Yesterday Mallory, Clara, & I were off to the greater Hickory area, where we spent the morning touring the Henry River Mill Village. It is an old, sort of decrepit mill village that was where they filmed the scenes of District 12 in the Hunger Games movie. The house that was the Everdeens’ house in the movie is the one that’s on the tour, and the bedroom still has the furniture in it from when Katniss and Prim were in there in the movie. That was pretty cool.

We’d taken a picnic with us, so we found a part where there were picnic tables, and then went on down the road to explore the Bunker Hill Covered Bridge – one of only two left standing in North Carolina. Clara finds a covered bridge to be very creepy, but we all thought the history of it was very interesting. Great summer day.

We finished up our museum visit with a stroll through the beloved dinosaur exhibit. June & Mase weren’t as excited about it as they were when they were little, but it is still pretty cool.

June wanted to get one selfie of us before heading home. Such a fun day.

Today June, Mason, and I had a fun time visiting the Schiele Museum in Gastonia, where there is a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian on narwhals. It was so interesting, and I loved the part for kids that had all of the caroon narwhals that are out there.

The kids were very patient while I took my time looking at the narwhal exhibit, and then they were excited to get to the room of live animals. The alligator snapping turtle was really something to watch. I got this picture of him with his mouth open – it was almost feeding time 🙂

On Sunday – Father’s Day – Andrew came & took Jeff & me out to eat lunch to celebrate. Adam had already left earlier that morning for his mission trip with his church middle school youth group; Charlie had to work that afternoon and Jenny stayed home to drive him, so it was just the three of us, which was great fun in a different kind of way. I got this picture of my two favorite fathers before we walked out the door.

One final topiary picture from our day at the festival. So, so pretty.

We stopped at the Greenwood Mall to take in the craft show there, and really enjoyed the pictures of the history of Greenwood County on the walls – like this one of the 1958 American Legion baseball team.

There was a jungle scene around one of the fountains there in town, with all kinds of topiary creatures. The baby elephant was one of our favorites.

The little labrador retriever was named Harley. Just so much cuteness.

Today Meg & I headed to Greenwood to check out the topiaries on display for the festival this year. They really were pretty amazing. We loved the photo booth station 🙂

And needless to say, this was one of my very favorite topiaries 🙂 – although I wasn’t thrilled with the lunch buffet sign being in their space. Ha.

This morning Jeff & I were at Clover Middle School to see Clara recieve her award for making the A/B Honor Roll all year. Especially in this crazy year. we were very proud. Both of the children she is standing in between also go to our church.

Yesterday Lindee had to be at work early, so I headed over to take Clara to school – and to take her these fancy dancy ice cream cones for a late birthday present. I’d bought us a box, too, and they were cute AND tasty 🙂

After I dropped her off, I headed straight to the church to work on getting the nursery ready for it to reopen this Sunday (yay!) I was going through some old coloring books and look what I came across. So sweet.