Summer Bucket List

I remember as a kid always feeling like the summer really flew by and I could never even remember what I had done to fill those empty months! I noticed at the beginning of this summer that the same syndrome was befalling my little sister, and so back in May we made a plan. We went to Target, got the girliest, sparkliest scrapbooking supplies we could find, and we made a summer bucket list.

I know. You can’t handle the awesomeness.

We only have a couple weeks left in Atlanta (gasp!) so we’ve really been making an effort to finish off the bucket list before it’s too late! I wanted to share with you how the first half of the bucket list fun went. Remember that Ashley picked each of these items herself!

Go to Legoland:

We had a great time visiting this place! You can read about our Legotastic adventures here.

Visit Lake Lanier:

Water rides. Wave pool. Life jackets. Exposed bodies of strangers that I’d like to erase from my memory. Temperatures reaching 106 degrees. No shade. Happy Ashley. Good times.

Find the best sushi in Atlanta:

Ashley’s favorite food is sushi (literally…her email is sushiloverashley) and so we scoured the internet to find the sushi restaurant with the best reviews. Sushi Huku did NOT disappoint. Definitely the best we’ve had in Atlanta.

Go on a nature walk: 

We thought a long time about where the best place to do a nature walk would be. Luckily most of Georgia is un/underdeveloped and so there’s plenty of places nearby that are great for nature walks. Stone Mountain is only about 15 minutes from us and they have a 1 mile hike to the top of the mountain. Seemed like a great idea at the time! We only made it halfway. It was brutal. This is coming from someone who can run a few miles without a problem…that was the slowest half mile I’ve ever felt! Halfway was plenty good for us.

See a movie at the theater:

Check, multiple times! Ashley went to see Brave last week with Jason and David, and I went with the boys (meaning my dad, Jason, and David) to the Batman premiere last weekend. I LOVED the movie and didn’t want it to end.

Go to a festival: 

Ashley and I had a great time at the Decatur Arts Festival last month. She got a treat from the King of Pops, which was definitely a highlight.

Ashley loves art and so we had a great time browsing and checking out all of the awesome local artists. The rest of the family wouldn’t come with us because of the temperature, but I can always count on Ash to hang with me when others can’t take the heat. 😉

Visit a cupcake shop:

Oh YES. YES a million times over. We’ve been to at least a dozen over the summer (mostly for spying purposes…more on that later) and the bulk of those happened on our great cupcake tour.

Watch Lauren in her best race:

Make that my best and ONLY race. Yeah, sorry guys…don’t expect to see me running future races. I didn’t get the bug. I don’t crave the pain. And I’m 100% okay with that. I don’t regret doing the race at all! It was a great challenge and I learned a lot about myself.  But I don’t have any races on my calendar. And even though Ashley and the rest of my family didn’t make it to the race, I’m going to count this one as accomplished anyways because they did their best. They were walking around trying to find us the whole time but because of poor race organization they never did.

Plus it was my best race!

And most recently…

Go to a baseball game:

A couple nights ago we took Ashley to her first baseball game! We opted for the minor league field (the Gwinnett Braves) for cheaper tickets and less hassle, but I ended up wishing we had gone to Turner Field. Coolray Field is nice, but it’s NOWHERE near as cool as Turner. Oh well, lesson learned. We all still had fun!

I can’t wait to share the second half of the bucket list with you! We’ve got a lot to do in these next couple weeks. Meanwhile, Jason has only had ONE thing on his summer bucket list that he’s been begging me for since May.

Blueberry muffins! Now I know that this is at least the third muffin recipe I’ve done this summer, but Jason was very specific about the kind he wanted this time. Lots of blueberries. No other fruit. No whole wheat, but “kind of healthy”. What I came up with is a variation of the Red, White, and Blue muffins with oats and nuts added into the batter for some extra nutrition and a streusel topping for a little excitement. I don’t even like blueberry muffins and I thought these were really good!

 

The pecans inside of the muffin add a great flavor, but the streusel topping was definitely my favorite part. A crunchy, buttery topping on fluffy, sweet muffins. These babies are long gone!

I hope you’ve been checking some things off your list too!

Thanks for reading!

-Lauren