First day of school & First day of boat renting!

The saddest day of the year came....school starting back.  Well, I should say the saddest day is the second full week of school.  I wish summer vacation was longer!


Elden is the lone child at the elementary school, grade 4. 


We have three in middle school!  Haley in 6th.


Shanna in 6th!


Cal is the big 8th grader.


And Clark a sophomore at high school.


That morning I met some friends for breakfast...a yearly tradition and later Lee and I went out for lunch.


The first day was a success and the kids had fun playing outside after.




The second day of school brought the start of pack meetings.  Elden fishing at Lake Shenandoah.


The third day of school brought me back to copying!  Which I love to do.


Hello, copier!


After the forth day of school we took some friends to play in Harrisonburg.


And even though school has started, and summer vacation over, the season of summer technically is not over till September 21st-ish.  We rescheduled our boating trip with our friends for a Saturday in August.  So much fun!  We want to go at least twice or more in 2019.


















I definitely had boat and lake property fever after this trip...




































Our friends from the other ward also go boating at the same lake several times during the summer.  We met up with them that day and they invited us to their parent's lake house that evening.  We loved hanging out with them as well as the Petersons! Can't wait till next summer!

Our apple tree gave us LOTS of apples this year!

The Last Summer Hurrah

Before school started we snuck in one last trip...the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. Right before that though I took the girls and Cal to the middle school to find their classrooms.  We missed the "middle school night". 


Our purpose in going to North Carolina was to see my Aunt and Uncle serving a mission near Bryson City.  We stayed at Flaming Arrow campground and loved it! There was a great pool, lots of games, and a fun little store.






Before we saw Uncle Steven and Aunt Susan we did a horseback ride at End of the Trail.  We loved it! 


























We rode up a trail to "the end". Such a pretty view! 














The Smokys are so pretty!


Sadly my Aunt Susan wasn't feeling well and was in the hospital that weekend.  We were able to see her but spent a couple of hours with my Uncle Steven on Saturday.  We had lunch, some snacks from the camp store, then went to Mingo Falls. After Mingo Falls we met up with Uncle Steven.


























A boy and his hammer!
























Clark snagged in some drone flying time.


We also stopped at a local fudge shop in Bryson City.  It's such a cute town!






That evening we had dinner at their apartment.  It was so nice of them to feed us!


Uncle Steven and Aunt Susan are on a mission there, serving members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  They also get serve among many Cherokee people.  We enjoyed hearing the different stories.  The Cherokee written language is very interesting looking.


Here is their little apartment.








More swimming at the pool!


We bought some colored powder to put in the fire.  You aren't supposed to used the color fire flames to cook stuff.  Oops!  Next time we'll read the directions better.  No one became sick, thankfully.


We enjoyed church with Uncle Steven and Aunt Susan.




After church we ate dinner at their apartment and then drove home.  Our plan is to not buy gas on Sunday and it worked perfectly to drive straight home from their place...we didn't have to fill up at all! 

The last couple of days of summer brought pool trips and another trip to Shenandoah for a special family home evening before school started the next day.  Boo hoo.