Grand Finale week

As most of y'all who follow our blog know, my brother Greg and his family were in town from Manila for the summer. Their last week in town, my sister Jodi and her family came in for a massive family throw down at Mom's for a week. Just a reminder on our stats, that's seven adults and nine kids nine and under.

We started off with a wonderful brunch with Grandaddy, Granny Joan, Aunt Becky, and Uncle Richard.

 Grandaddy brought his famous paper airplanes that we all threw off Mom's deck. We sure loved our time with them!

 Ian and Abby Jane were swinging buddies. I'm thinking the two of them could swing all day long.

We brought two paddleboards to use on Mom's lake, and they were a huge hit. Katie was the first kid to go out on her own, but by the end of the week, everyone six and older had learned how get around on a board by themselves.

 Abby and Ryan hanging out watching folks out on the water.

 This is how Joy likes to ride.

This is how Blythe likes to roll. We're literally walking out the door to the pool (Chris in the background carrying towels) and she adorned herself with necklaces, a stethoscope, bringing along a frisbee for a prop all in the 15 feet from Grammy's toy closet to the door.

 Joy can't jump without grinning.

 We spent a lot of time at the pool.

Blythe's alter ego is being a sneaky little squirter. She's a confident little one with the gun. I've started telling her it's OK to shoot daddies so she always has a decent target that's not going to cry.

 One morning Joy was spectacularly quiet and groggy, but did not want to be in bed. I sneaked her out of the room before she could bother Blythe too much and we discovered Uncle Chris making pancakes. This morning was in stark contrast to the first morning we woke up at Mom's to Joy gustily singing the entirety "God bless America" at 6:40 a.m.

 Making homemade peach ice cream for the night Uncle Wayne and Aunt Boo came over for dessert!

 The big kids were amazingly engaged with the little ones. Which is great because Maggie and Blythe both honestly claim to be five instead of two, and while Joy owns up to being two, she keeps up with the eight year olds. So it's a good things the big kids didn't mind them.

 This happened at Ian's birthday party. She wasn't too worried about it.

 This is where seven of nine decided to sit to eat Ian's birthday ice cream cones!

 This is the delight that legos bring.

 Since legos are just that cool, everyone over the age of two except Jodi and I spent one day at Legoland. This is the pre-departure picture.

 While they were gone, the two-year-olds cemented their token triplet status by running around town in the back of my car while Jo and I got supplies for a surprise 40th birthday party for Greg and Sus.

As a follow-up to last year's Top of the Hill cake,

We had an "Over the Hill" cake this year!

 Here are the ancient 40 year olds blowing out their cake. We had a fire extinguisher available, but somehow they summoned enough oxygen on their own.

 I hadn't anticipated how much fun Abby Jane would have there at Legoland. This is her very first purchase of a Lego set.

 Lemonade break on one hot July day.

 Even though I obviously have included tons more pictures than most of you care to see, it's hardly even a taste for how much fun we had and how much these cousins love each other. Somehow I missed getting much footage of the Abby Jane and Ashley show- a continuous ballet-dancing, fancy-dressing, funny silly little girls who couldn't get enough of each other. Each kid connects well with everyone else- they each have a special buddy but there's kids always splitting off into different combinations that all seem to gel beautifully. We're so thankful for our family, and we're so thankful for such a special week to end our summer with a splash!

Miss you already, Elliotts, and can't wait to see you next summer!

Just us

A few weeks ago I received info about the upcoming school year and promptly rushed everyone outside for some watercolors in PJs.

 I've loved unrushed mornings that allow the girls to just play around and enjoy each other. I'm excited for Abby Jane to get to go back to school, but I'm going to miss her a lot after a summer of having her around. The age of four is just plain lovely. Her two little devotees will agree with me, I believe!

Did you know that if you wear a sequined outfit and put on a headlamp as a necklace, you can shine the light on your sequins and make your own sparkles everywhere?

 We've been back for more Monday night lake nights. They are near and dear to my heart!

Jake and Abby Jane playing in the water by the board to the left, Bop Bop on the right.

Saturday morning hike up Kennesaw Mtn. Cutest little hikers ever.

Using their new chopsticks (or "chipstocks" as Abby Jane said by accident one time- I think that's much catchier).

 Sprinkled throughout all these family times of "just us" was lots of time with the Elliotts as they wrapped up their summer visit in the States. Blog on the massive week-long family extravaganza before the Elliotts left town coming soon!

Swimming with friends...

I continue to be grateful for pooldates with sweet friends for my little fish. This was from one of our many mornings with the Sheerins.

 We love sharing our guns with Carlton. Thankfully he never needs to be reminded to not shoot grown-ups or dry towels like some little girls I know.

 Clara is about to turn one, and she and her floatie are quite the hot topic at the pool. The girls love loading up her float with a garage sale of toys. When she abandons ship to hang out with her mama, my girls play queen of the mountain with that baby float. I'm not going to tell them we own the identical float in our garage- they'd never want to do anything else!

 This was from one of our days with the Joneses. Boys vs girls, it appears.

Abby Jane has discovered the underwater world this summer. In this photo, she chose to stay underwater rather than obey and stay above water long enough to smile with her buddies. Love the new skill, don't love how easy it is to just duck underwater and not hear what mama's saying!

Sally

In June we sold Sally, the Jeep that's been in my life since my sophomore year at Auburn. It's old news now, but she's a family story in herself, so she gets an overdue blog. 


To fully appreciate Sally, you have to know how she arrived in my life. The summer after my freshman year, my friend Grace and I spend a month on a missions trip in the Amazon jungle, living extremely, extremely primitively. Maybe I'll blog about that someday, but that's not today's story. Suffice it to say, I had culture shock arriving back in the States. As in Grace and I slept outside on my mom's back deck one of our first nights home because it seemed more normal than sleeping indoors in a bed. We also walked to Kmart (five miles round trip) to develop our pictures. Because the ability to be in a car just was so bizarre. Our lives had been forever changed by that trip, and it was a really, really difficult transition back into our world.


My sweet and generous mom, not knowing what shape I was coming home in, had that brand spanking new Jeep Grand Cherokee sitting in the driveway with a huge red bow on top when we arrived home from the airport. I was so thankful for her amazing gift, but at that moment Sally couldn't have demonstrated a starker contrast between my world and the world I had just left. On top of all that, it ALSO signified me having to give up my absolutely beloved Jeep Wrangler. So Sally and I had a rough beginning. 


Luckily, we eventually bonded, and this is what I told Facebook the night we sold her, pictures interjected: "We just sold Sally, the Jeep that's been in my life since my sophomore year at Auburn. She's taken a lot of you on college rode trips, drove Jake and I away from our wedding, 

In front of our first home

has been cross country twice, took Jake and I on all our pre-kid adventures, carried a crib home strapped on top as we drove along the PCH, and brought Abby Jane home from the hospital. 

I cried when they drove her away. But her new owner is... entering her sophomore year of college. May Sally continue to make many memories! 

We'll miss you, old friend!"

Two trips

Did I ever mention I left my phone on my bumper and backed over it? It was awesome. It happened the morning Jake was leaving on a writing retreat. Advertisement for the Otterbox- phone still works, just got a new screen. Advertisement for Jake Gross: his name is synonymous with grace and forgiveness. 

 So Jake has a great coworker who provided her home in Amelia Island for Jake to go hole up and write for almost a week. He is defending his dissertation this fall, and in a home full of four women all desiring his attention simultaneously, it's pretty helpful to have focused time away to be productive. Since his writing time just happened to overlap our 8th anniversary and it's probably against the rules somewhere to be at the beach without your spouse on your anniversary, Jake flew me down for the last two days of his trip. He still had to do a lot of writing, so I was horribly burdened to read and relax and have no responsibility for any other human beings for two days. It was hard work.

Bonus: the picture above and below were both taken with the phone pictured at top- in the same shape as pictured at top. Thus the hold-out-the-arm picture. Can't ask someone to take your picture with a phone as ghetto as that. That's also why our one photo together from the trip is a little blurry. Cracked glass does that. Highlight of trip, other than being with my best friend at the beach: getting more time on our paddleboard in the ocean. We had some good times and good laughs in the post-Ttropical Storm Debbie swell.

 A few weeks later was the annual roommate weekend. This year we had one lady on bedrest and one lady nursing a six-month-old, so we were required to do a whole lot of nothing. It was AWESOME and gave us great time for talking and laughing all weekend, which we happen to be fantastic at doing after years of practice. These girls bless my heart, refresh my soul, and I am so thankful to the Lord for allowing them to be a part of my life. I cannot fathom having a better experience at Auburn than I did, and I cannot fathom these ladies being anything other than an integral blessing in those years and, by God's grace, the years beyond.