Summer 2018 Wrap-Up

I don’t know about you, but I am always excited to see summer coming to an end. Fall is my favorite time of the year and I just can’t stand the humidity, blazing sun, bugs, and heat of summer. Bleh! Bring on the cool, crisp weather, gorgeous scenery, tasty treats, and Halloween festivities! 😀

Although I’m excited to see it go, this summer wasn’t a total bust, so I figured I’d do a wrap-up post with some of the highlights for this particular season as it comes to an end.

In June I went to my little cousin’s wedding. It was a fantastic celebration. Funnily enough, this was the first wedding I have ever been to where I was simply a guest and didn’t have any responsibility so that was interesting. Everything was amazing and everyone had a wonderful time. I’m so happy for her and her new husband and the life they’re starting. ❤

Look how cute their dessert table turned out!

In other news, we got some succulents! I’ve been wanting to get some of these little bad boys for a while, so I was beyond elated when my boyfriend took me to pick a bunch out for the house and get all the supplies we needed to take care of them. 🙂

Speaking of plants, we also took a day to visit Grand Rapids this summer and made sure one of our stops was at the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. This place was MASSIVE. I feel like we could have easily spent the whole day just at this one place, but we had a zoo and brewery to go to that day too, so we had to hustle just a bit. We got to see some wonderful and bizarre sculptures as well as tons of gorgeous and interesting plants. If you ever find yourself in Grand Rapids, Michigan it is definitely worth a visit!

We didn’t end up going to the movie theater quite as much as we normally would these past few months, mostly due to how busy things have been, but we did manage to squeeze in a few good movies.

I only got to review one of these three films (Deadpool 2) but I did actually enjoy all three of them. 🙂

Haven’t gotten to do very much reading this summer, either. Squeezed in a few things, and slowly chipped away at a few more, but I’m hoping fall will prove to be better for getting cozy and curling up with some good books. 🙂 In other book-related news, I did score some great deals on books I will (hopefully) be enjoying soon.

We got some major yard work done this summer, so it’s been cool seeing how the property has really transformed. You can tell someone who lived in this house previously really enjoyed gardening and had quite the green thumb and eye for landscaping. Years of renters, however, seem to have let things grow a little out of control, so we had some hard work to do, but I love our yard and all the cool plants that came with it. We even started using out fire pit and I’m looking forward to some fun bonfires come fall.

Well, that is my summer wrap-up post for the year. I’m excited going into fall mere days from now and plan on doing a lot of fun stuff throughout that particular season before winter comes creeping in. Expect a fall bucket list post in the near future! 😉

How about you guys? What were your own personal summer highlights? Anything you’re particularly excited about for fall? What’s your favorite time of year? Let’s talk about it!

Flower Friday Post 3: Rhododendron

Woo! It’s finally Friday, which means it’s not only time for the weekend, but also another Flower Friday! 😀 Some of you might remember Last Flower Friday, when I mentioned that the rhododendron in my backyard finally had one single bud on it. Well, as you can see from the picture above, that lone bud turned into a poofy pink ball of magnificence. And several more sprouted up to join it, much to my delight!

The leaves on this plant are pretty interesting, being much thicker and coarser than your typical plant leaves. Fun Fact: The rhododendron is the national flower of Nepal. I can totally see why, too, because they’re absolutely gorgeous. I’ll be sad to see these guys go once they’ve finished blooming.

I’ve got some yellow irises blooming out in the front yard right now, too. Those were quite the pleasant surprise to say the least. This past Memorial weekend I spent a lot of time out in the yard getting stuff done. Weeding, raking, trimming, more weeding. It was exhausting in the heat, but it really did make a big difference. Oh, and the pine cones. SO. MANY. DAMN. PINE. CONES. They’re everywhere. I rake them up one day, and the giant pine tree by my back porch promptly projectile vomits them up all over again by the next day so that my porch is covered once more.

If this were accurate I’d be rich AF, just sayin’.

Well, that’s it for this week’s Flower Friday. Are you planting/growing anything special at the moment? Have a great weekend, everyone! ❤