We had a good day yesterday as we start working on getting back into our regular school year routine.  Normally I would’ve started keeping Kimbrell last week, when her teacher parents went back to school, but we were in Indiana, so yesterday was our first full day since last May.  We had a good day.  She helped me make a big crockpot of Brunswick Stew to freeze and share 🙂

What was unusual in the schedule was that a client at work gave me tickets to go see the Charlotte Knights play the Gwinnett Braves. Dennis & Cinnamon went with us, and we had a great time. Jeff & I decided to splurge and get gourmet hotdogs for supper at the game. He got a mac and cheese dog – how funny is that? It was such a fun evening.

Clover Schools started back today.  Mallory went straight from school to dance, but I met Lindee & Addie, along with June, Clara, and Mason, at Sweet Frogs in York when school was over to celebrate.  Mason didn’t want to get in this picture, but here are our 4th & 3rd graders!  Everyone seemed to have a great day 🙂

Saturday afternoon when we were in Charlestown was the annual Alzheimers Fundraiser, and Mark’s band played there, too.  We spent the afternoon out there, listening to them and letting Jeff see more old friends, and hit the road for home as soon as the band finished up.  It was such a fun visit.

We just got home from spending a few days in Indiana with Jeff’s folks.  We visited family, and Friday night had a really good time when we went to the American Legion in Sellersburg to see Mark play drums with the Paul Boggs Band.  It was so good to see so many old friends, some who came because Jeff put a message on facebook saying we would be there.  One was a lifelong friend of his, Debbie Wampler – they’d lived next door to each other when they were preschoolers.  Just a fun, special evening.

Just now getting pictures downloaded from the last week.  At church Sunday morning it was a special missionary emphasis service, where Tommy’s sister and her husband gave a presentation about their work in Thailand.  This past spring, some of the older children at church, along with their parents, made miniature Godly Play stories to give them to use in their work.  During the church service Sunday the children presented the stories to them.  Charlie sat with his age class and I didn’t manage to get a picture of him presenting the story he had, but here is Adam delivering his.  What a special morning for them to be there.

Charlie and Adam spent the weekend with us – Andrew was running a Spartan Race in Asheville, and had a late starting time, so didn’t get home until very late Saturday night, and Jenny and three of her friends from work had gone for a girls’ getaway to the mountain house in Saluda – so yesterday we headed up to spend the day at Latta Nature Plantation.  I, of course, had gotten some experience there when Mallory was going there to day camp a few weeks ago, but the boys had never been.  They enjoyed the Raptor Center.

We took a picnic lunch, and stopped at the very same table very near the Raptor Center where the kids & I had eaten earlier in the summer. It is just such a beautiful spot.

We also did a little bit of hiking, checking out some nature trails I hadn’t had time to visit when I was taking Mallory to day camp. There were lots of rocks for climbing, and after bouldering with Zollie last month, Adam especially couldn’t wait to check them out. Such a good day.

This morning I took the kids to Rainbow Doughnuts to celebrate their last day of summer break with me.  They actually have one more week, but we will be in Indiana, so I thought this was a good way to close the summer out.

From the upper level – still not as high at the top of Eddie’s hat! Such a good day…

What a fun day June, Mason, & I had today.  I had been promising them since the first day of summer that we would go to Columbia to EdVenture, the state children’s museum.  Since it’s virtually time for school to start back, we decided today was the day.  I had heard about Big Eddie, this 40 foot tall boy that the kids can climb in.  I just didn’t know it would be quite so big – or so cute.  The kids spent by far the biggest part of the day climbing all inside him.  The playground was like his brain, heart, intestines, blood vessels – so cute.

One of my favorite things about the museum was that the benches in each section were painted to coordinate with where they were located. This is the one in the fire engine area – Dalmation Station :-). It was so, so cute. Just a fun day.