Meredith's Birthday Post

Dear Family,

Summer is flying by! It's been a good birthday month. At the very beginning of the month I visited Florida and had a great mini vacation. It was so fun to go to the beach and enjoy being outdoors. I went to South Beach in Miami with Tricia Cooper, which was SO beautiful. She also took me to the Everglades where we went on an air boat tour. It was so fun! I don't remember ever going on an air boat. It's such a weird feeling to be on top of the water and to glide right over all the grass and weeds coming up out of the water. We saw a couple gators on the air boat tour. There were also some big gators back at the tour company's camp. I also got to hold a baby alligator. Mom was terrified when she saw the picture of me holding a gator on FB and thought I was just out frolicking with the gators (she told me to not to lie down anywhere that wasn't fenced in). I really enjoyed a museum and garden called Vizcaya in South Miami. I also was able to visit a good friend from my yoga teacher training who lives in Pompano Beach. She took me snorkeling and paddle boarding. I had been wanting to try paddle boarding for a long time, so I'm glad I got to do it, but it was very difficult and I'm not sure I got the full experience. The water was very choppy this day, so it was so much work to paddle against the wind.

 

The weekend before my birthday was Ann Colton Oakes' baby shower. She is having a baby girl. We did the shower at Kathryn Colton's home. I'm glad I could see good friends right before my birthday!

 

To celebrate my birthday, I went out with some friends for dinner on Capitol Hill on Friday. Also, on Sunday we had a really nice dinner at Hunter's with the Osguthorpe's. Dan went upstairs looking for cars in John Updike's room though. He didn't find any. I got 3! beautiful flower arrangements and I've been enjoying them all week.

 
 Flowers from the Osguthorpe's

Flowers from roommates

Flowers from Ann

  

This past week, I did a summer camp with Fairfax County schools. It was a Broadway performance camp. Trina helped me out a lot with some ideas and it was a really fun camp, though it was totally exhausting. I had eleven kids in the camp and we worked on 3 songs all week (just in the mornings) and performed on Friday for parents. The kids learned "It's the Hard Knock Life" and "Maybe" from "Annie" and "Seize the Day" from "Newsies."

 

I moved the beginning of June and I am really enjoying my new place. It is a big town home in the Fairlington area of Arlington. I live with two other girls and it's working out really well. It is such a pretty area and I'm really happy I moved. We have two nice tennis courts just across some lawn next to our place and a really nice pool. I've been swimming laps more, but haven't yet played any tennis.

 

I'm off to NYC tomorrow for a training that the American Ballet Theater company has developed for ballet teachers. I'm really looking forward to the training and being in the city. It is a long training though! I'll be in the city for a week and a half.

 

Oh, and the royal baby was born on my birthday. Isn't he lucky?

 

I'm on Instagram too! And I love it! My username is Merswift.

 

Love you so much!