Carter graduated high school this year! We are so proud of the man he is growing into. He turned 18 in April and started working at Home Depot as soon as school was out. He enrolled in Southern Crescent in Business Management and finished the semester with a 3.25 GPA. He is still dating his ONLY girlfriend he ever had, Aden. They celebrated their 1 year anniversary this past summer.
Maggie turned 16 in April and got a car. She has been driving herself to soccer and school and even dropping her siblings off for me every morning! She played soccer in the spring on the Pike County High Varsity Soccer team and for her club team AFC Lightning in the fall. She is very ready for school soccer to start back up soon!
Jada had the lead roll in the spring play and we thoroughly enjoyed watching her on stage. She started her last year on middle school this fall! She went our on a limb and tried out for the JV Volleyball team and to her surprise made the team! She really enjoyed trying her hand at volleyball. She made the middle school basketball team again and the two sports kept her busy all fall!
Kennedy started 3rd grade in the fall and played soccer all year. She loved her team and her coach. They even won a tournament this fall in Cumming! She is my free spirit, unique and intelligent little girl and I love her dearly.
Hooper started Pre-K at Life Springs this fall. He has had Mrs. Amber for his teacher every year and loves her! I know he will miss her next fall (we are hoping he gets in at Pike County Pre-K). He is wild and rambunctious. He loves superheros and the outdoors. He got to go hunting this year with Papa and loved it. He also loves his big brother!
Kevin made a huge job jump this year. After 12 years with Home Depot he left and began a new start at Lowes. He loves his new employer and I am excited to see him excited about his career again. It was a tough move, and he had to really trust the Lord on this change, but he can definitely see now it was a great move.
I finished my first semester of the BSN program at Gordon State this fall. I will have another year and 4 months before I can receive my diploma. I am looking forward to serving people as an RN and I am very excited about my new career! I had a crazy running year and finished up with over 2,019 miles and 24 races, two of which were 100 miles! Read all about that here: Resolution Run
And of course, we traveled! That is what I love to blog most.. our trips! We spent the summer camping, hiking and being outdoors. We love to travel and I can't wait to post the pictures from all our adventures this year. So, we say goodbye to 2019 and look forward to all the things the Lord has in store for us in 2020!
First Day of 2019 hike to Panola Mountain!
I took my mom and sister for a weekend away at Chateau Elan. We got massages, had a lovely dinner and enjoyed our wine tasting!
We loved watching Carter play basketball his senior year. Below is a picture from Senior Night and above is an article in the paper about one of his games.
We have had season passes to Callaway Gardens as long as I can remember. My mother used to take me there as a child as well! This was our first trip to Callaway in 2019 with some of our favorite people,
Because of my college schedule, I was unable to take the kids camping for their winter break. Instead we spent the night at the new Great Wolf Lodge just down the road from us!
School soccer began in the spring of 2019 for Maggie, she had a great season!
My two favorite PCH soccer players!
Carter was chosen for the GICAA all state team. We loved getting to watch him participate with the best players in the GICCA.
He wrapped up his senior year at the winter sports banquet where he received the sharp shooter award for the 3rd year in a row!
Carter participtated in his first prom in the spring. He went with Aden to her Jr. prom at the Atlanta Aquarium for Pike County High School.
These are some of his best friends from school. We had no idea he would get the opportunity to come back to Pike County High and participate in what would of been his Senior prom had he not changed schools. It was really great that he got to celebrate this night with kids he grew up with and friends he loves!
And of course there was camping! We started the camping season off with a trip to Indian Springs for spring break. I had school still, but my sweet friends filled in for me while I ran to class.
The Lawrence family met us for the day at Indian springs. We also enjoyed a trip to dauset trails nature center to see the animals.
And the big trip of the spring was the trip to NYC for the kids birthdays! Carter, Maggie and Jada all celebrated milestone birthdays this year. (Mine wasn't a milestone, but I celebrated none the less!) Carter turned 18, Maggie 16 and Jada finally became a teenager at 13! We decided last minute to scratch a big party and spend the weekend in NYC. The first stop after the hotel was Flight Club. Flight Club is home to every single rare, expensive, collectible shoe you can imagine. The kids love shoes like their dad, and for their birthday they each got to buy a pair. This was no quick task.. it took them hours. But finally, they all 3 ended up with a pair of the most amazing shoes you could ask for. Carter got the Cactus Jack Jordan's as seen above,
Jada got the retro Jordan 1 Spiderman's
And Maggie found Yeezy's she was in love with.
I have never seen these kids more excited than they were walking out of that shoe store!
We ate pizza after the shoe store, we were all starving!
We spent the next day shopping and checking out NYC. We ate dinner in Greenwich Village at a quirky little place call Jekyll and Hyde.
About to go shop at Sephora and Foot Locker
We took the kids on 5th ave to see the stores and they were very impressed with the Timerland Store.
Cookies and cereal milk at the Milk Bar
We probably had the most fun on the subway. We traveled only on the subway and loved the bands and people we would encounter along the way. We had a blast watching this band, We sang and danced with them for a long time.
Subway fun..
We stayed in the Flatiron district and enjoyed the area. I LOVE being in NYC with my hubby!
Bobo tea before we left the city.
And delicious pizza in Little Italy before we headed back to the airport.
Jada was the leading role in her school play "Murder by Indecision". She played a quirky book writer who is experiencing major writers block. She did a fantastic job of playing Agatha Crispy and we loved to watch her on stage!
Carter participated in his senior prom at GC with his beautiful girlfriend Aden. He was very excited about his prom and picked out his tux and matching shoes.
Some of Carter's favorite guy friends at GC.
It was all about the shoes...
And then I took the trip of a lifetime! I headed out west with the Yeti Trailrunners to the Grand Canyon!
We started our Rim 2 Rim at the South Kaibab trail head. It was 27 degrees the morning at the top. By the time we got to bottom of the canyon it was almost 80 degrees!
We encountered some rugged terrain as we traversed the canyon.
We crossed the Colorado River on the foot bridge!
We headed back home after the 27 mile rim 2 rim trek. I had an amazing trip seeing the remarkable Grand Canyon from top to bottom and back to the top again. I will never forgot the all the beauty I saw and how incredible God's earth is!
And just like that, my first born graduated! It was awesome to see him walk across that stage. I know he had a difficult few years getting there and it was just really rewarding to see him cross that finish line!
We celebrated after the graduation with family and a few friends at our house.
We love to fish. We fish all summer long at Papa's pond. So I thought I would include some of our fishing pics from this year in our 2019 year in review!
Our first trip of the summer started as soon as school was out! We spent the week in PCB with our cousins!! We love our time with our family and we had a blast this year!
Beach time!
We stayed at Gulf Highlands and enjoyed our golf carts that came with our houses!
Boat day to shell island was our fave! We love to rent a pontoon for the day and hang out all day on shell island.
The beach wore this baby out.
We spent Father's Day in Helen. We tried out the new Alpine Coaster, had ice cream down town, tubed the river and enjoyed a relaxing dinner watching tubers go down the river.
The bus ride to the tubing launch
Of course we went to Crystal Spring! No summer is complete without it. This time it stormed and we all headed inside to wait it out. Love my sweet friends and that we can all raise our kids together.
A few more trips to Callaway Gardens throughout the summer! This trip we let the kids do Aqua Island
I have at least 5 or 6 years of "chair pics"
One of our most fun summer trips was camping at Cloudland Canyon in the yurts! We went camping with a large group of our favorite families, some tent camped and some tried the yurts. We LOVED the yurts. We spent 3 nights hiking, and hanging out. Cloudland is such a beautiful place.
The mom group.
The kids scaring us to death jumping over huge boulders at the top of the canyon.
of course they found a creek to get into
We enjoyed a night by the fire sharing what Jesus was doing in our lives and singing. It is so wonderful to have such a good core group of believers to spend time with.
We secure day passes to Lula Lake Land trust way ahead of time. It is private property and only opens on select weekends to the public. Tickets are first come first serve. We had a fantastic hike to the top and them
The falls were just mesmerizing! We all had a wonderful time there.
Lula Lake was just beautiful!
We could not resist and all jumped in and swam to the falls!
Apparently it is posted no swimming... oh well!
We went into Chattanooga for the night and ate at Sticky Fingers.
We walked across the Walnut Street bridge.
And enjoyed ice cream!
This is one of my favorite pictures from the night! Love these sweet kiddos!
We decided to drive over to the lookout and hike down to Hemlock Falls at Cloudland before we left.
The kids scared the crap out of us again and managed to walk all the way around the back of the falls!
And before we left we got a little treat! A photo shoot took place and we got to watch it all go down. A lady who was some sort of viking.. breathing fire.. I have no idea but we were all super impressed and it made the hike down all those millions of stairs worth it!
The whole crew who went on the Cloudland Trip!
On July 1, Kennedy celebrated her 8th birthday! She had a cousin sleepover on the trampoline. Her sister fixed it all up with lights and decorations and snacks!
In July we took a camping trip to Manatee Springs in Florida. This was probably our most favorite camping trip of the year. We tent camped at Manatee Springs and spent the week "spring hopping" as we called it. We visited the mermaids at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, we kayaked the Ichetucknee River and swam in the head springs, And chased deer and squirrels all over the campground!
The head spring at Manatee Springs was just beautiful.
We would put our tubes and float down to the next ramp and get out.
My favorite people to have an adventure with!
The mermaids were so cool!!
Good ole annoying little brother Jarrett!
We really liked the river cruise too!
After the mermaids we stopped for some seafood right on the river.
Kennedy tubing and looking for fish!
Kayaking the Ichetuknee River was a blast! We got to paddle thru over 7 springs.
Kayaking turned paddle boarding...
This is one of the springs, the kids jumped into a million times off the tree!
Hooper fell asleep and Kennedy decided to help me kayak when a snake swam by!
The head spring at Ichetucknee was gorgeous!
There was a beautiful board walk from our campground out to the Suwanee River that we liked to look for wildlife at.
The deer were everywhere and not scared of people!
We sent all 3 of the big kids off to Panama City for Beach Retreat with their youth group and took the little's to Wilderness at the Smokies for the week. It was a wonderful time together as a family of 4 and we had a blast!
We took the kids into Gatlinburg one night to walk around and get ice cream.
Hooper's first go kart experience!
We went camping at the Toccoa River Family campground with our church. We hiked and tubed and enjoyed time together as a church.
We enjoyed our little adventure to the Toccoa River Swing Bridge!
Maggie had a soccer tournament before her fall season, the girls came in runner up, but played a great tournament!
Of course we spent some time at The Bluff! This is always a summer favorite!
Kennedy played soccer this fall for the Pike Rec under coaching of George Davis!
She had a great season and we loved watching her play.
Maggie's soccer schedule sent us to Savannah for the weekend! So we made a trip of it and spent one night on Tybee and one in downtown Savannah before her game Sunday. We had dinner at the Crab Shack and enjoyed a day on the beach.
River Street with my sister, one of our favorite places.
We really enjoyed out free tickets to preview the Hawks! It was a fun night out and the kids loved it!
We got to watch Vince Carter!
We have camped every single summer for the last 8 years at FDR State Park, it is kind of a tradition. But this year, summer ran out and we did not get our trip in. Luckily , we were ALL able to make FDR camping work for Fall Break. This was our last camping trip of 2019 and it was awesome. We had friends from church, friends from our old church and families galore. I think we counted that over 40 people on 6 campsites came out and camped. We played corn hole, we hiked, we played games and some of us even braved the haunted house put on by the State Park (which was actually really freaking scary!) It was overall just a great time with people we love!
The ENO village was off the chain!
No camping trip to FDR is complete without Foxes Pizza!
We went to Callaway of course for the day and lazied around the lake while the kids played volleyball and putt-putt.
We made the mistake of watching the birds of prey show INDOORS. Not cool. Hahaha!
I took a quick weekend trip up to Asheville to summit Mt. Mitchell for my Yeti Distance Challenge Jacket. We had a wonderful time! We hiked, stayed in the coolest retro hotel I have ever seen and enjoyed some of the best apple ale I have ever had!
Maggie killed her first deer this year. It was a spike and she was so excited! Carter put 2 deer in the freezer for us too this year!
We love watching Jada play basketball for her middle school team.
She is very aggressive and plays an excellent defensive game. She is also good at her free throw shots, which she gets a lot of.
Kennedy's soccer team participated in the Recs Rock tournamet where they took home first place! It was a long, wet, cold weekend in Cumming, but was worth it for this smile!
This one little picture represents over 3 months of my year. God sent me the perfect people to do school with and I am so grateful for them! (Yes I am old enough to be 2 of their moms..) We spend a lot of time together studying and working hard to become RN's. This was taken for Keri's birthday lunch and it is the only pic I have of all 4 of us!
My first clinical group.
We traveled over an hour to watch this girl play! Love my little #33 who wears her big brothers jersy number!
And to finish off the year, we didn't do the typical Christmas. I didn't spend days and weeks buying up random crap to gift 5 kids for Christmas. I didn't worry or rush or stress at all. I didn't do Christmas cards (for the first time in 20 years!!). I decided this year to just spend time with my family and enjoy the holiday! We chose to take the kids on a cruise this Christmas. We sailed on the Liberty from Port Canaveral. I loved every single second of it! Even the hours we spent on the closed down Florida Turnpike trying to get home.. the kids were so sweet. It was just perfect!
We got to the ship super early and were one of the first families on! Of course Kennedy and Hooper were in the pools and hot tubs first thing.
The girls LOVE frozen virgin drinks so they had plenty this trip!
I think Kennedy ate ice cream 17 times a day. Before and after all 3 meals. for every snack and every time in between!
Breakfast in port in Nassau. We aren't huge fans of Nassau, so we took our time getting off the ship. We just wanted to take Aden to the straw market and then we got back on pretty quickly.
Nassau pics!
Of course I treated myself and Jada to Starbucks!
Love my crazy husband who was trying his best to be inappropriate!
Posing with the ship.
Christmas eve, we dressed in our Christmas pajamas and watched the Grinch on the big screen out on the Lido deck!
We played games every night. Our favorite games this trip... apples to apples and headbanz!
Late night treats, grilled cheese and ice cream!
Carter was obsessed with the buffalo chicken sandwich and got it every night around 11 pm when we played games.
Christmas day we spent the day at Princess Cays. The weather was gorgeous and the kids had a wonderful time.
Aden was sweet to take a picture of me and my kids on Christmas. By this point Kevin had enough of the "people, the sand, and the beach" and headed back to the ship! Lol!
This is probably my favorite picture of the cruise. I love my sweet children so much and my son's girlfriend Aden as well! She fits is just fine with the rest of them... and according to Maggie.. Aden was her's first. Ha! The big kids played with the little kids in the sand and the water and it was so sweet to watch them all together. Everyone had a wonderful Christmas Day in the Bahamas and this Momma heart was full!
Christmas dinner, which included steak and shrimp was delicious! Carter and Aden looked just beautiful for dinner!
We watched the Christmas show which included some of my favorite Christmas hymns celebrating the birth of our savior!
And of course.. we stayed up late playing games! This was my favorite thing to do every night. Pizza, ice cream, coffee, games and spending time with the amazing family God blessed me with!
Our day at sea started with the Cat and the Hat breakfast!
We loved it that Grinch was on the ship!
The ice carving was a reindeer and we enjoyed watching it.
A rainbow at sea!
Carter got to try his hand in the casino since he is 18! He won $100 on the roulette table!
The blue Caribbean makes my heart happy.
Our annual family portrait on the last night.
Midnight pizza and ice cream on the last night of the cruise!
What a fun filled trip we had and what a BLESSED Momma I am. I am so thankful to my God for my family and my husband and children and his marvelous creations and his magnificent world He allows me to explore. I can't wait to see what 2020 holds! And I plan to do a better job blogging throughout the year this year... so I don't have to cram it all in one post. Lol!