Paddle Boarding at The Last Resort

The place on the lake where mom works in the summer now has paddle boarding on the weekends! We took the kids to try it out one Saturday in June! They had a blast!!!

    Caralee & Logan sitting on the dock!

    Austin and Logan out on the boards

Rogers's Birthday at Cowboys

     The three biggest loves of my life!!!! 

Logan is a HUGE fan of Brazillian Steakhouses (thanks Clint)! I do not how this boy eats as much as he does! I assure you he ate WAY more than I did! 

Austin likes coming to them too! He stalks the carvers for the grilled cinnamon pineapple, and he had QUITE the hookup this night! ;) 

We all had a great night at dinner after paddle boarding and swimming! LOVE this guy to pieces!!!! Hope we are blessed to celebrate MANY more birthdays together! 

"New" Kitchen

FINALLY (after almost 9 years in the house) we have a room with some color in the walls! When we had first moved in we had just totally redone the entire condo and didn't even want to touch a paint brush. Then, we had a toddler and a new baby soon after (gasp...both of which are no where near babies anymore! Tear!) so there was NO need to paint until they had all their finger print/wall writing out of their system. And, then, I went BACK to school for the third time and there was no time to paint between the countless papers/case studies to write... So, when I say FINALLY know its with some excitement bc it was much overdue! 

I have a feeling this will only make me want to continue with a few other rooms, but since summer is almost over (sadly) they may have to wait! 

4th of July

Here are the "Potter" cousins closest in age around Logan... Karlin & Hogan

A shot of most of the cousins that were there today (and swimming)! 

Logan loved being thrown by Morgan and Nolan! ;) 

Me and Kate for the "4th" party we had with Roger's Michelin group! Always fun!

Some of the yummy food we had (Austin helped get lots of it ready this year!)! 

Always a good time celebrating an hanging out with family and friends! One if the many reasons I LOVE summers! 

King Tut in SC!

Austin loved learning about all the Egyptian "stuff" (I am falling back on a word I tell my own students to change) this year with Mrs. Brown so we HAD to visit the SC State Museum when this exhibit came through! Both the boys love going to the museum anyway (especially all the hands on parts!)! When the rain keeps us from enjoying the pool, we have to find other ways to enjoy the summer! 

Logan didn't care for the replicas of all the tombs/artifacts/mummy...he was kind of creeped out and just wanted to get out if the exhibit, but Austin enjoyed it! 

Early birthday presents... Who says Apples are just for teachers!?!

Austin's birthday is really just around the corner, and I can't believe he will be 12!!! After some recommendations and gentle nudges from his pediatrician (since he will be playing football and he is at a different school, etc....really thought we would get praised for not have caving in sooner...not!), we surprised Austin with his iPhone last weekend! He thought we were walking into the haircut place (and was fussing because he would prefer his hair to be kept longer than I like it) until his dad turned a little towards the Verizon store and said " Are you sure you don't want to go in?" I think Austin about had a wart attack right there in the Parkin lot AND about 100 more inside the store! Needless to say, we may have pulled ahead of Santa with this one! 

Later that same night, we took an unsuspecting Logan to get his b-day present too! Yes, his birthday is no where near now, but most of you know we typically let Logan partially celebrate his b-day around his half birthday (since his actual birthday is on Christmas Day...like mine!!!)! Logan was surprised with Apple TV for his room, and he is in heaven! Now his tv connects to Internet (so, he can watch Netflix, you tube, and even air stream the iPad games right across his tv screen!)... It is pretty neat! In fact, Austin can now be found in Logan's room more than his own! Lol! 

Happy in the store AND at home! 

Isle of Palms Day Trip

What's summer vacation without a trip to the beach? Our longer beach trips had to get postponed due to scheduling conflicts, but we managed to go down for a quick day trip (minus Roger 😞)...we even snagged mom and surprised her for her birthday! The weather in SC this July has been awful! I have never seen this much rain, but this day was perfect (until we got back around Orangeburg)! 

These were all taken July 15! You can see everyone was full of smiles! 

A Negative Side Effect of my Smartphone

So, summer is already winding down (sniff, sniff), and my goal of catching up on blog posts hasn't happened... YET!!! As I realized tonight my last post was BEFORE Thanksgiving (and, after a nudge from my aunt, yes, YOU Aunt -Chelle), I decided no time to waste...why did my posts dwindle down? Busy, busy, busy for one... But the more I thought about it I realized I have a TON of pictures on my iPhone! Sure, I have Dropbox, but I am just really bad about making a quick post on FB and telling myself 'I will get to the computer soon' to do a real blog update. Another reason could very well be that my laptop ha become hostage to Logan and his new love of Minecraft! Maybe I have found a solution... I am currently blogging this post from the culprit of the non existent posts- yep, my iPhone! They have apps for everything! So, this is a test to see if it cooperates and how it goes! If I can do quick updates from my phone, my blogging will be back on a regular basis! 

So, as a test, here are a couple of pictures from our trip to Carowinds with the Taylors this weekend! 

Love my amazing family!!! 

Here all all the grand kids with Pa-Paw and Grandmother! 

After two whole days there, today we were all quite exhausted! We did manage a little swim after dinner! And, I managed a blog post.... LOTS more to come! ;) feels good to be back, and I have much to update!