Wordless Wednesday

                 

Our summer fun continues ...

Summer Plans {2014}

Hard to believe how much we always cram into those last few weeks before summer begins ... we've done baseball games, a dance competition, dance recital, and testing. So nice to have a breather for a few weeks before our summer plans kick into gear.

On tap this summer ...

• Classical Conversations Practicum/Tutor Training/Camp for the kids and I
• Homeschool Group Book Sale
• VBS at our church
• 4th of July trip to Asheville, North Carolina
• 90 hours of a ballet summer intensive for Lexi and Ava Mae
• Baseball Private Coaching for Devin
• Lots of swimming and fun with friends!
• Camp Winshape for Devin
• Two different Camp Crafty Girls days at my home
• Hosting a foreign exchange student from France in July

After all that fun, I have a feeling we will look forward to heading back to school at the end of August! Speaking of school ... we aren't putting our studies aside for the whole summer. Devin and Lexi are working on getting all of their reading done, for the 2014-2015 school year. We are also going to start working on Latin vocabulary - doesn't that sound like fun! Ava Mae will work on becoming a more fluent reader, so lots of reading on tap for her.

The kids can't wait to get to our pool ... I like to wait until at least Memorial Day. With the cold winter we had I cannot imagine our pool warming up before June. 

Day Trip'in ... Summer Fun

After a June that had us staying put due to ballet and baseball - the past two weekends we have enjoyed day trips in the North Georgia mountains.  Last weekend we went tubing with our Sunday School class in Helen. It was, for the most part, quite relaxing and enjoyable! Even our dog, Maggie, got in on the fun. Everyone slept well that night ... two hours on an icy cold river can wear you out. Only two pictures on the river {thanks to my friend Amanda Craig for purchasing them for us!} taken by the tubing company. Ava Mae said next time we need to bring along a waterproof camera.

This weekend we took the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway up to Tennessee.

We rolled along the Toccoa River - through beautiful scenery.

When we weren't looking at the beautiful views - the kids enjoyed exploring the train. The train was really large - lots of cars to explore, even a snack bar car.

We even ran into some interesting characters on the train - including, Santa Claus - apparently he is on vacation.  The train conductor was so nice and chatted with the kids before punching our tickets with his star punch. He heard it was almost Devin's birthday and got our whole train car to sing "Happy Birthday" to him.

When we arrived at our destination it was pouring down rain but, we waited it out for about 15 minutes and then we were off to explore the quaint little towns on both the Georgia and Tennessee side of the state line.

Ava Mae and Devin enjoyed being in two states at once.

After lunch and a little shopping it was time to reboard for the one hour trip back to Blue Ridge.

Hoping to do this trip again some day ... during the peak Fall foliage would be beautiful!

4th of July {2012}

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July! We had a great day, though having a holiday in the middle of the week always messes with my head. I know at least three times yesterday I thought it was Saturday and that I had a ton of things I needed to have done already ... including making sure we had enough parent volunteers for children's church on Sunday. So happy when I remembered it was just Wednesday.

We spent hours on our friends' new boat on a nearby lake having a blast -

{Tubing}

{Swinging on a Rope Swing}

{Swimming}

{and, just hanging out.}

After coming home and resting up ... time for bbq and a red, white and blue cake {I know the cake looks more like red, white and green - the blue needed to be a little darker}.

Followed by fireworks ... some of our own in the driveway waiting for the fireworks our neighborhood's country club put on each year. Lucky to be able to view these from our yard.

Can't believe it is already July! The summer is flying by. Hope you are enjoying your summer! Camp Crafty Girls next week and then Camp Winshape in a few weeks. Looking forward to a more relaxed summer month!

What Do You Crave?

Thanks to my friend, Robyn, I am now a part of the Cravebox community. What is Cravebox ...

"Cravebox is a wildly popular product discovery service that puts crave-worthy products into the hands of our lucky Cravebox Members. Each month our team of Cravebox Curators scours the earth for the best of the best, and carefully prepares boxes that arrive at members’ homes."

For me it is a fun surprise on my front door once a month! You never know ahead of time what you are receiving. This month's theme to the box was Taste of the Tropics. A perfect box for summer! Pictured above is the box I received, inside were the following products:

Sunsweet Plum Amazins^™

Tree Hut Coconut Lime Body Scrub ~ amazing scrub!

Guylian Belgian Chocolates ~ loved these chocolates!

Skintersection ^™ Intense Repair ~ perfect for dry heels!

Lipton^® Tea & Honey To Go ~ delicious drink mix!

This was a fun summer box to receive ... the body scrub has been perfect to use in the shower after a day at the pool, the Skintersection cream has helped my poor dry cracked summer heels, and we have all enjoyed the dried plums, Belgian chocolates, and the Lipton drink mix.

Here is a link to learn more about the fun products {don't worry you don't have to blog to receive a box} and to learn how you can become a member of the Cravebox community.

Wordless Wednesday : {Signs of Summer}

Even with little effort on my part signs of summer are abounding around our home ... pictured above the bunny who visits our blueberry bushes each day. Under the category of edible garden our blueberry bushes, mint and pumpkin are all growing nicely. Our local farm that grows blueberries lost them all in the late April frost we had this year. I was so sad to hear that and it makes our bushes even more valuable - we will have to continue to chase Mr. Bunny Rabbit away.

Our flowers are doing well too ... though I need to get a few more planted soon. Time has just gotten away from me this year. Hope to have a few more flower boxes planted before too long.

So much for "wordless" Wednesday ... at least fewer words than usual.

Wordless Wednesday : {Game Face}

The craziness of our summer has not allowed me much time to sit down and compose a blog post but, I wanted to share this photograph for Wordless Wednesday.

I am entitling it "Game Face" ... it was Devin pitching in our first game of All-Star Tournament Season, this past Saturday. Normally Devin is pretty relaxed and just has fun when pitching but, I think he was pretty stressed taking the mound for the first time outside of our park. Thanks to one of the other parents on our team who took my camera and captured this for me ... I was too nervous to watch and definitely would not have been able to hold the camera still enough to snap this.

Summer Fun Schedule

I saw this great idea on Pinterest and thought it would be perfect for our summer fun schedule each week. {Each day Monday - Friday has a theme for something fun to do.} The printable and idea was created by Stephanie Dulgarian over at Somewhat Simple . She was so sweet to place a link on her blog so that you can download your own schedule sheet.

Steph suggests printing and laminating but, I figured it would look nice in a frame on our kitchen counter and the glass would serve as our "dry erase" surface.

I found some cute summer themed scrapbook paper in my stash and just cut out the box from the printable and glued it on. Also, picked up a set of dry erase markers and a frame at our Dollar Store, while I was out and about today. The craft took less than five minutes and just $2 to complete from start to finish. The kids love it, and so do I!!

Summer Fun {2012}

I think I finally have our summer plans finalized ... as the kids get older I realize it is not as easy as just signing them up for a camp. There are auditions and try-outs to take into consideration before any plans can be finalized. With those things behind us {and final decisions made} here are our summer plans for 2012.

Devin will do travel baseball and my husband will coach the team. It is a commitment of twice a week practices and tournaments, on weekends through mid-July. Devin played on an All-Star team a few years ago during the summer and has been looking forward to travel ball since then.

Lexi auditioned for and was accepted into a summer program at the Georgia Ballet so she will be dancing there for most of June, four days a week. This was an exciting step for her. After the summer program is over we will have some decisions to make about where she will dance this fall.

Ava Mae has enjoyed her after-school soccer program at Timothy for the last few weeks. They have asked her, and one of her best friends, to play soccer this fall on a team. So, it is soccer camp for Ava Mae in June. Ava Mae has wanted to play soccer with her best friend for a very long time - so this is a dream come true for her.  She also wants to do ballet camp... we will have to see if that can get worked into our schedule.

In June, I will be hosting and teaching Camp Crafty Girls for the 4th year. Absolutely love this camp and the little girls who attend!! I have most of my ideas nailed down and registration has begun.

Then there is VBS at our church in June and all three kids want to attend Camp Winshape for one week in July.

It's going to be a busy summer but, we will still have time for friends. I imagine there will be plenty of swimming, picnics, and playdates. Then when everyone else heads back to school maybe a quick trip to the beach. Looking forward to it ... Summer 2012 here we come!

Summer's Last Hurrah ....

I'll be back soon ... right now our family is enjoying summer's last hurrah!

Stone Mountain {Laser Show}

Wow ... we are almost done with our Summer Bucket List. Saturday night we headed to Stone Mountain to see the Laser Show. We let the kids bring along two of their best friends and met up with our Sunday School class for a fun evening.

{Pictured above the girls and their friends ... below Devin, cooling off after playing catch for over an hour.}
It was warm and the hike from the parking lot to the grassy field was a long haul but, all worth it. The kids had a blast. The evening laser and fireworks show was amazing.