summertime traditions

There are many things we love to do in the summertime at our house, so I thought I would start sharing one or two things a week that we love.

One of the things we most love is something we only started last year, and that is the summer concerts on the square of our sweet little town, The Ville.  I adore our little town; the only thing I adore more is the town square.  It's the meeting place of all meeting places.  On it are some of my favorite shops: CJ Lilly (the BEST flower shop in all of America), Hewlitt & Dunn (a cowboy store, if ever there was one) and some of my favorite places to frequent: Square Beans (a coffee shop that would give Central Perk from Friends a run for their money), The Silver Caboose (who is famous for "Fried Chicken Friday) and Yolo's (a frozen yogurt place).

We go here in the summer for these concerts, we go in the fall because of the changing of the leaves, we go at Christmas for the tree lighting event the first Tuesday night of every December and we go in the spring because the kids love to place pennies on the railroad tracks and climb on the trains.

I am telling you, I love this town.  Have I convinced you to move here yet?

I also love the fact that The Ville has that small town feel.  It's big enough that there's lots going on, but it's small enough that everywhere I go, I run into people I know.

All that being said, last night we met some friends on the square for the first summer concert of the season!  I was beginning to think we were going to get rained out, but thankfully the rain went away and the Lord provided for us the perfectly cool evening to sit and enjoy some great music and sweet fellowship.  And, I took some pictures.

This is a huge event, and while we always take a picnic, you can eat at one of the local restaurants on the square or you can purchase food from the vendors who set up nearby.  I'm thinking we might do that next week, just to mix it up a little.  Since we took a picnic, I gave Jonah and Noah some money and they walked to a little store-front place to eat called Mensi's.  They have really good ice cream, so they each bought a milkshake.

While we were there, in walking around a bit, I ran into some pretty awesome teenagers.

These were some of the occupants from middle school camp last week.  Drew's friend-girl convinced these three guys to walk up to the square and join them.  She's on the right...isn't she a cutie?  I think so.  :)  These sweeties have been together everyday this week, since coming home from camp on Monday night.  I love their friendship.

It was an awesome night, made complete by Toddley getting "hit" by a bird.  And as in "hit", I mean pooped on.  And then the same thing happened to my friend Lori's husband, though he got "hit" twice!  Hilarious.  If you're local to me, you should come with us next week!  We'll be there every Thursday night in June and July and I can tell you where we can be found.  I hope you enjoy your day!  We'll be hitting the pool in a little bit.  Love to all!