thoughts

It’s my first Sunday night in many Sunday nights that I’m anticipating the beginning of a new school year tomorrow. I’m in a new place, in a different role and don’t have a clue what to expect. Middle Man just came in here and said, “Mom, I’m gonna pray for you tomorrow. I know you’ll have fun.”

Thank you, Middle Man! I know you will, and I hope I do!

Am I nervous? Not really. Not yet, at least. I’m sure I will be at some point tomorrow. I guess I’m trying to figure out what exactly I DO feel. I’m so very thankful to have a job in this sweet little town that is now our home. I will be working in Kindergarten where The Boss will be a brand new little K student. I’m beyond grateful to be in the same school with The Boss. My past 7 years at my beloved TBE afforded me the luxury of seeing my elder 3 children each and every day.

Tomorrow I start a new job. A new beginning. There is a purpose in this and I can’t wait to see what God has in store. I’m so curious!

Last weekend the girls and I were able to see some sweet friends from TN that were in this area to celebrate a special family event of theirs. I will blog about it soon. (I hope!) They are the kind of folks that you feel like you’ve known your whole life. It was so wonderful to see them. We talked nonstop. When the girls and I left, I had to squeeze back the tears. It’s hard to say goodbye and suddenly in that moment I felt, finally, that I was saying a goodbye to not just them but all of my friends and family in West TN.

There are so many things I’ve wanted to blog about over the summer. Middle Man’s birthday, Kindergarten Jumpstart for The Boss, our new church and home, Peanut’s church trip, Guitar Boy’s Band Camp experience, the fact that there is a pear tree in our yard. I am presently choosing to ignore the fact that I found a snake skin underneath the bucket of pool toys right by our back porch so don’t expect a blog about that. I hope to be able to post about all of those things. But not the snake skin. The move seemed to consume the summer!

But as I lie here in bed, anticipating a new role, new environment, new friends, new everything....I’m thinking about our family friend, Susan, who has been in the fight of her life and I can’t even imagine what thoughts fill her heart and mind tonight. Go read her words and lift her up in prayer with me.

www.toddlerplanet.wordpress.com

Favorite. Sign. Ever.

I had to run into town to mail something at the post office and on the way back decided to stop here.

Remember Paw Paw’s Garden Market?

And his letter?

I needed some tomatoes so I stopped by Paw Paw’s and what did I find?

Another letter.

Made my day.

Busy summer fun

After my last post, we lost our internet function again for what seemed like ten forevers.

Thankfully a friend was able to reconfigure some things and now we’re back up and running!

Hopefully for good.

Living in the country is always interesting. The slightest summer rain blows in and the satellite blinks out but thankfully usually returns quickly. Internet has obviously been an issue. Then the other afternoon I looked out my kitchen window and saw 3 ducks walking through my yard!

There was also a snake slithering through my carport the other night but I don’t like to think about that too much.

Now, on to some of our summer fun!!

So far this summer we enjoyed VBS at our new church....

...with a hot dog lunch upon it’s conclusion.

Clearly, Dogos enjoys wearing her food as much as eating it.

Our beloved LaLa came to town to help with kids while The Chef was at work and Grandma Sandy unpacked a bajillion boxes.

There are many things about south Mississippi that we were eager to show LaLa.

The very first of which?

The Mississippi pageant preliminaries that were available online!!!

hallelujah and praise God from whom all blessings flow because, friends, the (un)talent is a sight to behold

Don’t let her good looks fool you.

bless her heart

I hereby make this solemn pledge and promise that next year I will give all you blog readers out there plenty of warning. This is something you do. not. want. to. miss.

My Aunt Sarah says they should rename the talent portion to be “The Miss Mississippi Pageant Contest of Vocal Miscalculations."

Other summertime activities included the following....

Grandma Sandy plucked a rock, yes, a small rock, from Dogos’ ear with tweezers. Apparently she shoved it in there while on the playground at VBS. However, I didn’t discover it until several hours later!!

We’ve done lots of swimming at all hours of the day..

...and night.

We squeezed in two brief trips to Gulfport.

Sorry no pictures.

As well as a road trip to New Orleans!!

Middle Man kept cracking us up looking at everything through his newly acquired binoculars.

In case you’re wondering what he was looking at...

..it was the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain.

He seemed to be quite taken with his view because he kept saying, “WOW, you guys just wouldn’t believe this view. It’s INCREDIBLE!”

After reaching New Orleans, we took the kids to the spectacular Aquarium of the Americas. It was great to see it rebuilt after Katrina and looking so great.

The Boss was kinda scared at first no shocker there but Dogos our water-obsessed child thought she’d died and gone to heaven.

We had some silly fun...

Studied all of the beautiful sea creatures...

Then on our way back to the parking garage walked very, very quickly past this place!!

And headed to the French Quarter, of course!

We enjoyed some jazz played by some local kids,

while eating beignets at Cafe du Monde

And then afterwards, danced in the streets of New Orleans!

After returning home, we’ve played dress-up...

Dogos takes a page out of Middle Man’s book...

Saturday night the grown-ups went to a very small, hole-in-the-wall Oyster Bar to hear an old friend..

...and his band play!

It was SO much fun. We met some wonderful new friends there to eat, listen to great music, and support our friend Wes.

Then of course there was another variation of dress-up yesterday afternoon!

We closed out the weekend with a “low-country boil."

The Chef boiled 10 lbs of jumbo-sized Gulf shrimp, corn, potatoes, sausage, and a couple of artichokes.

Can I get an amen?

Our summer so far has been packed with fun activities.

What about you?

Any fun activities around your household?