We found a house!!

We had been looking online and Will with a real estate agent for a permanent place to live. We had thought about buying a house, but finally decided that renting would be better, since we still have our house in Washington and are renting it out. We prayed a lot about it, hoping that God would show us the house that was meant to be and this one fell into our laps through college friends of ours. We were so happy. It has a fenced in yard, which was very important to us for Sadie's sake, three bedrooms and a bonus room and a finished basement. Will found it and we talked over the phone and decided to take it without the kids and I seeing it.

The neighborhood is amazing and all of the neighbors are so friendly. There is also a beautiful pool and a lazy river just a short walk away. Up the hill is a great playground for the kids. I think we are really going to enjoy it.

Sadie keeps us laughing

One day we noticed Sadie hanging around the blueberry bushes and then we noticed she was eating the blueberries from the bottom of the bush.

Sadie loves Will so much! Maybe it's because he was the one who picked her out and brought her home. She slept on his lap the long hour and a half car ride home and has not been relaxed when he's away since. One night he called and we put him on speaker so that he could call Sadie. She ran all over the house looking for him. I felt bad for her after a while and we had to stop.

We took a house-hunting day trip to south of Atlanta and Cody took this funny video of Sadie falling asleep in the car.

Gem hunting

One weekend we went gem hunting at a local gold and gem mine. Will's parents had taken Will and me to a place like this when we were young and it was so much fun! It only took about 20 minutes, but the kids had a great time.

One day at Nama's we came home and Sadie had had a poo poo accident. Since I am always trying to get the kids to hlep me, I asked Cody to spray the carpet with carpet cleaner. I went to get a wet rag and came back to find out that he really, really sprayed it. And since Cody is Cody and is really scared of anything smelly he had his mask on too. I couldn't stop laughing.

Baylee's Amazing Pizza!!!

We usually make pizza once a week or so and Baylee found a great yeast-free recipe in a book she got from the library. So one night, she made pizza for Cody and I and it was deeee-licous!! The crust had olive oil and spices on top, no sauce and then cheese. Yummmmm!

We returned the library book, and we loved the recipe so much that we looked for it again as soon as we moved to Newnan, but our library didn't carry it.


So we have just been thinking about it, and finally found it used at Amazon. It just arrived today in the mail.

I can't wait to have it again.

My sweet husband

While the kids and I were at Will's mom's house, Will stayed in Atlanta during the week and worked and then drove 2 hours or so in traffic to spend the weekend with us. He would spend all day at work doing an online version of ILE (Command and General Staff College-Intermediate Level Education). Okay, what it stands for is confusing, but basically it's a school that you have to complete before you are promoted to Lt. Colonel. You can go to Kansas for 10 months and be in classes or you can take classes once a week at home (I think) or you can do it online.

Will completed about one third of it in Washington, and once he was in Atlanta he worked on it non-stop. Thankfully he was able to use work time to work on it and then he would go back to his room and work late into the night on it some more.

I was soooooooooo very proud of him. He finished the last two thirds in 4 weeks. Here is a picture of him studying one weekend at his mom's house, and he fell asleep.

Sautee

The kids and I went on a field trip one day. We were looking for a Farmer's Market that Will's mom had told us about and we happened upon the town of Sautee, GA. It's a little corner that houses and old country store, a tiny restaurant, and some other shops. Inside the store looks just like and old store from the 1800's. It's amazing! And they sold old fashioned soap, candy, and lots more, as well as newer items such as Crocs.

We had so much fun looking around and talking to the nice ladies who worked there. Afterward, Baylee and Cody played with the bubbles they had outside for a long time. Later we went back and bought some of these cool bubble wands, and Cody loves them.

The market makes amazing sandwiches and has ice cream and peach slushies. They also have really great cookies. Being back in Georgia has certainly given us many more chances to eat sweets.

We also went to the soap shop and bought some homemade soap for us and for Sadie.

The day went on and on as we visited the pottery shop and then found the Farmer's market. We bought fresh okra, tomatoes and eggplant and were given a tour of the barn by a friend of the owner. The barn was built in a traditional barn-raising by many of the local people and some Amish friends. He even showed us how they constructed it. I wish I had pictures, but I didn't have my camera for that part. We had a really great day!!

This is for Nama

Will's mom has told us that she misses the sound of rain on her tin roof and I took this video for her. It really is a nice sound. You'll wan't to pause my music.

For school Baylee had to build a replica of the Nile River using clay, sand, dirt and chives seeds. She then "flooded" her Nile just as happens every year and we watched her "grass" grow. It was really fun!

At Walmart, though, there was only brightly colored sand, so we ended up getting Cody's favorite color blue and Baylee's favorite color lime green. We made a sandbox for Cody to play on on the porch and he spent hours in it. It was just what he needed.

Then one day it rained and he and Baylee ran out in it in their Mickey Mouse ponchos and even though he was on the porch he wanted to keep it on while he played some more.

Helen Water Park

Okay, so the kids had begged and begged us to go to the Helen Water Park and we finally went one Saturday. It was just hot enough, but not too hot, and even though I really wasn't looking forward to it, I had a lot of fun.

Mostly I hung out with Cody in the lazy river since he is not ready for water slides yet, and Will did the slides over and over again with Baylee.

I did two slides and on one, I was sort of thrown off at the end. Ouch! It was a nice break from everything and next year we want to go tubing. Will and I did it when Baylee was little and it was so much fun, but this year, the river was really low because of the drought and we thought we'd wait.

Our first weeks of school

Well, just like me I forgot to take pictures of the first day of school. I did get some later, but I lost some because I got the accidentally spilled water on my camera card. After a week or so in Georgia, the kids were bored and we decided to just start school early at the beginning of August. The local public schools were starting in a few days, anyway, so why not?

Baylee is in 7th grade and doing Pre-Algebra! Where has the time gone?

Cody is in Kindergarten. Wow!

We had brought most of our textbooks and necessary materials, but all of our other "stuff" was in storage, so thankfully Nama had a scrabble game and Cody could busy himself plying with the letters while I read to him. At this point he could spell Cody and Scooby Doo.

We started off studying Egypt and this was our Egyptian breakfast. Melon, dates, figs, plums and apples.

We also had grape juice. I love our new curriculum because it includes a lot of recipes.

Baylee's first meet in Georgia was at Roswell and she competed with her new team, Dahlonega Gymnastics. She loved her new leotard, and I did too. This was an amazing and wonderful new gym. The girls were so sweet and thoughtful and the coaches were just encouraging and confidence building!! If it weren't for the 24 mile drive on a two-lane road and through the mountains to get there, it would be absolutely perfect.


I can't remember which event, but she got a third place in her age group here.

Cody was such a trooper. He and Will timed it so they could miss the long warm-up and just came for the competition. He was so bored, but hung in there until the end and then we went to the really cool park across the street.

I think this might have been vault where Baylee placed first in her age group.

Here's a video of her floor exercise.

Vault 1

and Vault 2

Cody's Volcano

We got this "build your own" volcano kit at Yellowstone and Cody must have asked us 5 times a day in the long car-ride when we could build his volcano. We kept telling him that once we were at Nama's (will's mom's) and settled then we would build it. When we arrived, we were all busy unpacking, cleaning and getting organized and we kept telling him he would have to wait until everything was settled. Finally, after a week or so, we built the volcano and it was great to watch erupt.