Recent summer life...

... has been full of fun things! Fun with friends, family, and lots of time in the sunshine. I feel like we're trying to squeeze every last drop of summer-fun out summer while we can. Our swimsuits are getting plenty of use lately!

Over the weekend we ventured down to New Braunfels to hang out with my parents. We relaxed by my dad's pool and played some Brooks-Badminton and then that evening hung out with my momma and had a feast of home cooked deliciousness. It had been soooo long since we'd had the chance to get down to NB to see family, it was good to be home!

We spent yesterday with Brendon's momma and his little brother at good old Schlitterbahn. We had a blast! It had been years since we had been and it was neat to see what's changed and what hasn't. I used to spend many summers there growing up, but have only been a few times in my "adult" (and I use that term loosely) years. It's still so fun! Especially with Brendon's brother AJ, he brought out the kids in us! And the engineering behind all that nonsense they have there blows my mind. They sure do know how to to work their water. And somehow all day I managed to not get sunburned! Must have been that spf 70, gotta protect my paleness.

Last night the weather was phenomenal. Actually all day it was pretty dang great, considering the extreme heat that Texas has been giving us lately. There was an awesome cool breeze floating around, I think it was our first little taste of fall. Goodness I can't wait! My favorite season is almost here! Although I'll be sad to say farewell to my sundresses.. sweaters and cardigans, y'all. Can't wait to wear them.

Father's Day

This weekend was full of celebrating the fathers in our family. My mom, sister, Brendon, and I spent Saturday in Houston with my grandpa and aunt, uncle, and cousins. It was great to see the Houston gang of our family! We had some pretty good barbeque at this 50's style place. It was cute!

Gettin' down on some BBQ!

Sunday we spent the day playing in the sun, celebrating this crazy guy:

Weird dude huh? I love you daddio, thanks for being there always and for being constantly ridiculous. I think I inherited a lot of the weirdness.

Brendon and my dad worked on Brendon's Jeep. What a guy thing to do right? The good news is the front end doesn't look so wonky anymore!

We played some badminton, by our own rules. My sister is taking a class this summer so she was the guru, but we kind of made it up as we went along. My dad had a little court set up, complete with spray painted boundary lines. It was fun! And I wasn't as terrible as I thought. Long arms come in handy with this sorta stuff I guess.

It was a beautiful day, and the pool felt great. My sisters dog Ava loved the pool. She was in it all day long. That dog had to have been a fish in another life.

 What a cute pool boy!

 Ava trying to save my life, aka drown me.

 Chillin' hard.

Puppy and Cassie (chillin' in the doorway) felt a little left out, they couldn't hang with Ava's energy.

And check these guys out!

 

There was a little bird nest on top of one of the outdoor speakers! There were 3 or 4 baby birds in there, they were so ugly but so cute. They were jamming out to some disco tunes.

This weekend was nice. Family, fun, and relaxation. After this wild week it was nice to get out of town for a couple days! I could get used to having weekends off... Oh, if only!

The candle experiment

I made candles! It was an interesting experience for sure, and luckily for you guys I documented it all in case you're ever in the mood to make your own. I briefly googled making candles but for the most part I just guessed and hoped for the best. I think I was fairly successful!

 This is the stuff I used: white wax crystals, assorted jars that I had (you probably have great ones in your fridge! We have an awesome pickle jar I was eying, but it's currently occupied by pickles), crayons to dye the wax (I was going for a warmer color scheme), scented oil if you'd like (I used "gingerbread and maple syrup" yummy!), and wicks with the metal things on the bottom. I got the wax, oil, and wicks from Hobby Lobby.

 You'll also need a double boiler set up. This is my ghetto arrangement. Pot on top of pot and it was definitely not level but it worked... until it came to pouring the wax. At Hobby Lobby they have little canisters with a spout/pouring thing made for making candles. If I ever got serious I'd get one because the wax went everywhere when I tried to pour it out of the pan. But messy is a lifestyle, and I'm living it, so no biggie for me. Oh! DEFINITELY put some wax paper down to catch the drips, spills, etc. And then you can peel off the extra wax to use again later!

At this point I was like, "omg they lied, this is clear wax!" because it becomes literally colorless as it melts, but it definitely cools white. I would have rather used colorless wax because this it gave my candles as pastel-milky look which is fine, but I was going for something brighter.

Here's the wax after I added the crayons. It looks like tomato soup! I used half a red orange crayon, half a yellow, and half a violet red. Then I added the scent, I used about 60 drops of oil. Not sure how much you're supposed to add but I'm all about fragrance, so I loaded up.

Unfortunately there is no documentation of me pouring the wax because that was a hot mess, wax everywhere. These are the candles after pouring the wax in. They go through a few color changes; at first the wax is brighter when it's liquid, then white-ish, then it darkens a bit as it cools. I used straws to help hold the wicks in place. Originally I had the wicks in first before pouring the wax in but I found it was easier to just add them after the wax is in the candle. With one bag of the white crystals I got these two candles. It didn't go quite as far as I thought.

 This was my next round, I used the left over spilled wax from the first round, half a yellow crayon and a whole dandelion crayon. Don't you love crayon names! Remember robin's egg blue?? I love crayons.

 This big candle used up the whole batch. Hopefully it burns slowly. You can really see the color change here!

All finished! They did the weirdest thing as they cooled, they kind of sunk in around the wick. I'm guessing it's from air in the wax or something. I don't know how you'd avoid that problem, I'm sure candle making pros have a solution.

All in all I'd call it a learning experience, it was fun but messy. It cost me $12 for the supplies from Hobby Lobby, so I'm not sure if it was worth it cost-wise since I only got three candles out of it and two of them are small. I'm sure you can buy wax in bulk for a better deal though if you got super serious. We'll see how they burn, if they smell really amazing I might keep this up.

In other un-candle news, today is a pool day! When Brendon gets home from work we're blowing up some floaties and lounging in the pool. Hopefully we don't die of heat exhaustion!