Life has been too busy!

Well, for starters. We have moved. From Kingsland, Georgia (just 3 miles from Florida) to Savanah, Georgia,  two hours north!  I will be the first to admit I am not happy about it.  I had fallen in love with being so close to the beach, Fernandina Beach was a short jaunt down the highway, 35 minutes.  Now, Tybee Island is a blah pain in the arse 45-60 minute drive away. BLAH! Also, the kids and I were quite settled into a routine. Honestly, our life.  We rode bikes to school most days, we had soccer practice with a league that was relatively good, we had our nature centers, and museums and the Cummer Art Musuem and we had Jacksonville. We had a great neighborhood with neighborhood families that we loved and kids to play with that we gladly let invade our home.  We left that for what I have began calling "The Hill" aka Richmond Hill (the city we live in just outside of Savannah) for a better police department for Monty to work for.  I am heartbroken which is probably the cause of postings to be nonexistant. 

Life isn't all lemons and bitter fruit... Monty is happy working with this new department, he likes the people he works with, they all seem to be really nice people. Peter-Leo's new school has all the gifted kids together in a class (well actually there are 3 gifted classrooms.) I have learned to let go of a lot of stuff, downsizing to a smaller home has proven good for my soul.  And between our moving truck not being available (hate Budget!) and scrambling to find another one (love Penske!) and the 2nd night in our new town having to take Kody to the ER for a high fever, and yesterday Peter-Leo's bike being stolen..the stress has intense.  Not that it is over, but it has lessened.  

So, here are some photos from September and October for you to enjoy. Sorry they are late!

Visit to The Old Sheldon Church Ruins, Beaufort, SC

Kody, being silly in a sleeping bag, at Aunt Dana and Uncle Everrett home.

 

 

One of the hardest parts of moving was leaving our soccer program in the middle of the season! This was Kody's first season really playing (aka not staring at the sky or picking dandelions.) She loved it.

 



Thumbs up to Daddy!

In between Kody's game and the Peter-Leo's game,
 I caught this photo of the boy with the most wonderfully handsome freckles!!

 

Peter-Leo after a game.

Kody moving the ball down field!!

Celebrating a goal with Coach Jennifer!!

 

The last day at Fernandina Beach, hate leaving a place that gave me such solace.
 I literally cried while walking off the beach!

I finally got to see, on my last regular visit, a pod of dolphins!! They were beautiful creatures and they came very close to the shore! They were amazing, I walked parallel to them for a mile or so. It was very difficult to stop and walk back.

 Fast Forward to The Hill. I went to the store and purchased some pumpkins for us to carve.

Peter-Leo's design.

Kody making faces while carving her pumpkin!

Peter-Leo and Daddy carving.

 Our finished pumpkins! I know here in the south because of the heat and humidity that in couple days they will have completely turned to mush, but I needed to do something to get myself out of this rut!!



Kody, Daddy, Peter-Leo, and mine.

No, it didn't help. However, I did find a real pumpkin patch up in Rincon! And I mean they actually GROW THE PUMPKINS!! They aren't trucked in! Complete with Hay Castle, corn maze, farm animals and hay rides!! We are planning to go up this Saturday, and yes that could help!!

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Michelle

Happy 41st Birthday!

NO! Not me! My darling husband! Yes that is right.. the big 4-1!  Sadly, we are in the process of possibly moving..so the fanfare was small. We picked out a few gag gifts for him.  Even he thought it was fun.



because 41 is the new 21! haha!



flashback to his teenage years... rad glasses!




the Bald Man's Comb! Kody thought it was a headband! haha!



Giving it a whirl... not bad..
 although he still has some hair on the top!!

Next, he is always saying he wants another tattoo...or to touch up the one he has.. well.. problem solved.. and it is washable! haha!!


It is basically a decorated piece of nylon that slips onto your arm! Almost realistic looking!

All in all, a fun and simple birthday!

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Michelle

Summer ends...school starts..

at least for the kids! I have been trying to balance college and summer for nearly 3 months!  It has been bittersweet this last week.  Tuesday marked their first day back to school, and it was sad for me.


I guess the morning started out pretty typical... the kids tried to hide from school...

Even her Big Reading Pillow couldn't hide her!

Nor, could Peter-Leo's blanket, hide him.

Thankfully, all their silly tricks ended and they got dressed and eat breakfast.

Kody is by far our little drama queen/funny girl.
  Here she is rolling her eyes because I told her she needed to eat.

Finally, all finished eating and ready to go to their first day of school!

Kody was very excited for her first day of kindergarten.



Thumbs up from Peter-Leo

Kody started kindergarten this year and Peter-Leo is at the top of the food chain.. as a big bad and all powerful 5th grader!

This is the sad part..at least for me.. the minute we hit the parking lot..I barely had the car stopped and Peter-Leo hops out to meet one of his friends. Off he goes. 

Peter-Leo and his friend (just below the tree branches.) He was so cool.



This is the only photo of Peter-Leo I got.

 A little more about that photo of Peter-Leo, I would like to say that he said something nice to me, but in reality it was something along the lines of "okay, mom stop. Just go already." sigh. (mother's heart is officially broken!)





Kody sitting at the table coloring a picture before school officially started for the day!

Kody was somewhat kinder and actually let me walk her to class, mostly because she didn't remember where to go!  Of course, you would think a child so young would be afraid or need the comfort of her mother on such a big first day of school... nope. Her words were "Mom, I will see you at the bike racks after school, geez."

With bittersweet tears, I put my camera away and waved good bye.. at least until 230pm when I would see them at the bike racks. 

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Michelle

as close to camping as I get...

Over the July 4th holiday, we took a few days to visit our bestest friends, Dana and Everrett at the boy scout camp where they live..since he is the camp ranger.  We had a lot of fun and good times and was sad to leave as usual.  We got a great tour of the camp (it's new, and since thanksgiving there has been A LOT of work done.) And it looks amazing!  It was fun.  Here are a few of the photos. Enjoy.

On a spider monkey bridge thingee..

Even I did it! What a fun activities for scouts!

Kody finished crossing too!

One of the evenings sitting on the swim dock. Enjoying the sounds of nature.

Peter-Leo just chilling on the dock... he was tired of photography.

One afternoon Kody and I took a boat out on the lake,
she was thrilled to reach the other side of the lake!!

This was a most beautiful harvest moon!

Fun in the dark... with blacklight and glow water!

This is our second attempt at glow water and blacklight... thankfully it was a huge success!! All I did was purchase a larger blacklight. And blam! It worked soo well!!

 Kody and Peter-Leo pouring in the glow water into their pans.  The colors were so cool with the blacklight.  They had so much fun.

 Pouring in the orange glow water... it was cool.

Then they started mixing things up!

This is one of my favorite photos, you can actually see the separation between the orange and green water.

Dripping the green glow water into mini clear glasses.

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Michelle



Beach...again..

These photos are from mid-June.  A few days after a massive week of thunderstorms and such, hence all the seaweed along the shore that you see in the photo below.  We literally had to clear a spot on the beach to set up our sun tent.

The kids played on one of the clearer spots of the beach while I set up the sun tent.

My sand castle MASTERPIECE! muhahahaha!!

Peter-Leo spent some of his time on shore building this "bridge" complete with sand car on the bridge. He even poured water under it to show us it was "stable."

I just about had the wave, but I started kicking too soon. Oh well it was still fun!

 Boogie boarding is a blast!

I would post more photos, but sadly they all kind of look the same as any of the previous beach photos!

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Michelle

Summer Science Spectacular!!

Throughout the summer the kids and I will be doing some cool science-y experiments.  Here are a few that we have done so far... this day we did the classic baking soda and vinager! Plus, we made gak (aka slime.)

No matter what age they are.. boys like things that explode! lol.

They got creative and added food coloring!

The swirl of different "explosions" in Kody's foil pan!

After a while, we flipped to complete a "lunar/mars" landscape. 
We placed a generous layer of baking soda
and they dropped food coloring and vineager to create the crators.

Some of them.

After the baking soda and vineager we moved on to gak! Or slime.  After making it, the played with this for hours... and even a few times over the next 3-4 days.

Kody mixing her GAK!  She kept saying it isn't right.
To which Peter-Leo would respond... you have to keep mixing it!

 

Peter-Leo having a blast with his GAK!

He even discovered that it could be blown up like a balloon!!

Honestly, the next three photos should be up with the rest but Blogger is being rude and not doing what I want it too... so here they are..

Peter-Leo was impatient with the lunar landscaping..
 so he took his tray outside and flooded it with the vineager!

This is Kody very carefully dropping the vineager onto the baking soda.

This is what happened to Kody very pretty lunar landscape once Peter-Leo
 convinced her to dump a cup full of vineager onto it. Don't worry, she was still happy!

 Well, that was one day... stay tuned for more!

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Michelle