Life at Cloverhill

Summer

Memories of this Summer

As much as I look forward to autumn (my favourite season!) I have to admit that I’m going to miss the summer. We didn’t get to do everything on our wish list, but we still had a great time together.

I celebrated my 27th birthday, complete with chocolate covered strawberries on my cake. Then we headed out to the first drive-in of the summer (always on our summer wish list and we actually went 4 times this year. Woohoo!)

This was also dubbed the “Summer of the Weddings”, as we had three wonderful events to celebrate some of my favourite ladies in my life.

My former university roommate, Colleen got married in May and was the first of our roommates to get hitched!

Then came our good friends Eve and Mat who celebrated their big day in June with a beautiful wedding on Toronto Island.

July brought the final wedding of the summer for one of my other roommates, Jenilee. I was so happy to see her beaming on her big day.

(Don’t worry, we still have at least two more this fall!)

The summer weather also brought on plenty of cooking and baking with lots of BBQs and dinners with family and friends.

There were chocolate cupcakes with buttercream icing and real edible forget-me-nots for Victoria Day weekend.

When the summer heatwave really started to kick in we turned to Homemade Ice Cream without a machine to beat the heat.

Another new warm weather favourite were these Chocolate Covered Banana Freezer Bites. Since then there has been rarely a week that has gone by without some of these already made in the freezer.

Aside from plenty of cold sweet treats, we also hit up the farmers market every chance we got. We were lucky enough to get plenty of veggies from Garrett’s parents’ garden as well.

We used that bounty to make things like Whole Wheat Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Icing.

We got creative with Grilled Eggplant with Fresh Herbs.

But we also stuck to tried-and-true favourites like corn on the cob.

This was also our first summer in our apartment together, so we took the time to freshen things up a bit.

We spruced up our front porch for sitting out in the evenings.

We don’t have a yard, so I used our porch and landings to plant up a little herb garden and big planter.

And eventually we even started a small community garden

Which now looks even more lush than this. The fence is up for protection for veggie-crazed rabbits.
This little guy was hanging out in there too.

I made some fun garden markers for it as well, which turned out to be a community garden trend by the end of the summer. I loved seeing all the variations that people came up with!

I whipped up a Simple Summer Wreath using some supplies from a yard sale and the dollar store.

And I finally got around to making a Sunglasses Pouch to prevent anymore scratches on my shades sitting in my purse.

We came across a great garage sale steal with this dresser for only $15. I still haven’t painted it yet, but I’m starting to think that I’ll leave it be for now and just swap out the handles for something more sleek and modern.

We put up botanical prints in the bedroom. Then realized the photos looked wonky and retook them. Happens sometimes.

I made up a quick Framed Weekly Dinner Menu Board to make it easier to figure out what to make for dinner (and to remind me to try new recipes!)

We did our annual trip to Wonderland together.

Complete with rollercoaster rides.

Fueled by the largest cookie ice cream sandwich I’ve ever seen (we shared!)

And the tradition of a end-of-day funnel cake.

Seeing as this was also our first summer in our town, we took the time to enjoy all the great festivities that it has to offer. We really do love this place.

We enjoyed Music in the Park almost every week.

And went on muddy hikes whenever we could.

We explored fields with wildflowers and bumble bees.

And also visited new additions to the world. (I’ll admit it – I got a bit of baby fever after meeting this little fella. How are they so tiny?!?!)

We hung out at our friends’ cottage for Canada Day weekend.

And enjoyed plenty of fireworks.

We ended the summer with me heading to the emergency room with severe nerve pain after cutting dangerously hot peppers, while making Ratatouille.

But we made up for it with an outdoor screening of E.T. in our town park.

And our grand finale to the summer was a Labour Day weekend trip our friends’ cottage .

Not too bad for the past few months, but I always wish that there was more time to get other things done. We still have quite a few projects that need to get completed before the super cold weather hits here, so I’m hoping that September and October stay mild enough for us to stay outside a little bit longer.


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