Summer: Rest Recoup Revive

The end of July was so much more low key than the beginning. The last few weeks have been some of the quietest since school got out. Calla and Noah spent a week at Grandma's together taking tennis lessons in the morning, and keeping busy in a millions different ways the rest of the time. Then last week, Grandma took Calla to Carowinds for the day, just the girls. They rode just about everything and stayed until the park closed down. This coming week is Noah's turn to go with Grandma to Carowinds. I am not sure they can do as much since he still has a few more inches to go to catch up with Calla.

Summer has been exactly what it should be, hanging around with lots of friends, whether at the pool or at playgroup, staying inside out of the heat watching lots of movies, reading lots of books and driving mommy lots of crazy!

Fun at the park.Swimming with friends to beat the heat!

Awesome playgroup with great friends...lots and lots of friends.

Summer is not complete without a good water balloon fight.

And a great big picnic.

Ahhh, a picturesque rainbow after a good ole southern thunderstorm.

Now that is SUMMERTIME!

Staycation

This year we had no major vacations planned, other than the occasional daytrip. So when Jeff recently had a week off work we decided to turn his vacation into a staycation. And boy did it start off with a BANG!! On the 4th of July, well really the 3rd of July, we celebrated Independence Day watching the parade with some great friends. Then we all came back to the house for a cookout. Despite the variety of outdoor games and picnic tables, we all ended up inside with the air conditioning, go figure. Once dusk fell, our little clan trooped uptown to watch the fireworks. Almost everyone loved them. Micah had a rough start that night and did NOT like all the noise, but in the end he fell in love and muttered "Mommy, they beautiful". So Sweet. Noah showing off some of his goodies he caught from the parade.All the kids anxiously waiting for instruction on how to use the "popper" fireworks.Ah, the fun part, everyone throwing their poppers.A friendly game of Ladder Ball.The main attraction...FIREWORKS!!! You would think after such a long day and night everyone would be exhausted, but they weren't. We got home around 10:15 and then set off our own little stash of fireworks with the neighbors. Finally after a late movie, we got to bed and woke up to a lazy Sunday morning.

Monday we met up with Grandma for a day at the zoo. Since Jeff had the week off, it was a rare treat for our hands to outnumber the kids! The zoo was beautiful and hot, but for the most part we stayed in the shade.

Tuesday and Wednesday we recuperated and ran countless errands. Followed by Thursday where we took a day trip to Asheville. The weather was perfect and we got to enjoy the breathtaking gardens at Biltmore for most of the afternoon.

Although we left a bit later than expected, we decided to try and squeeze in a trip to the WNC Nature Center. We had heard about a new butterfly exhibit that allows you to see every part of the butterfly's transformation from cocoon to adult butterfly. It was a fantastic exhibit and we even got some tips on how to make our garden attract more butterflies. The best part of the exhibit is when they spray sugar water on your hands and you can try and catch them. Calla got one to land on her hands! Noah was visibly upset that he couldn't catch one, but he was just a bit to jumpy for the quiet butterflies.

Finally after a full week of outings we just rested on Friday...and Saturday...and Sunday.