Erin Akin Carroll

So I guess the theme of the summer is to take a week long blog hiatus, blog a couple of times, and then do it again. I love the freedom of the summer!

But I’m back for another Five on Friday!

There are a lot of things I haven’t blogged about from this summer. I basically just post things to Instagram and then that’s it. I do love Instagram, and if you haven’t jumped on the Instagram wagon yet, hurry up! You can follow me here.

-ONE-

We had a great day celebrating the 4th of July yesterday. It was another really rainy day here. But Todd went to play golf with Hudson Williams, and after naps, we joined the guys at the Williams house. Emily and I got to hang out and watch Hudson, Hayes, and Jack play with all the water toys.

And what is 4th of July without some watermelon and an ice cream cone? (Basically the only time Hayes can eat these things is when he’s in a swimsuit. Messy little boy!)

 

And sweet Hazel was so chilled out sitting on the porch swing.

-TWO-

Nina and I had a great visit in St. Louis. We had a low key weekend, ate some great food, did a little bit of shopping, and just sat and talked a lot of the time. I can’t wait to see her again soon!

-THREE-

On Monday night, Todd and I took Hudson to see Monsters University. We knew that Hayes couldn’t make it through the whole movie sitting still, so RC stayed with him and put him to bed while we took Hudson to the movies. He was so excited! He got popcorn and Sprite and loved the movie. He got a little bit scared during some of the scenes, but he kept telling us thank you on the way home and told us the next morning how much fun he had. I love being his mom!

-FOUR-

Earlier this summer (**cough cough** Memorial Day weekend), Hudson went to play golf with Todd and RC. Oh my goodness, he had the absolute best time! See? I told you I’m really behind on blogging. But these boys had the most fun day and Hudson can’t wait to go back. He got his first real set of golf clubs from RC and PC for his birthday, and I know he’s so excited to use them again.

-FIVE-

Are you coming to the Influence Conference in September? The Influence Network is one of my most favorite things about blogging. I’m so happy to have found so many other women who want to use their blogs to make much of Jesus. And the conference will be in Indianapolis September 26-28. I’ll be sitting on the Accessible Experts panel with three other fabulous bloggers. I was absolutely thrilled and super humbled when they asked me to be on this panel back in February. I just admire this group of women so much and have learned so much from them. And I fully believe in their mission to use their blogs for Jesus. Last year’s Influence Conference was fantastic and full of encouragement and the gospel. I hope you’ll join us there this year!

 

(from the Influence Conference site)

Thank y’all so much for your sweet, encouraging comments on yesterday’s post. I really appreciate them.

I love Five on Friday. It’s so easy to just jot down some things I love this week and some things I want to share. So join in and link up with Darci, Natasha, Christina, and April!

-ONE-

I am sitting at the airport in Columbia writing this right now. I finished teaching VBS this week. It was such an incredible week, and I had the best group of rising kindergarteners. But this weekend, I am going to see Nina! Nina and I became friends through blogging over five years ago, and her friendship means the world to me. I’m so excited about a low key, fun girls weekend with her!

-TWO-

I just finished Fly Away by Kristin Hannah last night. It’s the sequel to Firefly Lane, which I absolutely loved. Fly Away has been really good, but also really sad. Not the uplifting summer read I’d like, but I couldn’t put it down, so that was a good thing.

-THREE-

There is nothing on TV this summer, and every day I can’t wait until Friends comes on TV Land. I know, it probably still comes on TBS at least once a day. And I could also easily just watch it on DVD. But I love watching it in prime time with Todd. It’s one of my top 5 all time favorite shows, and while it makes me feel a little old to think that one of my favorite shows is on TVLand, that’s okay because I just get to watch it more often. Love it!

 

(one of my favorites, “The One Where Ross Got High“….. Joey: “It tastes like feet!”)

-FOUR-

My bright, shiny, new Life Planner arrived last week. I think production may be taking a little longer due to the high demand, but I didn’t mind at all that it took mine a few extra days to arrive because it was so pretty when it got here!

I chose the pink and gold Gold Edition because pink and gold is my favorite color combination. I love pink and gold… they were my wedding colors.

Anyway, I love the new changes to the Life Planner this year and I am so excited that my old one expires in just 31 days. (The verdict is still out on the new Erin Condren pens, but I’ll be sure to give you a review when I’ve used them for a little bit. It will be hard to top my favorite Paper Mate flairs.)

-FIVE-

Google Reader is going away this weekend, and I would absolutely love it if you all would follow my blog on Bloglovin so we don’t lose touch. I am really going to miss Google Reader. Google Reader is like my version of The New York Times. Yes, I know this is very sad. But let’s stay in touch and follow my blog with Bloglovin. Pretty please.

 

So how about you? Did you order a new Life Planner? Can you give me some great summer book suggestions? (I’m thinking of reading Defending Jacob.) Are you loving Friends on TVLand?

Oh hey! Hey, y’all!

I guess that was an another unintentional blog break.

Here’s the thing. The summer is really fun and the summer is really busy. With two wild, precious boys, I do my very best to keep as much time occupied outside of the house or in the yard or going and doing and soaking up every moment of the summer. Not in a super-structured way, but in a “If we spend all day in the house, they’ll be climbing the walls by 5:00” kind of way. And I love it.

But it leaves very little time to blog. And, truthfully? Blogging just isn’t a priority right now.

And one of the things I’ve decided to give myself in this year is grace when it comes to blogging. I don’t have a strategic mind when I blog. I don’t have any thoughts about the “right” or “wrong” ways to blog. I just want to share our story the best way I know how. And right now, during this summer, I am soaking up more of our story and doing less sharing. (And still not really remembering to take pictures at the pool or the zoo or the backyard.)

But! I blog for two reasons. To keep a record of our memories and to connect with other moms. It’s very rare that I’m able to share something new or innovative. You will rarely read anything here that you haven’t seen before somewhere else. And that’s okay. This little space is for connection and memory-keeping, and it’s easier to give myself grace on the quiet blog days when I remember that I don’t really have goals with this.

Anyhoodle! With all that said, I do have some fun updates. Some big and some not-so-big.

1. My mom updated her blog last night. KK started a blog back in 2010 when she was diagnosed with Melanoma. It’s a horrible, horrible disease and one that she has successfully fought by changing her lifestyle and letting her immune system fight it. No drugs, no poison, no chemotherapy or radiation. Just the daily decision to make healthy choices. But her Melanoma did come back and in the other leg. I know that probably for the rest of her life, we will always be praying that melanoma will stay far away and not keep resurfacing.

But, go ahead and read my mom’s update and dig into her archives to soak up some of her wisdom. She is so faithful and so strong, and our main prayer has always been that God would be glorified in her situation.

 

2. I just returned late last night from Shreveport. I flew out of Columbia late on Monday night to Shreveport to celebrate the life and attend the memorial service for my best friend’s dad. Catherine and I met at Louisiana Tech in our first graphic design class, and we were both Alpha Chis. She became one of my dearest friends, and I am so thankful for her. She and her family spent the last 13 months caring for her amazing, larger than life, father as he battled pancreatic cancer. Sadly, he lost that battle, and many of Catherine’s closest friends came to Shreveport to be with her for the services.

I’m so thankful to still be so close to so many college friends, and friends I’ve made through Catherine. And even though the past 24 hours in Shreveport were short, they were full of love and I’m so glad that we could all be there to celebrate her dad’s life.

 

Catherine is one of the strongest girls I know and I’m a lucky girl to have a friend like her.

3. While in Shreveport, I got to stay with Jennifer and Alison, and finally got to hang out with Jennifer’s daughter, Elise. I met Elise when she was about a week old, and I was 30 weeks pregnant with Hayes. Time flies.

 

And no trip to Shreveport is complete without splitting a piece of Strawn’s Strawberry Pie. Yum!

 

4. This week is VBS at our church. Hudson and Hayes are absolutely loving it, and it makes me so happy that they love it so much. I am teaching the 4 year olds (rising Kindergarteners) and it has been wonderful so far. I missed teaching on Tuesday because I was in Shreveport, but the kids have been really great. They’re so eager to learn about Jesus, they’re so well-behaved, and it’s just a good time for me, too.

Hudson and his best friend, John, wore the same shirt in different colors on Monday, and they were so excited to be spending the week together in their classroom!

 

5. Some of Todd’s extended family came in town last week to visit, and on Friday, they came to the pool with Hudson, Hayes, and me. I have been taking the boys swimming as often as I can this summer because it does us well to be outside and be active. So either in the morning before naps or in the afternoon after naps we’ll go to the pool and spend a few hours.

Hudson has been doing so well swimming without any kind of floatie or anything. We still have to remind him to kick or make sure his has his face down so he can move faster. But he has done really well! Hayes still wears a Puddlejumper because it’s about all I can do to watch Hudson all the time. Hayes will get himself out of the pool and just jump in and over and over again and swim to me. He has come such a long way! Three weeks ago he screamed every time he got in the pool. I’m so glad that he loves it now!

 

6. And just a story about how small the world is… I was walking to my gate last night in the Atlanta airport around 9:00 p.m., and I passed an adorable girl who looked exactly like Darci from The Good Life blog, who I just LOVE. Darci is so creative and so relatable. I just love everything she posts. And y’all, I could not stop staring at this girl. Was it Darci? Was it just a look-alike? Would it be weird if I just said, “Hey, Darci!” And if it wasn’t her, maybe she just wouldn’t say anything.

But I chickened out and I walked away a little bit. I knew that Darci had been on vacation, but I wanted to check her Instagram feed to see if she might have been traveling that day. (Stalker, right??) And I realized that she WAS traveling that day. I turned around as fast as I could and she was walking toward me and said, “Erin?” Ha! It was absolutely Darci!

We hugged and laughed and introduced ourselves and couldn’t get over how random it was to run into someone you “know” but had never actually met just in passing at one of the biggest airports in the United States!

And of course we took a picture in the middle of Five Guys to commemorate the occasion. So here we are in all of our traveling, tired glory! (But, seriously, Darci is TOO CUTE.)

 

Needless to say, it’s been a whirlwind few weeks for us and I’ll be really happy when things settle down into a slow crawl.

I’ve missed you all!