summer's end

I was recently feeling disappointed in the end of summer, lamenting that August has arrived when I feel like we haven't crossed nearly enough "summer" things off of our to-do list.
It's been an odd sort of summer, cool weather and days spent cooped up in the office or huddled under an umbrella. Very odd indeed.

That being said, I was completely rejuvenated by a post I read this week by Christin Willis over at We Heart Photography.
She posts these adorable "little love stories" that I always love to read.
It was called "The Bucket List" - it immediately caught my attention because Dusty and I have an in-progress Bucket List for our last year in Lynchburg!

Christin and her hubby Jacob had a similar experience - they decided to sit down and write a summer bucket list. But by the time August came around, Christin was lamenting over the lack of strikes through their fun summer activities.
She then had a miraculous discovery: the end of summer (aka the official "first day of Fall") isn't until September 22nd. 

That means we still have a glorious month and a half of summer love in the air, and while school may be starting and everything on our summer-to-do list may not be perfect, and some things may not even happen at all...the spirit of the bucket list is much more than that.

The point is, there’s a reason you make a bucket list. The bucket list reminds you of that romanticized dream of summer (or life). It takes you back to the moment when you imagined yourself frolicking, dancing, enjoying your life. Not all of the things on the list will turn out the way you thought. It might be freezing on the scooter ride day and the bed and breakfast might be more of a bugs and breakfast; but, on the night of live music and dancing, your husband might look at you, and see the young, free-spirited girl he fell in love with, and he might just smile and think, “I am the luckiest.”

- Christin Willis, We Heart Photography

I couldn't have put it any better myself!

I'm off to plan that sunset hike, and try and see when we can spend a day floating lazily down the James river...

august stampede

Remember that time when summer never came?

Today is August 1st and I'm caught completely off guard. 

It's another cloudy day, and my mind is still in May. I feel as if we've skipped the summer months, arriving straight into Fall. 

I can count the number of times I've said "it's hot!" on one hand. And a few of them were just because I was checking on the biscuits in the oven. 

I don't know what to do with this kind of summer. It's been a great few months, don't get me wrong - but it feels like it all just went by in a blur! We didn't have any days at the beach, we didn't grill hardly at all because it rained so often, we never took a weekend for the lake, and we didn't have any grand summertime vacations with pina colada smoothies and sunburns.

Overall, it just feels like summer never came.

Top: Modcloth, Skirt: LOFT, Necklace: Francesca's (similar)

That being said, August has its own kind of magic spark.
With summer coming to an end, every single day is full of desperate possibility.

The countdown begins - 18 days until the beginning of school!
For us, that's 18 days until the last first day of school. The beginning of the end of our law school days.

I can't begin to express my feelings about this coming year, now that we've officially crossed over into less than a year until we wrap up our time in Lynchburg and prepare to move back to Arizona. Back to our blessed summer heat and our families.
Arizona, where the summers are real and gritty and bright and endless.

So cheers...to the first and very last of our summers that never came.