Today Jeff & I went down to Lyman to see Clara play for the first time with her travel soccer team.  They played their first game at 8:40 this morning, but we’d stayed in town to get Mallory to a golf team outing, so we headed down after that to the second game.  They lost the early game 5-0, but the second one that we watched by only 2-1, so that was much better.  Here is Clara during the short time she was on the field.  She’d been sick with strep throat this past week, so in the interest of her not having a relapse, her playing time was very limited.

She was not happy at all with her short playing time, but cheered up afterwards with a coconut crème Italian ice 🙂

Last night we went to see Charlie race again.  It was the first time Jeff had been, I think, since before school was out for the summer.  Charlie has moved up to the intermediate group now, so the racing is much more competitive.  He still won his second moto and came in second in the mains, so we are proud!  Here they are taking off from the gate.  It was a gorgeous evening.

Mallory was excited when she got home from golf practice Thursday night to tell me she had been chosen to play in their first match next week.  There are ten girls on the team but only six play in each match, so she wasn’t sure that was going to happen.  Exciting times!

Today Lindee, Mallory, Clara, their friend Keira, and I headed to Ninety Six National Historic Site, to be in the Path of Totality for the solar eclipse.  It was absolutely amazing.  We got there early, because we weren’t sure how much traffic we would run in to.  As it turned out, it was exactly zero, but better safe than sorry.  Anyway, they had activities for the kids set up for before the eclipse started, like this keychain Clara could punch out of the Big Dipper – they had several different constellations.

It was the craziest thing. Even as the sun got smaller and smaller, the pictures that we tried to take were still just a ball of fire – that’s how bright the sun is. Crazy!  I did like how you could sort of see the corona around it as the visible sun got smaller & smaller.  Just one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

Saturday evening Lindee hosted a surprise party for Jackson’s 40th birthday party.  I think he really was surprised, and it was so much fun.  He is, and always has been, and absolutely Star Wars freak, so the cake was absolutely perfect.

Singing Happy Birthday.  From left are Lindee filming the event, Jackson, their friends Cam amd Keira, Mallory, and Cam and Keira’s mom Jenny. 

Friday night Jeff was off camping with his buddies at a music festival, so I went to see Charlie at the BMX track.  It was the first time I’d seen him race all summer, I think, and lo and behold, when I got there, a wedding was being held at the starting gate!  The guy who is the president of the track got married, and then afterwards the newlyweds ran in a couple of races.  Here is the bride in her wedding attire – yes, she got dressed in a racing outfit, and had a veil on her helmet.  How cute is that?

Last Wednesday Becky, Pam, and I made a day trip to Summerville, GA, to attend the graveside service for Charlotte’s mom.  Sherry and her husband Johnny made the trip, too.  At the meal they served afterwards at the church we got this picture of the six of us buddies.  The flowers are ones Charlotte brought us out of the absolutely beautiful casket cover she had for her mama.

Sherry’s phone makes much better pictures than mine, so I got her to send me this one she made of all the kids just as we arrived at Schiele Museum last week.

Today my friend Sherry and I took Mallory, Clara, June, Mason, and her grandson Will to spend the day at the Schiele Museum in Gastonia – our actual final outing of the summer.  It was supposed to be tomorrow, but Sherry and I will both be heading to Georgia for the day for Ella Mae’s funeral, so today it was.  Their big exhibit right now is the Dinosaurfari.  It was great.  I would love to go back and see it again, since the kids weren’t really as excited about reading all the info about every single dinosaur.  Here is Mal posing with the brachiosaurus, which I think used to be a brontosaurus when I was little 🙂

We enjoyed the rest of the museum, too, and always, if there are live animals there, the kids want to spend a huge part of the day there. Here is the skunk that finally came out of his hiding place so we could see him – all of the kids were so excited!