July already?! We are completely and undeniably in the middle of summer. The crazy thing is that the last month was so hectic that it is almost like it never happened, or that I blinked and we hopped straight from mid May to the beginning of July. A few big things happened in June. The kids graduated preschool, one of my best friends had a brand new baby … and we officially 100% decided that we were going to move – and with that we embarked on a crazy break-neck pace plan to re-floor the new house before the move. Between all the moving plans and packing plans and cabinet painting we’ve been doing (more on that soon!) and the interviewing and hiring of contractors, we’re flat out exhausted. But the 365 must go on! I am absolutely determined not to fall behind this year and I haven’t skipped a day of photo-taking yet. June was a fairly iphone-heavy month but hopefully I’ll turn that around in the next few weeks.

So here’s to June… the month so crazy I can’t even remember it. And here’s hoping that July is just a little more subdued.

This week’s photo post is a few days late, but with good reason. On Tuesday evening while we were getting the kids ready for bed, Paul managed to break my nose. I’ve not broken a single bone in my body my entire life up until this point, so it came as a bit of a surprise. Needless to say bedtime was interrupted. It was one of the moments when I’m most glad that family lives nearby, my mom came to watch the kids while Ben brought me to urgent care. I’ve been a bit tired and sore and out of it ever since, but the swelling and bruising have gone down considerably.

In other news, summer appears to be officially sneaking up on us – the weather is warmed up enough to start turning the bedroom ceiling fans on and the kids have only a few short weeks left of preschool before they “graduate” and are off for the summer. It still hasn’t fully sunk in that in just a few short months they will be in Kindergarten. How fast time flies.

The past week has been the definition of whirlwind, but in the very best possible way. We flew with the whole family, including my parents, to Disney World for five nights… and then back again. When we were planning out the trip I wondered if it might not be enough days to justify the plane ride. After all, five hours on a plane with three kids under five? Yikes! Especially now that they don’t really serve (or even sell) real food onboard. The funny thing is that even while having the time of their lives (and they did!) the kids were still totally ready to go home by the end of our last full day in Florida. It turned out to be perfectly timed. And I have to say, now that we are back… there really is no place like home.

This past weekend was my niece Natalie’s birthday and to help celebrate I flew up to San Francisco for her party. Everyone kept saying that we brought the warm weather with us from down south, it was so warm (almost downright hot) and there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky… perfect weather for an outdoor party! Happy Birthday miss Natalie! I love you!

This week’s photos started with a bang and finished with a blur. How is it that each and every week seems faster than the last?! I realized at the beginning of last week that we were about to hit day 100 – and started getting nostalgic about what I’d been doing on April 10 back during the very first of my project 365s in 2007. As it turns out I was doing one of my very first light paintings and using Ben as a guinea pig. Exhibit A from 2007:

I thought it might be fun to do another light painting to commemorate the 100th day (I haven’t given up, hooray!)

My favorite part about compiling weekly 365 posts is seeing all that we DID in the last week. Sometimes I can’t believe that we managed to fit so many projects and ideas into a single week. It’s been so beautiful out and our yard was getting a little (a lot) out of control on the weed front, so we spent a lot of time trying to tame the jungle that has sprung up on our back hill. It’s kind of an endless task but it makes me feel so accomplished to see an entire trash can full of weeds (yeah, it’s totally out of control back there). Plus doing one project always starts an improvement snowball for me – the yard was looking so much better that I finally decided it was time to hang the string lights I bought something like two months ago. They are just a few inexpensive sets of lights but they have literally changed our lives (I know, lights, really?) They are so pretty that they make me want to spend more time outside. We’ve been eating almost all of our dinners out under the lights and even trading in some mindless phone-staring after the kids’ bedtime for bundled up conversations out on the patio. Totally worth every last penny.

I don’t know what it is about the last week, it’s been hard for me to pick up my digital SLR. I have had no problem getting excited about shooting with film, but that takes at least a week to come back from the lab, so I haven’t figured out a good way to incorporate it into a 365. The only way I could get them up quickly would be if I just learned how to develop it at home. I used to develop my own black and white film way back in high school and I’ve had the itch to try it out again, maybe it’s time to take the leap. For now, I’m filling in the gaps of my film-only days with some iphone snaps. I just sent in a few rolls of portra and I can’t wait to get them back and see how they came out.