July in a Nutshell

I know I have been a blogging slacker this month.  We have had a lot going on, which means I should have more to write about. But, as usual, time has been the issue.

We have been really blessed by family visits over this past month.  Sharon is here visiting for all of July and August, staying in a condo a few miles up the road.  The first week of the month, Jim (her Jim, as we say) was here with her, and my mom came and stayed with her the last two weeks of the month after Jim had left.  Mom just left yesterday.  Unfortunately, I don't have many good pictures of this family time.  :-(  I'm so disappointed.  But, I was just too distracted by a few of the many things we've had going on:

Trunk shows and lots of new jewelry...

...taking care of two sweet kids...

...and taking that littlest sweet kid to have tubes put in her ears.  I don't have any pictures of that either (thought about it, but it seemed weird). Suffice it to say she did really well and is much happier after just two days.

We also celebrated our ten-year anniversary with a weekend getaway to Chattanooga.  While we were there we ate tons of great food (seriously... tons), did lots of window shopping, and attended a hilarious comedy show done by Henry Chow.

On Sunday morning, we decided that we should give in to the hype and go see either Rock City, the incline, or Ruby Falls.  We were just going to do the incline, but as we headed up the hill toward Rock City, I was in tears at the beauty around me.  (I've always been like that... beautiful scenery literally takes my breath away.)  So, we paid the admission and started the hike through the mountains.  Now, if you don't really care about scenery or nature, you wouldn't love Rock City.  But me?  I thought I was getting a little glimpse of heaven.

At the top of Lover's Leap, you can see seven different states.  (Forgive the noon sun photos.)

It was a wonderful way to celebrate ten years of marriage.  We are incredibly grateful to my mom and Jim's mom for watching our kids so we could escape and focus on each other for a few days.  It was  no trip to Europe, but we'll take what we can get.  And what we got was pretty great for a two-hour drive.