Beginning and End.

This weekend was basically the beginning and the end of summer with Eli finally home. 

When we first heard Eli would be gone for 12 weeks for his training academy we were super sad about being apart for three months, but I think the heaviest hit was that the dates he'd be gone! His class took place May 15- August 4th in Quantico, Virginia meaning we would miss almost the entire summer. And we. love. summer. From pool days to baseball games to every weekend possible at the lake ... we are summer lovin' people. Eli and I both are huge lake lovers and it was like alllllllll the stars aligned when we started dating and he told me he loved Lake Ouachita as much as I did (anyone else just see the heavens part hear the "ahhhhhhhh" from heavens?) !  Meant to be. 

So what did we do our first weekend we could head to the lake this summer?? Call up our buddies and say "let's head to the water!!"

One of my fav parts of my job is all the amazing people I've met, and the Eickenhorst family from Houston, Texas is pretty dang near the top of that list! They were so sweet to drive all the way up Friday night! We went to dinner, came home and played games. One of my fav things to do!

Saturday morning MORE fun friends showed up, the Adams family and the James crew! It could NOT have been a more beautiful day!

We stayed out until the tiniest bit of daylight was left in the sky to drive back to the dock. It was a GREAT day. Unfortunately the sun didn't last into Sunday and it POURED all Saturday night. Melissa woke up Sunday morning and said "ya know, something I never thought I'd say is how much I love hearing rain pouring on a trailer!" 😂😂 

Since it was going to pour all day we cut our weekend short, but not before taking the Eicken-fam to a fun lunch at local hot spot, The Purple Cow. Burgers and purple shakes were had by all!

The kids head back to school tomorrow and I can't believe summer has come to a close. We're still going to weasel as many lake weekends we can out of August and September. Already looking forward to coming back again. 

Back to School Bash

It's Back to School for the Boone kids and tonight we lugged our pencil pouches, new composition notebooks, and freshly sharpened pencils up to the elementary school. Typing that made me realize that this our last "first day of school" for them to all be at the same school until Avery is a Senior in High School! Omg!!! Cue the tears!
Pulling myself together now. Sniff sniff.
We were super excited to hear who their teachers were yesterday because we had a couple repeats. Avery, Dalton, and Sawyer will be going into fifth, third and first grade respectively this year and we found out Tuesday that they've essentially shuffled the deck when it comes to which teachers are teaching each grade.

Avery has a brand new teacher, Mrs. Grace for fifth grade.

I can't even believe that she's old enough to be the big dog on campus this year! She wasn't really feeling me on my picture taking and gave me a "don't you dare make me" stare down when I started to ask for a pic with her new teacher. So, I didn't push.

 Dalton is our kiddo that really isn't crazy about change. So when he found out that his sweet first grade teacher, Mrs. Cunningham, had moved up to third grade and he was going to be in her classroom this year an infamous sheepish grin lit up his face.

More smiles were had in finding out our big FIRST grader was going to have his Kindergarten teacher again. Not only that, but it's in his very same classroom from last year! He all but jumped up and down when he found out! We LOVE Mrs. Schmitt!

We were walking down to Mrs. Schmitt's room hand in hand when Sawyer said "Mom, people aren't even going to know that I'm in first grade anymore. They're going to think I'm still little." I was telling him that no one was going to think that and that everyone knew he was big and strong. Right after I said that Sawyer looked down at our hands and said "then I guess I don't need to be holding my mom's hand anymore." My heart broke into about a hundred pieces. Not even kidding.

We have love, love, LOVED this sweet little school and all the families that fill it! So thankful for another year here!
One more fun summer filled weekend and then it's Back to School come Monday!