Effie & Co.

Effie & Co. opened on August 11. 

It has been a long journey, full of ups and downs, 

hard work, tears, and sweat- 

a definite labor of love... 

Mitch's parents decided to open a home decor store in May, 

they rented an old building in downtown Yukon 

and bought some inventory from a shop going out of business. 

It took three months, 

lots of paint, 

a couple of tissue paper capes,

 one broom-sword Effie knight,

too many late nights to count, 

 a lot of trial and error,

 and quite a few more shopping trips, 

but we got it done, 

opened the doors, 

and hopefully,

 have started along on a great and successful family adventure.

Effie is Mimi's first name. I didn't know that she was born Effie Glynore, 

but was not a fan of Effie and chose to go by Glyn. 

However, we all thought Effie was pretty dang cute!

 And we also wanted the name of our family store to mean something, 

to have a story, to help us have a focus, and a direction. 

And that it did...

Last Day of Summer...

We started with donuts- 

the ones with sprinkles of course!

Then, Jett and I trekked to the Museum of Osteology in South OKC 

for our last day of Summer Fun Day! 

It was so very cool. 

You can even make a skeleton friend pose with you for a photo:)

I can't wait to go back. Even though the King Cobra Skeleton 

below is giving me nightmares still...

You could touch everything, they had hundreds and hundreds of skeletons- 

probably more, and we were the only ones there!

We enjoyed the morning the museum and then headed to White Water later in the afternoon- it was great. There was almost no one there, Jett was big enough to go on everything, and the weather was just warm enough! We even saw friends while we were there and spent some time playing with them...

...the perfect ending to a wonderful summer. 

Homeschool 2012-2012 here we come...

Blue Eggs!!

Our girls started laying eggs a few weeks ago! We are getting about three blue eggs a day! It is so fun to "check on the chicks" each morning and evening. Mitch loves his girls:)

And, even though we are expecting eggs,

 it is still a sweet little surprise to find them:)

GG's Birthday!

We decided to get out of the house and have a little Elliott Family Fun for GG's birthday year...

we took her bowling. 

Not only bowling...but glow in the dark bowling! 

The boys thought the light show was "awesome"- even little Benji loved the lights! 

What a great birthday celebration!

 Happy Birthday Gloria!

Eskimo Joes!

We went to Eskimo Joe's with the Anderson's a couple of weeks ago.

 It was our first food road trip post kids...that's sad. 

Jett and Tatum are seven... 

Before kids we took several Food Road Trips...

the best was by far Eskimo Joes', so we decided we would start there with the kiddos. 

Who doesn't love some good cheese fries?

The kids had a blast and so did the grown-ups. 

It was even Joe's Birthday Celebration and the kids got to go to Buffy's Party!

Jett keeps asking me when we can go back to Sloppy Joes:)

Couldn't be soon enough...

More Summer Days...

  Farm Finds and Grammy's hugs...

We went to the farm for a few days in July. Grammy made me a peach pie- it was amazing. She actually made me two. Company stopped by, however and so the first pie was eaten up. Hence, Grammy made a second pie for me... It was even warm when she dropped it by before we headed home. Yummy! 

Rope Swing!

so much fun- really,  I know from personal experience...just hang on, tight.

Mitch and Jett had been talking up the Tarzan thing for a while now. Mitch finally figured out the best limb and the best rope, and had some help from Uncle Jon to the get the swing in full gear. This swing has provided hours and hours of fun in its short little life for dozens and dozens of kiddos, big kiddos not excluded:)

The first test swing! We have a winner!

 Breakfast Picnic in the Backyard...

Jett and I spent a beautiful and still not too hot yet summer morning enjoying Eggos and coffee on a comfy quilt, listening to the birds chirp, admiring the backyard, and dreaming of a pool:)

“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; 

to me those have always been the two most

 beautiful words in the English language.”
― Henry James

July Fourth

We celebrated July Fourth with a big party: lots of food, lots of friends, lots of fun! MItch and I have always wanted to have people over- but until we moved last fall our house was way too small for anything like this...we had a blast cooking, playing, and just spending time with old friends. 

We played in the sprinkler, swang on the rope swing, slid on the slipping slide, had water balloon explosions, water gun shoot outs, made bubble trumpets, and wrapped the evening up with a walk to the carnival and a backyard view of the Bethany fireworks- complete with glow stick fireworks of Jett's creation:) 

We can't wait until next year!