This week is National Wildlife Refuge Week, and the National Park Service asked people to go to their nearest national wildlife refuge and take a 5K hike. So Sunday after church Meg and I headed to Wadesboro. We stopped for a killer bbq lunch in Monroe, and then went on. Pee Dee is a beautiful place. It’s towards the coast from here, so flatter – I’d seen online that the hikes were described as “gentle.” And they really weren’t bad at all. Most of the refuge is for hunting and fishing, but there is a small corner that is strictly for hiking, so that’s where we stayed, needless to say. There was a tree down across the main road through the hiking area, so we couldn’t do all of the trails, but found enough short ones to add up to our 3.1 miles. Pretty cool water views – some lakes, some swamps.

There was a really nice nature trail with all kinds of signs explaining different things you might see, and we enjoyed seeing those. We found several of these small acorns on the trail that we learned about from this sign. Great afternoon.

Char missed most of the cross country season this year, due to quarantine, but we did get down to Newberry College to see him run on Saturday. Here is one of him in action.

And one afterwards with his proud mom & dad. Can you tell that the course was a little muddy that day? 🙂

Last week Meg & I went out to eat breakfast at a little coffee shop we like In Lowell – just across the state line in NC – and then on to George Poston Park to check out a couple of more of their beautiful trails. It was such a great day to be in the woods & check out some of the details of the forest floor.

Our house is kind of in between the high school, the golf course, and the soccer field, so Lindee & the girls stop by sometimes to change clothes for their different activities. Last week when they were here, Mallory had finished golf practice, and was then on her way back to the high school to take pictures of the volleyball game for the yearbook. They had just gotten their new yearbook staff sweatshirts (something I don’t ever remember getting when I was on the annual staff), so I got to see her in it before she headed out. It was the softest thing, and so pretty.

Last week the Clover High School girls’ golf team wound down, with the final regular season match at Tega Cay. And for the first time ever in a high school match, Mallory and Clara played in a foursome together. Lindee said they were not thrilled with that news at first, but it surely was fun for their grandparents to watch. That’s Mallory watching as Clara teed off on the first hole.

It was a fun day at the golf course when we played Rock Hill High. When we were getting a cart Henry Owen, who was Addie’s age and had grown up in our church, came in to get one also – his daughter is in middle school, but was playing for Rock Hill High just like Clara is doing. Also the girl that was playing #1 for Rock Hill against Mallory said she knew Charlie very well. Love that. I got this one picture of both of the teams before play started.

With all of the sports and activities that our grandchildren have been involved in, we have never had a football player before. We have never had one on any sort of junior pro or little league football team, but when the coach asked Adam to try out this year, he decided to give it a whirl. And he is absolutely loving it. Unfortunately, due to all of the quarantining with covid, this year they had to combine the 7th and 8th grade teams, and the 7th graders are getting virtually no playing time. He doesn’t seem too upset about that, though, and keeps hanging in there. He’s # 28.

I have absolutely no idea what I pushed on my camera to get this picture of Clara at the golf match last week, but I definitely had to share it, whatever it was :-). I actually love it, because if you look in the background, you can see Mallory mid-swing a couple of holes ahead of Clara. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a shot like that before – and it looks like it came out of a coloring book. Ha.

I had never been to Springfield to watch Mallory play, and when we got there she told me she hadn’t played there since she was in 7th grade – when I was still working, and didn’t get to see many of her matches at all. Here she is in action.