Gigi's 50th Birthday

My beautiful mother is 50 and fabulous!

And because she's so fabulous her birthday party lasted nearly 2 months with a surprise party from her friends, a family party (shown below), and a birthday beach trip with her 2 favorite daughters (mom's treat!) to Jekyll Island!

Pictures below are of her beach trip. We had a blast! I love that these ladies are not only family, but my best friends as well! We had so much fun, that we decided that we must make this an annual trip.

Road trip!

We practically turned this trip into our own personal photo shoot! The trip was also planned in time for the Jekyll Island Shrimp and Grits Festival. This trip included plenty of wine, a trip to the beach, a night of eating shrimp and grits, an in room massage, a private tea party, and a lifetime of memories.

This tea party was so fun!

Behind us is our Inn

Happy birthday Mom, I love you!

Back to School 2015-2016

September 1st was our first day back to school! This is our 3rd year homeschooling and we are still loving it. We hit a milestone this year with Skylar entering middle school! 

We use Classical Conversations for our curriculum and as a social homeschool group. We meet with our group every Tuesday from 9am to 3pm with other families and tutors. Every Tuesday we start our morning off with prayer, bible time, the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, and the Pledge of Allegiance to the Bible. Classical Conversations provides us with our History, Science, Geography, Grammar, Bible memory work, Latin, Art, and Music. For Math we use an online program called Easy Peasy, this program provides video instructions, worksheets, quizzes, and math games. Skylar and Maddox are also taking guitar and piano lessons from the music director at our church. Skylar will take up horseback riding lessons this year and Maddox will continue with wrestling.

Our Foundation Classical Conversations group grades kindergarten through 6th grade

Our Essentials Classical Conversations group grades 4th through 6th.

On Tuesdays while the big kids are working with their classmates on memory work, Mason and Josiah are just down the hall in their preschool class. At home Mason and Josiah are working on their ABCs, numbers, shapes, and colors.

Our First Rattlesnake

While working on school, we noticed out the window the chickens and turkeys gathering together, excited, and acting strange. With a closer look I could see that there was a rattlesnake in our yard, and the birds were trying to run him off! Up until now I have only seen a rattlesnake once before, and that was only a few weeks ago crossing the road. We were warned when we moved down here that we would see plenty of rattlesnakes, and so far I have seen 2 too many! I ran upstairs to grab a gun. Mitch wasn't home, and I wanted the snake dead. The kids are outside everyday, and I couldn't stand the thought of them getting bit by a rattlesnake. But by the time I returned to the yard the snake was gone.

I'll admit, I took time to take a picture of the snake before I ran to get a gun. This is a zoomed in photo.

The kids stayed inside the rest of the day, and I took over the night shift of feeding and locking up the animals. The next morning Skylar got up to go outside to feed her baby pig when she dropped everything and came running inside screaming. We could barely understand her, until she calmed down enough to let us know that the snake was dead on our back porch! The head was missing and and the cats were enjoying a feast. We believe that the cats hunted and killed the snake in the middle of the night, and then drug him up on the porch, as they do with most of their prey that they want to show off.

Mitch threw the dead snake deep into the woods, but not before cutting off the rattle for Maddox. I hope not to see another rattlesnake again so close to home, but I'm sure it won't be our last.