I really believe I have wanted to visit Reed’s Gold Mine since we moved to this area 35 years ago.  Today we finally made that happen.  Charlie, June, Adam, Mason, and I headed over on our Summer Break Kickoff Adventure.  It really was a neat place.  As soon as we walked in the door at the Visitors Center, the girl behind the desk told us we were just in time for a guided tour.  I didn’t even know they gave guided tours.  I thought it was just a self guided thing you did yourself.  And they did also give us that pamphlet, which was very informative.  This was down in the mine.  The guide told us that this area that the kids are standing in is one of the original tunnels – gold was first discovered there in 1799, the first discovery in the United States.  You can see it’s pretty small, so it really was like you always heard, that men working in there had to bend over the entire time.  Wow – what literally back breaking work that must have been.

After the tour we headed back to the visitors center to watch the movie, and to check out the very interesting and informative museum. I’m not gonna lie, I would’ve spent more time in the museum (I LOVE a museum) if the kids hadn’t been with me, but they were ready to move on. There were some very interesting exhibits.

What a fun time we had today, when our BIG and Tween kids from church went to KidSenses Museum in Rutherfordton for a few hours.  One of our very favorite things was this air hose contraption that the kids could move different levers different ways, to make the nerf balls and scarves go in different directions.  Really, most all the kids spent lots of time playing in here.  This was at the very end of the day, and I just about never got Adam and Mason out of there to get to the bus so we could head home.  Alas, I don’t know why this picture is upside down.  Grrr.

The kids all agreed that their very favorite thing, though, was the musical Tesla Coil. It was very cool, as the arcs of electricity jumped in time to the music. Wow.

Of the season, anyway.  Jeff & I headed up to Weddington yesterday afternoon – on the other side of Charlotte – to watch her Clover team play.  They’d won their first game earlier in the day, but went down in this one in a nail biter, 4-3.  I got almost no pictures – as usual, I get so involved in the game I forget to take pictures – although this is a great picture of the other little girl (Lauren?  Olivia?  All these little blondes look alike to me on the field) taking a kick.

After the game.

When we were at Larne today, Mason showed us one of his pictures that was still hanging in the hallway.  He did such a good job!

Then late this afternoon we went over to Denise’s house, when Kimbrell & Ellie are in town spending a few days. It was so wonderful to see them again. They are getting so big!