I didn’t have the time or desire to sit down and write any individual posts about some of the things that made me happy last week, so here’s a quick round up post about them all.

1. Tuesday night I headed back to Wolf Trap for the third time this season. Given the distance from Baltimore and the traffic on a weeknight I normally don’t go more than once a summer, so it was a real treat to get down there so many times this year. This time I went with some friends to see needtobreathe and their Compadres tour featuring Colony House, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, and Switchfood. I was really just in it for needtobreathe. I had never heard Colony House or Drew Holcomb and already knew I didn’t like Switchfoot. Colony House wasn’t bad. I didn’t like Drew Holcomb quite as much. Probably neither group are people I’d listen to much again. The only Switchfoot song I ever really knew was that song “Dare You to Move” which was practically impossible to escape in the early 2000s. I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now. They sing that type of late 90s/early 00s rock that I just never took to. The lead singer’s persona rubbed me the wrong way. I’m sure it was more genuine 15 years ago when he was in his mid-20s but now that he’s in his late 30s and he’s still acting like that it’s kind of ridiculous. At any rate sitting through the first three bands was totally worth it for the needtobreathe part of the evening. I really enjoy their music and they put on a great show. Plus you know, you can’t go wrong sitting outside sitting listening to live music at Wolf Trap. Double bonus that all forecasts to the contrary leading up to the event the rain moved out and we didn’t have to spend the evening all wet.
2. Wednesday night I had some awesome fun playing kickball. Instead of our normal Wednesday night bible study, my smallgroup got together with people from three other smallgroups from our church to play kickball. It was beautiful weather for it, and it was a great time hanging out with friends and getting a little competitive but not too much. Previous to this I don’t really remember when the last time I played kickball was. Maybe not since elementary school, though possibly middle school. I’ve never been much for team sports. I’m not super athletic, and people rightly always chose me as one of the last people when we picked teams in gym class. I didn’t have to suffer through that this time since we just counted off to form teams. Apparently my years of not playing kickball have actually improved my skill since I somehow managed to score 2 of the 7 runs my team got. We sadly lost by a point, but it was fun nonetheless. We finished off the evening with the ice cream from The Charmery. It was a perfect summer night.
3. Saturday I finally made it up to meet my friends Kevin and Tracie’s new baby. He is already two months old. I was starting to worry he might graduate from high school before I got to meet him. My schedule has been crazy this summer and the few times I was free they were traveling. This weekend we finally managed to coordinate something. I went up to their house and Tracie and I took the baby with us to the MD BBQ Bash in Bel Air. It’s an annual event there, which I had never been to. I can’t say I found it exciting enough to go out of my way to attend again, but I got to enjoy some bbq and spend some time with a friend I hadn’t seen in awhile. After that we headed back to their place and spent some time lounging about in their pool while the kids were napping. That was lovely. It was the perfect pool weather. Again it was a lovely summer afternoon.
4. After leaving Kevin and Tracie’s house I made it home in time to get to the T-Mobile store in my neighborhood to get a new phone. My old phone was over three years old at this point. I’m not someone to upgrade until I hit a point where I really feel like I need to, and I was finally there. Aside from the sadness of not being able to send or see emojis on my phone, it has also gotten to the point where my phone didn’t actually want to work as a phone anymore. I rarely use it as such because I’m not much of a phone person, but every time I would talk to my parents on our weekly phone call it would drop 2 or 3 times during our conversations. Then last week when my husband was out of town it was doing the same thing every night when he called and he said you have to get a new phone. I did a preliminary look last weekend and then did some research on my final contenders. I was basically trying to decide between sticking with an Android phone and getting the Galaxy S6 or switching over to an iPhone. None of my research was helping me. Basically everything said the major difference is the OS so it comes down to your preference for that. Friends basically were split on which one I should get based on what they personally were using. I was pretty much ready to walk into the store and flip a coin to decide. I spent a few minutes playing with both of them and given that I’ve been an Android girl since I got a smart phone it just felt more natural to me even though I have an iPad and MacBook Air. I wound up going with the Galaxy S6. I spent most of last night getting it set up and configured how I want it. I’m sure I’ll be pleased with it.

It’s stuff like this why summer is 8 billion times better than winter.