September is always so busy, but sooo fun! We celebrated Ellie's SIXTEENTH birthday this September 19th. It's completely unbelievable that she is legally able to drive a car. The DAWGS are playing on the weekends, Mack is playing football, and Ellie is in full Nutcracker rehearsal swing.
To make September extra interesting, God also threw in Hurricane Helene. This was a CAT 4 hurricane with 115mph sustained winds and 133mph wind gusts that wrecked Valdosta. The kids missed 2 weeks of school, our house was without power for 8 days, the clinic I work at was closed for a week, and MANY people lost homes and cars due to downed trees and debris. We had a limb fall on our front porch, but thankfully it didn't cause any damage. Other than losing power, we fared well.
We did have a generator but with all the cords all over the house that were required to keep the refrigerators and freezer running along with fans and lamps, and the fact that we didn't have hot water, we decided Tifton might be a better option. We headed to Tifton because the Bowers only lost power for a few hours on their side of Tift county. Mama lost power on the other side of Tift county (for a week), so Aunt Telie and Uncle Dale came, loaded her and Daddy up, and took them to Amos's house in Jefferson.
Once power was restored at SSI, the kids, Worth, and I headed that way to spend the week since there was going to be no work or school. Internet service was spotty all over the eastern side of GA. The hurricane caused massive damage and human casualties all the way up to North Carolina. I never knew in a million years that I would live through 2 hurricanes in Valdosta, CAT 3 (Idilia 2023) and CAT 4 (Helene 2024)! It's crazy that it made it all the way here with that strength. I will never ride another one out though. Helene was a pretty scary situation. I've never heard wind so loud. I kept looking out of the window for the 747 that I was sure was landing in our front yard.The house would creak and groan every time a hard gust hit, and I would just pray for God to keep us safe. With each gust, I would brace for a big tree to hit our house, but thankfully that didn't happen. We were all huddled in the living room together. Worth and I each on a couch, and the kids on air mattresses between us. Somehow, Mack slept through the whole thing and was super excited when he woke up to see what had happened.
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| As always in September, we celebrate Daddy's birthday. He turned 76 this year. |
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| Despite what his brain is going through, he still has that sweet smile on his face, always. |
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| I was able to help out at the Boosterthon fundraiser at Mack's school. Mack was the only kid that literally ran the ENTIRE time. |
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| Somehow, this is the only picture I have of a LHS game. We have attended several. The sky was so pretty this night. Mack loves going to the games. |
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| Homecoming was early September this year. Ellie didn't have a date, but I made sure she had flowers, and I do believe they were beautiful! |
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| I let Ellie carry my Garland Bag clutch. She looked so beautiful! |
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| This picture is for those that tell me how tall Ellie is. These are her two best friends. She's definitely not tall. |
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| Our pretty 10th grader |
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| Ellie and her crew. These are the sweetest, kindest, and smartest girls at LHS. I know I'm biased, but this group of girls are all literally in the top 20 of their class of 795 at Lowndes. |
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| Mack usually fishes in the neighborhood with his friends. None of which have phones yet like him. One of the boy's older brothers happened to be out there one day though and snapped this picture for Mack. He was so proud of his catch, and we finally had photographic evidence that caught something. |
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| The Sunday after Homecoming. Ellie had her professional pictures for Nutcracker. We went with the other Clara, Charlotte Holloway, to Pebble Hill Plantation in Thomasville, GA. The girls were utilizing the battery operated fans while taking a break form picture taking in this picture. |
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| Their sweet photographer wanted a picture with both of them. |
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| Side angle of a great picture. |
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| Ellie and I had the best day with Charlotte and her mom. It was long and tiring, but the plantation was absolutely beautiful and Charlotte and her mom and the sweetest, so it made for such a great day. |
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| I tried to take as many candids as I could for the memories. |
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| Birthday EVE! Her last night as a 15 year old. This is how we normally see her - rolling in at 9:00pm for dinner, homework, then bedtime. |
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| Officially 16!! |
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| Emma still gives the best hugs |
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| Once again, our 9:00pm nightly meeting with our new 16 year old. |
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| A picture with Leonard is all she really wanted for her birthday night. |
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| I checked her out of school the day after her birthday and took her for her driver's test. I had to ride in the car with her and it was nerve racking! I couldn't say a word, and it was so hard! She did so good though. She didn't need me to say anything! |
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| She had her friends over for dinner and a movie for her birthday. She wanted lasagna, so I made homemade lasagna, salad, and garlic bread for the menu. |
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| I had another cake snafu. I picked up the cookie cake from Great American Cookies quickly and didn't notice that they misspelled Birthday until after I got it home. I also realized how terrible it looked (not that they ever do a really good decorating job) once I got it home. Even though the cake's taste was fine, I did make a complaint online and sent in multiple pictures of the cake. I was completely refunded due to the poor appearance of the cake. I should have done that at Publix this summer with Mama's cake. |
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| I found these through Target online and they were so cute as little treats out for the girls. |
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| Good group of kids right here |
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| They had the movie on, but ended up laughing all night and taking a couple of golf cart rides around the neighborhood. |
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| The professional Nutcracker pics turned out amazing! |
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| One of my favorites |
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| Our beautiful Ellie |
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| This was taken in a cemetery on the plantation. It was so beautiful and peaceful out there. |
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| Sweet Clara |
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| I just can't wait to see her onstage! |
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Helene's aftermath
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| Limb on the front of the house |
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| Worth scaring me to death hanging out of an upstairs window trying to trim the limb to get it off the front porch. |
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| With no power and very limited internet, the kids were able to help us with clean up all day long. |
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| Our country club took a beating |
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| The power poles all the way down that street were down. |
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| This is another area in Valdosta. This is what most of Valdosta looked like. |
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| I stole this from social media- this is First Baptist Church downtown. A huge, vey historic church downtown. It was destroyed. |
