The Whos down in Who-ville...

We're definitely having a Doctor-flavored Christmas this year. It makes it easy to buy gifts when the kids are into something "hip."

Here is the crowning glory... a Tardis! I designed it using  two shower curtains from Think-Geek and a PVC frame built by Tony!  The kids like it, but we'll have to see if they figure out how to play with it!

"Ice" Skating

The City of Anderson got a synthetic ice rink this year. The Brookwood boys went to try it out on the half day just before Winter Break.
It was just perfect for us: small, not too crowded, and not too slippery!

Santa Run 2015: Juliet and John

It was cold! 32 degrees but clear and sunny. We warmed up while running, but it was cold before and after. John said it wasn't like what he thought. He thought we would "be running through the trees with decorations of reindeer and sleighs." That would have been cool!

Before:
John is wearing the pants to my Santa suit around his booty like a sweater. The beard kept his face warm.

After at the Start line.

John said he thinks his time was 43:16, so I was right after that. That's good for us, with no training!

Mommy and Christopher to Kentucky

Christopher and I went to Kentucky to see a friend and to pick up a computer. We had a good time. It's lots of fun doing things one on one with the boys...

This is my work friend, Sandra. She is one of the loveliest people I know, probably one of the loveliest people on the planet! She has a talent for communication, both in languages and diplomacy, and she has the gift of being able to see the best in everyone without being blind to human faults.

Eugene Power was a pioneering entrepreneur who founded University Microfilms International, which eventually became ProQuest, the company for which I work. A couple years ago, the company did a comic book marketing gimmick, and Sandra rescued the cardboard cutout, which was destined for the recycling bin.

 Christopher was impressed with all the cool stuff Sandra had in her basement gym, including a trampoline and a total gym.

Here's a picture the first night. We made it to Richmond and he fell asleep in the car.

Here's an action shot from our second night, at the Galt House in Louisville. It was a really nice room, but they don't have enough elevators...

 

Here's a picture in front of the Convention Center on 4th street in Louisville. He's standing on a fountain that is shut down for the winter.

Here is the nativity in front of the Galt House. Christopher kept saying "It's Bay-Jee Bee-Sus" or something silly.

Here is Christopher over Market Street on the Skyway. That's Actors Theatre on the right!

Here is the huge line of cars for the Mega Cavern lights tour. Evidently there is a huge cave underneath Southeast Louisville. They have offices and a zip line type amusement park there. There were massive amounts of people in line for the drive-thru Christmas lights show, but it was very well organized. You drove up into a line of cars on a grid in a parking lot, and they released each line every 2 minutes or so. In the first clump there were 8 lines of 10-15 cars. Then we drove through an industrial park and in the second lot there were about 20 rows of 20-25 cars. Thankfully they had sets of port-a-potties at each parking lot. I think we were in line for about an hour. Thank goodness for the kindle!

On the way home we swung by Mammoth Cave National Park, one of those places I always meant to visit when we lived in Louisville... We did the Frozen Niagara tour, which was only 1/4 of a mile into the cave, but it lasted about an hour. That was probably 15-30 minutes too long for Christopher, but he was brave and stuck it out. 

Walking into school

I was trying to take a picture from behind the two boys while they were walking in to school. They were walking close together and John was gently teasing Christopher and he was smiling. But by the time I got my phone camera out (my phone and I together are the slowest entity on the planet), Christopher caught me and looked back. Everyone was actually happier IRL than it looks!

Another man's trash

After having a conversation with friends last night about simplifying, tidying, and de-cluttering, I figured it would be a good idea to dig a bunch of boxes out of the neighbor's trash for the kids to play with...
They made "mechs," which I think are giant robots that you get inside and control. There was lots of planning and "what if we do this?"

Chau Ram County Park and Riley Moore Falls

My intention was to just go to Riley Moore Falls, but I couldn't find it at first, so we backtracked a couple of miles to Chau Ram County Park, to which we had never been.

It's nice, on the Chauga River, with a couple miles of trails, most of them along the river with interesting climbing rocks.

There are 7 sets of rapids. I was too scared to let the kids do anything but swim on the small beach on a slow moving part of the river, but I would definitely let them wade if we had another responsible adult with us next time. We did half of the blue loop, cut across on the double red trail, and then a quarter of the orange loop.

 There is also a nice suspension bridge that swings noticeably when you walk across it. We watched a couple of tubers going underneath it. We all agreed that it was pretty boring at that point. We saw several other people with inner tubes but couldn't tell where they were getting in and out.

Riley Moore Falls is another of the amazing water falls trails in upstate South Carolina. Evidently there are two Cobb Bridge Roads about 8 miles apart. I accidentally took the first one. The GPS set me straight on our second attempt. Coming up from Westminster, it is the right turn onto the SECOND Cobb Bridge Road. The one NOT next to the Calvary Church...

After 2 miles of gravel road, we saw some other cars parked near a more rugged gravel turn off. We could have gotten about 3/4 of a mile closer to the trail, but it was fine. The weather was great today and it was downhill, so we didn't care (at that point!).

The trail was pretty nicely cleared, 1.2 miles, slightly downhill with patches of steeper downhill. There were lots (10-20) people there, mostly families, swimming and hanging out on the beach. The bottom is sand and gravel, with the occasional rock. The current was present and persistent, but not completely unmanageable. I stayed close to both boys, just in case. The water was pretty cold.

We spent most of the time swimming to and from the big rock. A group of cub scouts came about a half hour before we left, so one or two of them jumped and swam with John. There were the usual knee bruises from bumping into rocks in water, but nothing arm-breaking!
 

The boys were tired on the way back, Christopher especially, but no one melted down. My kids are pretty resilient on the trail. When we got home, my fitbit said we walked 8 miles, but my guess was closer to 5 or 6. I keep forgetting to take my GPS to get a more accurate reading.

We all agreed it was a good day, and we definitely want to go back to Riley Moore Falls, with some friends next time!

Proud to be "that house"

Now that my sisters and I have kids who can go to other people's houses and play without parent supervision, we've starting talking about being the house in the neighborhood where all the kids hang out. Jenny has been thinking about it for awhile, asking our Aunt Jennie, who had three boys and definitely had "that house." Aunt Jennie said the most important thing was having good snacks.

I've bored everyone going on and on about how much I love our neighborhood and how lucky we are to have so many good friends with kids here. We are also lucky that all the kids really like hanging out at all the houses. But now that summer is here, I'm stepping up the game to meet the hangout challenge. (What that really means is having Tony do a bunch of extra, arguably unnecessary home projects).

But he surpassed my expectations with his home-made ball catcher. We like living on the high side of the hill, but if you don't shag a ball quickly enough, it is GONE into the slope of poison ivy across the street.

Last year, I put up a rickety attempt at a ball catcher, but I wanted a better one, since Tony lowered the basketball goal and now that the kids have also started playing wall ball and tennis in the driveway.

I also bought a 2 gallon water jug for outside, and put a shoe bin in the foyer and a first aid kit in the half-bath next to the garage. Tony put a power strip for the kindle chargers in our Lego room. I bought a big box of popsicles for the freezer. We cleaned out and restocked the granola bar/cracker cabinet. We're working on the garage, which has a small swinging rope and two punching bags. And a questionably functional air hockey table. What I really want is a hand dryer for the half bath, but budget and square footage won't really allow for that...maybe next year.

Summer sort of started last Friday, but this week is the real beginning! Hooray!

4K graduation: Christopher

Miss Kristina took a fabulous picture of a cute boy!

Ivory Household

My sister sent me a link about putting ivory soap in the microwave. She sent it at a propitious time, when I had already planned a trip to Walmart and had already started thinking in summer kid entertainment mode. So we did it today, with our friend and neighbor, James.  We took it one further and made "ghost mud" of the microwaved soap, toilet paper, and water.

 

 It was a hit because they actually played with it for 30-45 minutes, and James was happy to take his "eye of Cthlulu"* home with him.

 After they molded brains, balls, and a space ship, I let them add food coloring. I didn't get any pictures of that.

 Thanks for the great idea, Aunt Jenny!

*No, they aren't reading HP Lovecraft, Eye of Cthulu is a character in Terraria, which is the new Minecraft.

It's the little things

From Christopher's best, most favorite and awesome 4K teacher:

"I will miss him singing in the bathroom."

Happy Mother's Day

Tony is out of town until Thursday, so the boys took me to IHOP, then we went to the Bike Skills Flow Park at Gateway Park in Travelers Rest.


It was awesome!

Christopher rode his balance bike on the pump track and practice loop. He practiced pedaling with his Thomas bike in the parking lot and in a divet (which allowed for stationary biking). He's too big for both...


John had a great time. He was pretty good at it right off the bat.


We all agreed we want to go back. But earlier in the morning. It got really hot!

Camping

Tony was in tech last weekend, so I took the boys to Twin Lakes for a night of car camping. It is a Corps of Army Engineers park that is about 10 minutes from the house!
It was really quite perfect. The temperature was low humidity, around 75 during the day and down to 55 at night. Very Goldilocks, not too hot, not too cold.

Our spot was so awesome, even though it was the second to the last one left in the whole park. We were right across the street from the playground, which was right next door to the bathroom. I think we were one of three tents in the 30-site loop we were on. The rest were RV's. We saw one other family of kids, but most were retirees in their fabulous RVs. Nice and quiet. Our next door neighbor brought me his hammer because I forgot my mallet. Actually the tent pad was nice and sandy, so I was able to just push the little aluminum pegs in with my foot.

I was not very good at making a fire, which mostly smoked. Fortunately, the wind pushed the smoke across the lake, so hopefully I didn't bother anyone too much. It burned enough to make s'mores and lukewarm hot dogs, so expectations were met.

The boys and I set up camp, they were a great help, and John and I actually had no trouble getting the rain fly over the top. The wind helped with that. Then we went back to the Turners' house for a pot luck, then came back with Fly and settled in for the night. The boys were great, Fly was not. He really is better when he sleeps in his crate... but he finally settled down mostly, sharing the end of Christopher's sleeping bag.

Next morning, we took Fly back home (we can't fit the gear and the dog in the car at the same time) and brought Henry back with us. Then the boys hung out and played "sink the leaf battle" and "bury John in the sand" for about 2-3 hours. Good times!