Life As We Know It: Summertime

     Well, I'm officially a blogger - weird/strange/out of character/mildly stupid, I know. I just got to thinking about Junior Year (what?) and how absolutely insane it is going to be, and how badly I want to remember it all. So, here I am, sitting in front of my laptop on the back porch of our beach house on Sanibel Island.
     As I was getting everything re-packed and ready to go for our flight tomorrow, I got to thinking about this summer and how absolutely AMAZING it really was. As it's coming to a close I realized how incredibly fast it went! I've been gone for 5 entire weeks this summer, hands down the longest ever but I was more than thrilled to do it. I spent one week away at camp as a true camper - best week of my summer - and the next 3 and a half counseling kiddos from 1st grade all the way through 5th. I had been a counselor before but for some reason I walked away with a lot more than I had in summer's past. It was so rewarding to get to become such good friends with such great girls. Girl talk was always the best with them - they've got the greatest personalities :) It was nice to have the weeks broken up a bit, to get some relaxation by the pool & my laundry done!
   In between my weeks at the Domain, I had to (regretfully) say "see ya later" to one of my sweetest & greatest friends, Mary Thompson. It was so sweet to spend an awesome year with her while she was still living in Danville but I'm so thankful for the new start she gets to have in Memphis! It was definitely one of the hardest things I've had to do, but it made me realize how lucky I was to have her in my life to anchor me down when I started to get a little outta hand.. Which is pretty often :) It reminded me of that sweet Winnie the Pooh quote, "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." The goodbye was tough but I'm so happy she's become such a big part of my life and who I've become in the last year.
   I've spent the past 9 days (long days, I might add) laying on the beach and by the pool on Sanibel Island with my family. It's been nice to have some alone time (actually lots of alone time) reading my summer reading books and catchin' up on my tan that I've lost from being at camp so much. I've also come to the realization that this is probably our last full family vacation for a while. With Ben (my oldest brother) scheduled to graduate in December and Clay (my middle brother) starting his sophomore year in college, we will be hard pressed to get all five of the Wallaces together for more than 5 minutes once school starts.
   It's hard to believe that summer is wrapping itself up and school starts in 4 days - I might wanna finish up all this summer reading I've got left to do.. But it can wait :) I can't wait to see all the cool things I get to do this year with The Cathedral Domain and Henry Clay. It's about that time to start taking the ACT again & work on some GSP applications for the summer of 2014 (okay, maybe I'm a little ahead of myself there..)!
Here's to a wonderful Junior Year.

{Attached are a few pictures to show off the highlights of my summer}