Elliott Times: August 2016

First Day of School

Breakfast with Greg before we all leave!

Ryan was really sleepy!!!

Can't believe we now have 2 middle schoolers!

Ryan 6th grade, Ashley 3rd, and Scott 8th-Ryan has woken up a little since finishing breakfast but Ashley definitely has the biggest smile-VERY excited to see and learn all about the wonders of 3rd grade.

I'm a little sad that she is the only one I get to walk in with anymore! She was excited to find her desk, sit down and get right to work on a get to know you worksheet.

Here is her classroom

and her sweet, kind teacher who read them The Kissing Hand book on the first day and wants hugs from them every day! She already LOVES Mrs. Wimmer!

Ashley is super excited about her very own 3 ring binder with dividers!

There is a picture I wish I could have taken with a camera but it is a precious memory in my mama heart-As I was leaving the middle school carline and watching the cars in front of me, I saw the boys walking next to each other chatting up a storm about something (probably Star Wars or Mario on the wii) down the sidewalk as they went to the door-I pray that they always share that closeness!

I am glad that all are happy with new teachers and Ryan is finding his way into this new adventure called middle school but the same sentiment seems to echo with us and my friends and their children-summer was great, went by WAY too quickly, and we are sad for it to come to an end!

More Random Summer things

We took Max to the dog park several times this summer-Max is in the front

The dogs and the kids like to see how many of them can fit on this giant rock-it's like a dog party from the kids book Go Dogs, Go-this time we met Molly and our friends from church that are her people. Molly is a golden doodle behind Christian in the orange shirt.

This is where Max likes to lay when I am getting dinner ready-right in the way where I will step on him no matter where I go-really he is just hopeful that I will drop something for him to eat!

We found all the mice on main downtown Greenville and here is Ashley posing with one-it's a cute thing from the kid's book Goodnight Moon

Here are the boys on a whitewater rafting trip in NC with Boy Scouts

Ashley and her 2 best buddies from her 2nd grade class-Claire and Aarya-they got together to play several times this summer!

Ryan holding a turtle they found in the sand dunes at the beach!

We went to lots of fun programs at the library this summer-Scott took a picture of me at the reptile one holding the tail end of the snake-it was HEAVY!

The below plaque reminded me of my dad particularly! but also Greg's dad and Great Grandaddy Cook who enjoys his 9 great grands SO much!

Cousins come to visit!

2 weeks after the beach, Greg's sister, Jodi, and two of her kids, Ian and Katie came for a visit. They are adding on to their house in Chattanooga and have been wanderers this summer. We were very excited to have them wander to Greenville!

The kids played outside when it wasn't unbearably hot! Max loved having 2 extra people to play with

The boys and I played Monopoly.

There was lots of reading

Kids played chess and checkers

One day we went to our waterpark-above Ashley is floating on the lazy river and below in a black shirt is Scott floating around too.

Here is Scott about to shoot someone with a water gun

Ashley and Katie up on the water playground

dumping buckets of water

At the bottom of the waterslide
Ashley

Katie

Looking over the rails as they wait to go down the slide

Caught a great picture of Katie

Ian wiping his face

Ryan

I caught the real Scott smile!

Going home after a fun full day of playing!

popsicle snacks

a pretty rainbow one afternoon

lots of jumping

more reading and snacks

playing at our neighborhood pool! They also went on bike rides, took Max to the dog park, went to the library, bought school supplies, had MANY nerf gun battles, and did a little sleeping. It was GREAT fun having them at our house!

A really fun percussionist came to perform and let kids play instruments

Not happy to have their picture taken at the dog park

Jodi went on to Atlanta on Saturday. The kids and I all followed on Monday-we had a fun trip down to Atlanta-stopping at Mayfield Dairy for a tour and obscenely large free scoops of ice cream!

Then Jodi and Maggie met us at Grandaddy and Granny Joan's house for a visit. The boys were tying scout knots with Grandaddy!

Then we flew paper airplanes-which the kids had also done at our house-landing several on the window ledge of the HIGH window above our front door!

Grandaddy even rigged a basket "elevator" for the planes to all ride back up to the deck in

Ashley's new stuffed hamster even went for a flight but he crashed!

Then they all got a little wet down in the creek!

We did a lot of playing at Grammy's pool too and it poured rain but didn't thunder so we just stayed! I left my camera at home by mistake so I don't have pictures of the pool playing down in the basement and cousin adventures of all 9 at Grammy's house.