And Now a Word From Molly...

With all the attention McKenna is getting being a new first grader, I think Molls was feeling a bit left out. So, to demonstrate the new video capabilities of Blogger, Molly volunteered to post a little video. And here to tell you about it is none other than Molly, herself: "I have a song for you. It's called Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. I love you all and I miss you. Love, Molly."

Portrait of a First Grader

What a difference a year makes! Last year at this time, Ron and I had a very reluctant kindergartener on our hands. We literally had to bodily remove the child from our car and carry her crying to her classroom. Not exactly the morning I had envisioned of snapping first day of school photos and watching my 5 year old bound off happily into her classroom.

But this year... oh this year! Ron and I had a, dare I say it, eager, happy first-born first-grader! What a joy to be able to snap first-day-of-first-grade photos! What a wonder to walk a happy child down the hall to her classroom! What a blessing to be able to plant a kiss good-by atop her head, knowing she was glad to be in school and under the tutelage of warm teachers. Yes, what a difference a year makes!

Ron and I only had one real concern this morning as we pulled out of the school parking lot. McKenna was placed at the end desk in a configuration of 8 desks making up a rectangle. To her right sat a boy from her kindergarten class who was a known trouble-maker, and the desk across from her was unoccupied. McKenna had mentioned to me on Friday that she was a bit concerned about having to sit next to this boy, and I was ready to give her teacher a call and ask her to move McKenna to another spot. On further discussion, McKenna agreed to give her seating assignment a try for a few days, and if it wasn't working out, I would contact her teacher. Well, as Ron and I drove down the road toward home, we offered up a prayer for McKenna's first day, and asked that the Lord would work out the seating situation.

WELL! Come this afternoon as a brightly smiling 6 year old clambered into my car in the pick-up line, I could see that she had had a wonderful day. After telling me how much she liked her teachers ("Mrs. Guidara is nice, but the assistant Mrs. Jones is really, REALLY nice") and what a great day she had, I broached the subject of how sitting next to her old classmate went. She replied that it wasn't bad, because she got moved to a new desk. Turns out there was a little left-handed girl who was having trouble writing, as she was cramped, so McKenna's teacher had her swap desks with McKenna! She is now smack-dab between 2 nice boys and across from a girl from her kindergarten class!

What a comfort to know that even when we can't be with McKenna and "micro-manage" details of her life (which we really shouldn't anyway), her Heavenly Father is watching over her and caring for her in ways big and small. Even down to where she sits!

Around the dinner table, there were no tears, as last year, about not wanting to return to school tomorrow. Just happily recounted details of a fun first-day back at school. Yes, a year can make all the difference.

Farewell, Summer...

It is hard to believe that this is the final weekend of summer vacation. Come Monday, McKenna will be a first grader, and thus will begin the routine and rhythm of school. It takes a bit to slip from the lazy, unstructured days of summer into the very structured days of school, homework and extracurricular activites.

Overall, we had a wonderful summer. Sure, there were highs and lows... times when the girls seemed to constantly butt heads and others when they delighted in each other's company. Times of travel and times of going stir crazy in the house because it is just too hot to venture outside. When asked what their most favorite thing about summer break was, both girls reply that being with their family was the best part of summer. That is music to these parents' ears! We know time passes all too quickly, and sooner than we care to acknowledge, they will be wanting to be with friends rather than mom or dad. But for now, we cherish these times and it is with mixed feelings that we say farewell to summer, and prepare to embrace what this year will hold with our pre-K and first grade girls.

Last Hurrah

This past Thursday through Saturday afternoon we had our "last hurrah" before school starts... a camping trip to Hanging Rock State Park, with 3 other families from our Sunday school class. Despite the sweltering heat (upper nineties on Thursday) we all had a very enjoyable time. Here to tell you about the trip in her own words is McKenna:

"Well, my favorite part was playing with my friends. It was a fun camping trip and my church friends were there. It was fun, the thing is, only 3 girls were there, including me. I also swam in a nice and warm lake. It was fun. I learned how to do the backstroke and I swum very far. And we ate 'smores, went to go look through telescopes and we talked and played with friends."

Molly would like to add:

"We ate s'mores and we looked through telescopes to see the moon. And I talked and played games with friends. We goed to a really pretty waterfall and we swam there. We walked there. We slept in a tent. And we looked for deers. And we saw the stars. We saw flowers and ladybugs. We ate healthy stuff. I played with Ella and Ryan and Erick and McKenna. We ate ice cream and goed swimming in a warm lake. That's all I'm going to say. We had fun."

We arrived at the campgrounds Thursday afternoon and set up camp. It was so blazing hot that we decided to go take a dip at a nearby waterfall when we were done setting up. To our surprise and delight, we had the pool at the base of the falls all to ourselves. It was such heaven to cool off in the cold water and listen to the sounds of the waterfall in the background. We returned to camp refreshed and ready to get down to the serious business of s'more-making that evening.

We had never camped with several families before, and it has got to be said, that that is definitely the way to go. The girls, though initially shy (what else is new) warmed up quickly to the other children that were there, and had a great time running around (literally) with them. Ron and I enjoyed getting to relax and have "grown-up" conversation with our friends. As my mother-in-law would say, "Maybe Hillary was right after all, it DOES take a village!" It sure was nice having a "village" in this case!

Friday morning we had a short rain shower that really helped cool things down. The 4 of us huddled in the "living room" portion of our sizable tent and ate breakfast and relaxed while waiting for the much needed rain to pass. That afternoon all the families went to the lake for a swim. The water was a comfortable temperature and the roped-off part designated for swimming was sand-bottomed. The girls loved swimming out in the lake, and McKenna became quite a pro at the backstroke, swimming from the shallow end, all the way out to the ropes in the deep end (accompained, ofcourse). Molly had fun practicing swimming too, and when she tired of swimming, she resorted to building sand castles.

That evening we took the girls over to the visitor center to look through some telescopes, as they had amateur astronomers there that evening. It was a beautiful, clear night, and we got to see the moon, as Molly told you, as well as Jupiter and 4 of it's moons. One of the telescopes there was so powerful, you could see some of the bands on Jupiter. It was amazing and brought back memories of when I was little girl and got my first glimpse through an enormous telescope. Hopefully the girls felt that same sense of wonder and awe that I felt all those years back.

Saturday, the kids all played while we packed up (again, a wonderful part of camping with a "village" of friends... usually breaking camp is the worst part of the trip as the girls are bored out of their gourds and are constantly getting underfoot). Despite the heat, we all had a great time on the trip, and it was such a nice way to bring summer to a close. And it should be said, there is already talk of a fall trip... we'll keep you posted!

And btw, in the interest of full-disclosure, the photos with this post are not from this trip (as you can probably tell from the clothes) the one of the tent was taken in Blowing Rock but at least gives you a basic idea of our "living conditions". And the one of the waterfall is in fact the waterfall we swam at, but was taken in Autumn. Obviously, I fogot my camera and left it at home.

A Taste of Summer

It's been a few days since we've posted last. After the fun day at the river, it's pretty much been business as usual around here. So, as I cast about for a photo to share, I remembered the pictures I took of the girls after taking them to a U-pick blueberry place just 10 minutes from our house. This photo shows not even 1/3 of the gallon of blueberries we picked that morning, a few weeks back. The blueberries have since found their way into pancakes and breakfast cereal, as well as the freezer, so come winter, we can enjoy a rare taste of summer.

On a different topic, the girls and their next-door-neighbor, Lainey, went to VBS at the church behind our house last night. We had mentioned it in passing to them when we received an invitation to VBS in the mail, and noticed that they were doing the same curriculum as our church did. Ron and I didn't expect our bashful children to want to attend, but after giving it some thought, much to our surprise, they decided to give it a try! And even more to our astonishment, when Ron went to pick the girls up last night, they were right up in the front, leading all the other children in the dance to "Lift Off" (the theme song of the week)!!! They had a great time and are anxious to go again tonight. Which suits Ron and I just fine, as we'll be taking advantage of the 3 kid-free hours this affords us to go out for a quiet dinner. A rare treat!

We'll be taking some time off from the blog for the next few days as we are preparing for our last hurrah of the summer... a 2 day camping trip with folks from our Sunday school class. So expect our next post to be filled with the smells of campfire and the taste of 'smores!

A Day At The River

Yesterday we fled the heat here in town and headed to the somewhat cooler air of the mountains. Stone Mountain State Park, to be exact. One of our favorite places to go camping if we have the time, or else if camping is not practical, we just go there for the day to play in the river, which is what we did yesterday. We had a wonderful time as a family wading in the river, catching crawdads (or river lobsters as the girls call them), trout and water spiders, spying a watersnake (McKenna saw him first and calmly pointed him out to her Daddy), relaxing in a hammock while dipping our feet in the river's refreshing coolness, and then later going to a different area of the park to slide down the natural waterslide into a cool mountain pool below (Molls wasn't a big fan as you'll see in a photo below). We topped off the trip with some icecream on the way home. All in all, a day well spent basking in family togtherness, and enjoying the beauty of "God's creation"(as Molly aptly put it).

Self-Portraits

For today's "show and tell" the girls wanted to show you the self-portrait paper dolls they made. Molly and McKenna (in particular) love to do anything involving scissors, glue and paper... basically anything that involves a lot of clean-up on Mommy's part! This is why I usually hesitate to allow them to satisfy their creative urges (which are a fairly constant thing for McKenna... she always has to be creating something), aside from the easily managable crayons and pads of paper. But, since Daddy was away last week, I gave in and we made a trip both to the library to seek out craft books and then to the Dollar Tree to purchase the necessary supplies for these rather large works of art. The girls and I had a great time making these together and they were very proud of the results shown here.

Molly would like to add that, "My paper doll looks like myself. And it has pigtails just like me. And she has a beautiful dress. I made it with a little help from Mama."

McKenna says, "My paper doll looks like me. She is beautiful but a little bit smaller than me. I had a little bit of help from my Mommy."

Dressing Up

When I asked the girls this morning what they would most like to show you, they both went straight for their dress-up clothes. Most of you have seen Molls in her much-loved tutu. She practically lives in this outfit. McKenna's is a "new" Goodwill purchase that she picked out herself yesterday.

McKenna would like you all to know that her dress is: "Really pretty, it is the prettiest dress I have ever seen! And the flower and bow on it are really a pin. It looks like a princess' dress."

Molly would like you to know the following about her dress: "It is a tutu-dress. And I really love it!". What more is there to say?

It is supposed to reach 100 degrees here today. We are to be joining friends at their neighborhood pool this afternoon. The girls have really progressed in their swimming this summer. Both can jump in and swim to the side of the pool on their own. In fact, the other day they both went off the diving boards (the low ones) and loved it. It was a goal of ours to get the girls swimming by the end of the summer, and they have certainly accomplished and surpassed this goal.

We hope this post finds you all well and keeping cool on this hot summer day! Thanks for checking in with us.

Beating the Heat

Hello Family! Ron and I thought this would be a great way for family to keep up with the goings-ons in the Garner household. I can't promise daily posts, but I hope to update the blog frequently as a way of staying close with our far-flung families.

Today is supposed to reach 98 degrees and tomorrow is to approach 100... way too hot to be out and about! So today, the girls have friends over (Isabel and Andrew) for a "daytime slumber party", complete with pj's, sleeping bags, favorite stuffed animals, pillows, popcorn, and ofcourse, a movie. I don't take credit for this stroke of genius... it is something I read about doing in Family Fun magazine and thought it sounded like fun. We did it one other time this summer, and it was a big hit, so I thought why not do it again? School is fast approaching, so we're trying to pack as much fun into the remaining summer break as possible!

Well, I'll close this first post. I hope you will all enjoy being able to have a small glimpse into our daily lives, and that somehow through this we'll all be closer in heart.