The McMahon Family

Growing up in Georgia meant that we traveled to Illinois numerous times for holidays. Those trips are some of the fondest memories I have of growing up. We’d take the seats out of a van and create a large bed in the back. I can still remember the soothing feeling of sleeping while traveling. We would play the alphabet game, request truckers to honk and pass the See Rock City and See Ruby Falls signs along the way. We never stopped to see either. So Nicki and I decided that on our way home, we were going to stop and see this time! Unfortunately, Ruby Falls didn’t work out, but Rock City did!

For Mom’s 70th birthday Tara, Nicki and I decided to surprise Mom with a trip away. She had a planned trip to Tara’s so Nicki and I headed out the day before her and met her at Tara’s. She was very surprised to see us down there! That’s when we informed her that we were taking her to the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina. On the drive from Georgia to North Carolina, we drove along the Nantahala River. Growing up, our youth group took river rafting trips here. Tara and I both white river rafted down this river!

Heading out!

Found a fun local pizza bar for lunch!

Views of the south are so great.

Had to stop for a pic with this chopper.

Margarita pitchers!

Wine tasting. Even I participated!

We stopped some random lady to take this pic…it was way more complicated than we had anticipated! But we did get our picture.

All of the pics with captions to explain the trip are here.

The latest craze on Facebook is turning yourself into a cartoon. So here you go. 😂

Thankfully we get to say goodbye to this crapshoot of a year. It was such a struggle. All year long. Patrick attended in-person school half days…in the afternoon. So getting him to stick to a bed time was a 9 month fight. Mac attended in-person every other day. So getting him to stay engaged and complete assignments was a 9 month fight. Both my boys, who are usually straight A students with very little effort, really struggled with the year. Our family, who has always relied very heavily on routine, really struggled with the year.

But…it’s over!

Look how much they’ve grown in 9 months!

I completed my first year at PBL. Contrary to the boys’ year being a crapshoot, mine was great. It had its challenges, but I only taught half days, in-person. Teaching each class in a different room, wearing a mask, teaching each class asynchronously (teaching students in person and students online, live during the lesson). But I LOVED the move to junior high and teaching only one subject. Here is my new team, who I loved working with. Having taught mostly alone for the last couple of years are RCS, it was refreshing to have a team to meet, collaborate and work with!