hey, stranger

it sure has been quiet around my blog lately (sorry about that!) – however it’s been anything but quiet in my day to day.  let’s recap over the past few months, shall we?

in late may we rescued a second scottie pup, now known as “zelda.” she’s about as hellish as she is adorable, and smart as a whip. aside from still getting the hang of potty training, she’s an amazing and sweet addition to the furry family!

shortly after zelda’s adoption, we embarked on our much anticipated trip to my old stomping grounds in wisconsin. i had an amazing time revisiting old familiar places, experiencing some others for the first time (hello, point brewery!) and, of course, seeing old friends.  it was nice to be able to show tyler this place i hold so dear. our friends ben and ruby were kind enough to put us up for almost a week and we enjoyed boating on the chain o’lakes, bonfires and cookouts, wandering around madison and sampling the local cuisine. and by cuisine, i mean everything we could find drenched in beer and cheese. as it should be!

one of my gifts from tyler for our 5 year anniversary was a trip to philadelphia to see one of our favorite NPR shows, radiolab.  we spent the day ducking in and out of bars, shops and restaurants to avoid the oppressive heat.  two of our favorites were the reading market (which we had visited before and LOVED, of course) and tria.  tria was a happy surprise where we enjoyed a long, leisurely early dinner of amazing various cheeses, beer and wine.  when the show finally started, it was quite an experience! a truly moving couple of hours. if you get a chance to see their show as it travels live across the country, do it. you won’t regret it. or, at least, you won’t if you’re into life, science and big questions broken down into easy, understandable and digestable bites that tend to tug at your heart strings ;)

this past weekend we made the trek out to our annual deep creek lake family vacation. as usual, it didn’t disappoint!  and what was even better was we were able to bring along the fur babies for the first time ever.  hiking, camaraderie, great food, and – of course – boating!  it was a first for bean and zelda (who played it safe in their dapper life vests.)

all in all, life (and summer) are treating us well.  somewhere in the middle we’ve been able to juggle wedding prep, work and (sparingly) some down time.

this month i celebrated my 1 year anniversary of self employment (yay!) and next month is my 5 year etsyversary. a big summer for my shop! stay tuned for a giveaway early next month and some other exciting news at the end of july :) and, if you’re an instagram addict like me (obviously), let’s follow each other! i’m jerseymaids on there as well.

in the meantime, enjoy these warm and sunny days!