Time for a VACATION!

Whew! It has been such a busy season of life as we rushed to finish our house, move in, start school, and tackle a gagillion projects. We knew we were going to go on vacation for Fall Break, and Marc was insistent he didn't want to do any work for it.  He wanted it all planned and taken care of for us. We tossed around the idea of a cruise, but one day he texted me at work saying he booked a cruise for us over the break. Say what? I was shocked that he went ahead and booked it, because that is so not like him.  I think I quite enjoy the new take charge of a vacation attitude! haha!

The girls knew what to expect this time, so they were basically pros at cruising.

For example, they headed straight for the free ice-cream once w changed into swimsuits. 

Vacation mode!

Casting off from Port Canaveral.  Bahamas, here we come!

Our first stop was Nassau.  I really didn't want to visit Nassau, but beggars can't be choosers.  We did end up getting off of the boat and walking around the city some.  I told Marc we would NOT be going to the straw market.  I don't do well in those sorts of situations, but we enjoyed walking around the shops and finding a few souvenirs.

This time we had a table all to ourselves.  We requested the same waiter every night in our reservations, and that was fun getting to know them. 

We didn't get the towel animals the first night, so they were super excited when they showed up the next night. 

 

Our second stop was at CocoCay, a private island. It was an AMAZING day.  The water was beautiful an the girls enjoyed playing and floating around on the mat. 

We had an amazing buffet lunch on the island. It was nice that the cruise line handled the food for this day too, so we didn't have to figure out what to eat while we were there. They are definitely doing this private island day up right. 

A couple of fruity beverages cooled us down a little. 

We knew we wanted to do some snorkeling on this trip, so Marc did some research and decided to purchase us these masks and snorkels.  We looked ridiculous, but there were a few other people that had brought the same masks.  I will say, they were pretty cool to use.  Macy and Brooke didn't really love snorkeling.  I think they kept getting water in their masks and were frusterated.  It's hard to adjust their masks and deal with your own at the same time.  Kayla enjoyed the adventure, though.

 

Back on the ship the girls grabbed a snack and had some quality chatting time poolside. 

Fancy fruit appetizer for dinner. 

And fancy desserts too.

This was a really neat event on the last night of the cruise.  It was called the Parade of Nations, and they have a flag for every country represented on the cruise staff.  They also had several countries that would perform a short dance native to their country.  It was so neat to think of how small the world can become on one ship.

We were completely stuffed after dinner, but we decided to take advantage of the last night on board.  We headed back for one last round of pizza and nachos. 

And then we all settled in for the night.  We actually ended up with 2 connecting rooms on this cruise.  It made it more expensive, but it was the only way since we booked so late. I will say it was super nice to have a separate room from the kids, extra space, and two bathrooms. 

We returned to Port Canaveral on Monday, and since we still had a week of our vacation left, we took the slow journey back home and made a couple more stops.

The Projects Continue

I'm not sure if this picture is any different than the last ones, but since we keep taking a picture of the house, I'll keep posing it. 😀

We finally had our shelving built, and it took a little while to have time to paint it.  Thankfully we have a pretty good helper here, and it was done in no time. 

We manage to still find a little time to goof off. 

I had been wanting to make homemade biscuits for quite a while. In fact, this may be the third time I've bought buttermilk specifically for this recipe. They didn't turn out that great, but we'll tweak the recipe and try again later. We still had fun making them, though.

Brooke was at a friends house, so the older two girls and I went shopping for a bit.  They were a bit shocked that I bought them this ice-cream sundae, and even more shocked that they couldn't finish it off. There was a lot of ice-cream in that cup.

Marc build me a storage shelf for our laundry.  We decided to use the small shelf for a much needed charging station.  It's nice not to see all of those cords laying out.  The tall section on the right is where we will keep the vacuum cleaner.  We don't have a closet that it will fit well in.

What We've Been Up To

August has flown by in a flurry of unpacking and getting back into our fall routine. We have started soccer practices again.

One of Brooke's best friends is finally on her team.  There are a couple of other kids from school that play too, and it is neat to watch them all out on the field together. 

 

They are turning into country girls a little more every day.  Here they are running around trying to catch frogs.  I think they managed to get five or six this evening. 

And it is all fun and games until one of them empties its bladder while you are holding it. Someone was pretty disgusted, and I think it ended her night of catching. 

We finished up our school work early one Friday, so we headed to Costco.  The girls love it when they get a surprise treat at the end.  

What started off as work, quickly turned into play.

And of course it is officially football season! The girls enjoy putting a little snack tray to eat during the game. We are hoping for a good season this year!

Birthday Weekend

My birthday always falls during the first week of school, which stinks a little bit. But we try to squeeze in a little bit of fun when we can.  After dance and gymnastics we went to downtown Woodstock for dinner, and the girls tried out bubble tea for the first time.  They seemed to really enjoy it!

On Friday we headed up to Dollywood with some friends. This little one apparently needed a nap on the way up. 

And so did this one. 

Silly girls playing silly games to entertain themselves in the car. 

I think this may have been the first time the kids rode the water ride.  They had a blast and rode it twice.  I volunteered to watch everyone's bags. 😁

1st Day of School 2018/2019

We have basically moved in and prepared to start school.  I had one week to work on unpacking before I had to report back to school.  It has been crazy to say the least, but we are excited for a new school year! We have an 8th grader, a 6th grader, and a 3rd grader this year!

This one will be in my class this year. How in the world did that happen??

Last year of middle school. 

 

First year of middle school. 

 

 

 

A Couple of Things to Note About the New House

There is a family of deer that live down our street.  We see them several times a week, and they seem to be checking us out.  As long as they don't check out my landscaping too much, I'm happy to see them stop by for a visit.

This will very quickly become my favorite room in the house.  If you can't find me, check here. 

Moving Day!

Getting our final CO was crazy.  The inspector came on Monday, and he has been very nice, but when he was here he said, "You didn't think I'd pass you on the first attempt, did you? I have to show that I'm actually doing my job." We weren't expecting a pass on the first try, but it stinks that his attitude is failure from the beginning.  Thankfully it was only about 8 small little things he wanted done, nothing major. Unfortunately Marc was headed out on a business trip the next day. We had to pass this week so we could move on the following Monday. Sam was so awesome about working to get everything done.  It took him a full couple of days of tracking down what we needed at Home Depot and getting things fixed, but we passed our reinspection! Time to move! 

All this work wears a couple girls out.

More mud prior to moving.  Macy is on a rescue mission here. 

See all of those little dots? Frog eggs. Hundreds. Probably thousands. She wanted to rescue as many as she could.  Unfortunately they didn't make it past the tadpole stage, but it was neat watching them grow. 

We started off with a UHaul for a couple of days. The movers were moving furniture, but we were taking care of the boxes.  It was nice to have the weekend to work on this before the movers arrived on Monday.

Monday was a long day, and it included two trips by the moving company because they only had a smaller truck and crew available that day. 

This was so surreal.  The hardest part was walking into the basement when it had all been cleared out.  Maybe the hard work we put into finishing it off was fresher on my mind. I don't know, but it was hard to walk away from this house. It was never our intention to sell and move.  This was our final home. But God. His hand has been over this entire process.  The whole process and move has been bittersweet, but there is so much sweet in following the Lord. We are excited (and so thankful to be almost done)!

Always a game with this one.  Hiding in the paper that was covering the flooring. And the other little miss is sitting in the driveway reading.

Her life has been so disrupted. She's a lot of work, and she is making it a lot more work on me right now.  I'm hoping she settles into the new house and routine quickly.

Late night cleaning up at the old house.  Wow, that's weird to say. The girls found some cardboard tubes and are having light saber fights. One last hurrah, but new adventures and memories await us now.