Summer is in full swing!  All of us are enjoying the lazy days of summer and all that comes with it!As always with the end of the month comes our best in blog reviews. So get to clicking and see some things you might have missed!

Happy Tuesday!  Katie from The Mishaps and Mayhem of a Solitary Life here today for our next installment of a super fun series, called Styled By...Someone Else!  Deena and her sweet family kicked off the series last month and they did such a great job!!  And this month, it's my turn!




I had big plans for a super fun get-together with my three older sisters so they could style me!  But alas, summer camps and sports and vacations and other obligations got in the way and we weren't able to find the time to get together.  So in true solitary life fashion, I texted messaged and called them all to ask what they wanted to see me wear.  Meghan and Tara offered suggestions...Erin said she had no fashion sense whatsoever so she would be no help!  I disagree with her but will forgive her, as she is currently recovering from a disastrous fall down her stairs and is suffering just about every slipped thing in a back that there is!!

I should mention though that they all thought it was crazy that I was asking them to style me.  They thought it should have been the other way around!  Which is a big compliment I suppose!  And if, I'm being completely honest, I am a little bit happy that they didn't come here and rummage through my closets, as I know it would have been a huge discussion about the fact that I have way too many clothes!   Some girls have husbands and kids....I have clothes!! :)

So text messages and phones calls it was!!

First up Meg's request:
She said she'd like to see me in a pair of patterned shorts, flowy tank top, with a long necklace and strappy flat sandals! Easy enough!!   I actually had lots of options for this!!

Here's what I came up with!  Meghan approved!



Katie is a regular contributor to The Blended Blog. When she's not blogging, she's laughing.  She spends her days as a teacher-librarian to "her" 300 kids in her hometown on Long Island, New York.  She enjoys online shopping, fun nights out with friends, or in, binge-watching Netflix and drinking wine. Follow along with her at The Mishaps and Mayhem of a Solitary Life.

Lisa is a regular contributor for The Blended Blog and also maintains her own blog over at Daily Style Finds.  Lisa loves fashion, style, and shopping online.  Her goal is to help style women to make them look and feel great - and find some awesome deals along the way!

Happy Friday friends!  It's Lana, and today I'd like to introduce you to Susan, who blogs at The Most Of Every Moment.  Susan was the first person I met when I started blogging, and we quickly became friends.  She lives in Montana and writes about ways to live each day to the fullest.  Be sure to hop over to her blog and read Seven Ways to Make the Most of a Moment and Seven Tips for Sending Your Child Off to College.


Do you have any children?  What parenting advice would you give to someone having a new baby?

My husband and I have a daughter who will be a college senior in Washington next year and a son who just graduated from high school and will be attending college in Oregon this fall.  I am simply astonished by how quickly they grew up!

My advice to new parents is to savor every single minute.  Take lots of photos of your children and video both sweet and ornery moments, record their little voices and their giggles, make note of every milestone, and jot down the cute things your kids say.  No one is a perfect parent, but I've learned that an apology can mend a lot of mistakes.  Spending quality time with your kids is the very best gift that you can give them.


What would you consider your greatest accomplishment and why?

My greatest accomplishment, without a doubt, is raising two caring and successful young adults.  I could not be more proud of them, and I know the world is already a better place because of them.

What is your greatest unfulfilled ambition?

Right now, I think my greatest unfulfilled ambition involves writing.  I am still trying to figure out how I can hone this interest, and where it will take me.  I suspect my ambition to "be a writer" may never be truly achieved, as one goal sort of leads to another, but I am curious and excited to see where it will lead me next.

What is something that people might be surprised to know about you?

I have traveled all the way around the world and to many different places, but as I don't talk a lot about this, many of my friends have no idea of where all I have been.  People who do know how much I have traveled might be surprised that I have absolutely no sense of direction, and friends who have witnessed my poor navigational abilities probably find it hard to believe I've ever managed to go anywhere on my own!  I am good at asking for directions, so I always manage to get where I need to be when on foot or using public transport. Driving a car in an unfamiliar place is incredibly daunting for me, though.

What has been the biggest challenge with blogging?

Anyone who has been blogging for a while would probably agree that a blogger's challenges keep evolving.  To completely answer this question, I could fill a page!  Rather than provide too lengthy of a response here, I'll just mention my latest blogging struggle.  I seem to be currently lacking a sense of direction in both blogging and geography!

With my youngest child heading off to college, my life is in the process of changing directions -- and my blog is feeling a bit that way, as well.  My posting schedule has dropped off dramatically in the past few months, as I have been spending time taking some on-line classes and evaluating the purpose of my blog.

When I visit social media channels, I find myself scrolling through an ever-changing, immense amount of content.  While much of it is interesting and helpful, lately I've been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it all.  This has caused me to experience some burnout and to re-evaluate my role as a blogger. I feel a responsibility to ensure that my posts will be enriching for my readers, and I want the time I spend blogging to help me meet my own goals as a writer. I've been feeling a little off course, but I'm certain that I will soon be back on track with blogging and headed in an even better direction.

What is your favorite style season (fall, spring, summer, winter) and why?

I have never really given much thought to style until I began reading the fashion posts of the bloggers that I follow.  I've learned a lot, both from Lana and right here on The Blended Blog.  Living in Montana, my style is almost always very casual.  My favorite "style season" is probably summer, as temperatures in Montana from June to September can vary greatly. I spend a lot of time in shorts, capris, and skirts, but it's nice to snuggle into a sweater and jeans on a rainy day or chilly summer night.

Do you like to dine out or stay in and cook dinner?

I really love to cook, but I do enjoy going out to eat occasionally.  My husband and I often prepare dinner together on weekends, and that is fun too.  He is better at cooking fish and seafood than I am, but I always make dessert!

You can follow Susan on her blog or Facebook.

Good Morning!  It's Christy from rsquared here today for the second installment of our 10 years forward series.  It all started while a few of us were discussing the book What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty.  The book is about a woman that falls off a spin bike and wakes up thinking it was 10 years earlier.  This is one of my favorite books, probably because I enjoy a weekly spin class and know how much it would hurt to fall off your spin bike!  Don't worry, I hold on tight.


Let's take a look at where I'll be in 10 years.  I'll be an almost 47 year old woman with a husband of almost 21 years and 2 boys aged fifteen and eighteen.  Grady will have just graduated from high school and Cooper will be about to enter high school.

Am I the only one who has never actually sat down to think of where my life will be in 10 years?  Sarah did such a good job of being specific about where she imagined her and her family and I am stumped.  Is it bad that I've never really thought about it?

This was a good task for me and forced me to think about where I want my life to be vs where it will be realistically.  Trust me there is a big gap.  Something tells me I won't be living in Hawaii training for marathons and sipping cocktails by the pool.


Realistically I will still be working.  Ideally, I would like to work 3 days, but I don't foresee myself ever going back full time.  My job will be similar to what I am doing now as I don't plan (or want) to move any higher in my profession due to extra stress that I don't want.  I like having a boss that can point me in the right direction and make the decisions that matter.  I like to save my energy for dealing with the family and the chaos that will inevitably be occurring in my household with 2 teenage boys!

I will still be fit. I hope to have completed one half marathon.  As my kids get older and can babysit themselves, I hope to actually increase my fitness levels which will help in my half marathon training.

I will still be surrounded by the same network of friends that have supported me through the trials and tribulations for having a young family.  Instead of talking about diapers, sleep schedules, and breastfeeding we will be talking about dating, sex, and universities.  While the topics of conversation may change the support that my posse will provide won't.


I will still be a hockey mom.  I am not sure if Cooper will continue with hockey all the way to high school but given Grady's love of the sport, I foresee him sticking with it all the way.  I expect that my love of watching the kids play sports will increase over the years.  Once I finally learn what offside is I will understand the sport fully.  When Cooper decides what it is he wants to do as an extra curricular activity I will support him fully and be his biggest cheerleader.  Who knows, he may stick decide to stick with hockey in which case this hockey mom will be very busy!  Secretly, I hope he does.


We will be living in a new home.  We bought our current house 12 years ago, the year before we got married.  It was our first home and while we did a great job in choosing it, we are outgrowing it.  We have been looking around for something new but we are very particular.  James is looking for a bigger garage, I would like a nice kitchen and a bigger closet, and the kids would like a yard that is big enough for a trampoline and a basement made for mini sticks.  #priorities

We will still be close to taking our last summer vacation to Kelowna.  I really hope that the kids come to BC with us every summer for the next 10 years, but after they graduate, I realize that the chances of them wanting to vacation with their parents are slim.  It makes me sad to realize we only have 10 more family summer vacations.  I wonder if I continue to pay if they will continue to come.  Fingers crossed.


For our 20 year anniversary I would love to go to Italy.  I don't feel ready to leave the kids long enough to go on a 'real' vacation yet.  But by then they should be mostly self sufficient and Grandma can just come and vacation at our house while the kids come and go.  Book it in your calendar Grandma!  September 2025!

For someone that had never thought about what the future holds, I came up with lots of thoughts on where I want to be. It will be interesting to look back at this post in 10 years and see how well I did.

Where do you think you'll be in 10 years?





Christy is a regular contributor for the Blended Blog and maintains her personal blog, RSquared.  She is also a working mom to 2 boys and a wife to James.  She loves everything to do with family, friends, fashion, fitness... and wine! 

Today I dropped off my kids at day one of summer camp, Pedalheads bike camp.   You see teaching my kids to ride on 2 wheels was never something I looked forward to.  While some people may accept the challenge,  I was more about paying someone to do it for me while being a cheerleader from the side lines.

You see, this camp is spectacular because it teaches our child to ride on 2 wheels.  You drop your child off on day 1 with the training wheels firmly attached and when you pick your child up that same day, said training wheels are in the child's back pack.  As a parent, you just need to resist temptation when your son asks you repeatedly to please put them back on.  By day 5 both my kids were riding on 2 wheels like champs.  Obviously there are some exceptions, but if they are ready, this camp will get them there in 5 days or less.




While I had my oldest son Grady almost on 2 wheels when we arrived on day 1 of his first camp, my younger son was very attached to his balance bike and not really willing to give 2 wheels a try.  If you have young children, or even if you don't, you will recognize the balance bike as the normal looking bike with no pedals.  It looks odd as kids as young as 2 years old can be seen coasting along the bike path on what looks like a 2 wheeled bike.  With no pedals.  We chose the strider bike because at the time there were very few options.  Now I see all sorts of colors, shapes and sizes on the paths.

We bought the strider bike for my older son and he wanted nothing to do with it.  Nothing.  He would barely even humor us by sitting on it.  It collected dust in our garage until our younger son Cooper decided he wanted to bike like his big brother, who by this time had completed his first summer of bike camp.   Cooper liked his bike too much.  He loved his balance bike and he got very VERY good at it.  See for yourself how fast he could go.  Keep in mind, this bike has no brakes.

Password is balance



When you look at the speed that this kid got on his bike and the fact that there are no brakes, the easiest, and most convenient way to stop is to drag your feet.  The destruction this does on your shoes is beyond words.  See photo.


This kid needed to get on 2 wheels before he broke the bank with the amount of shoes he was destroying.  Since I did a pretty good job of teaching Grady I was confident that I could teach Cooper as well.  After all, they did say that if you could balance you could ride on 2 wheels.  Easy Peasy.  Or not.

Whoever said that teaching your child to ride on 2 wheels after mastering the balance bike was wrong. Terribly wrong.  While my child was a superstar at balancing, his pedaling needed a lot of work.   The first time I sat him on the bike with training wheels he fell off the back.  Instead of pushing down on the pedals, he was pushing out and sliding his little tushy right off the back of his seat.  We had some work to do.

I didn't hesitate in registering him in the same camp that was so successful at teaching Grady, and I wasn't surprised that they had the same luck with Cooper.  Although he did put up more of a fight than Grady did and begged for his training wheels back on each night.  Mid week he just accepted he wasn't getting them back and stopped asking.


This is the third year of the camp and instead of learning to ride their bikes they are learning how to ride on the street, hand signals, changing gears, and going on extended bike rides.  Which is great since the hubs and I got brand new bikes last year.  Family bike rides here we come.

I have such fond memories of biking to school daily and to my friends houses to play.  It was my mode of transportation, my independence from my parents.  I am thrilled to see my kids embracing their bikes and while times have changed changed and it no longer seems acceptable to our kids to bike to school solo as early or let them bike home from friends houses on their own, it gives them a sence of freedom and confidence that comes with riding solo.

I look forward to the family rides that lie ahead as our boys become more and more capable of cycling on their own for longer distances.  I look forward to the days where they can get themselves to and from their friends houses, not because of the freedom it will bring me, but the freedom it will bring them.





Christy is a regular contributor for the Blended Blog and maintains her personal blog, RSquared.  She is also a working mom to 2 boys and a wife to James.  She loves everything to do with family, friends, fashion, fitness... and wine!