July Craziness

After climbing in Spearfish, it's been non-stop busy for me.  I decided that in order to keep my sanity, I would only really keep up on instagram (and occasionally facebook) and take a hiatus from writing on the blog.  This was partly because I was gone 4 days every weekend, and partly because I've been so busy that knitting has taken a back seat this summer.
Instead, here's what I've been up to this last month!

Almost every weekend, I've been trying to get down to the lake to enjoy time with family.  It's really cool that as I get older, I want to spend more time with my ridiculous family members.  And one really awesome thing- my brother got engaged!  We're adding a Kendra to my immediate family, and I couldn't be happier with my almost-sister-in-law!

(Myself, Brit, and Kendra hanging out on the lake!)
I spent my Mon-Thu teaching a summer term course at my college, which was really intense and really fast-paced.  Luckily, I had time in the afternoon to do a few awesome activities...

like picking strawberries with my friend Alex...

and passing the last navigation dive for my Advanced Diver Certification!  It feels SO cool to know that I've passed, and I have over a dozen dives under my belt- half of them in Lake Superior!  Diving scares the crap out of me, so getting to a point that I'm finally feeling a little more comfortable underwater is incredible!
My last two weekends have been filled with wedding related parties for one of my best college friends, Lady Lust!

Her rehearsal at Pizza Luce in downtown was delicious...

and I got to help assemble everything from bouquets to boutineers to drawing names and dates on hangers.

The wedding was fantastic, and one of the best parts was being able to hang out with all my old college friends that I haven't seen in far too long.  My old roommates Mark and Larissa attempted to coerce me to move down to the cities so I can hang out with them more often.  It was hard to say no!

I'm so glad I was part of Kate's special day, and it only fueled my desire to see them all more often!
I ended the weekend hanging out with my family, as my Dad flew up from Florida for a couple of weeks of MN summer awesomeness!  We did an entire day on Sunday on the water, touring the entire Lake Minnetonka area and jumping in whenever it got too hot out (which was just about every bay).  I've really missed having my dad around, and having all of the family together was fantastic.

I drove back to Duluth late Sunday, and last night was a special performance by my summer tap dance students down on the Duluth Boardwalk!

We performed the song we'd been working on the last few weeks, and the girls performed amazingly!  None of them seemed nervous, it looked like they had fun, and we even had a good size crowd!
Tonight is my last night of summer dance, and tomorrow I'll be taking my Mom, Dad, brother, and Kendra out on the Superior Hiking Trail for a couple of days of backpacking.  From there, back to the lake for the weekend, then a day of dance camp, then on Tuesday I'm off for a 10-day climbing trip in Colorado with two of my best friends!
Things don't seem like they're going to slow down until school starts at the end of August, but I'll attempt to do a better job of shorter posts with pics more often.
And maybe- just maybe- some finished knitting projects. ;)