Friday again! That means I’m linking up with Jeannett at Life Rearranged, sharing moments I’ve captured on my phone throughout the week. I’m @courttoney on instagram if you would like to follow along day to day.

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Flags flags flags! I’ve had 12 custom flags ship over the past week, so it’s been flag land over here. I loved these four pretties:

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In the middle of a crazy week, the Inspired By This girls made my day when they told me I had won ice cream from Sweet Lucie’s! I’m so excited- this stuff is delicious! Isaiah had his mind blown when I told him we would be getting ice cream in the mail :)

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There is not much cuter than a 5 year old in catcher’s gear. People agree- this is my most liked photo ever on instagram & facebook.

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This big ugly contraption is not my favorite. It takes up a bunch of space in our small back yard. Did I mention it is ugly and huge? However- I put it up with it because my husband makes some delicious food in there. Last weekend, he made pulled pork and it was super yummy. (It’s a smoker if you are wondering. And, not only do we have this huge contraption, but also a big BBQ. And my husband wanted a charcoal grill back there too…)

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My husband had never seen The Sound of Music. Crazy, right? Like he had no idea what it was about. He kept picturing Heidi :)  So, for date #12 out of 50 (more info on our date plan here) we watched it! Along with homemade ice cream sandwiches.

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The verdict: he liked it! Way more than he thought he would like an old musical :)

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The countdown to Italy is on! 10 rings left on Isaiah’s countdown chain:

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Isaiah loves Star Wars. Isaiah loves drawing and painting. Put them together: Isaiah’s newest art installment:

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We finally took Isaiah’s training wheels off yesterday. Up until 6 months ago, we lived on a super hilly street with no sidewalk. Nowhere to ride a bike except in circles on our back porch. We would take him to the park occasionally, but he really did not have that much opportunity to ride his bike. When we moved to our new opportunity, we were all stoked that there is tons of room for him to ride his bike and he has been loving it. He was really nervous about taking the training wheels off though, until he watched a special agent oso episode where they taught a boy to ride without them. Then he had to take them off that. very. minute.

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He did pretty good! I’m thankful my husband is so patient and such a great teacher.

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Happy weekend! I’m off to attempt to get all of our orders done so I can focus on getting ready for Italy next week!

This deal is too good not to share!

You may remember me sharing photos of Isaiah with the cardboard rocket ship he got for Christmas a while back. The same one is on sale on Gilt today for only $14! Even with the shipping added, it’s just over $20, which is a great deal as it is normally $50!

It was pretty easy to assemble (comes all folded up in a skinny box) and Isaiah loved coloring it and playing in it. It stayed up for almost a month and now we have it stored away flat in the garage. It would make a great gift for any little kids!

Things usually sell pretty fast on Gilt, so hop over and grab one before it’s too late. If you are not a gilt member yet, it’s really easy to sign up.

**This is not a sponsored post. We just love the rocket ship, so I thought I’d share it with you all!**

I know I say this a lot, but I cannot believe that it is Friday again! This week has been fun but crazy (just ask the half painted bookshelf that has been hanging out in my garage since last Saturday…)

On Fridays, I share my instagram photos from the week both to recap life (a little scrapbook of sorts) and to link up with Jeannett at Life Rearranged.

Happy day after Valentine’s Day!

Last Saturday, we had dinner with friends and ended the night making ice cream with liquid nitrogen (thanks to my friend’s husband). It was really cool- definitely the first time I can say that dessert came from a science experiment :)

They approve of the ice cream:

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I don’t have a picture of this, but my husband preached on Sunday at our church. It was awesome! If you want to hear his sermon, you can hear it here.

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That night, my husband and I had date #5 out of 50 (our goal is 50 dates in 2013!). My husband, who is an incredible cook, made my favorite pasta from scratch. Here he is teaching Isaiah how to make the pasta dough:

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Side note: Daveed had always wanted to learn to make his own pasta. For Christmas 2 years ago, I signed him up for a class at Sur La Table. He loved it and has been making me fresh pasta ever since. The gift that keeps giving back to me :)

It takes a looooong time, so we fed the kids and then had our own dinner after the kids were asleep. He also made us tasty drinks and artichokes and we watched the Grammys while enjoying our amazing meal. Thanks babe for being awesome!

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Isaiah watched Mary Poppins for the first time (one of my childhood favorites!) and when the song “Step in Time” came on, he couldn’t help but get up and dance all over the house. It was hilarious!

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He found this book at the library and is so stoked to get crafting:

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The first line of the book is “may the glue gun be with you”.   :)

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Living in San Diego is great. It was 75 and beautiful today. I thought about going to the beach. In February. Also, there are so many cool things for kids to do here. All of the kindergarteners from Isaiah’s school got to go to Sea World this week for a field trip. He talked about it for weeks leading up to it and I am sure we will be hearing about it for weeks to come.

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I am so glad that I got to go with him. He held my hand often and wasn’t embarrassed in front of his friends. I know that is going to change some day, so I fully enjoyed his excitement over me being there.

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Isaiah’s valentines:

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I call this giving the kid what he wants while still making it crafty and homemade. I saw the idea on the blog Inchmark and he loved it, only to find (2 days before valentine’s day) that there was no downloadable template. Enter superdad and his photoshop skills.

At first, the perfectionist in me cringed a bit when Isaiah wanted to color all over them. I loved his sweet little hearts though. Makes star wars a bit cuter :)

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Valentine’s Week breakfast:

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The day before Valentine’s Day, we headed up to Santa Barbara to visit my husband’s grandma. She’s been sick and Valentine’s Day was her 85th birthday, so it was really special to be able to see her and share some love. The boys love their GG.

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When I married my husband, it was a great added plus that I got a grandma. I grew up without any grandparents, so it has been really special to get a grandma in my 20′s. She is wonderful and treats me as her own. We love you grandma!

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Thanks to my wonderful mother in law, we got to sneak away for the night and had brunch for our Valentine’s date (also date #6 of 50). Breakfast was delicious and we even had enough time to walk around State Street and shop a bit.

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I am so thankful for my man.

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It was a whirlwind trip, as we were back home less than 36 hours from when we left. Fun and good, but I am glad to be back at home, ready for a mellow weekend.

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I hope the love of Valentine’s Day spills over into the weekend for you friends!

I’m glad it’s Friday today. I’m not going to lie, this week wasn’t my favorite. It wasn’t terrible, but we had some rough days. I am very much looking forward to the rainy day today and the weekend.

And I’m excited that it’s friday because it means I get to link with Jeannett at Life Rearranged for InstaFriday! I didn’t post that many pictures on instagram this week- not because there were not lots of sweet and fun moment this week because there were (dinner with friends, including Hudson discovering barbies, superbowl with more friends, visits from both of the boys grandmas, going to an Andrew Peterson concert) but because I just didn’t take many pictures :)

Here are the moments I did capture:

Date night #4/50: For our 4th date of the year, my husband took me out for dessert and drinks. At a car dealership. Yep. Our local Lexus dealership is huge, shiny and new and has a really nice restaurant on the roof. Definitely on the random side, but it was tasty & comfy by the fire pits :)

On saturday, our 5 year old started tee ball. We are officially baseball parents. Crazy. He absolutely loves it!

Our we *heart* winter party was featured on Hostess with the Mostess this week. So fun!

On tuesday, both boys had a hard day. Meaning: they made the day hard for me. It started with this little curly haired guy deciding that I should not take a shower. He threw a tantrum the whole time I was in there- opening the shower curtain, resulting in a soaking wet hudson and a soaking wet bathroom. After my cold shower, he then decided that he did not like the fact that I needed to get ready or dry my hair either. It was not a quiet hour in my house.

But he’s just so cute. Even in the midst of his whining and crying.

I have had a few customers order custom  mini banners for their banner stands they purchased at the Queen Bee Market, which is so fun! (I do have a couple available in my etsy shop and can make any custom banner for these).

Hudson & I snuck outside to play a bit before the rain came this morning:

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

A while back, I shared my youngest son Hudson’s navy and apple green preppy nursery. I just realized this week that I never shared his older brothers room, so I’m back today to do just that!

When we moved Isaiah into his big boy bed & new room when he was 3, I could not find any bedding I really liked that wasn’t ridiculously expensive. While brainstorming what I wanted to the design to be, I kept coming back to argyle. I have always called Isaiah my little man because, for some reason, he just has that aire to him. He’s always had a big head with tons of hair and has a quirky personality and mischievous little grin. From birth, I have dressed him in old man sweaters (with the patches on the sleeves) and argyle socks & shirts. I decided that would be a fun way to go with his room.

I felt like something was still missing though- like I needed one more unique element. Enter my husband’s love of records and the fact that music is a huge part of our family. It fit the retro/old man theme well and was a cheap way to add some decor in, so I went with it.

His bed was a hand-me-down from my cousin which we painted black. My mom and I made his duvet cover out of two flat sheets I bought at walmart for dollars each. We sewed the large turquoise diamonds on and then I hand stitched the orange diamonds. It took FOREVER and I was driving myself crazy being anal about strait stitches and lines, but I am so happy with how it turned out. Two years later, it is still holding up beautifully. I looked high and low for some simple striped sheets and ended up finding some at a KMart in the mountains for $12!

I also designed the curtain and pillow and my mom (who is a great seamstress) sewed them for me. The guitar pillow was a gift for his first birthday (it was from pottery barn kids) and his octopus (his lovey) is from the sadly gone Baby Style. The orange laundry basket (shown in the top picture) is from Land of Nod.

Since we were renting, my husband did not want me to paint the walls (I had to plead with him to let me do the stripes in Hudson’s room & I won!), I got a vinyl wall piece off of etsy (from seller Beep Art). It was an easy and cheap way to add some punch to the white walls. Little table & chairs are from Ikea and I happened upon the perfect little houndstooth box at Michaels.

His bookshelf was thrifted & painted. Lamp from Pottery Barn Kids & piggy bank from Target. The Robot on the shelf was a baby shower gift for our younger son, but I had to steal it for Isaiah’s room since it matched so perfectly! I stuck a vintage Music Man record on the shelf that I found at The Queen Bee Market along with Isaiah’s baseball signed by Heath Bell.

The three records on the wall I stole from my parent’s vintage record collection. They were all scratched badly, so listening to them wasn’t an option, so they made perfect wall art! The albums are:  The Beatles, The original sountrack from The Wizard of Oz, and one from Elvis. I put them in record frames from Michaels with solid color card stock behind them.

We’ve moved since these pictures were taken and I so badly miss those amazing built in cabinets (our old house was a 1945 cottage). His room is pretty much the same now in our new house, just a bit smaller and with legos all over the place. I think that everything total cost me under $80- which was the most awesome part.

Look at how little he looks! And this was less than a year ago- so crazy! Stop growing up kid!

There are still two hours left of Friday, so I am sneaking in an InstaFriday post just in time :)  Linking up with the lovely Jeannett at Life Rearranged to record some of my favorite moments from the past week (errr… two weeks… because I missed last Friday…)

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So, after the washing machine breaking, the shower shattering and my whole family having strep throat, I was ready for a break. Thanks to my parents and my wonderful neices, the hubs and I got to sneak away for two nights to Big Bear with one of  my husband’s best friends and his wife. It was my big gift to my husband for Christmas and was SUCH a needed break- we had so much fun! Snowboarding together also counted as date #2 out of 50 in 2013 (for more info on that, check out my last instafriday post).

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After a great day snowboarding, resting & reading, we had a tasty dinner to celebrate Sean’s 30th birthday

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Back home, our house decided to kick us down again. Plumbing issues. Like water coming from the ceilings in the bathroom and no toilets flushing issues. When my husband was out of town. And I was supposed to leave for the weekend in an hour. 9 hours later… the plumbers were gone, everything was fixed, and I was scrubbing crap off the walls with a toothbrush. Literally. So I definitely deserved these before falling into bed:

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These two sweet faces were so good that day- which helped me retain the ounce of sanity I had left.

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My husband is the sweetest and left me this note the other day:

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And after finishing reading Gone Girl today, I am extra thankful for my amazing husband. And that I’m not crazy. All good things.

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This kid got his first loose tooth last week. I got tears.

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We had our winter party last weekend. I’ll post more photos and details on Monday, but here is a sneak peak for now:

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Father-son carrom game. Melts me. And, yes, that is Isaiah’s favorite new shirt. (thanks grandma!)

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I got to recreate the suite from Hudson’s first birthday party for two customers. Such a fun set of banners, mini banners & cupcake toppers. One of the birthday boys even had the same name as my hudson! So random.

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Date #3/50 in 2013: a mellow, at home dinner after the kids were asleep (mainly due to the fact that my husband now had major bronchitis. a week after having strep throat. fun times). My hubby is an incredible cook- he can throw together a pasta like no one else I know. This was a bolognese sauce he made from scratch, including bacon, caramelized onions and aged balsamic. It was so good! After we had dinner, we sat around talking for the rest of the evening. Such a sweet quiet night together!

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I made the largest happy birthday banner I’ve ever made: over 18 feet long! It was a special order for the OC  mart mix’s anniversary celebration.

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Hey dude- no drinking & driving.

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Any time it rains, Isaiah requests hot chocolate. Even if it’s 80 degrees and just barely sprinkling. At his request, my husband made the best hot chocolate and whipped cream from scratch last night. Seriously the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. Apparently, I should have just titled this post “let me tell you how rad my husband is”.

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And- with that- I’m off to bed. Trying to fight off the bronchitis mr amazing husband passed on to me :)

Happy weekend!

Happy November everyone! I love november- it finally feels like fall here in So Cal, thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays and it’s my birthday month :)

To celebrate, I am offering a 15% discount on all items in my etsy shop! Just enter the coupon code YAYNOVEMBER when checking out. Holiday banners will be posted after the next Queen Bee Market, which is November 16th & 17th.

We had a wonderful halloween. Low-key, fun and the boys were SO cute! Here are my captain hook & mr smee:

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Arrrrrr.

Now that Hudson is over a year and a half old, I thought today would be a good day to finally share his nursery. Seeing as we have moved and he no longer lives in it…

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When I first started designing his room, the only thing I knew I wanted was thick navy and white stripes on the wall. My husband hates painting walls, so it was a mini-miracle that I convinced him to paint them :)  It quickly became my favorite wall in the house. When I was having a long night with Hudson, just looking at the wall would strangely bring me a bit of joy.

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His room was the smallest in our 1945 cottage-style house, so it was a bit crammed, but lovely. Because of this, I wanted to keep his decor simple and not cluttery and decided to go with a navy, white and apple green peppy decor scheme.

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I could not find any crib bedding I liked, which happened with Isaiah as well, so my mom and I made our own. I loved how it turned out!

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Of course, I had to make him a banner:

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I miss his sweet built in closet and the great view from his window. If you are wondering why the window is broken, these were taken during this incident.

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In our new house, his room is bigger and pretty much the same, with the major exception of my beloved striped wall. I could not convince my hubby (or our landlord) that it was necessary to undertake the stripe painting again :(

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Sources for everything in the room:

Crib, striped laundry basket, baby & diaper bins, valences & navy side table: Pottery Barn Kids

Bed skirt, quilt & pillow: me & my mama

Banner: me :)

Crib sheet: Serena & Lily

Changing table & glider: thrifted & renovated

ABC print: Sparkle Power (etsy)

Lamp: Target

Hudson hanger: LilaFrances (etsy)

Wonderfully made print: Blossom & Vine (etsy)

Porter the puppy stuffed chair: BabyStyle (still mourning it’s closing…)

Giant push pins: Walmart

I came across this on Lay Baby Lay (which is an awesome nursery style blog!) and it was such a good reminder for me today:

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With Isaiah in school now and Hudson becoming a full on toddler, I am more aware than ever of the craziness of them growing up quickly. Even on the hard days, I try to remind myself to enjoy every little moment I have with my two little blessings.

At the beginning of the summer, Isaiah and I made a list of all of the fun things we wanted to do this summer. He was way more into it than I thought he would be- making sure we did everything and that we checked off each activity immediately after completing it.

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A list-maker by nature, I loved how it helped me be strategic and purposeful with our days and weeks. I am looking forward to continuing this tradition year after year!

Here is our list:

1. Go to the Lake

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2. Join & complete the library’s kids summer book club

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3. Go to the beach

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4. Make glow in the dark bubbles (attempted twice… not very successful)

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5. Swim in the pool (a whole bunch!)

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6. Walk to get ice cream

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7. Go camping

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8. Sea World

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9. Make cookies for a friend

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10. Attend Vacation Bible School at church

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11. Have a slumber party with a friend

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12. Watch fireworks

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13. Go on a hike

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14. Make our own ice cream

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15. Go to a museum

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16. Sidewalk chalk

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17. Have a picnic

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18. Go to the movies

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19. Play tag

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20. Beach bonfire

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21. Play with water balloons

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22. Go to a Padres game

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23. Have a science experiment day

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24. Go to the Orange County Fair

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25. Have a movie festival (Isaiah added this one- it consisted of watching Peter Pan and making popcorn :)  )

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26. Slip n slide in the front yard

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27. Make milk shakes (also added by the ice cream loving 4 year old)

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28. Have smores in the backyard

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29. Swim lessons

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30. Go to the park

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31. Ride on a boat

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32. Ride a train

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What a wonderful summer it was! We are so blessed and I am thankful for the opportunities we had to make these memories.

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Now, bring on the fall!