that long rambly photo heavy post where I try to sum up an entire summer

July: Meryl came to visit! Becca had a birthday, so we hung out with goats! Jess’s friend Marki came for a visit, so we went to the Tapas restaurant. This was also the time where I got crazy busy (2 out of my 3 summer classes were intensives that overlapped for one month), painted my room (with much assistance from my mom, photos still pending), attended the Hess reunion and then collapsed into the warm embrace of August.

During Meryl's visit I finally got around to seeing the Sears Tower, despite the almost 2 hour wait and $15 fee, it was pretty amazing to see the city from above like that.

Chicago, Chicago, its a wonderful town.

You could even see Evanston, or at least little bits of it.

Meryl and Becca were really patient with my repeated posing demands.

I like penguins.

Becca prefers goats.

But I will say that goats are pretty darn funny some times.

Other people go to restaurants for the food, we go there for the photo shoot opportunities.

But I will say this place's sangria and bacon wrapped dates may also have something to do with it.

But really it is all about the friends.

August: My family went to the Boundary Waters! I dog-sat for a week! I said goodbye to a good friend with a picnic in the park. I finally finished my summer class just in time to go back to work and start my fall classes and most importantly I didn’t move breaking a record I have had going since freshman year of college.

Our Boundary Waters trip was a lot of this...

amazing amounts of these...

a wonderful evening spent doing this... (photo by the always amazing brother Tim)

and two evenings spent watching these creatures eat their dinner...

and of course almost a week spent in one of these.

In the end it was a perfect, beautiful, challenging, enriching, muscle-straining week, spent with my favorite people in the world.

Okay the photos on this post are getting out of control, so I will post a few from the picnic and dog-sitting tomorrow.  Have a great rest of your day, folks!