A Little Georgia

Aaron had a visit from one of his best friends.  Coleman's sister is visiting colleges and William and Mary is on her list.  Her mom asked me weeks ago if we would be able to get together when Tad brought Allison to visit the school.  Sarah couldn't come as she had to work, but we could not pass up the opportunity to see the rest of the family if they were going to be so close.

 

I thought about letting Aaron be surprised when Coleman showed up at our house, but they were only going to be able to have dinner with us and visit for a couple of hours.  I wanted Aaron to be prepared for the fact that the visit would be short.

 

When their car pulled into the driveway, Aaron ran outside in his sock feet.  Coleman jumped out of the car and they gave each other a huge bear hug.  I had to fight back tears.

 

 

I later found out that Coleman was so excited when he found out he was going to be able to visit with Aaron that he cried. 

 

We were sad that the visit was so short and it made us homesick for Georgia, but we were so thankful they made the time to see us while they were nearby.

Message in a Bottle

When we had our farewell party before leaving Georgia, I set out a bottle for each of the kids and slips of paper so their friends could leave the them a message in a bottle to read in our new home.  I held onto them for a while and we sat down tonight to read them.



It took some work and some tools to retrieve the messages without breaking the bottles, but it was so much fun and reminded us of our friends back in Georgia. 

The Double Digit Club

Today is Hannah's tenth birthday.  She is the last of the Sweet Baby Rays to hit double digits.  Ten just sounds so grown up.  

 

Homeschool

We just weren't thrilled with Hannah's school so we decided we would homeschool.  We are loving it!!

 

 

We set up a classroom on the enclosed back porch.

 

 

But sometimes we just find a comfortable spot.

 



And we have been doing lots of experiments.

I love that we can work at Hannah's pace and if she asks a question we have the freedom to research the answer or run an experiment.  We are planning to continue with homeschooling until we return to Georgia.



Sibling Love

Hannah was awake before Aaron this morning and she decided to make him breakfast.  She fixed a waffle and made a placemat out of a paper towel.  Then she wrote his name on it so he would be sure to know it was for him.

 

First Day of School

Today is the first day of school.  I'm always sad when the kids go back to school after a break and I was really sad to send them off to new schools.  Rachel has had band camp for the past three weeks, so she at least knows a few kids and has been in the building several times.  Aaron didn't like school before and he is not happy to be going to a new school.  Hannah will like it if she thinks it is fun.  We met her teacher the other night and she wasn't very friendly.  We were really spoiled by the kids' previous schools.

 

I got up in plenty of time to make them a good breakfast.  Of course, tomorrow they will be back to boxed cereal and poptarts.

Rachel (HIGH SCHOOL!!!)

 



 

Aaron

 

Hannah

Rachel's Birthday

Rachel wanted to celebrate her birthday at the Cheesecake Factory and invite Doug, Shannon and the girls to join us.  I had never been to one, but a friend had taken her when we lived in Georgia.

We decided that sounded like a great idea so we met at Cheesecake Factory.  The food was fabulous and Rachel enjoyed celebrating a birthday with our Virginia "family."