Oh, Summer… there’s nothing I don’t love about you…
Except maybe the bugs…
(ick… sorry! but he was hangin’ out on my screen door and I was too scared to swat him off… so I did the more reasonable thing and took a picture instead 😯)
And the fact that it’s still bright outside when I’m trying to fall asleep at my 10 o’clock bedtime…
(You don’t need to tell me how cool I am. I already know 😉)
But for everything else, Summer, you’re pretty darn fantastic.
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I hope you guys all enjoyed a wonderful first day of summer 😀 After about a week and a half of rain, the sun finally decided to make an appearance to welcome in the new season, and it. was. glorious.
And then the clouds rolled in.
And now it looks like rain…
But! after scarfing down a mid-morning muffie:
(which makes for excellent pre-workout fuel, btw 😉)
… and knocking out a fabulous-feeling 4 miles (9:53 pace)…
… I spent most of the morning/afternoon doing this:
… so I think I’m good on the vitamin D for a little while 😀 But I still hope the sun sticks around…
Summer isn’t my favorite season (Fall is), but there are still tonnes of things I love about it.
Things like…
Summer beauty…
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Summer scents…
Lilacs are probably one of my favorite smelling flowers…
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Summer berries…
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[Vanilla] Ice cream…
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Satisfying smoothies…
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Chugging back a cold one…
… minus the floating culture mass 😯 Nasty…
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Eating outside…
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And perhaps most of all…
Spending carefree summer nights with friends…
… even though I will probably still be home before 11 😉
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How was your first day of summer? Lazy and carefree… just like summer should be 😀
What’s your ideal vacation spot? Australia and Italy top my list, but I adore road trips.
Favorite summer recipe/eats? I need some inspiration!
Woot, for summer nights with friends! I am organizing a girls night this weekend because summer is here and boys are lame (I jest)….but we seriously need a crazy/silly night out!
I still need to make that muffie. 😉
First days of summer have been wonderful..relaxing, yoga, improving on my driving, blogging, baking… 🙂
These are beautiful photos! Yesterday would have been great here, but we’ve been having massive storms constantly and there was a particularly bad one last night. We’ve been getting *a lot* of spiders too.. yuck!
Last night I made kale salad from Oh She Glows and it is perfect for summer. No cooking involved! :]
Happy summer! Can we swap? I can’t tell you how much I miss late sunsets. But instead of that the sun here rises at 4 something a.m. and leaves too early. And since “lazy” and “carefree” are words that don’t fit the Japanese lifestyle, I don’t have the chance to enjoy the summer the way I like.
During the summer there is always a lot of fresh produce in my fridge and I eat enough yogurt to keep a small factory running. I love stir-fry leftovers because they have spent the night in the fridge, cold summer soups and, of course, ice cream, preferably packed with more fruity goodness.
My ideal vacation spot would be any place where I can swim. If I can go to the beach every morning and swim till I drop, I don’t need anything else.
I love this!!! And I completely agree with all the things you love about summer!!! Especially the food and flavors of summer! Plus eating outside is amazingly fun too! Gotta love the great outdoors!!
Summer eats would definitely include froyo, fresh berries, and cold oats!
Plus for dinner-type things I love anything and everything put on the grill then tossed onto a toasty bun! Yum 🙂
Ah just wow. Your photography is simply stunning as usual. And oh my goodness girly, you are looking GORGEOUS! SO jealous!!
Urgh well the first day of summer here in the UK and it rained. Some summer hey? We never get a decent one…we get a week or so of sun and that’s it! I spent my first day baking – AGAIN. That’s the trouble with not having uni, the weather being horrible, not having a job..all I do is bake bake bake haha!
My ideal vacation spot..hmm well at the moment I’m just wanting to go to New York!! But for a bit of sun I would say Thailand again – it was absolutely stunning, the food, the people, the landscape…it was magical!
As for summer eats – a lot of berries, cantaloupe, persimmons, apricots and just baking with them I guess! I need some summer recipes too…
So jealous of your afternoon in the sun! It hasn’t really made much of an appearance in the UK yet! Those smoothies look amazing too! I got married in Italy and it was fab, my ideal vacation for summer would be Greece. Summer eats has to be fresh berries and lots of them 🙂
BAD AMANDA!! Why do you always give me a heart attack when I open your blog?! Last time it was a Kaiah scare, and now a spider one!! Thanks a bunch! 😛
I’ve basically spent my summer baking! Haha every single day for the past 5 days! It has been AWESOME!! Summer is the BEST and summer berries are rocking
My world right now! 😀
Lol girl! Summer is for being outside! Winter is for baking! Ahh who am I kidding. I have no problem sweating it out in a hot kitchen if it means I get to eat delicious baked goodies.
Hehe it was actually officially the first day of my WINTER *bleugh*. Oh well it could have been worse 🙂 However, in the summer I LURVE taking advantage of all the fruits in season. Oh the deliciousness!
xxx
This made me want to spend the summer with you, haha 🙂 Enjoying the sun, the berries and those fabolous muffin of yours. Ah, dream!
My first day of summer was beautiful, to feel the sun on my skin is an amazing experience. I love living in a country where we have four distinct seasons, makes me appreciate them all more.
My ideal vacation spot must be… what a tough question! Much easier to say what I would like to do on an ideal vacataion and that is to explore the place! Get to know the locals, their history and traditions. Not lay on a beach, I think that is boring. Haha 😀
<3
I definitely agree that exploring and learning is better than laying out on the beach… I always think that I’ll enjoy some tropical vacation, but it gets pretty boring after a day or two. Wandering around cities and sites is a lot more tiring, but it makes for some of the best memories 😀
My absolute favorite summer eats definitely include fruit desserts – I’ve always loved picking the fruit from our garden (apples, pears, apricots, peaches, plums raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries – whew!) and helping my dad make pies, galettes, jams and jellies… you name it. Honestly, I think fruit might be the #1 reason summer is my favorite season.
LOVE this refreshing post, love!!! ahhhhh have so much fun tonight!!! going out with friends is so fun!!
The spider made me cringe! Eeek.
As for favourite vacation spots – I’m with you, I love road trips! I’m living in Ottawa right now, and we are heading on a road trip to Boston next week – yahoo! I also love exploring somewhere really new and totally unlike any place I’ve been before – Barcelona was fun!
eep! I hate spiders, but I’m also too scared to swat them away too.
That’s the one thing that I absolutely hate during the summer…bugs.
The first half of my first day of summer was spent behind a computer frantically finishing an assignment due today, but the 2nd half of the day was spent being lazy and grilling up dinner. My favorite eats include anything grilled and lots of cool and refreshing foods. And lots of ice cream and smoothies!
So glad the sun finally came back for you! And on the first day of summer…how fitting! 🙂
Carefree nights are my FAVORITE! And most of mind seem to involve ice cream 😉 hehe
My summer eats are lots of salads, yogurt and smoothies!
I love lilacs, their smell is the most divine thing! My fave season is fall as well, but summer is also nice:) All the swimming, outside eating, evening walks, watermelon and berries munching..yeah, it is good 🙂
Ohhh yummm vanilla ice cream! And I’m with ya… Fall > Summer
Love this post! All of these pictures absolutely scream summer, and you are looking gorgeous in that last one 🙂
My first summer day was spent at the beach and then I just came home from work… a great day!
Froyo and fresh berries= true love
I want a muffie!!! 🙂
Oh my gosh that spider is TERRIFYING! I didn’t even know we had spiders that big in Canada!
My favourite summer foods are heirloom tomato + cheese + basil salads and black bean + tomato + corn + grain salads. I love using fresh local produce in the summers!
Ahh I’m dying to go to Italy too! Partially for the food and partially to see all the ruins so that I can totally nerd out and tour them all. 😛
wonderful pictures! 🙂 I love LOVE LOVE summer 🙂
Beautiful post!! I’d love summer a whole lot more if it weren’t so dang hot & humid here!
And holy whoa to that spider. I was surprised by one last night in my bathroom. I looked down and there was a HUGE house spider hangin out right by my feet. Those things are supposed to by tiny..but this guy must have been eating all of the small ones or something.
You’ll see much bigger spiders than that if you visit Australia – at least if you go to the outback! We don’t get too many of the huge ones in the city, although the ones we do have are of course poisonous.
I don’t know about my ‘ideal’ vacation spot, but at the moment I am yearning to get back to Norfolk Island, visit Tasmania and go back to the UK, with a train trip to France. Nothing too exotic because most of the other spots I want to go to (e.g. Egypt and UAE) are a bit unstable at the moment!
Oh, and my favourite summer eats generally involve lots of salads and smoothies, of course, but I must say that ever since winter rolled around I have been craving the snack plates of summer with pita, hummus, olives, falafel, and other fun dips and ‘accoutrements’! And homemade veggie burgers! I made about 2 dozen different varieties this past summer (what can I say, the summer lasts AGES here!).
I’ve heard that about the spiders in Australia, but you guys also have koalas, so I’ll have to suck it up 😉
I may have passed out if I saw a spider that big! I go to bed around 10 too, so we must both be super cool 🙂
i agree on the bug front! EW>>. WOW u have such hot legs! ow ow!… summer is the bomb.com. fresh salads galore!
you’re so beautiful!! and i love the ice cream 🙂 my first day of summer was pretty average i have to sayyy.. and ah i’m going ot australia to study abroad next year in the spring semester!
Ack that’s SO cool! I’ve always wanted to study abroad!
AHHH summer 🙂 So wonderful! I’m a smoothie freak in the summer, especially with LOADS of ice cubes to make it thick and freezing. Anything to get a brain freeze rocks my world! 😉
i LOVED the hot weather today. finally feels like a real california summer. i love drinking juice and smoothies and eating fresh summer fruit . i love that the farmers markets are hustling and bustling and that the beaches are packed. i love that everyone’s a litte happier and a little more carefree.
i dont think i have an ideal vacation spot (though i love new york city) but i would love to go to iceland someday. in regards to italy, if you ever get a chance to go during the summer, you must visit capri and the surrounding islands – positano, pompeii, etc. so beautiful, you would love it!!
summer recipes – blend up frozen fruit with some almond milk + almond butter = delicious!!! big colorful salads with all the summer vegetables you can possibly find. sorbet!
Awwr sounds perfect! I wish we had beaches and more farmer’s markets here.
Lovely photos! (except for that spider…eww!)
My first day of summer was spent in the office…boo 🙁 But I did go outside on my lunch break, and it was beautiful 🙂
My favorite summer food: any fresh vegetables that they’re selling down at the farmer’s stand.
Summer is my favorite season! I love soaking up the sun while reading a good book!
My favorite summer foods – fresh berries and peaches, vine ripened tomatoes,
Fresh tomato sauce with roasted eggplant, roasted red peppers and hummus sandwiches, vanilla smoothies, sweet watermelon, freh herbs from m garden!
My favorite travel destinations – anywhere but if I had to choose – Italy or maybe Hawaii
Look at you lookin all hot! 🙂
Yes I must say that summer isn’t my favorite season however the flavors and colors always get me!! I love fresh berries and melon, and living off smoothies seriously makes my life!
i love the summer too! i love that the days are longer, grilling outside (everything tastes better grilled!) and the fresh fruits and veggies!!
Haha today was my first day of lifeguarding 🙂 http://lauren-whatlaurenlikes.blogspot.com/2011/06/heaven-is-place-on-earthin-strawberry.html. Strawberries were my inspriration for today though!!
PS- Nice magic bullet cup/smoothie 🙂
right now my fav summer lunch involves croissant tea sandwiches with cranberries and cucumbers =) ob-sessed!
ummm girl i love you but if you post another spider picture ever I may cry. they bite me in my sleep i haaaaate them! jerky mc-jerks
My first day of summer was spent taking care of my niece and newphew which actually turned out to be fairly stress free. We walked to the library, hung out in a neighbor’s pool, and just had a good day!
Yay, so glad Mother Nature gave you some sun. She let up on the rain here and did the same! My first day of summer was perfect 🙂 I would love to go to Italy too! I went to yoga last week and at the end of class the teacher was telling us about a yoga retreat she’s leading that’s all about “Italian food, wine and yoga” in Tuscany. I WISH.
Ooo! I wish too! I’m dying to try authentic Italian…
I <3 summer!
I love summer, happy 1st day! Fresh fruit, tanning at the pool with a great book and long runs, what’s not to love!
Perfect post for the first day of summer! I’m glad the rain finally stopped for you to catch some rays. I made a very summery cob salad for dinner. I’ll post it tomorrow morning. Maybe that’ll be inspiration for you. 🙂