A new school year.....

School year and craziness has started....and Mommy doesn't like the fact that my babies big kids are not on the same schedule anymore. Molly started 1st grade at Haw Creek Elementary (7:40 start) while Ben & Rachel are now big middle schoolers at Lakeside have a late start (9:00) Which is nice in the mornings....but when Molly is out at 2:20 and they don't get out until 4:15 every day....really stinks! I love that we live 1 mile from the schools and can even walk. I love the time with Molly in the afternoon but Ben & Rachel are the ones that need the time with homework, but they barely get home and it's time to eat dinner, run to soccer, run to dance, run to church, etc. Praying for my sanity (I miss having them around) and for them to have a wonderful year!!!

 Molly - First Grade

Ben & Rachel - Sixth Grade

Fun filled July!

What a busy and fun-filled month. Visitors, and trips, celebrating the 4th, swimming & fun adventures! Best summer ever!

Started with our Ohio friends....One of Ben's best buddies and his family (The O'Connor's) got to visit a couple days and we had such fun catching up.  Lots of laughter around here!

Molly celebrating the 4th!

More Ohio visitors (The Snyder Family) 

and more swimming!

"Aunt Susan" flew in from KY....and that means lots more swimming, more laughter and more craziness! Then after a few days, she drove back to KY with us and we stayed the night with her before going on to IN to visit family.

Cousins & cakes...

Celebrating Michael and Will's b-days in Bloomington, IN 

Then a quick trip back through Ohio to visit more friends & our old neighborhood. My kids love GA but they sure do miss their Ohio friends. 

Swimming with neighborhood friends

More July...

And the highlight of the summer for my kids was going to visit Ben's 5th Grade Teacher (Mr. McCabe) and his wife (Molly's Kindergarten Asst.) Mrs. McCabe up in the GA mountains at their home and surroundings (Big Canoe)...so much fun and so much to do there. Paddle boats, canoes, swimming, rock sliding, lunch, dock jumping, playing in the sand....definitely the highlight of my kids summer.  Sooooo, soooo fun!!!!

 Ben and Mr. McCabe paddling across the lake.  So beautiful there.

Crazy Ben on one of the rock slides and Molly & her best friend Oakley with Mrs. McCabe.

And then the adventure continued as we decided on a last minute beach getaway as a family so we headed down to Panama City Beach and spent 4 nights. Loved the white sand but was NOT a fan of the seaweed that was along the beach or everywhere in the water! But we still had so much fun.  

 Getting dumped on.... never gets old with these three!

Sad to see July come to an end!

(because that means we are getting close to another school year)

June Trip

Not only did we have visitors in June....we were also visitors because we made a trip back to AR to visit family and friends. Spent the first two days with the Jobe Family.  We were able to go see the new Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, which was amazing.  Then the next day went way too quickly as we were visiting our old neighborhood, friends and fit in a couple playdates, a lunch and a dinner with friends.

Crystal Bridges with the Jobe Family

(Cousins)

Then to Harrison.  Highlights at the Martins were meeting Maddie (their new precious puppy) & Ben letting Kyle shave his hair to a buzz cut. (first time ever!) I also  got to see my Mom each day (very sad that the dementia is worse and there is no conversation anymore as she just repeats the same word) but I do think she knew us and seemed happy. Spent some time with Grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends and ended the week at the Still Family Farm.  All the good cooking and hospitality this week....I think I gained 10 lbs!

Meeting Mattie..she loves playing in the monkey grass!

And on the way home we got to stop in TN for the night and spend some time with Ben & Rachel's favorite preschool teacher (Mrs. Rebecca) and the kids had lots of fun with her grandson (Grant).  Then the next day we all went to downtown Franklin and had lunch and shopped around for a little bit before heading home.  Can't wait to go back!

Trevor's parents, his sister and our nephew came for a visit the end of May/first week of June. The kids were so excited that their cousin Michael was finally coming to visit. Grandpa had made the kids all hiking sticks so while we were touring the fish hatchery that is connected to our neighborhood they tried them out. The hatchery is one of our favorite places here and they keep about a million trout there at a time. And of course the pool got lots of use & I put my photography skills to work and got some cute pics!

Summer Fun!

The Gertz Family are friends of ours from IN but are in process of moving to NY. (we were hoping for GA...maybe someday!) Lucky for us they had a family wedding the first weekend in June so they got to come for the day and swim with the kids...and did my kids ever LOVE that!!! Thought it was great they had someone to play with in the pool! Twins, Cory & Eric were my first Kindergarten students when I taught with Susan in KY & now they have finished a year of college! (& Tyler graduated from Purdue) Boy....do I feel old! Surely they turned out to be such great young men because of that early education! :)

St. Brendan's Feast Day 5k

Our church had a Feast Day 5k Race and Ben was very excited about it! (Before and After anyway....but not so sure about during) Ben informed Trevor that he was tired and maybe he should have trained more! They finished, they had fun and they went for donuts after....so all was good when they got home and I took this picture!