as we travel this sod...

Yesterday my family joined us at church.  By family, I mean my mom and dad, my nieces and nephew, my aunt and uncle, my 3 cousins, 2 cousin-husbands, and two baby second cousins (one in his/her mama's tummy).  There wasn't enough room to squeeze into one of the TWO pews that they occupied, so I sat in front of them.  It's been so nice to be "home" in so many ways, but there was something truly sweet and comforting about worshipping with my family in our new church.  My family isn't shy about singing out, and I loved picking out each familiar voice.  It was just great to have their support as well, that they wanted to see our new church and hear Todd preach.  Thank you, my supportive, sweet family!

a good week

This past week Ella kept us on schedule with her school week, and of course Todd was at the church working as well.  We're still settling in, spending a lot of time with my family, and trying to explore this beautiful place when we can.  Even though I grew up 20 min. away from Erwin, we seldom came to this part of East Tennessee.  When we wanted to go to the mountains, we would go to Roan Mountain in Carter County.  This takes you toward the Boone, NC area.  Now we are close to another set of mountains that border Asheville, NC, to give you a little perspective.  Todd has chosen Fridays as his day off and we've been exploring on these days.  This past Thursday we made a connection with a man who runs a "U-Pick" Orchard and Farm near Flag Pond in Unicoi County, so Friday we picked Ella up from school at noon and headed up there.  It was gorgeous!  We stepped out of the car and it was just fragrant.  At first I thought this was the smell of the ripe fruit but later discovered it was the clover field that bordered the orchard (I found this out by laying down in the clover after our picking fest).  We picked blueberries, a range of apples, and (possibly our favorite) Asian pears.  The owner of the orchard told us, "Come hungry and you won't leave hungry.  We don't weigh you coming in and going out, so please sample all the apples before you decide on which ones to take."  OK.  Wow!  So we did.  On a side note, the first thing I picked going into the orchard was a four leaf clover.  I thought this was a good sign.
To top off this beautiful day, Todd and I went over to our good friends, the Blackburns, bearing a homemade apple crisp, and Ella joined her cousins for their much anticipated sleepover (see pictures above).  The highlight of their sleepover was that after grammy put them to bed, they had a party (all but Micaiah).  The next day Ella told me that the party was really long and that it was really fun, of course. 
A couple of more things about the kids...Ella came home last week stating that she had a best friend.  We thought that a good sign.  Micaiah is stringing words together left and right.  We remember this stage with Ella and how much we loved it with her as well.  Anything you say he will repeat, and some of his favorites right now are "bird bath" and "baseball."  He is doing at least four word sentences as well, most of which start with the phrase, "I want..."  Yesterday in church, he made up a little phrase which went "No, no, no, no, no, no, no..."  He just kept saying it, pleasantly, but incessantly.  He insists that Ella is "at work," not at school.  Both of us are adjusting to not having Ella around in the mornings.  I look forward to starting things like library story time with him soon.
Well, that's enough for this week.  Kentucky peeps, keep in touch!

Ella's first days of school

Ella is having several "first" days of school.

  She had a shortened day with just a few other students, and these pictures are from that day.

She also had today's school day, which is her first shortened day of school with all the kids in her classroom.  This week they go all week but have shorter days.  And then next week, she'll have one more big day, the first day of her full week going all the way until 2:00.  I like that they ease them into it this way and that they let them get out of school an hour early.  It at least makes me feel that they know kindergarteners and have a system to make it a bit easier on them.    I'm having trouble uploading the rest of the pictures on this post so I may try to do the other ones separately.  I'm learning!