In 2017, I’m hunting the good stuff. I am setting aside the turmoil I see all around me and instead recording snapshots that will tell a story of fun, adventure, joy, and thankfulness. This is the story of my life and I’ll choose the tone and how I want to tell it; I do that daily with my attitude, my outlook, and the lens through which I choose to see life.

Here on my blog, I’m keeping a running camera roll of each month’s highlights and adventures. Has life been perfect? Nope. Have we had our share of hard days and tough moments? You bet. But that’s not what I’m choosing to focus on. I’m taking a day at the end of each month to go back and look at the snapshots of goodness and joy we have been given.

January 2017 // February 2017 // March 2017 // April 2017

May has come and gone like the whirlwind it always is. Many days felt like this? UPSIDE DOWN!

Our Knockout Roses were in full bloom. As always, I am forever grateful for the person who lived in this house before me and planted them. Now, many years later, we get to enjoy them! I see these flowers as a symbol of our military life.

May also marked the end of our school year. We got our test scores back and wound down the year as we packed away all of our school supplies and materials.

We said “See you later” to some of our dear friends. Thankfully, they are just down the road in Columbia and we will reunite with them very soon. We’re so grateful for the Yates family and their friendship during our time in Georgia.

The whole family went to see Guardians of the Galaxy II. It was actually pretty good.

Thomas finished out his year of Social. His spring formal was the capstone experience to the whole year. What a wonderful program and what a special night!

Kate was able to attend the birthday party of one of her AHG friends, Ansleigh.

 

May has also been the month of lots of small jobs and tasks in preparation for the movers coming soon. I got the last drops of Eos from my bottles and made up a gallon of diffuser water before tossing the empty bottles.

I didn’t get a photo, but in completing our school year, we also finished up our bi-weekly science group with our pals, the Rippos. I’m going to miss this bunch very much. God is always faithful to provide people and relationships where we need them. Amy has been one of those friends to me.

We began using our Right Now Media subscription and have been working our way through Francis Chan’s James study. Good stuff.

In some of my cleaning and organizing, I unearthed my bin from my Cleveland High teaching days. I had files upon files of original teaching materials. During this month, I went from having five active resources on Teachers Pay Teachers to having 21. My goal is to have 100 items for sale by September 1.

I also have a monthly earnings goal. This month I had 20 units sold out of 56 for the entire year. Apparently the name of the game is more items and products = more sales. I try to spend a few hours each week updating my store with more items. (Inspiration to kick this off comes from one of my new favorite podcasts, Side Hustle School!)

*Not for sale are those Wood Bucks I made for my CHS 9th graders. =)

We finished out Mae’s spring soccer season in May. This was her best season yet. She played hard, scored several goals, was a solid teammate, and had a great coach.

Although it was a short year having not even kicked off until late February, we have all enjoyed American Heritage Girls. I only volunteered as a helper in the event they needed an extra warm body to be in the room. At the last minute, the Pioneer/Patriots leader backed out and I was in. Didn’t at all plan for this, but what a sweet blessing it has been to mentor my middle and high school girls. I’ll miss this group.

Ryan had to travel to Hawaii for work. I was able to join him last year, but this time, the trip was just too quick of a turn around to make it worthwhile for me to tag along.

While Ryan was gone, my sister, Meredith and her three kiddos came to stay with us for part of the week. Sister time is the best time! We stayed up way too late, laughing, talking, crying, but it was perfect!

She left on Thursday of that week, Ryan got home on Friday <<<super jet-lagged>>> and Saturday morning, Mae, Kate, and I decided at the last minute to make a trip to Woodstock, GA outside of Atlanta to attend my sister’s church Mother’s Day luncheon. We surprised my mom. It was a quick trip, but worth it to see the look of joy and surprise on my mom’s face.

On Mother’s Day, my kids celebrated me and made me feel super special. We had a lunch meal at one of our Augusta favorites, Rhinehart’s.

I got lots of homemade swag from my sweeties.

The week following Mother’s Day was a doozy! Kate had her final gymnastics class and awards ceremony!

All three kids had their AHG/Trail Life awards night.

I had a long overdue hair appointment. Glory!

My parents drove down to see one of Mae’s final soccer games. They’d come at the end of April and the games were rained out. #grandparentgoals

Thomas and I drove over to Statesboro to Georgia Southern for his Duke TIP awards ceremony.

We’d purposely saved some of our end of the school year celebrating due to other busyness, so on the afternoon before our party, we went to see the newest Wimpy Kid movie. It was meh. Wait for it on Redbox.

I try to make a lot of fanfare about our beginnings and endings of the school year. Our annual W.A.C.K. party is something we all look forward to. I wrote a longer post here.

The next morning, Thomas and Ryan went of one of the longer (summer camp prep) hikes with his Trail Life group. They had to hike with their full packs.

Mae had her soccer team pool party.

We are down to only a handful of chapel services left. When I look back, at a photo of our earliest chapel/church photos, I see just how much these three have grown. (Sob!)

I’ve continued to utilize our neighborhood classifieds app and got rid of this desk last week. It has served us well. I bought it almost seven years ago. Within the first five minutes of having it posted, I had four people want to buy it. It was gone from my house within half an hour of listing it. Paid $25 in 2010, sold it for $20 in 2017. I’d say I got my money’s worth =)

No sooner than I got rid of one old piece of furniture, I bought another. This was a needed purchase. I wrote a much longer post about it here. Cool story. Lots of history.

We were farewelled from the UMT/Chaplains here at Fort Gordon.

And to cap off the month, we made a trip to Tennessee over the Memorial Day weekend. We started off at Mimi and Papa’s house. Enjoyed some time with Reagan. I popped into my old elementary school. We went swimming and got to see my grandmother.

Mom and Dad treated us to a night out on the town. Dinner at FoodWorks and a Lookouts game. What fun! (Long time Lookouts fans!)

On our way from Chattanooga to Cleveland, we made a stop to see Papaw and Dorothy. From there we headed to Nana and Granddaddy’s house. Ryan’s siblings and their families met us there. We spent the weekend swimming, eating, and spending time together in celebration of Becky’s retirement from a long and successful career as a high school Spanish teacher. What a wonderful, relaxing weekend.

And I’ll end on this. We don’t have Snapchat accounts, but we do like making videos and funny pictures on it. These photos represent how we are all feeling at the end of this very busy and full month! =0

June is here. It’s the month we officially pull out and drive away from Georgia. When I can wrap my brain and emotions around it, I’m planning a goodbye post.