This summer is flying. by. I can't believe it's almost the end of July! I feel like I've spent more time traveling than I have at home - for work and for fun - so I'm looking forward to staying put in August.

Not that I'm complaining - after all, our last trip was to St. Croix! We went for a week to visit the Virgin Islands Sustainable Farm Institute (VISFI), see old friends, and relax. Jacob was actually there through a grant from his work, but I got to tag along as well. YAY.

so relaxing.

The folks at VISFI are doing awesome stuff - their mission is to educate about sustainability and they are totally working with the community in St. Croix. And Nate, who is the program director there, is an old, old friend - we grew up in the same neighborhood! It was really fun to see him again and see this totally awesome place where he works and lives. We stayed at the farm for three days and ate delicious food and met great folks and relaxed. and I slept. A LOT. I mean, there was a hammock on a porch, people.

We also spent lots of time on the beach. We got to go snorkeling a bunch - and visited Buck Island, which is an amazing national park with a HUGE coral reef. It was so beautiful!

The pier in Frederiksted.

o hai I am snorkeling!

Amazing Buck Island.

It was a fabulous trip, and I'd love to go back to the farm again! (except for the outhouse. I do not want to go back to the outhouse.) More pics on my Flickr - there are three sets labeled St. Croix.

So what else is new? I've been sewing and knitting, although my sewing frenzy has slowed down a bit. I have a bunch of patterns I want to try and some great fabric to use, but I just haven't had the energy lately. I did manage to put this one together:

Trapeze Sundress from Weekend Sewing.

And, I've been working on pretty, pretty Ishbel. I totally heart this pattern.

Ishbel, almost done!

AND, we're getting a free rug! CSNrugs.com is sending us a rug - we picked it out - so we can test it and review it. oh yes. We've been looking for an area rug for right by our front door, and CSN Rugs has a bunch of great area rugs to choose from. We got one that's all natural fibers, and I'm excited to see how it looks in our house. Bella is also excited to lay on it. I'll be posting a review once we get it in the house and try it out.

So, that's all I've got! We're going out of town one more time this weekend - to go to the wedding of the fabulous Kelly and Matt! It's going to be super fun times.

Posted by Carrieoke at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)