Summertime and the Livin's Easy, Part Deux

We hope y'all like your tea sweet and your chicken fried. Cuz you're about to get a fresh glass of iced Georgia goodness from our wraparound porch to yours.

To catch you up on our summer so far, I'll make like a true Southern Belle and talk about the weather. And my, oh my, the weather. Over the past two months, we've all but melted in the heat of the noonday sun and also the heat of the midnight moon. We've celebrated rainy days with indoor picnics, walked in the park (twice), and danced under the starlit sky.

We watched the new Batman thriller on a dark (k)night and finally lost interest in Lost (ok, just Brynn did that. Aaron has yet to find interest in it). We watched "High School Musical" One and Two (Extended Versions) over kettle corn and sour patch kids and other healthy snacks. Oh, and in case you wanted to know, I learned from my high school girls why "High School Musical" is so good. Cuz Zac Efron. Just in case you had wanted to know. That's why.

Our athleticism has been thriving: we got a TV and a couch just in time for the Olympics. Last week, we met the CEO of the Braves, either because we are so important to the world of baseball or because we were eating lunch at the same cafe as him one time. You decide.* More than once, Aaron has been called a "Yankee" by southerners and we have always responded with perfect clarity that though Aaron is from the North, he is NOT and will never be a Yankee. He is a Red Sox, if anything.

I spent a glorious week dodging chiggers and ticks at Hard Labor Creek State Park with our high school students, learning to line dance and talk country and jump into a boiling hot lake that gives you a nice coat of dirt just in case you were cold. Which you weren't. My favorite night of the week was game night. For goodness' sake, I have never seen so much chaos in all my years. Our kids were swinging from the rafters. Literally - we played a game called "Swing from the Rafters." To put it into perspective for you, the night was way more turbulent than my old youth group's bouts of "Guess the Font" ("American Typewriter Condensed!") and a little less turbulent than say, the perfect storm. But just a little.

We went white water rafting, visited White Water water park (don't go; it's dirty), did the laundry (one time), made new friends out of old ones, joined a book study and a Bible study, visited Six Flags (again), chose our life's verse (the Seven Woes), and traveled to the aquarium and back.

We invented the word Moolalah, which means (noun) "an impressive sum of money." Try and use it in a sentence today.

We took a group of ten-year-olds on a mission trip to downtown Atlanta. Aaron was invited to a "shromp bile" in N'awlins while I, I played Advanced Freeze Tag with 7-year-olds on Skid Row in Los Angeles. You might have played it**. It's the kind of Freeze Tag where 7-year-olds make up and change all the rules at any time, especially after they've just been tagged. LOVE that game…

We've eaten delicious hamburgers shaped like Texas, Texasburgers shaped like ham (I made that second one up), shrimp and grits, and all the Varsity onion rings we could carry (which was six). I've baked dainties for tea parties, gobbled several Krispy Kremes, and enjoyed the hottest hot wings this side of Ol' Mis. Or just pretended to. Either way. Fiery little suckers, those.

We've learned the Jonas brothers' favorite bubble gum flavors and promptly forgotten them. We've discovered that the oldest Jonas brother is twenty - which means, according to my gaggle of high school girls, that he's way too old to date. Way. And too famous and rich. I added those last two. Now here's the curiosity: Zac Efron - also twenty. BUT, according to the gaggle, not too old to date. It just doesn't make any sense. I guess the ancient Chinese proverb rings true:

可憐设法有道理在高中心臟的迷宮房間外面的傻瓜，特别是關於Zac Efron的那些事态的

or

"Pity the fool who tries to make sense out of the labyrinthine chambers of the high school heart, especially in those matters concerning Zac Efron."

If translated into English, then back into Chinese, then back into English again, the proverb reads: "Tries to make sense pitifully in outside the high school heart's labyrinth room fool, specially about Zac Efron these situations." I like the bit about "tries to make sense pitifully." It reminds me of something.

We saw Independence Day fireworks with millionaires and billionaires at Buckhead's ritzy Lenox Mall. We learned that the 6th best firework show in the country takes place in Atlanta. Buckhead is ranked #6A. We're guessing it's because of all that Buckhead Moolalah.

We've floated down the Chattahoochee in inner tubes – traveling at one mph for five blessed hours if it was one. We stopped saying the "T"s in Atlanta (now we just say "Alana"), got new cell phones and lost them (again, just Brynn), and became responsible adults by foregoing the adorable vintage heels I really really wanted in favor of toilet paper and light bulbs - SO excited about that. We were given a slab of raw venison as a gift, which is kind of like a gift a cat might give you and definitely the #6A best gift we have ever received.

Last week, we befriended our neighbors, which was easy because some of our friends just moved into the neighborhood. So I guess we actually beneighbored our friends.

We still have not eaten a peach.

Dinah, our flopsy topsky kittentail, has been busy too. She has tirelessly tried to establish contact with the fireflies through the window, all of whom seem rather indifferent to her efforts. Though unsuccessful with the fireflies, she was able to befriend the basil plant (who died soon thereafter), and made her peace with the new couches (which were TERRIFYING before she discovered that they are very soft to sleep on). Even so, she has tired of the old nap-eat-nap routine and has become a small-time pirate, single-handedly stealing all of our milk caps one by one. We don't know where she hides them and she'll never tell. Perhaps she's fashioning them into rudimentary eye patches.

Oh, Dinah. Indeed we will miss her when she finally departs for the high seas with her swashbuckling barge, a few choice fireflies, and all the milk caps.

And you. We miss you, too. As Zac Efron sings in "High School Musical" Two, you are the music in us. Na Na Na Na. We'd love to host you sometime here in Alana. Just hop over on a midnight train to Georgia. Or a noonday one – doesn't matter. It'll be hot either way.

Thank you, friends, for continuing to support and encourage us as we begin this exciting new chapter! And until we hear from you, we'll just keep singin' that old sweet song. We've got Georgia on our minds.

*It's the second one.
**With Aaron's cousin, Nikolai