Fierce, Fabulous, and Forty!

Recently, we were honored to host a surprise 40th birthday party for our fabulous friend, Ginny!

Now, Ginny and Grandma Sandy’s friendship goes waaaay back to when we were both Chi Omegas together in college.

Little did either of us know back then that one day, not only would she and her family be instrumental in God’s plan to call us to our current church, but that we’d be hosting a throw-down in her honor!!

Disclaimer:  When I say throw-down, I of course mean it in the most polite of terms!  :)  

SURPRISE!!!

This is Ginny and her husband, Dr. G, arriving at the party.  Dr. G and The Chef concocted a plan to get Ginny out of their house and out to ours.  

Not an easy feat because we live at least 30 min away, out in the boondocks.  

As in, they live INTOWN and we don’t even live intown, much less INTOWN.   Those of you that know where we live will completely understand what I mean!

Personally, I thought the plan was brilliant and we would’ve all pulled it off perfectly if Ginny wasn’t so dang clever.  

Nonetheless, the plan was this:  Dr. G, who is our dentist, had planned to take Ginny out to dinner.  He texted The Chef with the signal and The Chef called Dr. G to say that Middle Man had just jumped into the pool and knocked out his front permanent teeth.  

Again, those of you that know Middle Man would understand that this was a most perfect scenario and one that would be entirely believable to Ginny.  

And those of you that know Dr. G and Ginny would completely agree that it was a perfect idea because they would both insist on coming to the rescue!  

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for Ginny to put together a few other inconsistencies from earlier in the day before she started figuring out something was amiss.

The plethora of cars in our yard was probably also a tip-off.

As well as the live band playing.

But at any rate......

SURPRISE!!!

Dr. G’s sister got their 3 boys out to the house before the party started and Ginny was excited to see them.

This is their youngest, and one of Dogos’ bff’s.

This is Ginny’s equally fabulous Mom.

When I say that my friendship with Ginny goes waaaay back, well, my friendship with her mom goes back even further.

Ginny’s Mom, whom I’ll just refer to as Mama Owl, was our Chi Omega chapter advisor when I pledged Chi O as a very young 17 year old, many moons ago.

But she’s so much more than that.

Y’all.

Have you ever known anyone in your lifetime that just seems to pour forth wisdom with every word she says?  

That’s Mama Owl, and anyone that knows her will attest to that fact.

I could go on and on about the respect that I have for this woman!

She is truly one of my favorite people.

Now, I mentioned the fact that there was a live band.

This is our friend, Wes, and it was his band that Dr. G hired for Ginny’s throw-down.  

Now, again, our friendship with Wes and his family goes waaay back, and yet another reason why we’re so thrilled to be back in south MS.

I was so excited and honestly a little amazed that we actually had a live band playing in our carport that of course I had to take a little video! 

I hope you didn’t get dizzy watching that!

Here’s a pic of some of the guests starting to mingle right after the birthday girl arrived.

This is Ginny’s sister-in-law, who did all of the party decorations and I thought she did a great job!

Sister-in-law decorated each table to represent each phase of Ginny’s life.

Friends from our Sunday School class brought appetizers which were served on the “high school” table.

Then later we served The Chef’s BBQ pulled pork, and ohmyword it is so delicious, cole slaw, potato salad, and baked beans.

There was also a college table, Chi Omega table, and a Fierce, Fabulous, and Forty table.

Cute!!

But my favorite table was......

                         

.....the Lego table!!

Ginny and Dr. G have 3 boys the same ages as our 3 younger children so this table was perfect!

It didn’t take long before some of the party guests got creative!

As darkness fell and folks were full of BBQ, the band cranked it up a little.

                                                                                 

There’s no respectful southern throw-down.....

                                                                               

...without some Hank!!!!

The kids had SO much fun dancing! 

Guitar Boy had some friends over, too, and they were cuttin' a rug but wouldn’t let me get them on camera.

And thankfully so, because if they had, I would’ve been concerned.

They are 16, after all.

                                                                               

Ginny and Dr. G’s youngest hung in as long as he could, bless his heart.

Finally, after all the party guests left and food, decorations etc were put away, Ginny and Dr. G’s family, as well as other Sunday School friends and their kids, stuck around a while. 

                                                                           

And the pool proved to be too much for some to resist.

It wasn’t long before kids jumped in, as well as a few Moms.

You may be wondering why there is no one in the pool in that picture.

Well, that would be because the kids and Moms may or may not have jumped in, still in their party clothes, and swam until their hearts were content.

But I’ll never tell.

Have I mentioned how much I love our church family and what fun people they are? 

It was such a fun night.

So fun, in fact, that the next morning, The Boss said, “Mom, can we do that again tonight?”

So, thank you, Ginny!!

Thank you for having a birthday, and thank you to your wonderful family for allowing us to celebrate this night with you!

                                                                               

You are most definitely, Fierce, Fabulous, and Forty.

I love you, my friend!!

Mission possible and even more excitement

This past week was a busy one.  

On Wednesday, we kicked off the school year with the district-wide convocation at the high school.

It was great to see my friends from the elementary school, most of whom I hadn’t seen all summer, as well as sit down front with new friends from the primary school, where I’m teaching this year.

The thing about this school district here, in our tiny town, is that everybody knows everybody.  While there are only about 4000 students, student enrollment in each school is pretty big.   The primary school, itself, is huge with around 1200 students, K-2.   There is only 1 primary school, 1 elementary, 1 middle, and 1 high school.  So essentially, the district is small but the schools are big, and I love it that way.  There is an incredible sense of unity among the teachers, students, families, and community. 

This year’s theme is MISSION POSSIBLE.

We had a great speaker, and an unbelievable video with the MISSION POSSIBLE theme that the tech department put together.  

(The link is posted on the school website for any of you family and friends that are interested.  It’s a really cool video and I was impressed!  I started to put the link here but then thought better of it.)

Basically the video took a look at each school with the understanding that we’re all in this together.  The students start in pre-school, continue their academic careers for the next 13 years until they finally reach graduation.  At the conclusion of the short video, our superintendent said a few words and then, after stating, “Folks, here is the true MISSION POSSIBLE”...

 ....the curtains opened with 13 PSD students standing on the stage in their school uniforms, one student to represent each grade, K thru 12th.

Y’all.

I almost just burst right into tears.

Because you know what?

College really does begin in Kindergarten!

Maybe it’s cheesy but ohmyword I got the biggest lump in my throat and had to blink back tears just as fast as I could.

Right after that, the superintendent gave us a few challenging words and before he even finished, the MISSION POSSIBLE theme started and suddenly, sections of the ceiling opened up and military guys started repelling out of the ceiling on ropes!

Everyone on our row was trying to grab our phones so fast to take a picture but we were all so stunned no one was able to get a pic while the guys were still in the air!  (The guys were throwing stuff into the audience but I couldn’t tell what it was because I was sitting so close up.  That guy in the picture was literally coming out of the ceiling right above my head!)

After that, with Grandma Sandy's heart still racing and her mascara still smudged, we were sent off to our respective schools.

Once we got there, my principal, whose name on this blog will be Lucy, (she and one of her assistant principals are incredibly close and refer to themselves as Lucy and Ethel), had the music cranked up and everyone started line-dancing.

Even the cafeteria workers!!!

After a few minutes of fun, we got busy working on the  Common Core State Standards, the shifts in curriculum/instruction, and how that will all drive instruction and assessment.

This crazy girl is my friend, Lawrie, who transferred from the elementary school with me.  Lawrie has always taught 3rd grade and will teach 2nd gr Language Arts this year.   She’s breathing into a bag in order to not hyperventilate over Common Core.  HA! 

I don’t know who she thinks she’s kidding because I had the pleasure of observing her last year and she is an unbelievable LA teacher!

The next afternoon, my whole school went to the high school gym to be trained in CPR.  

Last spring, one of the high school science classes was awarded a huge grant from State Farm to purchase state of the art CPR equipment.  Their goal is to train as much of the community possible in CPR and they’re starting off with the school district teachers and staff.  It was really cool because all of the high school students are now certified trainers so they were the ones who trained us.

The students were the teachers and the teachers were the students!!

I will only minimally mention the fact that yesterday, I kept wondering why my arms were kinda sore and then it dawned on me.

CPR training.

Y’all, that’s pitiful. 

But 100 chest compressions per minute ain’t no joke!!

In other news, the hens have continued laying eggs.

Here are some of the eggs collected last week.

The first day holds the record for 5 eggs.

Wednesday we got 4, I think, but most days it ranges from 1-3 and twice we got no eggs at all.

The “newness” of egg collecting hasn’t worn off, yet.  The kids love to go check for eggs several times throughout the day.  The hens still haven’t quite gotten the hang of laying in the nest boxes but on several occasions, they actually laid eggs next to the nest boxes.  We’ve also found an egg under the fig tree, as well as in the empty barn stall next to the coop.  Hopefully we can all figure it out soon and get the eggs where they belong.  The thought of eggs being somewhere on our property without my knowing kinda makes me crazy.  After all this time, those eggs are golden to me!

Here are the first eggs we cooked.  The smaller ones came from our hens and the larger ones are farm fresh eggs from the feed store.  We cooked them next to each other to be able to have a comparison of size.  Ours are still small.  And so cute, if I do say so myself.  :)

This past week has been full of fun and excitement, but I saved the very best and MOST exciting news for last. 

No, he’s not mine although I sure wish he was!

Thursday night, Grandma Sandy became an aunt for the 10th time!!!!!

That’s right!  

My youngest brother and his most perfect wife gave birth to their 4th boy.

Fourth boy!!!

Isn’t he the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?

If you liked that picture, then take a look at this one........

Be still, my heart.

And because a picture is worth a thousand words, I have nothing left to say.

(although I’d say this picture is worth at least 1000 x 4, don’t you think?!?)