A Celebration of Summer

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It's move in day! Well, sort of. Today I, Maia, move back on campus, and just a week after that I, Katherine, will be back as well. We write in anxious anticipation of this next school year and all it will bring: our long-awaited Mod & Bean reunion as well as the official declaration of our "concentrations", Harvard jargon for the more common term, "majors".

As we type this post thousands of miles apart, we exchange ideas and smiles over text, gearing up for all of the real life coffee shop talks to come — especially considering two new cafes are set to open in the square come fall: Tatte and Flour. To say we're excited is an understatement!

Considering both our camera rolls are bursting at the seams with unshared photos, we've created a little capsule post bidding farewell to our summers — tossing in some of these unseen pictures for good measure. (I know — for all of the photos we manage to cram into our blog posts, we still have so many that don't make the cut).

Cue some summer outtakes:

(Note our shared gangly human bean-ness). 

Here are two of my, Maia's, favorite outtakes. The first being sheer joy radiating from me as I am face to glass with my favorite animal since childhood. Here's to everyone who said my favorite animal being a capybara was weird!! And second, Cat making me sit next to two, terrifyingly large and hideous groupers at the aquarium (upon our discovery that large, aquatic critters make my skin crawl and cause me to feel an irrational sense of fear.)

Below are a few of my, Katherine's, favorite outtakes. Not particularly remarkable or funny in their own rights, these photos, instead, serve to highlight what really goes on behind the scenes for all of those poised and polished selfies gracing my blog posts. With every instagram worthy outfit or scenery shot, there are about 200 of these awkward stair-downs and interactions with strangers (either that, or me dancing terribly). First set of photos: woman incredibly confused by my standing in the middle of farmer's market. Second: man yelling at me, possibly confused by my holding two entirely separate gelatos. My facial expression in all of them: no shame.

Though packing up apartments/purchasing new dorm decorations seems to occupy all of our time and headspace of late, we found it quite valuable to take a moment and muse over our incredible summers. 

(Some of our travels' finest flora & fauna).

Maybe it's some form of confirmation bias, but we swear every time we chat, we uncover more uncanny similarities between us. It's becoming all the more plausible that we are twins separated at birth — especially given my, Maia's, height is not at all genetically correlated to that of my parents. A talk with them might have to be had. In all seriousness though, in a joking Instagram I, Maia, wrote that I'm the tallest beanstalk in my family. To which I received an ecstatic text from Kat saying her mother affectionately refers to her as her little beanpole. Beanstalk. Beanpole. Beans. Beans! (Read in the voice of Jim mocking Dwight and concluding that, "Fact: Bears eat beets. Bears. Beats. Battle Star Gallactica.") So, turns out there's a fourth layer to our already multi-faceted blog name rationale. Bean for Boston, Bean for Coffee, Bean for Humans, and now Bean for quirky descriptions of our gawky long limbs.

(Some sweet moments with our parents whom we'll miss dearly during the school year.)

Here's to boundless happiness, laughter, and fun blog ideas to come. Here's to a hapless curation of summer candids. Here's to sophomore year being "sophar so good" (I, Maia, will admit to already coming up for the name of my 2016-2017 FB album...) and here's to finally living one door over from each other. 

(Some of our drool-worthy summer noms).

So, as we settle back into the swing of things, excuse any quietness on the blog. Just know that we'll be writing/photographing/brainstorming furiously and whole-heartedly behind the scenes, working to bring fresh and exciting content to our little corner of the web. 

Life is so incredibly exciting right now, what with the end of summer, the beginning of an entirely new school year, and the prospects of living right next door to one another. So if you need us, we'll be off unpacking our college boxes and setting up our new dorm rooms, happily wiping sweat off our brows in the process. 

Xx, Beanpole & Beanstalk