August 2026 Family Update

For starters, Ted Lasso is BACK! Let all the fans rejoice. IYKYK.

We took a little trip to Blue Ridge, GA with our couple besties to celebrate Jamie graduating from NP school. It was the CUTEST little town and we had a blast. The AirBnB was perfect for our crew, especially with the game room. Lots of ping pong was played and Gracie and I taught the fam how to play Mahjong. Then we celebrated with caviar because we fancy like that! We also did a waterfall hike and did some tubing down the river, which was so much fun! That might have been my favorite part or cooking together. On our last day we explored downtown. They had several cute coffee shops, restaurants, and gift stores. Would definitely travel with these peeps again!

My garden is doing much better this year, thankfully. Building good soil takes time. We’ve had so many tomatoes that we’ve started making our own pizza sauce for our pizza oven. I’ve also had gobs of jalapeno poppers. J put a batch on the smoker and I’m positive they were the best ones I’ve ever had in my life. I’m planning to pull my sweet potatoes soon. Although, my urologist has discouraged me from eating them because of the type of kidney stones I make. Sigh.

August was definitely HOT and steamy but that didn’t keep us off the pickleball court. We just opted to play early at 6:30 am. We also hit up the Wilson Co fair after the sun went down. I’ve always loved the fair but I’m not sure if I’ll keep going back every year. The cost and the heat make it not as fun as it used to be.

Skylar started her fall classes and her Instrument training. We did a whole bunch of financial gymnastics to get this flight lab paid for, but she’s in there! Before classes started, she also went sky diving for the first time. She said she liked it but she was very nervous going into it.

The passing of Dolly Parton caught us off guard and Skylar had a really tough time with it. We both have such fond memories of reading books from the Imagination Library. Plus, Dolly was such a lovely, good-hearted person. Some of you may remember that when Skylar moved into her dorm last year, her only wall decor was a photo of Dolly.

In other news, since I’ve hit my out-of-pocket maximum on insurance for the year, I decided to go to physical therapy to get some work done on my shoulder. I don’t have a rotator cuff injury but those particular muscles are weak and we are working to strengthen them while also doing some ultrasound to try and get the inflammation down in the area where I have pain.

Oh, and we fixed the dishwasher with a $50 part and YouTube University.

Stay tuned for next month. I’m going on a bucket-list trip!