I am Grandma Sandy (according to my 4 yr old): Summer highlights

We started the summer by celebrating Peanut’s 12th birthday.

During the whole party, I kept thinking to myself...

a gaggle of girls

giggling,

gossiping,

gabbing,

gobbling,

girls today

grown tomorrow

Thank you, my year in 4th grade English/Language Arts, for my time with alliteration and other sound devices. ;)

Happy birthday, Peanut!!

Dogos and The Boss had great fun, too!

Peanut’s birthday was followed by a great week of Vacation Bible School. You know it was a great week when your children are still singing the VBS songs in mid-July, right?

Next up?

A girls’ trip to New Orleans!!

We spent the day in the French Quarter eating beignets, shopping in the quarter, and visiting the Kids’ Museum.

The girls’ all-time favorite part of the Kids’ Museum was the Little Winn Dixie grocery store.

It was set up exactly like a real grocery store, except everything was kid-sized. The children were able to get a miniature shopping cart and shop through the pretend produce, dairy and meat sections, frozen goods, etc. and place their items in their cart.

Then they were able to check themselves out at the checkout counter.

And after printing their receipt, they were able to return their items and start all over again!!

If I ever win the lottery, I will build one of these at my house.

It was seriously that much fun.

When Dogos started checking out her items, I had to laugh.

She is a very picky eater and what did she choose?

Exactly the few foods she likes to eat.

Bread, milk, ice cream, mac-and-cheese, bananas, and cereal.

(I think chicken nuggets and cheese were still in the basket.)

Our trip to NOLA was fun, but except for the Little People Winn Dixie, the Kids’ Museum really wasn’t that great. It was outdated and nearly half the activities were broken. It was inexpensive and the girls had enough fun in the Winn Dixie to make it worth the trip, but we won’t go there again unless they do a major overhaul.

Guitar Boy had a big trip during the middle of June.

See this happy face?

This happy face had just returned from a week-long mission trip with our church youth and SON Servants to Jamaica.

It was a great week and an eye-opening experience. He came home with stories about pouring foundations and building houses. I think the thing that really meant the most to him, though, was the time they spent at an infirmary for sick and disabled elderly people.

There was one gentleman named Godfrey, who was 87, that engaged Guitar Boy in conversation. When he learned that Guitar Boy was the oldest of 5 children, he told him that he had a very important responsibility as the eldest of his siblings. He told Guitar Boy that it was up to him to pave the way for his younger siblings and that he needed to be a young man of integrity.

Thank you, Godfrey!!

Guitar Boy said that when our youth leader asked if our group could pray with him, Godfrey insisted on praying for our group first, and through tears, expressed his gratitude for their visit to him.

Guitar Boy loves telling the story of meeting, visiting, and praying with Godfrey.

And isn’t that just the way that God often works?

The very people you hope to love and serve in His name end up being far more of a blessing to you, instead?

It was around midnight before The Chef and I got home from picking up Guitar Boy. Peanut and Middle Man waited up to see him.

You can tell by their faces how happy they were to have him home!

Of course, within about 48 hours they were all back to arguing and fussing, but for a while there, things were great! Ha!

Speaking of blessings, Grandma Sandy started moving into her new home for the upcoming school year.......

Hallelujah!!

I’ll be teaching a K-1st loop, starting in 1st this year.

That means that this year I’ll teach 1st grade, then the following school year I’ll teach K and keep those students the year after that and loop up to 1st grade.

I’m particularly excited about the other looping teachers I’ll be teaching with. I like them all a lot.

The best thing is that I’ll be teaching 1st this year when The Boss is in 1st, and K the next year when Dogos will be in K!!

Those of you that know me, know that I have “a thing” about the number 11. It’s just one of my favorite numbers (as well as the number 5) and it always seems to turn up.

Well, wouldn’t you know it? I texted my new principal about what classroom I’d be in and guess what?

Yep. You got it!

We were also able to squeeze in a trip to The Lake to see Mimi and Pop.

Dogos enjoyed fishing. We left Peanut behind to spend a few days with Mimi and Pop. She thought she’d died and gone to heaven!!

Earlier this summer, Middle Man went to a baseball camp at the high school. Our high school baseball team has won the state championship several times in the past few years so to say he was excited to learn some new baseball tips was an understatement.

Clearly, this is not a pic of him from camp, but since I didn’t have a camp picture and I thought this was cute, I included it anyway!

Speaking of cute.......

Look at this cute chicken that Middle Man made me!

He’s been spending time with The Chef down in The Chef’s shop, aka MAN-ville, and he built this little chicken for me out of scrap lumber, cardboard, poker chips, 2 pennies, chicken feathers, and a tuft of Suzy’s hair.

I love this little chicken so much!!!

It was a total surprise.

He designed it, planned it, and built it himself.

Speaking of chickens, our chickens are now free-ranging.

They've discovered our gigantic fig tree and make a mad rush for it whenever we let them out of the coop. They love to scratch around and find figs that have fallen to the ground.

Since we’ve raised them from chicks, they are very well-socialized and love to be with people. There are 10 whole acres behind the barn for them to explore and graze upon, but they like to hang out under the fig tree, which is near the pool deck, (don’t worry, the chickens aren't actually by the pool..that would be gross!) as well as Manville, where they can find Suzy, The Chef, and any number of the kids.

No eggs yet, but I expect we may have some by the end of August-mid-September. You can see the red comb on the white chicken. That’s a sign that she’s maturing. They’ll be 18 weeks old on Monday. Egg production can start anywhere from 22-26 weeks.

At least, I think! I’m switching their feed over to layer feed this weekend. We’ll see!

The last little quick trip we took right before the 4th was to Gulfport. We went to play in the sand and water for a few hours, then change clothes and have a popsicle at my aunt’s house before heading back home.