More Updates! House, Clothes, Claire, and more

Currently sitting in the stands at a swim meet to watch Landon swim finals in the 100 free and 100 fly. It's hot and stuffy, as it always is in natatoriums, and spectating a meet is significantly more boring than swimming in one, but we're glad to be here to cheer on our Lanman in his last meet of the season (unless he qualifies for Long Course Sectionals, which is a long shot for this summer). On the upside, I have an hour until the meet starts and a fully charged laptop, so a blog post is happening! As I sweat through my light summer clothes and Claire gives me a massage and reads what I write over my shoulder.

(Hi Claire.)

(Claire broke her arm this week, which was a BUMMER. She's feeling comfortable now and we're all really really hoping the cast is off before we leave for Italy.)

I have some backlogged photos of the house. Like our gameroom that we finally finished!

This is one of my very favorite rooms in the house.

I adore the giant windows. The big space, the closet, the built-in hutch, the beverage fridge, the location over the garage, and most of all - the door that closes it off to the rest of the house.

We had a handyman build in the bookcase and I adore it. It fits perfectly in the funky angles of the back corner of the room, fits ALL our kid/teen books, and holds all the art stuff and most of the legos in the bottom. We painted both the bookcase and the built-in hutch navy blue and it's perfect.

We hang out up here as a family for ping pong tournaments, Lego building, and video game playing. The kids hang out there whenever they have a friend over and they usually sleep there when a friend stays the night. That giant coral velvet couch can comfortably fit two gangly teenage boys across it.

And it gave us a home for some of my favorite photos of the kids through the years and our national park pin map.

It's a happy space and one I think will be increasingly useful as the kids continue to grow.

In other design news, Bonnie came over for my summer styling appointment! And this time, in addition to making some great summer work outfits, she made me a travel capsule wardrobe for Italy!

We'll be gone for 11 days in 3 cities and she made me 19 potential outfits out of 20 individual items that will all fit in my carry-on suitcase and nothing has to be re-worn but it all could be.

She took pictures of the accessories, shorts, hanging items, and shoes she used, and I am obsessed. For the first time I will not get to my packing last after I've dealt with everyone else and instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour I end up yelling into my empty closet that no one helps me. This is so much better!

We're so excited for our trip. We leave a month from tomorrow and I love knowing I'm all set - no more aimlessly perusing the internet for things I could wear on vacation. I already have clothes. I can wear them on vacation. And I'm not messing with Bonnie's packing plan.

We celebrated Father's Day last weekend because of the swim meet this weekend. (Update: they're on the 200 back. Long course meets take forever. James just leaned over and said "I wish I was swimming tonight" and I have literally never once thought that while watching a swim meet. He swims again tomorrow. I'll be going to hot yoga twice. We'll both love it.)

We went to a new brunch place because there's nothing James loves more than brunch and a new restaurant.

It was DELICIOUS and the in-restaurant bakery you can peruse while you wait for your table was pure flaky pastry heaven.

For his gifts he got more shorts, shirts, and shoes that he likes, which are more of a gift for me because he absolutely never buys anything and doesn't care when the things he wears are literally falling apart. It's not that he won't go shopping for himself, it's that he's never looked at what he's wearing and thought he needed to. He also hates spending money on himself for anything he feels is frivolous, so I make things like workout shorts his gifts and sneak into his drawers when he's away to donate the old stuff I think he thinks is still waiting for him at the bottom of the drawer somewhere. It works.

I gave James a card many years ago that said, "The only thing better than having you as my husband is our kids having you as their dad." It remains the best, most perfect card I've ever found. After our brunch he spent an hour in the backyard working with Claire and Cora on their soccer, coaching Landon in the pool, and generally keeping all the kids active and busy and having fun. I read a book in the shade and cheered.

Tomorrow after the meet Landon heads to UT Longhorn Swim Camp in Austin for the week, which means I can watch a chick flick with the girls every night after work. Except not really, because on Tuesday I'm hosting a dinner party for attorneys and summer associates in my section at the house and on Wednesday and Thursday I'll be in Houston.

It's approximately one hundred million degrees outside already, but I've been to hot yoga every single day for nearly 3 weeks. It genuinely annoys me how good it feels when I make time to workout again because it means everything I tell myself when I don't go is a lie. But I also think I already know that while I'm doing it. Anyway, I feel amazing and strong right now and that's my favorite feeling.

And Maggie says it's okay to take breaks for a few weeks or maybe even a whole year. She still loves me and she loves all of you, Happy Saturday! May we get to the 100 fly sometime within the next 3 hours...