First Day of School 2017

Yesterday these two went back to school!!

Rachel is in 8th grade this year and Rebecca is a 3rd grader.

Rebecca was the first to go to school.

She is back at Sage School again this year.

I still need to blog all about Sage, on of these days.

She was excited to get back to school.

I know she was anxious to see her friends and get back to

a school time routine.

Rachel doesn't go to school until later, so Raphael and I went to the

bus stop to see her off. The bus was very late, so about 20 kids

waiting and talking. I made the girls gather for a picture :).

The bus finally showed up and off they went.

I know Rachel was happy to see her friends and looking forward

to her schedule this fall. I think 8th grade will be a good year for her.

They came home from school full of news and stories.

Sounded like the first day was a success!

Praying a safe and learning filled year for them.

The Blue Angels

This beach trip we took a day trip on a sail boat. The boat leaves from

Alabama and sails down to Pensecola Florida. The Blue Angels are

stationed on the Naval base there and a couple of days a week,

they practice. The plan was to sail down, watch them fly and

then swim and hang out for awhile in Florida. 

We checked in and ready to go.

It took about an hour and half to sail to Florida.

We anchored right outside of Pensecola and waited for

the show to start.

The Blue Angels were amazing to watch. They flew right over our

boat. They fly so close to each other, it is scary. They flew all around

for over and hour.

Then we anchored in a private lagoon area and played in the water.

Raphael and Rachel did the paddle boards.

Then it was time to go back home.

Picture with our captain!

It was a really fun day and I am glad we were able to spend the

day on the water and try something new.

RISE UP !

On Sunday after church we drove into Atlanta to go see the Falcons play football.

They were playing against the Greenbay Packers and the winning team goes to the

Superbowl!!

The streets were full of people and surprisingly, a lot of Packers fans.

By the time the game started there were no empty seats.

The Falcons started strong and lead the game the entire time.

It was so loud and we stood for the entire game.

We had some very enthusiastic fans in front of us!

We had fun and glad we were able to attend the last football game at

the Georgia Dome. The Falcons won!! And they are going to the Superbowl!!

Caladesi Island and Evan

On our trip to Florida we spent one day at Caladesi Island. I had read a lot of wonderful things about the Island when I was researching for our trip and it did not disappoint. Caladesi Island was my favorite beach we visited.

And sadly, I don't know what I did, but I lost all my pictures I took that day, except for two. So most of these pictures are from Google.

We drove to Honeymoon Beach Park and took the Caladesi Ferry to the Island.

Caladesi Island was the complete opposite of Clearwater Beach.

Caladesi had just a few families. I walked the beach and found a lot of

shells. There were so many of shells on the beach.

I was out in the water with the family and a couple of dolphins

were swimming not too far from us. Every time we went to the

beach in Florida we saw dolphins.

It was a great day at the beach. I would go back to Caladesi Beach

again and again.

We headed back home and got all cleaned up. Raphael and the

girls spent the evening at home and I went to visit my coach, Evan.

from Evan's Instagram page

In January, I applied to an on-line program, called Alpha Female.

Evan is the creator and coach of the program. She lives in Florida.

I had met her back in April when we were in Tampa for our cruise.

From my April visit.

It happened that our Florida house was about 20 minutes from

Evan's gym , so I was able to go visit her for awhile.

The woman is strong!

There were two other Alpha girls there that night too. We

sat and talked, traded stories, I learned about SnapChat.

It was a fun night and I was happy to get to see Evan again.

Hopefully, tomorrow I will get around to our visit to Busch Gardens.

Five Years Ago....

 

Five years ago today, I started this little blog of mine.

 

I really didn't have any idea what I was doing.... still don't.

Just take some pictures and talk about what we have going on in our lives.

 

I decided to look back and see what I was talking about five years ago.

Pretty much the same things as today-- our family, the girls, school stuff.

 

The very first "header" on my blog.

The girls were so little!

 

             My first blog entry was about my day with Rebecca and her first taste of green beans.

 

A few other pictures from the early days..........

 

Thankfully, my picture taking skills have improved over the years :)

It's been fun to look back and remember.

Glad we have this on-line memory

book of our family and life here in Georgia.

 

 

 

Photos from my Phone Friday

I can't believe it is the first day of August ! Where did our summer go? We have been busy in the month of July with vacations and spending lots of time with our families.  A few pictures from the past days................

Yesterday was open house at the school. I am still in disbelief that Rebecca is starting Kindergarten!

We went to meet her teacher and fill out all the paperwork. Her teacher seems very nice and Rebecca handled the open house just fine.

Rachel in her fifth grade room. Her teacher this year is the same one she had in 2nd grade- Mrs.McMahon. So Rachel was happy to  have one of her favorite teachers again.

We went to a Braves baseball game on Monday afternoon.

The girls and I went to the city pool and had the entire pool to ourselves.

Raphael's family has been visiting us for a couple of weeks. On their last evening here, we drove to Stone Mountain Park to walk around and see the laser show.

 

We were waiting for dinner and took a selfie.

After dinner, we RAN to catch the last skylift up to the top of Stone Mountain. It was sunset and such a pretty view.

 

Jonathan, Ivy, Emma, Perla, Rebecca, Raphael, Rachel, Adan and me

We rode back down, sat on the lawn and waited for the show to begin. We have lived here eight years and have been to Stone Mountain several times, but this was the first time we have stayed for the laser show. It was a perfect night to sit outside and enjoy the show.

There was no way I could possibly take a good picture of the show, so this is from the Stone Mountain website. Pretty amazing.

 

Saying goodbye..... we drove to the airport yesterday afternoon and said goodbye to Raphael's family.