My Blog Vacation....Because of my real life vacation!

This Saturday, Jake, Sadie, and I, will be starting our 18 hour drive to Vermont.  We are so excited to make our annual trip to New England and this one will be extra special because we will be meeting my mom and dad their who will be getting back from their mission!!!  We will be gone for over a month.  I feel kind of like I should be in a Jane Austin book taking off for so long-what a life they all lived back then going visiting for weeks on end! All my extended family is still up north so we always enjoy seeing everyone.  My sister will also be making the trip with her kiddos all way from the Ukraine!  Talk about an amazing family reunion.  Aaron and Nana Harmon will be flying up to spend a long weekend with us over Jake's b-day weekend and we are planning on celebrating his decade birthday in style-on the lake!  The picture I have with my blog title is one of my all time favorites.  It is of Jake last year in Lake Groton where we will be...Did I mention I was excited?!?!?

I am officially starting my blog vacation a few days before the real one starts.  My list of things I have to do is not shrinking, but the number of days to do it all is....Not to mention the fact that I just found out I have a pretty big blog project ahead of me.  I finished reading Sense and Sensibility last week (LOVED IT!!!) and I was going to change the picture on the left side of my blog to show the book I am reading next (Wuthering Heights-I am really trying to love it but it is depressing...but I can't put it down, even though it is depressing!!!) but I couldn't...It turns out I have used up all the space that blogger allows for uploading/storing pictures.  When I get back from vacation I have to start the long and tedious process (thank you Jamie over at Welcome to the Madness for explaining to me how to fix it!  She is the go to for all things blogging, homeschooling, preparedness, homemaking...You get the picture-she is a genius!), of making my pictures smaller to make more room.  Because really what is the point of blogging without pictures!  Especially when I will have 2,547,934 pictures to post when I get back from my month long trip!!!  You are jealous aren't you?  Not about the hours of fixing my blogging mistake, but of my MONTH LONG TRIP!!!  (****Just in case any would be burglars are reading this-remember my husband will be home and our house is protected by Smith and Wesson.  I have always wanted to say that. :)  But it really is so please don't try and break in.  That concludes the "paranoid thoughts" part of my blogging...****)

I will miss you all my blog friends!!!  I will have to take a whole day to read all the posts you guys write while I am gone! :)  Did I mention that Camp (that is what our whole family calls the cabin on the lake my Grampa Smith built, where we will be staying 3 of the 4+ weeks we will be gone.  Camp is the cabin's name I guess you could say.  I will post pictures of camp when I get back...and fix my blog!)  has no phone, TV, computer, or cell service?  It is a REAL vacation. :)  So, don't have too much fun with out me and check back in about the middle of September when I will re-enter the blog world!

Happy 4th of July Ya'll! This is how we do it in the South...

On the 4th of July we packed up the car and headed down to Cowpens SC and spent the day with friends and family.  We had a Redneck Independence Day as Ranee (my sis-in-law) called it.  We spent the day eating, swimming, making homemade root beer, and shootin' guns.  Aaron even got to shoot a M-16.  Who owns M-16's you ask?  Good ol' boys from Cowpens that's who. 

Aaron, just floating.  And yes that is you in the background Jake.  He was concerned he wasn't in the picture.

Riannon getting ready to try a front flip.

Jake in the middle of a front flip that kind of went sideways a little...

The big kids: Jake, Elliot, Alex, Della, and Riannon.

Don't you wish this was your backyard?  I do.

The big kids built forts out of all the rafts for most of the day.

This is just some of the arsenal...If we ever get attacked I know exactly where I am going.  Aaron saw me posting this and said we will probably get a call from the FBI. :)

Ranee and Amanda, 2 of Charlie's Angels.

Aaron shooting the M-16.  I really missed the best picture.  His face after he shoot it.  Like a kid in a candy store.

Riannon smelling the root beer.

Jake got a little too much sun and didn't drink enough water so we spent a little time inside rehydrating and letting the ibuprofen kick in.  This was their game room, fully equipped with this game, pool table, pin ball machine, air hockey and all the action figures you can remember from the 80's.  This is a almost 10 year old boys dream...

If you don't know what the South Carolina flag looks like than you should look it up.  I am not from SC but I admit it is the coolest state flag.  It was being recreated right in the backyard that evening.  A Palmetto Tree with a crescent moon.  The guys tried desperately to snap a picture with there phones...I had to take a picture of them. :)

My camera is just a point in shoot (that I LOVE with all my heart don't get me wrong.) and I couldn't get a good picture with it any more than they could with their phones!

Night swimming..

Glowing wrist bands for the big kids...

...and the little girls. 

The frog we shared the pool with that day was glad when we were done swimming and he came out of hiding.

This is a picture of the guys hurriedly moving the fireworks away so they wouldn't all light up at once.  Just a few seconds before this the fireworks were all about a foot away from the lite ones...

Happy Birthday America! I am thankful to live in the most amazing country in the world.  I am also thankful for our forefathers that through Heavenly inspiration established and fought for this free country.  I am also extremely thankful for all of our soldiers that have fought and continue to do so for all of us to be able to spend Independence Day this way.
(Sorry we didn't get to see you Nana and Papa Harmon.  We will be heading back done soon.)

We really didn't forget Father's Day, I swear...

...I just forgot to post about it.  And we forgot (didn't forget just didn't make a priority...) to get cards in the mail to Papa G. and Papa Harmon-but we did talk to them on the phone.  Happy (late) Father's Day to all the fathers out there!

We started the celebration on Saturday by surprising Aaron with 2 of his favorite things:

1. Sweet and Sour chicken from his favorite local Chinese restaurant and
2. A blueberry cheesecake milkshake from a little drive-thru hamburger joint called Cookout.

I went to pick Jake up from his friend Corey's house after a day of swimming (yes I was jealous) and we picked them up on the way home.

We also let him do this since he:

Going to school full time and working 3rd shift full time is not much fun. (The little blue rug is for Sadie.  When we are sitting on the couch and she sits down next to it for us to pat her, she slides around on the hardwood floors.  How spoiled is that mutt?  Ruining the decor of the living room with an old blue bathmat just so she can sit her furry bum down without sliding all over the place.)

The next day I made 2 more of his favorite things:

1. Homemade rolls and

2. Homemade chocolate cookies.

So, you see we didn't forget Aaron.  Jake even wrote a song and played it on the piano for Aaron.  Thank you Aaron for all you do for our family.  Jake said it best one time when he said: "Daddy makes too many sacrifices for this family."  At first I didn't know how to respond, but then I just told him that is what good Daddies do and yours is the best.  Thank you Aaron. I love you.

The Last Day of Public School and the First Day of Freedom...

This is what Jake looked like as we got in the car and were ready to head to the 4th grade for the last time.  We were running late so there was no time to pose for pictures if we wanted to make it on time.

This is his last goodbye to Sadie...on the last day of school.

This is his last hug to me..on the last day of school.

This is me missing the shot of him signing I love you and blowing me a kiss, like he does every morning (he is a sweet boy)...for the last time, on the last day of 4th grade...

This is me getting ready by stacking up all the wonderful things we have collected in preparation for homeschooling next year.  It looks like we spent a fortune but 95% of the books Nana Harmon got for us for FREE!!!  THANK YOU NANA!!!!

This is what Jake will see when he walks through the front door after school...

This is the sign, you can't see in the picture of the books, on the cocoa (we don't drink coffee, so Jake dubbed it the cocoa table when he was about 3 years old) table, that Jake will see when he walks through the front door.  (This post has a similar pattern of repetition as a popular children's book...but I can't think of what it was actually about at the moment...It was not planned.  I am just trying to post all these pictures that took forever to upload...download?...which one is it.  My computer, and brain, are both running slow today.)

This is the sign on the front door that Jake would read....Oh you get it already!!!

This is me driving one last time to pick him up from public school...wasting precious gas...

This is Jake getting in the car after HIS LAST DAY OF PUBLIC SCHOOL!!!! (Well if all goes as planned anyway...)

This is the traditional ice cream cone we eat on the last day of school at Dollar Cone...Not sure what my hair is doing...I took a shower and immediately put it up in a pony tail and well something funky happened from there...

This is my ice cream with Jimmies or sprinkles to you non-New Englanders.  Really I just was playing around and when I noticed my favorite colored nail polish was in the picture I had to post it. :)

This is the mandatory trip that I promised Jake we would make right after school, to rent  Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, since he got 3 A's and 1 B.  Good job dude!

Here's the report card and free rental coupons...I didn't plan on taking a picture but since the guy gave us and extra one just to be nice I couldn't resist. :)

This Jake at the front door...FINALLY!  Drum roll please...For anyone that doesn't know, Jake has been asking to be homeschooled and we are finally doing it...Everyone (almost) but Jake knew we were going to do it months ago.  It is so hard to keep secrets and this was a big one...

This is Jake's first reaction to all the books.

Then to the note...

Soaking it in....

Tears...I was getting ready to hug him so it is blurry but I had to post it. 

What did he do next?  He immediately started checking out ALL the books....

And a little organizing took place.

This is his "I can't believe this is really happening" expression.  He had just hit himself in the forehead a moment earlier and rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't dreaming. 

Jake says he is soooo happy but he will miss his friends and the playground.  To which I reminded him that he will still see his friends and there are way better playgrounds we can play at WHENEVER WE WANT BECAUSE WE ARE FREE!!!!  Well, almost whenever... :)

I can't believe it's finally official: we are homeschoolers!  :)  If you are too and you would like some A-MA-ZING resources, ideas, and networking than you have to check out:




It is nice to know I have a place to go whenever I need encouragement or help and it is only a mouse click away!