The Waterstraut Waterspout: Finishing out July... A month late.

On Monday evening, I went to get Calib from the airport. Ah, TPA, I love you so. My frist question to Calib when he got off the plane: tell me about the UV index in Ohio? (For those of you non-Floridians unaware of UV indexes, that's like the intensity of the sun. For context, I think the highest is goes is 12. It's 11 here nearly every single day in the summer. Ohio is like a 6 at the heat of the day. A real sunny day, you might hit 8 or 9. But, never 11. And I'm telling you, it makes a HUGE difference in just being outside. Well, that and the humidity. Calib said one night everyone kept talking about how humid it was, and he's like "you guys are crazy, it's really nice out!"

Lets talk Ohio. I actually have not left the state of Florida since October 2019 to go to DC. I love Florida, but I also enjoy "stepping out of the greenhouse" for a bit in the summer. And three years without it, just... man. The last time I was in Ohio was literally exactly three years ago. So, we're kind of excited to go this time. Though we're all coming and going at different times, and some of us are flying and some are driving, we've managed to schedule everyone's "must-do" things. But man, we have a jam packed schedule. Lots of people to see. Lots of Cedar Point trips. We're hitting the fair. And, we have tickets to Hamilton!! And we're finally going to Cort's lake house. Asa and I are stopping in the Smokeys on the way up, hearing my Uncle Grant's band play, and going to Lemonade Lucy's Birthday Tea at the Hayes Center before we leave.

So, all of that should be super fun. Especially some Cedar Point time. I have some fond memories there (and, admittedly some not so fond). It's always nice to be able to go there with Asa, because we met there- sure, it wasn't so much "our place" since we didn't get together until much later, but we never would have met each other without crossing paths there. I'm making us Sneak Peek shirts, and looking forward to a date night at least once! Oh, and I want to go to the water park. I bet the water isn't 90 degrees. If I get lucky, I might even get to wear a sweatshirt in the evenings!

Because of our trip though, I'm keeping things low key around here. Asa and I will be gone a minimum of two and half weeks, so I know by the end of that I'll be ready to come home. But by then, it'll be practically September. So, while it won't actually be much cooler, mentally it'll be so much better. And then, football will be back!!

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Ok, so I wrote that first part almost a month ago now. And, I am WAY behind on blogs, apparently. I thought I had to go back to my birthday, but apparently I haven't posted since July. So, we're going to have to speed catch this up. (Although we have plenty of time on our hands right now, which I'll get to in a future blog.

Anyway, these are the rest of my July pictures (I think- I might have missed some or duplicated some, this is so far behind its tough to go back). Hayden made this cool wreath for the fair:

We got my free First Watch for my birthday:

It's technically a bogo situation, but still free is awesome.

We still had the blanket fort up back in those days.

Beat Saber was purchased with Haydens "blood money" (aka the money he got for donating blood).

We had a lovely date night dinner in our room.

And of course, there's some random pet pictures for you.

Heading into August, the new Chicken Salad Chick over by Costco opened up. The first 100 people in line got free chicken salad for year- in the form one one free large quick chick a month. So, Asa and I got up early and waited in line.

We got there I think about 8:15, and we were number 69 and 70. The store itself opened at 10:30. By the time we made it to the front of the line, it was about 11, so it was almost a three hour wait. But, we now have free chicken salad once a month for a whole year!

We'd never had Chicken Salad Chick before, so when we got inside the doors and got to try various salads and sides, we had our first taste. And it was delicious!

Our subdivision has also been having food truck nights on most Wednesdays. I like when they bring in a "snack" or drink truck, because it's much easier on the wallet than 5 meals. We were most excited about the Auntie Anne's pretzle truck. We're hoping they bring this one back, soon!

It's still hot, but we were still trying to walk the loop occasionally. We've spotted some baby gators, and I took Hayden along one time to take a picture of one of the cactus's you can find along the sidewalk.

Asa did make us mini corn dogs and cheese fries one night in preperation for our trip to Ohio, complete with "plastic cheese".

And one day we went out and collected all my free birthday food. We split a Red Robin burger, I got my PDQ stuff, and my Nothing Bundt cake. We ate some of it, and brought the rest home, which the boys were happy to finish off.

I was busy in the days before we left crafting. I made some Frozen t-shirt medals, since Cort wanted to do another Sattler Family Frozen T-shirt Contest.