Summer Shindigs

I haven't updated BeEmbraced for a while because the long summer days always seems to fill up quickly! Here are some of the highlights from the past couple of weeks:

Baby Shower Fun
I joined in with some of my friends to throw my friend Annie and her husband Eric a baby shower! The weather was gorgeous and perfect for the outside BaBy-Q!

The hostesses with the Mama-to-be: Meredith, me, Annie, Kelley, and Jill 

Since I'm not the crafty one, I stuck to helping make some of the food and set-up/clean-up.

The entrance to the backyard BaBy-Q

John and I also read Annie and Eric some questions about parenting, and they had to guess which one of them it applied to - without looking at each other's answer! For instance, "Who's most likely to cry on her first day of preschool?" or "Who's most likely to give her second helpings of dessert?"

John and I laughing at the answers!

Surprise Half Birthday
Yes, you read that right! John surprised me for my half birthday since it's always hard for us to celebrate on the real date of December 28th. A bunch of our friends came over for game night, but little did I know that my friends Becca and Anna had brought over gluten/dairy free desserts for everyone in order to celebrate me! As an added bonus, I beat John in a "sudden death" match to lead the girls' team to victory during our game night :)

Some of the girls at game night!

Beach Visit #1
On our way to spend the week of July 4th with my parents at the beach, we made a well worth it detour to visit my Nana in St. Pete. I spent a lot of summers at her house in Pass-a-Grille, and I was so excited to share some old memories with John! Nana and I cooked a meal together, and then we all headed down to enjoy the sunset.

Nana and I enjoying the sunset

The next day, John and I biked all around the island, stopping at all of the places I used to go to growing up. We spent some time at the beach before heading to lunch with Nana at the Don CeSar and stopping by Uncle Andy's for ice cream afterward!

John's monster ice cream cone

Beach Visit #2 
From there we headed across Florida's coast to Vero Beach, where we spent the week with my family enjoying the surf and sand. Lots of reading, relaxing, great food, and game nights! For the 4th, John put on a big firework display (it's become a yearly tradition) that we all enjoyed!

Stay tuned for more updates from this summer...