Saturday Hike

Last Saturday we finally went to check out Roswell Mill & the Dam people had told us about.  The covered bridge is gorgeous, there was a good hike, the dam was beautiful, and the kids played in the water at the end.  Fun family spot. :) 

 

P.S.- I love Georgia.

Braves Game!

We went to our first Braves game as a family on Friday night!  It was a really good experience.  The boys were really happy the entire time, and we got to see Chipper Jones hit a homerun his first time up to bat!  :)

 

This picture helped me finally accept that I've had too much ice cream this summer...  lol ;)  Back on the dieting bandwagon!

Hunter is totally into making this face lately.  He's just posing, he's not really mad or anything.  This boy can do things with his face that are incredible: he's soooooo expressive!  We already talk about getting him into acting, or some other area where he can use his expressiveness in a healthy way.

Sawyer finally got to see & eat a foot long hot dog!  It was on our "summer fun" checklist.

First Grade!

I can't believe he's in FIRST GRADE!!!

I remember first grade.  Mrs. Rosenthal.  She was cool.  My child is now entering those years that he'll remember his whole life.  The schools, teachers, friends.  It's a whole world that I'm not a part of.  It kind of hurts!  But I'm so proud of my Sawyer Boy.  He's a sweetheart who's also smart, cool & sporty, so he makes lots of friends & is the teacher's pet. Couldn't ask for anything more out of this boy.  He's awesome.

Sawyer's Notable Skills These Days:
*Reading simple chapter books: Lego Ninjago, Magic School Bus Chapter Series, etc. level

*Adding & Subtracting work pages without much trouble

*Loves cutting/taping/coloring to create 3-D projects out of paper/boxes/cardboard

*Running 5ks with Joe (and passing most adults)

Famous Joe!

Did I ever tell you guys that Joe was a model?  :) 

If you ever purchase the churchy card game Book of Mormon Battles from Deseret Book, you'll find that the Nephi character card has a very strong resemblance to a Mr. Joe Kindt.

Check out the Nephi Card HERE

(he just had to have longer black hair & be beefed up by the painter).

Also, if you ever spot the book Other Heroes of the Book of Mormon  on anyone's bookshelf (or the Deseret Book store shelf), you'll find a Mr. Joe Kindt mentioned in the introductory "Thank You" section by the author.  He's famous!  Haha :)

I on the other hand have only been in a local spotlight.  Out in Utah (when I was skinny of course) I posed for a local bean bag company (one competing with Love Sack), for their brochures.  Back in Fond du Lac with my first pregnancy, a local photographer gave me a free pregnancy photo shoot if I'd let him use the images on his local brochures and website.  The flyers were put in all the local OB clinics which was pretty cool.  :)  That was years ago, but some of my pics still live on on his website, if you want to check them out (but I know I've talked about those before, since I push other pregnant ladies to always get photos done & show them my examples). :)

I'd love to hear if any of you have any claims to fame, or your 15 minutes on tv or anything!

  I love the stories I have from friends who've been on the Price Is Right, or are in the background of a movie, or are in some picture on another website.

Share!   :)

Independence

We had a fantastic Fourth of July, but unfortunately I'm an awful photographer, so it doesn't look half as good as it was. :)  But I'll show you some of what I got!

Our BFFs the Schlosser's & I set up a picnic with 4 other families at Laurel Park in Marietta.  It started raining literally the minute we got there to start setting up!  Luckily the rain passed after about 20-30 minutes, and most families arrived right after that.  :)  We had a fantastic food selection that I'm still dreaming about, but mostly I'm just so glad there was plenty of room for us at the park (we thought parks would be packed)!

I found a new sugar cookie recipe to try out (so I could try out some of these Pinterest icing ideas), and it is totally the WINNER of ALL sugar cookies I've ever had homemade!  They're thick and soft like those bakery cookies with the frosting & sprinkles at your supermarket.  Totally amazing and addicting!!  Here's the link to the recipe (I found a separate icing recipe): Best Rolled Sugar Cookies

We brought water balloons for the kids, assuming it'd be hot & sunny instead of rainy, so mostly the 'grown up boys' just enjoyed throwing them with the lacrosse sticks, and the kids joined in a bit later. :)

Around 8:30 we headed down the street to another park that has a better firework viewing area.  It's not RIGHT next to Marietta Square (where the fireworks are shot from), but it's much more comfortable, easier parking, and easier to leave in traffic when it's over.  We could still see 90% of them over the treetops, and they were plenty big and loud.  :)  

Waiting for it to get dark, the kids played with their boxes of "Pop-its" on the sidewalk.

Enjoyed some fountains...

The two below are blurry, but I loved the poses Sawyer and Hunter were making, cheering for the fireworks!

Sparkle, sparkle, sparkle...  I think that was his first sparkler! :)

We had a VERY happy 4th with our friends! 

How was yours?

Home Owners: Weigh In!

Joe and I just toured the perfect home.  Literally checks off nearly every single picky box I have on my list of PERFECTION.  Only a year old, completely in our price range right now, the exact size and style we LOVE, super gorgeous perfect kitchen of my dreams (dark woods with a monstrous granite island), wide plank wood floors...  There's even a guest room with a full bath downstairs for y'all to come over.  And to top it all off? There is a trail, only a mile long, from the neighborhood, directly to Kennesaw Mountain National Park, the trails that Joe loves to run and we love to hike! 

Well, it does NOT have the perfect YARD.  It's small.  Really sloped.  A huge drainage ditch that can't be changed. And there are a lot of power lines, including one of those MASSIVE towers in our view from the deck.  And the road behind the yard is fairly busy and loud.  I couldn't relax back there.  I can't picture my kids playing out there for hours.  So we've passed on that house.

ARGH, right??  I never thought I'd have to 'pass' when perfection was within my grasp.

SO, it's time for you all to weigh in for me about how you chose your home.  I love hearing opinions and your experiences!

Perfection in a regular price range just won't exist.

So did you choose the perfect house?  Perfect yard?  Perfect schools? 

How did you weigh how important each was to you?

I still feel like I can't give up on any of them, so I'd love a reality check by those of you who've gone through it.  Did you walk away from the beautiful house for the one with the beautiful yard?  Give up both for the best schools?  And would you do anything differently now that you've settled in?

Heeeeeere Fishy Fishy Fishy!

No bites yet, but we're having a good time trying.

First along the Chattahoochee right by our home:

Then trying the fishing lake at Lost Mountain:

Sawyer baited his own hook with the huge nightcrawler!  I'm determined not to let them be too 'city'.  :)

Hunter loves his Cars pole, and that it just happens to match his Cars hat he picked out for this summer.

A big thank you to Grandpa Gayan for the fishing poles!  Can't wait to send you a picture with an actual caught fish!

Indian Mounds Trip

One Saturday morning early in June, we headed up to check out the Etowah Indian Mounds in Cartersville.  It was a gorgeous, cool, windy day to do that sort of thing outdoors, and we all loved learning about the civilization that used to live here along this river.

There are three mounds (large, medium & small).  The largest mound was for the Indian Chief's home.  The medium mound was where the high priest lived, and the small mound in back was for the chief's burial.

View from the top of the chief's mound = gorgeous.  I'd pick this mound too!  :)  They might be tiny compared to mountains we had out west, but they're still pretty enough to satisfy any lingering mountain cravings.  I LOVE that Georgia has eeeeevvverything.  I can't think of another place I'd be this completely satisfied with for settling down!

Down by the river, which wrapped around the mounds area:

Georgia Mountain Camping!

Our close friends, the Smiths, invited us to their 'secret camping spot' in the Georgia mountains.  It's in a National Forest in the middle of nowhere, there are no signs to get to it, and it can't be found by your GPS or in an online search.  Bonus: it's also FREE!  We got there Friday afternoon and were lucky to grab the very last spot (out of 7 spots).  We were right along a creek for the kids to play in basically the entire time.  The men gathered firewood, and the women talked about Revenge season finale theories. :)  

Mmmmm tin foil dinners!  I just learned some Georgia folk call them "Silver Turtles".

A guy from the neighboring campsite was there by himself and had his guitar along.  He offered to play and sing for us during our dinner.  It was somewhere between incredibly sweet and incredibly creepy (we imagined it was a great start to a murder-in-the-woods movie)...

Sawyer and Sierra.  We've already arranged them to be married.

We went on a beautiful hike down the river.  I really love Georgia!!

We stopped at a really cool spot with a bigger waterfall and a deep swimming hole at the bottom of it.  Someone had put up a rope swing which was a ton of fun!

Kindergarten is OVER

It's very hard to believe my first little baby, Sawyer, is finished with kindergarten!  On Tuesday they held an "awards ceremony" to celebrate each child & something wonderful about them.  Sawyer received the "Starburst Award" (with Starburst candy attached of course) for being a "star" student in all areas of his work.  He was so proud (and so were we)!

Sawyer had a really good kindergarten experience.  It was good for us as parents, too.  He's always been the perfect kid at church (so polite, plus knows all the answers), and the star player for soccer, etc., so it was a bit of a wake-up call when he went to kindergarten and wasn't a picture-perfect student.  He is incredibly smart (teacher says he was the best reader she's ever seen, and one of the smartest kids she's ever taught in her five years), but he had quite a bit of behavorial problems.  He just looooves to talk and play with everyone, and couldn't stop himself with the wrestling and silliness (always happy stuff, nothing actually naughty).  We had to have teacher conferences and everything.  So it was a good intro-to-big-kid-parenting, just learning that our kid is just a regular kid, that he won't be perfect at everything, and learning to deal with problems at school.  We were lucky to have such a fantastic teacher for our first school experience.  Mrs. Bruce always went above and beyond to stay in close contact with us, schedule meetings with us, help implement programs to help Sawyer's behavior, and even had him sitting at her desk to do his work for quite awhile (so he couldn't finish his work quickly then talk to everyone).  :)  It was a great school year, and he loves his school!