Bonds, Bees, Beach, SUPs, Surgery, & Self-Defense

I still can’t get over the amount of rights of passages going on in this family right now. As cliche as it is, it seems like we blink and the years go by. All of a sudden, Hanleigh was taking driver’s ed at the beginning of the month! With her classroom hours behind her, she was added to the schedule to complete her six hours of behind-the-wheel driving. It was uneventful, as it should be, and she passed the class with flying colors. Yay!

It came time for our annual July 4th Spurlin family reunion, which we look forward to every single year! Unfortunately, due to hurricane Helene last fall, our cherished cabins in Damascus, Virginia were flooded, but they are in the process of being rebuilt. While that is good news, the Creeper Trail itself endured a lot of damage and will take a long time before it reopens. Until then, we will pivot our reunion plans somewhere else. The location may change, but the level of fun always remains incredibly high. So, this year, we made our way to Louisville! We stayed at Rose Ann and Jeremy’s house, which is always a great time. When we arrived, we hung out for a little bit and later that night, met up with some more of the cousins for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. We came back and chilled at the house for a bit and the next morning, everybody met up to walk across the Big Four Bridge, which provides a beautiful view of the Ohio River. From there, we all met for lunch at Union Restaurant and Gameyard, where all of the kids played games and unfortunately, Brady was on a low-hanging hammock swing and ended up getting a splinter that went through his pants and straight into his butt! I’m sure it hurt, but we all thought it was pretty comical, including him. We headed back to their house to get ready for the next event: a pool party at Mark and Lisa’s house! This is turning out to be quite the tradition whenever the family reunion is in Louisville. They had the complete setup there: delicious food, antics in the pool, baseball in the front yard, basketball in the driveway, chipping golf balls in the backyard, sparklers, and amazing fireworks! We had such a great time and I know everyone was so thankful to spend such quality time with one another. The next morning, 12 of us went canoeing down a nearby river and stopped for drinks and lunch at Cunningham’s Creekside. We played music as we floated and just had an overall amazing time laughing. We came back to the house, where Hanleigh was taught to play the good-old card game (a classic in college) called Asshole. After that, everyone in the family ventured to Cathy and Rod’s house for a tasty dinner and more togetherness! Then, it was time for the annual first-cousin night out. We all ventured to Angel’s Envy distillery for a tour, which was really cool. The tour did allow teenagers to attend, so we let our girls tag along. We learned about how their bourbon is made and the tour concluded with sampling some varietals in their tasting room. I still have to say that bourbon is definitely one of my least favorite spirits, at least if it’s by itself. There was definitely a clear winner, but not without me making a sour face each time I sipped it. Afterward, we’ve ventured across the street to have a cocktail and then made our way back to Rose Ann and Jeremy’s house for a friendly game of Telestrations After Dark. No one except our family had played it before and we were all dying laughing. I don’t think I’ve ever played that game and not peed my pants a little bit. Another amazing family reunion in the books! Can’t wait for next year. This family is gold. 🙂

Hanleigh was a theater camp volunteer at the YMCA for a week with one of her best friends, Hunter. They had a blast being idolized by all the little kids and had fun playing with them. Another morning, Brayden woke up a little late when it was time for her to select when she was going to move into the dorms at UGA. She was a bit bummed when she got a 4:00 p.m. move-in time, but it actually worked out well because her roommate moved in earlier that morning. More to come in the August post. I had dinner with Kendall at FM Eatery in Fort Mill for our monthly get-together, which is always fabulous. Trent and the girls had lunch with Grandma and Grandpa Jones and then I flew to Baltimore to meet up with my Triple B’s for our annual get together. This time, we would all converge at Shelly’s lake house, somewhere none of us had been before. It was absolutely stunning! When I arrived, I called home to show everyone where I was and as I was walking down this long dock that had about six or seven boats on it, I was telling them how they must share a community dock with their neighbors. I was surprised to learn that every boat on that dock was theirs! Oh my goodness. That night, we had a delicious Mexican dinner at the house and just relaxed. The next morning, a few of us went to a nearby park that was on the water and went running/walking. We came back to the house and lounged on the dock while Heather and I took the paddle boards out. It turned out that mine did not have a fin, which made navigating it relatively difficult, but I was up for the challenge! That night, we had a delicious seafood dinner cooked by Kerri and proceeded to commence our traditional kitchen dance party using utensils as props. This never gets old! The next day, Shelly’s husband, Dan, took us out on the Chesapeake Bay on their pontoon boat. We drove by some beautiful homes, took a little hike on an island, and then had lunch waterside at Donnelly’s Dockside. We came back to the house, chilled out for a bit and then got all dressed up for the most delicious dinner ever at Arturo’s. Shelly arranged for a black car to pick us up and take us there. This is one of her and Dan’s favorite restaurants and when you first pull up to it, it definitely feels a little sketchy as it is in an outdoor strip mall. But once you walk in and order, you’re just blown away by how delicious the food is. And of course, we came back for round two of kitchen utensil booty jams and dancing! 

I woke up bright and early at Shelly and Dan’s house in Baltimore where Dan took me to the airport so I could fly to Spokane for the annual corporate marketing meeting. This is one of my most favorite work trips every year. However, before that kicked off, I was able lucky enough to see one of my favorite people, Haley! I went to her house and saw Brandyn, but most importantly, I met their new little cutie patootie, Oliver. He was absolutely adorable! Haley and I escaped for a delicious dinner at Luna and reconnected. It was so incredible to see her! She is my sister from another mister! The rest of the week was filled with meetings, collaborative discussions, and lots of laughter with my amazing co-workers. We had an awesome teambuilding activity by going to an escape room and our team was able to get out successfully with under a minute to spare. Way to go, team! We also did a walking tour of Spokane, so that was cool to learn the history of the city. The week concluded with our annual shout-out awards and the MVP award, which went to Robert—very well-deserved. That night, our team went to dinner at Wooden City and had a blast. 

While I was in Spokane, there were a couple interesting things that happened: the lady that had been cleaning our pool on Thursdays turned out to be on fentanyl (or some other drug) and was probably not doing a very good job. Trent and the kids saw her doing the “fenty flop” (I didn’t know this actually had a name), which means that she was hunched over with her phone attached to a lanyard around her neck (probably because she had dropped it so many times) just stagnantly standing as if she was in a trance. He went back and looked at our video footage and she was doing all kinds of crazy things with the chemicals and then not even cleaning the pool. It was a joke. He quickly called her boss who met her at a nearby restaurant and terminated her immediately. She was definitely a liability to us and the company that she worked for. Good job being a whistleblower, Trent! I hope that lady gets some help for her addiction. 

My dad turned 73, and Terry turned 80 that same week! Happy birthday to the Grandpas! Brayden had a wisdom-teeth consultation to make sure everything was ready for her surgery and the three of them also went to Wyatt’s birthday dinner. Brayden started watching the UGA Panhellenic chapter videos and began ranking the chapters that she was most interested in visiting once rush would start a few weeks later in August. Hanleigh joined her best friends, Hunter and Ray, for five days at a beach house in Emerald Isle. They had the best time ever laying out, exploring the area, and eating delicious food. While she was gone, Trent and I had a date day with Brayden and Charlie. We went to the Whitewater Center and took Charlie to the dog park where she quickly had the zoomies and ran like a bat out of hell in the lake and on the land, while weaving in and out of tons of other dogs. She is a mess! After a tasty lunch there, we took her paddleboarding on the Catawba River. She had no interest in staying on anyone’s paddleboards, but rather spend most of her time jumping off of one and swimming to another one. She looked so cute in her little orange life jacket, like a little hunting dog. 

On the 21st, Brayden had all four of her wisdom teeth removed. She handled it like a champ and said some funny stuff while she was on the laughing gas. She asked the doctor if she could have a drink (facepalm). I wish I could say I did a good job…I nearly passed out when I saw her coming out of surgery. My vision started to go, I felt weak, and quickly recognized this as I started to slide down the wall and sit down. I think I got all in my head when I looked at her and thought about what she just went through. The joys of being a complete empath! After a Gatorade and sitting there for a bit, I felt better. When we got home, Brayden was even more hilarious and of course, we captured that on video. Shortly after, I flew to Austin for some work meetings, but the highlight of that trip was having dinner with Tanya and Brandon, who I had not seen in so many years. We had the most amazing time catching up and I hope at some point soon that Trent and I can fly out there and spend a long weekend with them. It’s one of those friendships that just picks back up where we left off every time we see each other. 

We had a Selfish-ish Club get together at my house, which was great. It was a small group of women just sitting in the pool, drinking cocktails, and snacking on appetizers. We had some awesome conversations as well…really dug deep—my mom even made a surprise appearance! The girls took care of our neighbor’s dogs for about a week, so that was nice for them to earn some extra income. I took the girls to an Igneus self-defense class where we learned some awesome techniques to help all of us kick some ass if confronted with a dangerous situation. The girls had a really good time and there was lots of laughter as well. I really wanted Brayden to take this class before going off to college as well. Not that she is now an expert, but she has more of a heightened sense of her surroundings and a couple techniques that can she can use, if ever needed. After that, the three of us went to Reclectic to do some shopping. I had never been there before and the girls prepared me very well. It is extremely overwhelming because it’s so huge and there are so many clothes, coupled with the fact that there are no dressing rooms, so there are just a bunch of people trying on clothes at the back of the store. We were there for about an hour and a half and were relatively successful considering the sheer amount of clothing there to sort through. 

Hanleigh had her annual eye exam and ended up purchasing some really adorable Tom Ford glasses that she will use for reading. They are really cute on her! I had dinner with Mom at Rooster’s and it was so great to see her, connect, and talk about what life is like as a mom with a child getting ready to go off to college. She always makes me feel better about everything. Love you, Mom! Brayden had a send-off lunch at Rusty’s with GG, Aunt Patty, Abby, and Nash, which was, of course, so great that she could see them all before she headed off to Athens. She met up with her dear friend, Kelly, for some ice cream (yet another send off), and went to the Whitewater Center for a trail run and River Jam with two of her besties. Lastly, our house officially looked like a real-life Amazon shopping cart…full of everything imaginable that you could possibly need and want for college. These items had taken over our dining room table, our kitchen table, Brayden’s bedroom, and more. Would all of this fit into her dorm room? You’ll have to wait and see in next month’s post!

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