Lose Some, Win Some

Living with a Girl Scout does have some benefits, other than cookies, it turns out. My cousin has to do several summer activities to earn points and patches and I'm actually allowed to participate in some (mostly all)! First she made me an array of s'mores, which unfortunately I was too busy eating to take pictures of and they were so worth it. We even came up with a new one involving Nilla wafers and toffee chocolate! Plus that was how we discovered that Nilla wafers and Nutella are an amazing combinations worthy of several taste bud orgasms.

Then my fairy godmother was kind enough to take us all mini-golfing so that my cousin could earn points for participating in the world's longest mini-golf hole (there was some debate about whether or not this was actually the world's longest mini-golf hole, despite the sign). There was minimal complaining or whining, despite the humidity and the wait of a few minutes at a couple of the holes. Side note: it really irritates me when people just jump to the next hole or three ahead just because they don't want to wait for others to finish. How is that even a thing? Talk about rude. But I digress.
The moral of the story, if you didn't see my Facebook status, is that you shouldn't play mini-golf against 10 year olds because they are surprisingly good at it and in fact my cousin and her classmate both scored holes in one before I did. Not cool. But that's just my competitive nature speaking. Although we never added up the scores to see who actually won...

After mini-golf (and ice cream, of course!) we went back to the house to relax for a bit. We enjoyed a nice Saturday dinner that I took the task of making while the others went to church. And then began the weekly tradition of adult beverages. This time, we ate and drank and then decided to play a game of "Around the World". For those of you unfamiliar, it's a basketball where you take a series of shots from various points around the paint. If you make it, you move on to the next shot. If you miss, you have to wait until or next turn or "chance it" and risk having start all over if you miss it. The first one to make it all the way around and back is the winner. And I think this was the longest game of "Around the World" that I have ever played, which my aunt barely won over me. It almost rivaled the UNO game that my family played a few years back where one hand lasted almost an hour! Seriously...only in my house would that be possible. By that time, all of us were hot and sweaty and decided it would be a good time for a swim! So we meandered over to my uncle's brother's house to jump in the pool. After changing into our suits of course :) Unfortunately for me, it's a heated pool which means for my New Englander body, it felt a little too hot for my taste but it was nice to swim around and wash off that sweaty mess that I had been.

The most recent Girl Scout event that I was privileged enough to participate in was a watermelon seed spitting contest! Oh, boy! My cousin and I drew up a "board" to play on and it was awesome. My mom sent chalk for us to play with (and yes, I still get the occasional care package, don't be jealous) and we put it to good use. We created point zones and a scoreboard and of course had my aunt bring the watermelon. And ironically it was the three girls in the house who participated in this fun. Sometimes it pays to not have to be lady-like. We took turns spitting the seeds as far as we good and half the length of the deck was apparently not quite as much of a challenge as we expected. The endzone was worth 100 bonus points and my aunt managed to achieve that multiple times. When I told my mom, she said it was because they had to find some way to entertain themselves as kids or be given chores. It was definitely all fun and games but there was nearly a 300 point gap between my aunt and me which was a devastating blow to my ego. Although it didn't hurt nearly as bad as being told that Maple Walnut ice cream might be a New England thing - GASP!

Summer fun is definitely worth having a little break before school. I love being outdoors. City life was nice but being able to sit outside and feel the sunshine and enjoy the semi-quiet that comes with living in the suburbs is nice. Even the birds haven't managed to annoy me, yet. The frogs on the other hand are quite loud. But that's okay. Nature is soothing for my soul. So I soak in as much as possible when I'm not working. Which is pretty often these days. But I do have to be up at 6:30 for the next two days and I still have plenty of reading to do before I go to sleep so away I go. Check out Facebook for new pictures.