Some of my fondest summer memories from growing up are the copious amount of time spent at the pool; swim practice, getting airheads at the snackbar, spending all day with friends - there really isn't anything better.  My love of the water is not limited to pools, but it's a love that I have so desperately wanted Liam to latch on to.  This summer our focus has been getting Liam comfortable with the water.  This has included swim lessons and spending as much time at the pool as possible.  It's been really awesome to see how he has progressed, though I wish we had done this sooner.  And one such day, we took along our GoPro to play with while we were spending some quality time at the pool.  Some of the pictures turned out so well that I had them printed and included one on my gallery wall in my office.  However, it lead me to the realization that we do not use our GoPro enough.  We've had it for a year or so and it was so fun and easy to use, not to mention captures such cool things from a unique perspective.

This year marks the 70th birthday of the bikini.  Named after a place called Bikini Atoll, the name was coined by a Parisian engineer, Louis Reard who designed the suit.  It was slow to be adopted, but now the bikini is synonymous with bathing suits.  In honor of the bikini's 70th birthday, I've rounded up some of my favorite brands for you so you can rock them this season and some that I might be rocking this summer.

If you are anything like me, your pinterest boards are full of beautiful spaces, crafty DIYs, and recipes fit for an episode of Top Chef.  Pinterest is great like that - letting me be inspired to think that I am as crafty as the masses and that I do have the ability to cook at the level of an Ashley Christensen with a mere ironclad skillet and no training.  Can you sense my sarcasm? That's because most of my attempts at Pinterest-related items are epic fails.  I'm relatively crafty, but my bar is very very low.  So when I fell in love with a hat and then caught it's price tag, I figured - what do I have to lose? And what do you know, low expectations make for me being pleasantly surprised at the outcome.  It was actually so easy, in fact, that I thought I would share with you good people should you want to craft it up over the weekend.



What you'll need:
- Floppy straw hat with a brim at least 5 inches
- 3 rolls of sequin ribbon (4 ft each, 12 ft total)
- Glue (you can either use a glue gun (which I am horrible with - see above) or Elmer's XTreme glue which also happens to be washable should you get over zealous with your application)
- pencil
- ruler
- Qtips
- Scissors

How to:
Lay your hat out flat on a hard surface.  Mark off the area that you'd like to place your lettering (around two-thirds of brim of the hat).  If you'd like you can hand draw the lettering before putting down the glue so you can follow it; I did not do this because I had issues getting my pencil to mark on the straw itself.  Write out phrase of your choice in glue and begin to lay out the sequin ribbon over top of the glue.  (Tip: I started out at the end of the last word, which seemed to work well from a lettering perspective, as well as having the ribbon interfering with the glue you've already laid down).  Once the lettering is complete use the QTips to clean up the extraneous glue.  (If you use the glue that I did, you can use a little bit of water.  The glue itself will dry clear and not leave a trace).

[shirt: jcrew // shorts: jcrew // kicks: target (similar) // baubles: michael kors, stella & dot, jcrew (similar) // purse: tory burch (similar) // sunnies: prada]

This print for me was love at first sight - the biggest question was what to purchase it in.  Taking the time honored advice of the one-and-only DVF, I channeled my inner 'feel like a women, wear a dress' mantra and I couldn't be happier.  It's a great, vibrant print for the summer and will be perfect to throw on to dress up or dress down.  Plus, it's incredibly comfortable.  Wins all around.

There's something about this time of year in Carolina.  It might have something to do with the lovely weather, or the smell in the air (if you can survive the pollen), but whatever it is, the song "Barefoot Blue Jean Night" is the epitome of a southern summer night in my book.  And this time of year, I love a good summery cocktail.

When were were in Turks & Caicos earlier in the month, I discovered The Green Flamingo at The Regent and their amazing basil berry cocktail.  Think a mojito-like concoction with a refreshing basil infused vodka and muddled fresh berries.  Here's the bad news: basil-infused vodka, not so easy to come by.  Good news: it's incredibly easy to make your own.

The humidity does a number to my generally unruly hair.  Therefore, over the summer months, I look to find easy hairstyles that are still stylish that I can wear over the summer months until October when my hair goes back to being better behaved.