Yesterday morning we started off at Mason’s district pinewood derby competition.  Here he is showing off his car before his first heat.  I only got to watch him race one time before we had to leave, but Addie said he ended up getting 18th place out of 90, so we were proud.

Then Jeff and I picked up Charlie and we hit the road for Florida. I cannot for the life of me figure out why this picture is upside down, but got a photo of Jeff and Charlie when we stopped at the Florida Welcome Center for orange and grapefruit juice – of course!

This morning Jeff and I headed to Larne Elementary School, where we met up with Lee to see Mason, and the rest of the 2nd graders, give their Title I presentations.  They were on different animals.  The kids drew a habitat out of a jar, and then could choose any animal they liked to work up a presentation on.  Mason drew Grasslands, and he chose a prairie dog.  Every child created a movie on their tablet, and they just did such a good job.  I loved Mason’s title page, or whatever they call it now 🙂

Then this evening we headed to Rock Hill to take in Adam’s soccer game. He is really doing a good job – that’s him on the right in this picture. We are proud!

Yesterday Jeff and I headed to Charlotte to take in Mal’s final game of the season – and she says of her career.  She had enjoyed playing, but it has really cut into her golfing time, so it wasn’t worth the trade off to her.  It was at Charlotte Latin, which is near Dennis’s house, so he came over and joined us – both for the match and for lunch afterwards.  All of her other games have been on chilly evenings, so it was nice sitting out in the beautiful sunshine today.  I have a terrible time getting action shots during her matches.  She’s #15 in this picture.

I had great help cooking supper this past Thursday 🙂

We had another evening today.  Our Wednesday night church supper was provided by the Cub Scouts, and it was delicious – smoked chicken, potato salad, corn on the cob, and rolls.  The man who did the cooking is the culinary arts teacher in Lancaster, and it was absolutely delicious.  Mason helped clean off the tables after people finished eating.  Here he is taking Jeff’s plate 🙂

We left the church and headed straight to the lacrosse game. Sherri came up to watch but had to leave before the game was over, so she wasn’t here for the post-match picture. I got this one of the kids who were there to cheer Mallory on.

Last night Jeff and I traveled to Rock Hill to attend Adam’s first soccer game EVER.  Since he has never played before I wasn’t sure if he would be out of his element, but he played the whole game until an injury forced him out, and really did a very good job.  Got a couple of good takeaways – he was playing defense – and some good kicks. He’s #11, almost in the middle of this picture, running towards the ball. 

Waiting for the action to head his way.

This past Sunday afternoon my friends Evelyn, Pam, and I headed to Lancaster after helping clean up after communion at church.  We drove around McDonalds for a quick lunch, and got to the Lancaster County Arts Center in plenty of time for the afternoon show.  The facility was so cool – the original Presbyterian church, built in 1861.  The chairman of the board there shared some of the history of the building, which was very cool.  Union soldiers occupied it in 1865; different churches used it; it fell into disrepair before the arts council took it over and is in the ongoing process of restoring it.  So cool.  I meant to take more pictures before we left, but I started talking and completely forgot.  There’s a surprise.

Donald Davis is an incredible storyteller. I had heard him the year we went to the Storytellers Convention in Jonesborough and loved him then. He’s only gotten better in the years since. I’m so glad we went to see him.

As the kids and I were heading out to walk to the car, we looked, and a locomotive actually pulled on the turntable at the roundhouse, and it turned and backed right into its bay.  Of course you can’t see it moving in this picture, but it was facing straight toward us when it pulled onto the bridge.   Honestly, we didn’t even know the turntable was still functional.  It was absolutely the highlight of my day, I think.  Wow.

Got home in time to head to the track to see Charlie race. There weren’t enough kids there in his age group to field a moto, so he had to race in the 13 year old expert class. There was only one other 12-year-old intermediate even in the race, so we were proud he made the it to the main. That’s him about in fifth position in this obviously not very good picture.

At the museum yesterday, my favorite site was the Roundhouse, which is where the locomotives were put into bays for storage and cleaning.  There were all sorts of interesting displays, of course.  This was one of my favorites.  After WWII, the country of France gifted the United States with a train of 49 Gratitude Cars, one for each of the 48 states at the time, and one for the District of Columbia, to thank the country for saving theirs.  This is the NC car.  I had never heard of that, but after visiting the D-Day Memorial last year, I loved seeing it. 

There was also an entire room dedicated to flight in North Carolina.  Needless to say, Kitty Hawk was the centerpiece.  The kids loved getting their pictures made with the plane in the background.  And Charlie, especially, loved remembering that we had see pieces of the original plane when we were at the Smithsonian last year.