keeping up with the johnsons

We reached another milestone this week as Liam headed off for his first Tiger Cub Scout meeting. I had no idea that I'd have as strong a reaction to seeing him in his scouting uniform as I did. It was a really poignant moment for me, probably because since he's homeschooled we haven't really had the "send your baby off to school on the big scary yellow bus" moment. It brought tears to my eyes to realize that my baby has grown up so quickly. Who was this little boy in this fancy uniform?

He really has matured so much in this last year and I look forward to seeing what scouting will do for his self-confidence. I hope he makes a lot of friends and enjoys the experience as much as I enjoyed Girl Scouts, waaaaay back in the day.

You've just gotta love a man in uniform. I'm so proud of you, Liam.

Here are the rest of the photos from our trip to the beach. These are all unedited, straight out of the camera. Or, as P-Dub calls them, "SOOC" shots.

 Photo by Melanie Johnson. Border is an "Edgy, Thin" digital scrapbooking paper template and the photo texture is from the "Ex Libris" paper templates, both available at ScrapGirls.

I took a ton of photos on our trip to Pawley's Island but I think this may be my favorite. We all had a really fun time. Late Monday afternoon, Karyn, Laura, and I took all 10 kids to Broadway on the Beach. We had a nice seafood supper and the kids got to ride the water taxi and some fun carnival rides. Tuesday was an absolutely perfect day and we spent most of it outside in the sunshine, playing on the beach and at the pool with friends. Loys spent most of Monday and half of Tuesday in meetings, but he was able to get some quality time with Liam and Quinn on Tuesday afternoon when he took them to Jurassic Mini Golf in Myrtle Beach. A great time was had by all (including Aaron and me, who stayed behind to take naps). It was a wonderful way to end the summer.