good.

i only blogged once in may. fail.

we just came back down from the mountains. then we came up to dc. now we're home, and it's hot. really hot. and it's the first day in june. this is going to be a long summer. luke and i were talking about the hot and i said:

"well, at least it's still at the point where i still get a little chilly at night and have to use a sheet. one day it will always be hot..."

"like when we're abroad..." luke answered.

"oh, yeah...that too. i was talking about like august..."

i forget sometimes when i'm complaining about the heat that we're going to be moving to a place where the yearly average temperatures are in the 80s...

anyways, point being we just came home. home, where it's hot and noisy and i spend most of my days gardening and talking to old Mr. Williams who gives me cold water and gardening advise and reminds me of my Pappap. i like our community garden, and the way it's green and brown and smells of hay and mulch and compost. most days, i feel like i belong here and i'm quite happy.

i wanted to share some pictures with you from our trip. mainly because the mountains make me feel closer to God, and i want to show you pictures because it reminds me of feeling closer to God. when i'm away, at the mountains or at the ocean, i have no problem waking up early to stare at the mountains and think about how awesome God is. so i spent my time this week on rocking chairs with God, hiking through the mountains with family, running/walking/exploring with sisters and watching way too many bones episodes. we played games, made s'mores, ate food, walked around, petted our dog and watched sunsets and sunrises. it was a pretty good week.

we started out the week at Christie's graduation. it was a pretty time, and they had stickers for the whole family to wear!


then we headed up to the mountains. where they had bluegrass music (that little girl totally rocked out the entire time...)

and steel drum bands from the local high school playing in the community square (kind of random, but they were awesome).

this was definitely the view from our porch (see how it's easy to worship God while looking at that?)
and this is Christie playing the uke on a rocking chair while looking at the view from our house (i seriously have the most talented sisters. ever. they played and sang on that porch like nothing else...)
then we drove/hiked to see all of boone. and it was pretty.

and the next day we went adventuring (down some pretty steep paths...) to look for waterfalls.

(don't we look like adventurers?)

and we found a lot of them (but the pictures do not do them justice).

(did i mention that the view from our porch looked like THIS?!).

we watched the sun set...




and the sun rise*...


and we went on more hikes to the very tops of mountains.





then we got all gussied up for a nice dinner.


and we watched the moon rise. (seriously, the moon was HUGE.)


and then we watched the sun rise again.

(that cloud above the sun is definitely about to catch on fire...)

and after all of that perfectness i got to go watch Abby get married.

yes, it was a good week.


*my mom and i got up wicked early to go find the perfect spot to watch the sunrise on the blue ridge parkway. we found some gorgeous photo spots, but when we got back to the house my mom realized that you could see it perfectly fine from our sun room. the second set of sunrise pictures was taken from the house. but i'm still glad i got to chase the sunrise with my mom.