days I could count on one hand.  Most of the time it was in the 70s and beautiful.

Morgan's other favorite activity is playing in the rain.  While other people here in the Appalachias were praying for the rain to stop, Morgan was pulling out her rain coat and boots and praying to the rain Gods for more rain please.  Rain makes her happier than Julian Price Park, probably because the puddles were right outside the door, no need to drive to splash and play.  And the splashing and playing happened a lot.  My favorite was sitting outside with the window open, and when she didn't know I was listening, she literally sang in the rain.  Whatever song she could think of, or more likely whatever song she could make up as she jumped and splashed in puddles, with or without her boots.  Beautiful memories for this mommy.

One of Morgan's favorite outside activities is painting with water, but then the water gets used to make mud, mud pies, mud soup, etc. so sometimes Mommy decides no more water.  On one particular day, when Mommy refused to fetch more water, Morgan noticed the sky looked like it was about to rain.  So she set up all of her empty cans and buckets on the sidewalk and patiently waited (prayed) inside for the rain to come.  And when the rain started that little girl got so excited watching her buckets fill with water, it was much better than Christmas morning!  The simplest things in life make her so happy! 

Another cool activity in July was meeting (sort of) Eric Carle, a beloved children's author and illustrator.  Morgan had recently fallen in love with the Very Hungry Caterpillar, which she can tell almost word for word, and when I learned that Eric Carle would be visiting the ASU campus, we had to go!  He autographed her book, which she will show to anyone who cares to listen, and I snapped a quick picture which actually wasn't allowed!  Oops.  Ask forgiveness, not permission, right?

At the end of July we had the chance to go to Tweetsie Railroad, a little amusement-fair type park in Blowing Rock up on the mountain.  Our friends the Rowseys have season passes and went that day as well, and my parents were here visiting and decided to go, so it was really a fun and beautiful day.  Owen did not like the cowboys and "indians" on the train, well really he disliked the gun fights, but overall he did a great job of watching everyone and sleeping in the stroller so we could have a fun family day.

Owen's poor little face hit the absolute worst that day.  He has atopic dermatitis, or eczema, which luckily we saw a dermatologist that very morning and it has cleared up amazingly since then!  Bless his little heart (that's the southern girl coming out in me!)