LKN

You know those stickers that people put on the back of their cars with 3 letters in a circle?

OBX is Outerbanks and NMB is North Myrtle Beach. Well when we first moved here, I kept seeing LKN stickers and being the genius that I am it took me a few months to realize it meant Lake Norman.

And now just a short time later....I want a LKN sticker. Why? Because I love Lake Norman!

You may find it strange that I would love being near a large body of water seeing that I can't swim. But I find it to be peaceful...just look at this sunset.
For Easter, the Fam went to my Papa's (pronounced: Paw-Paw) lake house where I learned the art of shark hunting from my sweet 5 year old niece Chloe. We had just went to see the movie "How to Train a Dragon" so why should we not hunt sharks in Lake Norman?

Let me walk you through the process.....

1. FIRST PICK OUT A LARGE STICK.

2. THEN TO THE LAKE....LOOK FOR THE LARGEST SHARK.

3. NEXT BEAT "SHARK" WITH STICK

4. THEN PICK UP THE LARGE SHARK TOOTH (to the untrained eye this may look like a chunk of cement)

5. PLACE SHARK TOOTH ON ARTIFACT TABLE FOR VIEWING

Chloe kept referring to us as "Discovery Girls" and I will be honest....I felt pretty cool as a Discovery Girl. Like I was on that 80's cartoon Captain Planet (do you remember....Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Heart....with our powers combined you are Captain Planet ;-)

Is it weird that I am almost 30 and like to play pretend shark hunter? Probably. But I think any escape from reality is nice.....maybe I could pretend to be a stay at home wife. That sounds like fun.

We also took a boat ride which was a blast....there was only two people wearing life jackets...me and Chloe. I asked her to smile pretty for a picture and this is what I got:
Finally after about 10 shots that look like the above picture I got a real smile. Thank goodness for digital cameras!
Here are a couple other pictures from the day including my dad chillin'
It is going to be a great summer!

QUICKBOOKS IS THE DEVIL

Are you familiar with the program Quickbooks? I am not sure who invented this product but it was obviously a male. (I just Googled and indeed it was a male) Basically it is an accounting software that is normally used by small businesses to track "money in and money out". Lucky for me (note of sarcasm)....NT recently purchased a copy.

I was a shop-a-holic before I got married. I admit it. And this is the first step to getting better.

But Quickbooks and the ability to view debit card transactions online are really putting a damper on my spending. Even basic everyday "need to live" spending....like getting my nails done and vital trips to Home Goods are tracked.

I think of it almost like a "SUMMER GPS" or Summer Tracking System if you will.

If NT needs to find me he can just log onto Wachovia.com and it would show a map of my days activities. She was at the coffee shop at 10am, and then she had lunch at Panera, then she was in in Huntersville visiting Home Goods.

Do you ladies know what I am saying? Let me explain what motivated me to write this post. I found a flower pot that I love....no really...I am in love with this flower pot. It makes my heart pitter-patter. I would look at it each time I drove by and finally one day I stopped...and it was WAY too expensive but like a true shopaholic..... I justified it. Then I purchased it.

And then, magically, less than 12 hours later my purchase appears online at....wachovia.com....those buggers. Can't they fudge the number just a little? Maybe make it half price or something?

And some of you ladies might have husbands who don't even check the bank account.....lucky you. But my husband is a numbers guy, a "I love graphs and excel spreadsheets" kind of guy. So I seeked out a bit of various advice of how to cover random purchases like overpriced flower pots.

First, from my mother-in-law the recommendation to get cash back while at the grocery store. Store this cash in a secret location. Save up for large adorable overpriced sky blue flower pots.

Second, I came up with this one. Use NT's recently purchased guitar and weed trimmer as leverage to justify my purchases.

Third, just remind NT that when he fell in love with me I was a shopaholic. This may never change. (Right, Dad?)

The summary of my story....is that Quickbooks and Online account review are very bad things and that life would be a bit easier if certain purchases just faded into the woodwork.

Happy Shopping ladies ;-) Did I mention I am going to IKEA Saturday? A place as dangerous as home goods for me!

I LOVE LUCY

I am always tempted to stop by this random farm right near our house to take pictures of their cows and horses. But to get a good shot I would need to be inside the fence with the animals and this may be shocking but I do not have much experience with farm life.... so I probably shouldn't jump the fence.

So instead I came up with the idea of calling my Dad's buddy JB who has a couple of animals on a small farm(2 cows, 1 donkey, and 24 chicks to be exact). But to my delight he also had a lot of vintage cars which some may call junk but I call treasure.
But back to the animals. I fell in love. With a donkey. Named Lucy. Here she is.
I love Lucy.

I was expecting she would be kind of shy maybe even scared of me but that was NOT the case. Instead she was a total DIVA who wanted all the attention. "See me!! Pet me!! Only take pictures of me!!"

"Ignore me and I will bump you. Pet me and I will love you forever"
I thought taking pictures of babies was difficult.... until I met Lucy. She loved to have her picture taken but she wanted to be close....real close to me....to the lens. I would squat down and get her in focus and by the time I would click, I would have a picture of just her nose ....or eyes....or me on the ground.
When I first started to take the picture above she was about 5 feet away....by the time I pressed the shudder she was......well....about 2 inches away.
She reminded me a lot of Mason (our Golden) because she liked to nuzzle and cuddle. If I could have fit her into my Murano, I would have honestly taken her home with me.

I wonder if there is something in the HOA rules about having a donkey in our back yard? I mean Mason is kind of like a donkey....he eats grass...he is stubborn.
I even called Mom about maybe keeping the donkey in their backyard and got shot down real quickly.

As previously stated, majority of my attention was on Lucy and why would it not be? She is the Beyonce of Donkeys. If she wore clothes, she would wear sequins and stilettos. Diva.

But I should at least put a picture of the sweet Moo-Cows (that was really her name)
Then I found the hidden treasure, the jewel of the nile, the pièce de résistance. Vintage aka:junk cars. I don't know why, but I love taking pictures of really old stuff.

And I loved these old cars. (Yes I realize these pictures have a lot of edits on them....I was Photoshop happy yesterday).
This one is my favorite. Click on it and make it big. Yep. I love it.
Funky, colorful and fabulous. I can't say I would want to ride on this bus but I do like the picture of it! Did I ever tell you the story about when my dad used to drive a school bus? He flipped it over in a ditch. I might scan in the article one day and let you read it. Until then....I imagine this is what the bus would look like ;-)
How fun is this? The animals drink water out of this big tub. Mason would love to drink water out of a tub (or a toilet)!
Just a few others. If you know of any good places in the Charlotte area for me to take pics, send me a note! I like animals, old stuff, nature and anything else that won't complain about me taking 554 pictures of them.

THE WEDDING.

Kids, I have to say as I go back and look at the pictures of Jaime's wedding....it is hard to multitask. I felt like I took a lot of great pictures at the wedding but as it turns out I only have a few that I really like. I think I was too concerned with making sure my spanx didn't show from the bottom of my dress.

Here is one of my faves of the beautiful bride.
The Lucky Man....
And here is the mother of the bride.....
And here is the brother and sister-in-law (me obviously) of the bride.....
And here is the DAD, right before he lost it.
And here is best "exiting the wedding treat" EVER! Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. Add a "Hot Doughnuts Now" Sign and it would have been a mad stampede.
The wedding was at Prestonwood and the flowers were done by the wonderful English Garden. The food was fabulous and I was tickled pink to be able to eat as MANY carbs as I wanted. The photobooth was a hit and the Cupid Shuffle didn't disappoint. Here are a few pictures from the night.....
Right before the fire started. Okay, not really but I was concerned.
Next time I photograph a wedding, maybe I won't be in it and I will get better pictures. Somehow, it would seem inappropriate for me to pull the Canon out from under my bridesmaid dress and start taking pictures of Jaime as she walked down the aisle ;-)

Ga-Ga Ooh-la-la

I know I promised Jaime's wedding pictures but what can I say....too much reality television. So instead you get Mason dressed up as Lady Gaga. Not purposeful of course....unless you count chewing out your stitches and staple 4 times as purposeful.

See if you see the Gaga resemblance.
NT and I have really had a mess on our hands for the last month....a mess with the name of Mason. I am not going to go into the craziness but I will sum it up and say that we have been through 2 sets of stitches and 2 sets of staples.
You might think...."Summer and NT, why did you not just put one of those dome things on his head?" And I would say..."that is an excellent idea and I wish we would have done that."

What is that saying..."fool me once, shame on you...fool me twice,shame on me" fool me four times and you must be a stubborn Triompo. I guess the truth is I just felt so pitiful when he put that thing on his head, he would run into furniture, into the door, into ME! As us southerners would say....Bless his heart.
But after the 4th set of sutures, the vet basically said they would hunt us down if we didn't leave the e-collar on him 24/7. And I have to be honest and say I have slipped it off a couple of times (okay a lot of times) but only when I can watch him. Man, I really am stubborn huh?

And here is the gratuitous picture of Hines (that is for you Chris!)
BTW, what do you think we should do with Hine's crazy beard? Do you think it is time to have him groomed or do you like the bearded look? And for those of you readers who want to comment but don't know how (Dad & Aunt B) just click comment and then post anonymously but be sure to leave your name at the bottom.

Photobooths are fun and so are spray tans!

What can I say....I love photobooths. And spray tans. I am not sure which of these two loves I should talk about first. Let's go with spray tans. So as previously stated I needed to fit into a dress that was too small on Saturday,by the way it was coral---we all know that one of the worst combinations with a coral bridesmaid dress is pale skin. Plus,everything looks better tan, including fat ;-)

I was under a bit of time constraint, as in it was Thursday and the wedding was Saturday. So naturally I googled "Mobile Spray Tanning Raleigh." Lucky me, I found a gal willing to come to my in-laws house at 10pm once I arrived in Raleigh to tan me. Have you ever been spray tanned? The machine is kind of like the airbrushing guns that you used to see on the Myrtle Beach strip or in Gatlinburg TN. You know the ones, right? When you wanted to get the t-shirt that said BFF's forever or Summer loves (insert name) 4 ever!. Only this time instead of paint it is some weird tanning spray.
We chose the laundry room (which I tried to pretend was actually a Hawaiian Beach). And then came the pop-up tent....you can't make this stuff up. It looked EXACTLY like the one above in the picture.

Into the tent I went. To be honest, I was a little nervous that I would come out looking like this. Yes this is Magda from There Something about Mary.
Once the spraying was complete (which only took like 5 minutes) the gal told me now I just needed to simply dry off in front of a fan for 20 minutes and I would be all set. Mmmmm.....excuse me? Dear Tan Lady, Did I mention that I am only wearing bathing suit bottoms and I am staying with my in-laws? Sure, no problem. Let me go stand in the middle of their den with my fake spray tan in my bikini bottoms so I can dry.

Obviously, this was not an option so instead I had the tan lady fan me with a folder. Then I stayed awake for 2 more hours just to make sure my tan was "set." And amazingly....it worked! And for that you know what I say....I say Spray Tans are FUN!

Here is a before and after shot:
And now for something else that is FUN! Photobooths. I have actually always had a thing for photobooths. I think I get it from my mom and dad....I say this because check out these great retro shots of my mom and dad. (yep, no one is safe from summer's blog) I just guessing this was a 1970's photobooth by looking at my dad's hair.
I love the peace sign at the bottom--yeah, Dad rockin' the 70's!

The photobooth tradition continued every year when we would go to Gatlinburg and pay $.75 to get in the booth and take 3 pictures. I always looked forward to it.
As you can tell, I kind of liked to be the center of attention...I mean...center of the photo. Strangly, not much has changed.
This is the photobooth from our wedding. Out of the 300 pictures, I was probably in 100 of them. (I "heart" photos. period.)
And I actually thought there was no way I could love a photobooth more until I discovered the photobooth at Jaimes wedding (which will be blogged about tomorrow-stay tuned).
Yep folks. I want a photobooth in my house. I want to be able to hop in there anytime for a pick me up. Or actually maybe I could start a business where I take a photobooth to events and in the off time I use it as a mobile spray tan booth. The name could be "Photo and Tan"--okay that is not a creative name but we could work on that part.
I kind of have a small issue of making each picture the "Summer Show"--always all up in the camera blocking out others. But the photo below had me in tears of laughter.
There are actually 11 people in this shot. Can you find them all? Can you find my Dad? Think of it as the "Where's Waldo?" of photobooths. Hint: look for his curly hair.
Okay, in this photo can you count all 11 people? Can you find cousin Molly?(see her close up in the pic below) Look at the one eyeball beside my mom's left ear. that's her. hilarious, huh?
How many Morgans and Triompos can you fit in one photobooth? Apparently, 11 if you are concerned for safety.
This photo is actually one of my favorites. Why you ask? Because Aunt Dawn is doing her
"Gangsta" sign. Yep, the okay circles around her eyes are supposed to represent her gang. Which led me to believe that she might be a member of a nursery rhyme gang...ie: The Humpty Dumpty Gang (that was for you Molly)
Does anybody know why I have my mouth wide open in every shot? Me either.

So the real question here is....Would it be weird to have a photobooth in your house? If not, then I want to put that on my birthday list. (Mom: please make note of that)

Tomorrow's blog post: the much anticipated....WEDDING!