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.

After Mallory, Meg, Little Hope, & I finished up at Falls Park, we walked up to the Peace Center to see the sculptures that were on display there. I thought this one was very appropriate with the Olympics coming up next month.

From there we went on to a fantastic bookstore Hope told Mallory about, a couple of blocks on up the street. It really was one of the coolest ones I’ve been in in a very long time. This was the decor on the bathroom walls. Fantastic.

This is a weird school year, in that all of the kids get out for the summer on different days. Mallory’s last day of exams was last Friday, so today, on her first day of summer break, we celebrated by picking up Meg and then meeting Little Hope in Greenville to take in the Wings Over Greenville exhibit. It was mostly in Reedy Park on the Falls River, and were sculptures by Mexican artist Jorge Marin, mostly of a man with wings that represented different aspects of life. This one was an observer. They really were very cool.

This one was called Wings Over Mexico – a photo op for everyone who came to see the exhibit.