Helen or Bust

Finally the day had come, it was time for a good ole' fashioned Girl's trip!  We had planned this trip for March but Covid got in the way of this one as well! We are persistent though and we did not give up on our dream...we just switched it up a bit.  We turned it into a little road trip just to add in some adventure.  We found ourselves in northern Georgia and I'll be honest...it was a wonderful surprise.  We had equal parts relaxation, hiking/adventure, adult beverage drinking and laughs.  Georgia, surprisingly enough, is full of waterfalls and beautiful scenery so we had no shortage of things to go see.  I even convinced everyone that it would be a tragedy if we didn't visit the Cabbage Patch General Hospital so I could adopt a baby for Miss Everly.  I'm so thankful these girls are willing to give in to my ridiculous requests, and Baby Alice is thankful as well :).  The only thing we did not accomplish on this trip was finding a bear for Julia, which was her wish...not mine.  We did however think we heard one while we were on a hike, but no-one was brave enough to stick around to see if we were correct.  We will find her a bear on a different trip, perhaps one to the zoo.  So here are some pictures from our adventure (in no particular order or reason), some highlights:  the town of Helen (oddly looks like Germany in the middle of the Georgia Mountains), the wineries (my favorite was Yonah Mountain Vineyards), school bus graveyard (apparently one of the top 5 things to see in Georgia, though I'm not sure I'd give it THAT much credit), Cabbage Patch General Hospital (duh), Georgia Mountain Coaster, Talullah Gorge State Park and some other waterfalls that I have no idea what the name of them were but the locals told us to go...and we listened!  

 

Mom's Day Out

My boys are back in school, but the Scallys and the Kirchhoffs still had a couple more days to play so we headed out to Klondike Park to do a little swimming/exploring.  Everly and I decided it would be fun to bring Violet with us too because we like to beef up the girl ratio every now and again!  We had a fantastic day hanging out by the water, having a picnic lunch and exploring this awesome little swimming hole.  Everly sure misses her brothers now that they are back in school but she thought she was hot stuff hanging out with some of these big kids on this particular day.  We just might need to add this to the agenda for next summer BEFORE the boys go back to school!

Bennett's Birthday Celebration(s)

I'd be lying if I said birthdays looked normal around here this year, but we tried to hold the birthday integrity as much as we could with the state of the country (read: COVID ruining everything).  We did manage to get in a small family birthday party over at my in-laws, where we could keep it outdoors and the kids could swim and hunt birthday eggs (is that a thing?).  Anyway, we had a combined party for Bennett and Maci since we hadn't really seen anyone in a while.  Maci requested a rainbow cake so I did my darnedest to supply that (thank you Pinterest) and Bennett requested brownies which makes him my favorite child today (hello easy).  I also squeezed in a little party for Bennett with two of his best buddies where I let them pick all of the activities for the day.  They landed on: McDonald's for lunch, Urban Air for entertainment and Dairy Queen for dessert.  And really, does it get any better than that to a fresh 9 year old?  Didn't think so!

All the Baseball...All the time

If you would have told me at the beginning of Nolan's baseball season we would get in as many games as we did, I would have called you a big fat liar!  But we ended up playing quite a bit and that makes for a happy Nolan...and a happy Mom!  I love watching these boys play, especially when they started to really get in their groove this year.  They may not have won every tournament, but gosh they won quite a few and got to the championship game in the majority.  To say we are proud of Nolan and his teammates is an understatement.  They love the game, they have fun together and they are great boys to boot.  Baseball season has now come to an end and I'm not happy about it, but looking so forward to next year and all the great things ahead for this crew.  Here is a photo dump of a few tournaments this fall and some of their successes!

Back to School

Ahhh, the day had come.  The kids were actually going back to school!  Like, in person out of my house...school!   We are very fortunate because there are a lot of schools around us that are not going back to school and are doing virtual learning instead, so believe me I am counting my blessings.  I love these children more than anything but I sure love someone else teaching them!  We survived the spring homeschooling adventure, and there were some silver linings, but at the end of the day in person school is the ticket for this family!  Anyway, the boys were very excited to get back to school and see their friends.  Both boys have plenty of buddies in their class and were excited about their teachers as well.  That made for a very easy first day of school and first day of school pictures! 2020 would not be complete without a little reality check though, so you better bet we snagged a picture in their masks as well!