What a sad, emotional, wonderful, fun weekend I just had.  A man who was very influential in my life, and the lives of so many people, died last week.  He had been my Sunday school teacher and church youth leader, and he and his wife were great friends with Momma & Daddy.  Mr. Brooks was just such a special man.  As Andy said, luckily we never needed a second father, but if we had, Mr. Brooks would’ve been it.  He & Mrs. Brooks lived in Virginia now, but the service was back in Murfreesboro, so early Friday morning Meg & I set out to drive over.  We got to town in time to have lunch before the memorial service at Trinity, & then headed on over there.  It was wonderful to see the family, of course – their kids were our ages, and some we hadn’t seen since 1980, when the youngest married – and other old friends that we see so seldom any more.  When we left the cemetery I went with Andy & Amy, where I was staying for the weekend, and Meg went to do her visiting.  Our first stop was this killer Mexican restaurant.  Everything was so delicious, and of course the company was over the top.  We had a real Murfreesboro weekend – saw and did so many great things – and this was just an amazing way to kick things off.  I’m not sure when I’ll be back there, but eating at this place will definitely be on my agenda!

Today was the last day any of the grand ones would be here over summer break, as schools start back Monday and Tuesday.  Clara had asked that we get in one more good day of swimming at Charlotte’s pool before summer was over, and even though they were out of town, Charlotte said we could come over & go swimming.  My friend Sherry met us there with her grandson Will, & they all had SO much fun together.  The girls spent most of the morning on the slide – here is June having so, so much fun.  What a good day.

This week I started keeping that sweet Kimbrell Ann two days a week. The kids were soooo excited to be able to spend time with her today. We walked down to the playground at the end of the road, & she had fun doing a little swinging with Mallory.

It also was supposed to be Clara’s first soccer practice ever this afternoon, but alas, practice was rained out. We desperately need the rain, so I’m not complaining, but she was very disappointed. She is fired up to be playing soccer, & especially to have her dad as a coach 🙂

I was so excited when we stopped for lunch at a convenience store on the way home from the beach Saturday & I found a Carolina Panthers pepsi! Haven’t seen them yet in this area, but maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places. We shall see.

Boo & Shea had as much of the family – and a couple of friends – over this evening as could get there to with Lesley Pearl good luck on her upcoming move – this Friday! – to San Diego.  Here is a group shot with everyone in it.  What a special evening for a special, special young lady.

Then we got individual pictures of her with each family group before we all left.  Here we are with our sweet girl.  I only sobbed half way home after we left her to head home.  Good luck, Lesley!  We love you so so so so so much!

Friday we went to the Inlet View for lupper. We’d eaten a big late breakfast at the house, so weren’t hungry until late. Got there about 4, and it was perfect timing, because we got right in. When we were leaving folks were coming in in droves. Charlotte & I hadn’t eaten there before, but we loved it. Delicious seafood and such cute décor. I got this picture of the other three outside with the shrimp 🙂

All of us inside. Fun place, fun friends, fun getaway. I am blessed.

Wednesday when the kids were here we made magic mud, or oobleck.  The week before June, Mason, & I – along with Charlotte’s granddaughter Brenna – had gotten some starch out of a bag of potatoes.  We used it to make the goo.  Charlie & Adam were here Wednesday, too, and they just used a box of cornstarch that I’d bought.  They loved that slimy feeling 🙂

Jeff got out his black light for us, and we used tonic water with quinine to mix with the starch to make it glow in the dark.  We tried to get a picture of it glowing, but just couldn’t get it to come out that good.  The kids absolutely loved it, though.  I thought it was pretty cool, too :-).

We had not done an involved craft project here at the house in quite a while – I guess maybe those are more for wintertime, when we’re stuck inside?  Anyway, yesterday we remedied that by making note boards out of cork.  The girls were with Jeff & me when we went by Michaels after Gran’s birthday celebration, & we found cork boxes on the sale rack for way cheaper than the cork tiles were that I was originally going to buy, so you know I had to go that route.  They spent the night with us, so when we got up & got going we got all our craft supplies out.  Here is Clara hard at work on hers.  I like that in this picture you can see where she was trying to sketch out her ideas before she got started 🙂

They had so much fun making them that they each ended up making two.  Here are Clara’s chicken and unicorn :-).  I thought they showed a lot of creativity.

Yesterday was Momma’s 83rd birthday, and when I got back here from picking up the girls, we started right in baking her a butter pecan cake to take over to her house after naptime that afternoon.  Mallory took this picture of Clara adding the nuts to the icing.

We pulled up at Gran’s that afternoon just as Meg and Hope were, and soon after we arrived so did Jenny and the boys.  Here is Jen helping Clara carry the cake all in to Gran while we were singing, with Adam looking on.  It was a fun impromptu party!