What's Up Wednesday

 Good morning everyone and happy What's Up Wednesday! July is coming to a close which means that all things Back-to-School are about to be starting up soon. Isn't that crazy? Summer feels like it flew by. My nephew's first day of first grade in Georgia is Monday! When do you all go back to school? Today I am linking up with Sheaffer and Shay for What's Up Wednesday. Let's get to it!

What We're Eating: All the plant-based foods! I have a post scheduled to go out on Monday about my thoughts on us going plant-based for the month of July. Spoiler alert: We loved it. Tonight we are making this ratatouille recipe:

I have been pleasantly surprised by how many of the plant-based recipes the kids were on board for. If you've been thinking about switching to a plant-based diet, make sure to come back and read on Monday. It has been great for our family. 

What I'm Reminiscing About: As we are planning our first big trip post-shutdown it is bringing back some great memories of traveling. 

Devin's job is in international business so he typically travels a lot for work. Luckily for us he earns a lot of airline miles and we have been able to travel to some pretty cool places inexpensively. 

What I'm Loving: Soaking up all this time with the kids this summer. Don't get me wrong, my head is definitely ready to hit the pillow at the end of the day, but I genuinely love how wonderfully exhausting the days are. Both kids have grown so much over the past few months and I love that I have been able to be here with them to see it all. Liam's sense of humor cracks us all up, and Lily Grace is so sweet and nurturing with him. 

What We've Been Up To: Planning our trip to Europe! We have decided that we are switching up the itinerary a bit. We felt like we were trying to cram too much into our 10 days there and decided to scale back a bit. Now we are planning to fly into Venice, visit Northern Italy, Slovenia and Croatia. 

I didn't know much about Slovenia until recently we were watching all the Rick Steve's Europe episodes for the places we were curious about going and Devin put on Slovenia. I even said "But why watch this one? We aren't going there". Within 10 minutes I had changed my mind!

What I'm Excited About: My first 10k since COVID is in September and I can't wait! It'll be in Charleston, SC in the fall. 

What I'm Reading/Watching: I am currently reading Shanghai Girls by Lisa See and am loving it!! 

It takes place in the 1930's and is a story of two sisters born into a wealthy Chinese family who then proceed to lose their wealth, are forced into arranged marriages, and then the Japanese begin to attack and they flee to the US. The trials the sisters go through are heartbreaking but also inspiring-- it's amazing how they are able to persevere throughout all the adversity they face. 

As for watching, we are watching an episode of Rick Steves' or other travel shows almost every night as we prepare for our trip. We are also still making our way through The Crown and love it!

 We recently watched the episode where Prince Charles is bullied at his boarding school and that was heartbreaking to watch. I know it's a show and was meant to pull at heartstrings, but I also imagine there's a bit of truth to him struggling to fit in. 

What I'm Listening To: John Mayer's new album Sob Rock. 

I love his voice and could listen to him all day. This album is great background music while cooking, cleaning, etc. It's soothing but catchy-- I really like it!

What I'm Wearing:

Last week we had a date night and I wore this:

Dress/ Earrings (from a local boutique, but similar here)/ Shoes (old, but similar here)

Then I had dinner with some girlfriends one night and wore this:

And for another dinner wore this:

Dress is old (exact here, similar here). I love some Lilly Pulitzer, especially in the summer.

Most days I am just wearing jean shorts and an easy t shirt like in this pic below:

and then I wore this green dress for our day date in the city:

What I'm Doing This Weekend: As far as I know, no plans yet! 

What I'm Looking Forward to Next Month: All the back to school fun! My kids don't technically go back to school until after Labor Day, but there's just something about the excitement of seeing school supplies in the aisles at stores. I'm such a teacher-- hah! I'm looking forward to some back to school clothes shopping for the kids!

Thanks for reading along today! Have a great week!