this is the dawning of the age of aquarium!

My schweet boyfrand took me to the Georgia Aquarium for my birthday!!! (which was back in May, I am still super behind on the blog.. eek!) I have been wanting to go for FOR.EV.ER!!!! Like since it opened. I was suppose to go about 5 years ago, and it never happened. Then my mom and sister went after they dropped me off to study abroad in Italia (I can't really complain, bc I obviously went somewhere awesome as well). Then just about all of my friends went.. multiple times.. Anyhow, I made up for lost time and took TONS of pictures. Here are a few:

NEMO!!! 

whale shark!

i think we stood in this spot for forever. 

DOLPHIN!!! ee! eeee! eeee! (dolphin noise)

beluga whale!

parana!!! 

petting the stingrays! MY FAVORITE!!! 

my spiffy iphone app (instagram) let me do this nifty view.

BLOG UPDATE: uhhh, I just uploaded those pictures in about 10 seconds. Note to everyone who has a blog: RESIZE YOUR IMAGES!!! These were originally over 1500 pixels wide, and I lowered them to 500px each. It just made a HUGE difference. It usually takes a long long time to upload them otherwise (like 30 minutes. I'm talkin I usually have time to shower while they upload). I should've done this forever ago, I just thought it would take the same amount of time to resize them that it would take to upload... nope! 

<><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  (<-- fishies?)

So I was in desperate need of a mower. I went back and forth over what to get. With gas mowers, I would have to buy gas every so often (not too big a deal). Then with electric mowers, I would have a cord.. LAME. It would be as if I was vacuuming the lawn.. I researched and looked and read reviews.. I wanted to find a good deal, but I didn't want it to fall apart after a few uses. Enter in THE PUSH MOWER!! 

YEP! Straight outta the olden days! hahah It got from target.com for surprisingly cheap (around $80), and I won't have to buy gas or worry about a cord. The reviews were all good, so I bought it! My yard isn't that big, and for some reason I like the swooshing noise the blades make (weird eh?), so it has been a great purchase! The only downside is that it gets stuck on sticks. I need to de-stick the yard before I mow, but that makes the yard look better anyhow, so it's really no big deal.

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My tornado relief shirt came in! I LOVE IT! The girl who made it didn't realize she was going to have so many orders. Apparently she had to hire people to help make and distribute the shirts! CRAZY! That explains why it took a couple months for it to come in. The design is just lovely. Sadly, she stopped selling them because of the high demand with her small resources :o(. 

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I am a self proclaimed grillmaster. Who are we kidding.. I AM THE GRILLMASTER!!!! (well, second to my dad).

I recommend the chimney starter to everyone. It makes lighting the charcoal so much easier/faster. You just shove a few crumpled balls of newspaper under the starter (where those holes in the bottom are) and then pour the charcoal on top. Then you light the paper through the holes at the bottom. 

After no time, the flame comes up through the chimney. Once it's ready, I do a little dance with the starter and the grill rack... I take a pot holder in one hand, and an oven glove on the other. I grab the starter with the glove hand, and I lift the grill rack off with the other. The starter will shoot out flames from both sides while you pour the charcoal into the bottom of the grill and some of the unburned paper will fly off the top of the rack (hence the dance to not get burned by either). Then I sit the starter somewhere where it won't burn a circle onto the surface (aka not the deck) and proceed to spread the charcoal out, all while swinging the rack around trying not to get burned. I finally place the rack back on the grill. I usually have to ball up a piece of aluminum foil to scrape off the excess paper that is stuck to the top of the rack. 

I hadn't grilled in FOREVER, and we ended up having a cookout a few weeks ago. There was so much leftover meat that I grilled out again the next week..

YUMMY! That steak had marinated for DAYS!!!! So so good. 

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{design work}

I did the Panama Mission trip t-shirt for my mom again this year. I did last year's as well (always nice to have repeat customers! thanks ma!) This year, she wanted a design that looked more like actual Panamanian art, like this: 

I most certainly could not whip up something like that on Illustrator without it taking forever, so I decided to hand draw it. 

The motto of Panama is "For Benefit of the World" which actually has to do with the Panama Canal, but it works for the mission trip as well. Here is the final back of the shirt after it was scanned in, photoshopped, and set up in Illustrator.

Not the best pic (it's a pic of the computer screen from my phone) but you get the general idea. 

We went to the lake for the 4th of July. Here is Possum in her festive headband!

I've never met a dog that's so chill about wearing things.. She will sit for forever wearing sunglasses, or a sombrero, or a jingle bell necklace..

Cotton and Diesel are jealous that Possum has made more appearances on the blog recently, so I will be showcasing them in the near future. 

There are LOTS of house things going on, but they will have to wait until next time. HOPEFULLY I'll get to update again before the end of the week.. especially since I realized I can resize the images and cut the time in half! 

{woo woo!}