Ocean City

Hello loves!

Tomorrow will be my first beach trip of the season - a friend and I are going for the day to Ocean City New Jersey (a last minute change of plans from the original decision to go to Maryland).  I'm so excited!  I bought a new bathing suit for the occasion last night, and I'm already completely packed (trust me...this is early for me to be packed) waiting for her to get here to pick me up since I'm sleeping at her house tonight.  

I love love LOVE the beach.  To the point where usually, my first trip there each summer is usually when I realize "Hey, it's actually SUMMER!"

My family and I always took vacations every summer for as long as I can remember, and in recent years it has been to places like California, The Bahamas, and Vegas.  When I was younger though, we used to rent a house down the shore for the entire summer, and then my parents would alternate taking us to the house.  We would spend a pretty huge portion of our summers there, sometimes bringing friends from home with us, and other times making friends with the other kids our age who were there for the summer.  One summer I remember in particular (I even remember the name of the street we stayed on)  I  became good friends with a little girl who lived in the house next door.  We used to spend entire days together playing, and by the end of the summer neither of us wanted it to be over, although we both had childlike dreams that we'd see each other again the next year.  We even exchanged addresses to send each other letters, but I don't remember if we ever actually kept that promise to one another.  

To me, the beach means summer.  I used to want to live near one...but honestly, I think that would kill some of the magic of it.  If I always had the ocean around the corner, it wouldn't be as special when I was able to make trips there.  It wouldn't mean it was summer anymore.  

 

How about you?  What do you consider a sure sign of summer's being here?

<3 Kiersten 

PS.  These photos were all ones I took last summer in OCMD :)

Thankful Thursday (1)

 

This week I am thankful for:

* Summer *

* A job I love *

* Bananagrams *

* My Kitty *  

What are you thankful for this week, loves?  Link up to Love, Life, Lace if you decide to make your own post! 

<3 Kiersten 

Happy Summer

Today officially marks The First Day of Summer - one of my favorite days of the year!

So to say goodbye to Spring, here are some of the photos I've taken over the season this past year.

 

And here are some photos I took today, on the first day of Summer :)

 I know this is really blurry....but I love it

Do you guys love the Summer?  Or are you waiting for Fall? 

<3 Kiersten 

PS.  I just joined Bloglovin', so make sure to go follow me there :)  Thanks!

Paper Towns

Over the past week, I read a couple of books (Paper Towns by John Green, and What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen).  Since I finished Paper Towns most recently (yesterday), I'm going to talk about it today.  (Plus, John Green is just awesome.)

Paper Towns is the second book by John Green that I've read.  (a couple of years ago, a friend recommended that I read Looking for Alaska)  And just like the first one, it was amazing.  The book starts with the narrator, "Q"'s next-door neighbor and crush, Margo, knocking on his window dressed as a ninja.  Over the course of that night, the two of them go on a number of "adventures" together.  

The next day, Margo disappears, and for the rest of their senior year of high-school, Q, his two friends, and a friend of Margo's spend most of their free time searching for her.  

The book is hysterical throughout, despite some of the more serious parts in it, a gift that John Green seems to have within his writing.  

Father's Day

I've always been a Daddy's Girl.   

(that's not to say that I don't also love my mother - I do.)

As a little girl, I would run to the front door at 4pm every day fighting with my brother to see my dad first.  

As a baby, still in the crib, I would yell for him every morning.  

I love The Beatles because it is a love ingrained in me by my father.  From drives to wherever when A Hard Day's Night would play on the radio and he would ask my brother and I to identify not only the band, but whether it was Paul or John singing.  

(as little kids, my brother and I were utterly convinced that in school he'd been made to memorize the lyrics to just about every song, because we could not comprehend the idea of just knowing all the words to so many songs) 

So much of my personality comes from him, and no matter how old I get, I know that he'll still see me as that 6 year old girl who invited him to tea parties in the back yard.  

I love my dad, and he has helped make me the person I am today.

<3

Did you post about your dad today?  I'd love to read it!

<3 Kiersten

PS.  I know I'm late on my book post.  I promise, I'll post tomorrow!!  

Longwood Gardens

Yesterday, since it was my mom's and my day off work and it was my brother's first day of summer vacation, the three of us took a spontaneous trip to Longwood Gardens.  The entrance fee is pretty cheap, especially since my brother and I both got discounted tickets for being students, and we spent about five hours wandering through the gardens, the trails, and the conservatory.

I, of course, took plenty of photos.

 

This was the "Whispering Bench".  Because of the way it's built and some other things that I don't quite understand, a person sitting on one side of the bench can hear a person on the other clearly when they're only whispering.  Theoretically, as my brother put it, "it's a great tool for eves-dropping"!

 

Of course, these aren't nearly even half of the photos, but Blogger only lets me upload one photo at a time, so I just posted some of my favorites. :)

How has your week been, loves?  Anything exciting going on?

<3 Kiersten

Watcha Reading?

Hey guys!  So I think I'm going to start using Saturdays to post what I'm reading, and talk about it.  I read compulsively, and last night almost had a panic attack at the mere thought of the Nook and how it's going to be the death of book stores.  I love owning books, being able to fill a bookshelf with them and hold them while I'm reading them.  I love being able to stack the books I plan to read in a pile next to my bed.  I love wandering through Barnes & Noble reading the backs of  every book that catches my fancy.  I dream of one day being able to stack the books that I (hopefully) write on a shelf in my office, and saying to people "These are my books!". 

Ok, enough of that rambling.  

 image from here

Right now I am in between books.  I just finished reading The Help a couple of days ago, and since I haven't been able to start a new one yet (and that one is amazing) I'm going to write about it!

I know you've all probably seen the commercials for the movie.  Well, I'm one of those people who likes to read the book first, and I had also heard from a reliable source that the book was wonderful.  

Well, you know those books that keep you up at night reading them?  The Help was one of those books, and it's been a while since I've had a book like that!  I stayed up till past midnight every night for a couple days just reading that book, and almost missed the bus on Thursday because I couldn't put it down

I don't want to tell you too much about the book before you read it, but it's about Jackson, Mississippi during segregation.  The book centers on black women working for white families, and one white girl who decides to get their side of the story.  It's told from 3 different points of view, which makes reading it plenty more interesting than one omniscient viewpoint!  

So what are you reading right now, loves?  Any suggestions?  I think I'm going to start on Water For Elephants next!

<3 Kiersten