Home, Sweet, Home

No matter how many times we move, when asked where "Home" is I always think of Tennessee. The girls and I go on a road trip to visit the grandparents every summer and an incredible perk of moving is that this year I was close enough to visit my brother too! In fact, I got to be with my brother, Andy, and his wife, Kelsey, for this special moment:

He or she, what will baby Ford be?

Baby Ford is a boy!

* After swinging through Knoxville to visit Andy and Kelsey, we spent a week in Jackson.

We spent a lot of time outside with Poppa.

We celebrated Pop's birthday with our cousins.

Meme was there too. :)

And we celebrated the 4th of July with Mammy.

We certainly had a super fun week, but we were also glad to get home to see Matt! Maybe he can come with us next time. 

My first trip to South Carolina

Last week I talked about how much I detest Mondays. The beginning of the work week brings too much loneliness for me... usually. This week, I'm admitting that for the 2nd week in a row Monday hasn't been depressing.  Yay! Today, Matt got an extra day off so we decided we'd take a road trip to Greenville, SC.  Our main objective for the day was to visit the Children's Museum. The girls really enjoyed themselves.

 Audrey says her favorite part was this climbing structure.

Julia claims her favorite was the race car.

But the attraction they actually spent the most time at was the Construction Zone. Who would have thought?

 

Afterwards we walked to a local coffee/ice cream shop for a treat. 

 Then, we walked around Greenville's nature park. It was beautiful, but the long walk made Audrey's "feet hurt sooooooo bad" and mean old Mommy refused to carry her. As soon as we were in sight, she ran for the van and promptly fell asleep.

The Bowman family excursion concluded with dinner at Outback. We didn't have one close by in Alabama and have been sitting on a couple of gift cards for years. So, if you happened to give us an Outback gift card for Christmas back in 2009, we thank you for tonight's dinner.   :)

I hate Mondays

There's an extra pang of loneliness that hits me on Monday mornings as my husband gets ready and leaves for work. I felt it several years ago when the girls were still babies/preschoolers and now that we've moved my hatred of lonely Mondays is back. Don't get me wrong, one of the blessings in life I'm most grateful for is the opportunity I've had to stay home with my children, but I still really dislike the beginning of Matt's work week. This probably sounds extra whiny given that Matt's office days are only Monday-Thursday, but the beginning of those 4 days bothers me.  So be it.  

Here's how I saved my sanity last week...

We shoved uncooked spaghetti into bites of hot dog, boiled them, and served it for lunch. Julia happily prepped it but wouldn't eat it, Audrey thought it was ok with shredded cheese, and I thought it was bleh... It's appropriate for lonely Monday food to be 'bleh', don't you think?

We also decided to salt paint: Draw designs with white glue, sprinkle with salt, remove excess salt, and then paint with a food dye/water mix.

This project was easy peasy! It was also neat to watch the salt absorb the drops of color.

 How else to entertain on a lonely Monday?!? Well, the girls enjoy card games (and Go Fish, War, and Uno get old) so they learned a few more, Speed and 21 to be exact.  No worries, I didn't spend too much time this week teaching these girls to be card sharks. 

And the last no fail way to entertain for a few minutes... we break out a tea set and have a tea party outside.  

And then apparently bring a hamper full of toys outside too.

Last Monday turned out not to be too bad and this Monday I'm not feeling lonely at all! I'm visiting family in TN! YAY!!!!!

Hike to Little Falls

 We were invited to go with a few other families to take an easy hike up to a little waterfall Wednesday. We were thrilled to have something to do. 

Julia went hiking... hiking!! She squealed every time a branch brushed against her and also when she had to walk through a tiny bit of mud, but good for her for being ready and willing to try something out of her usual comfort zone.  

As we packed our gear for our hike, Audrey insisted she wouldn't want to play so she didn't need to wear a bathing suit.

Momma knows her child, though.  Dry clothes were in our bag.  :)

Despite my warnings, Audrey hiked back down in her flip flops. She didn't get hurt, but she did (very loudly) exclaim repeatedly that the mud she stepped in was actually "Bear POOP on her foot!"

Fun times with new friends!

We've moved

Well, it happened again. The Bowman family has started life in a new city as Matt pastors a new church.

(excuse me while I take a deep, calming breath)

We live in North GA now, and I am handling our move better than I did last time.  (FYI "better than last time" means that I haven't spent every night of the first month crying hysterically while seriously wondering if I need therapy... let's all celebrate.)

 

Things have gone pretty smoothly so far:
* The girls have made several little friends at church.
* We've already checked out the local library and their summer kids activities.
* Extra events at church have helped us get to know members a little faster.
* We've had out of town friends visit already... all others are welcome! Seriously, we're lonely. VISIT US!
Our visitors, Will and Miranda - fabulous people!

* I've only gotten lost in town once.  Unfortunately it was our first night here, it was dark, I was by myself, and googlemaps and I weren't on the same page ... tears did happen that night.
* We've visited Toccoa Falls twice now. The girls love playing on the rocks!

 * Miranda and I (and the big vein in my forehead) had our picture taken with Batman.

So yeah, things are going pretty well. Don't you agree??

Today, I went ahead and made a "Summer: To Do" list for the girls. I did this last year too and am confident it will help keep me from being a completely lazy mom with lazy kids the entire summer.  Water balloons, ice cream sundaes, and different craft projects all made the list.  I also included several science experiments (more ideas welcome), and Matt and I decided to put a trip to the Georgia Aquarium on there too.  Fun!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day for the Bowman family wasn't quite what we were expecting. The girls were looking forward to class parties, and Matt and I were planning on a lunch date while they were in school.  Julia came down with the stomach flu early Thursday morning, though, and very much needed Friday (Valentine's Day) to recover. So only Audrey got to party with her friends... aren't they cute?

 

Julia was pretty sad about missing her class party, but after getting a few calories in her she felt good enough to enjoy the flowers Daddy brought home. She especially loved that hers were white laced with crimson. (Never forget that this child's a Bama fan!) 

 Audrey loved her flowers too.

 Audrey was thrilled to pose for me all afternoon. Here she is with her box of chocolates.

... and with her heart shaped cake.

...and again because I wasn't too thrilled with the original facial expression. ;)

Finally, dear Julia felt energetic enough to decorate her heart cake as well.

Happy Valentine's Day

2014

8 months later... I'm going to try to keep this up with a blog or 2 a month and will (hopefully) backtrack to cover the 8 missing months. 

2014 hasn't been so great thus far. After a couple of weeks of severe back pain, Matt had surgery January 10th for a partially ruptured disc.  He's doing well as he recovers, but it will still be several weeks before he's back to "normal".

The week of his surgery was (obviously) very painful for him, but I'll readily admit that it was very stressful for me.  No one has ever accused me of handling stress well, and that combined with exhaustion pushed me close to a breakdown for a few days.  The whole situation cemented my yearning to live closer to family. Friends down here made many offers to help out with childcare and food, and I most definitely took advantage of it! It just would have been an extra relief to have our parents or siblings close enough to lean on too.