Tuesday, June 18, 2013

wondrous weekend #1: the NC mountains

i think i might have over-scheduled our summer a bit.

we have nine weekends between the last day of school in june and liam's first day of school in august.  it's so short for two reasons: one, our public school system, the genius folk that they are, decided it would be grand idea to have our final day of the 2012-2013 year fall on a monday.  (seriously?!)  and two, liam's new charter school starts back up a few weeks earlier than public schools -- incidentally, on his birthday of august 14.  put all of that together, and we wind up with what will most likely be the briefest summer break our family will ever have.

out of those nine weekends, we are out of town for seven of them.  and for one of the two that remain, liam will be an hour away at a soccer tournament all day saturday.  so really, we've got ONE weekend where we can sleep in, lounge around the house, and not open up our suitcases once.  i'm already longing for july 26 and it's not even technically summer yet.

BUT the good news is, for those seven weekends we're gone, we sure have some super-fun things planned.  we've just back from spending four days with good friends in the mountains.  on friday we head to charlotte for a soccer tournament (well, i guess "super-fun" might not necessarily apply to all family members) but we will also see friends and family in the queen city and perhaps even stop by the beautiful davidson campus for chris to reminisce.  we then head to bald head island with chris's parents, topsail with friends, DC for a dodgers game, and wrap up back at topsail with my extended family.

in an attempt to actually move pictures off of my iPhone and to a place where we can actually look at them, i'm hereby introducing a weekly post that i'll title Wondrous Weekend.  here's our first installment.

brady (6), web (10), liam (8), marshall (6), and susanna (7).  i'm proud to say our lone little girl was a trooper -- she hung out with the boys all weekend with nary a lalaloopsy doll or plastic tiara in sight

the new hot tub proved to be the biggest hit

we did a fairly strenuous hike on friday morning that was four miles up a pretty steep trail.  susanna tuckered out with about a quarter mile left (so she and i hung out on a rock and played I Spy) but the boys made it all the way.  just in case you were wondering, I Spy doesn't last too long on a hiking trail.  "i spy something green!" pretty much sums up everything in sight
 marshall and susanna camped out on night #2 on the front porch.  with temperatures dipping into the low 50s we all expected them to ditch the idea, but they lasted until 5:30 a.m.  their body heat must have kept them warm -- a sweet thought when they're 6 and 7.  and for that reason, it won't even be an option in few years

we participated in a fun painting class in west jefferson -- here's our artist-in-residence, hard at work

she actually solicited my help with the easy parts.  here's our finished product

the longest slide known to man, at a park in west jefferson

oh my ... what to say about this one ... most of the group went tubing on saturday afternoon.  we've gone many times before, but this time turned out to be much different because we really had no way of knowing just how deep and swift the water turned out to be.  i knew that my back couldn't handle sitting in that position for that long, so lainey and i helped them start off, and then drove to the ending point to meet them when they were done.  in the meantime, liam, who was alone in his raft, got totally stuck on the edge of the river and the rest of the adults were moving so fast in their own rafts that they couldn't get over to help him.  after a long while, he finally was able to free himself and eventually caught up to chris and susanna.  a truly frightening experience for all involved (liam was shaking for an hour afterwards) ... but our boy is a survivor and now has a story to tell for sure
how did we spend father's day?  by shopping at the outlets on the way home, of course!  what more could a dad want -- besides, perhaps, a matching hat from j. crew?

it's 2:00 pm and this kid's exhausted, which sums up the weekend perfectly

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