Mayo Park hike

Our friends, Matt and Kallie, called us a couple Saturdays ago and invited us to go for a hike in the Mayo Park near Mayodan, NC. It was a great hike and the kids had a fun time together, as always.

Looking at the spiders under the bridge.

Gabe and Addy keeping each other company.

Olivia had to have 2 walking sticks to help her along. :)

The kids spent the majority of the hike collecting acorns and rocks.

Mudbug 2010

Rebecca and I embarked on our first mud run on Saturday with the 2nd Annual Mudbug Run. It's a 3.1 mile (5k), 18-obstacle course that was such a blast to run. We couldn't have had better weather, either. Not too hot and not too cold, though the pit filled with ice water certainly didn't help anything... and neither did the mud pits, slogs through ponds, climbing over 5' fences, giant hay bales and jumping over fires. However, it was enough fun that we are definitely hooked and going to do this again. It was never our intention to try to win any awards, we just went to have fun and we did.

Sadly, most of the course is through the woods, so we don't have any pictures  of that but our friend Matt grabbed our camera and snapped a few shots as we came in to the last couple of obstacles.

Through the ice water bath. Yeah. It was cold.

Hopping from one pit of muddy water to another. This and the ice bath managed to wash of most of the mud, which was kinda nice. 

The Big @$s wall was the last obstacle and yes, it was a rather big wall. Unfortunately, we had to wait about 5 minutes in line for it, but that was the only one all day and we didn't care about our times.

What a blast! I couldn't have had a better partner for it. :)

Emma in the swing

We took the kids out to Triad Park in Colfax last week and had a great time as always. Emma got to ride in a swing for the first time and just loved it!

Then, after getting home and getting ready for bed, she was still feisty and blowing raspberries. Too cute! It didn't help that Daddy was egging her on....

Bug Fest 2012!

A few weeks ago, we went to Bug Fest in Raleigh at the Museum of Natural Science. There were so many displays of live bugs to see! 

Mine and Olivia's favorite: large, creepy, nasty spiders. I prefer them displayed on the bottom of my shoe.

O getting a closer look st some little spiders

Even Emma was enjoying herself.

Gabe wanted to see the scorpions up close.

Ezra, however, wanted to see crickets.

Some massive stick-like bug that I didn't get the name of. O was brave enough to touch, but wouldn't hold it.

Rebecca was game, tho. :)

Seeing all the different types of grasshoppers, locusts and crickets was amazing.

No, that's not a bug, but a puffer fish. There were displays scattered throughout the building, so we got to see some of the regular exhibits, too.

A Snapping Turtle. Olivia had been reading Minn of the Mississippi, which is about a snapper that travels the whole length of the river.

A really neat termite display. a certain brand of pen has ink that smells like the pheromones a termite uses to mark a path. If you click the picture and look closely, there is a tiny white termite following the lines drawn of the paper. They will follow that line all day long.

Impressive chalk art

They had a discovery room where the kids could go and do all kinds of bug-related activities like dress up as a bug, play games, look at things under a microscope, etc.

All-in-all, it was a very fun day. We look forward to going back next year! :)

Way to go, Rebecca!!!

Rebecca ran in her 1st ever 5K race on October 6th. She ran in the Cone Health Women's Only Race for breast cancer.  

 Both of us started doing the Couch to 5K Training program about 3 months ago, so this was a great culmination to that program. Unfortunately, I have not been able to run one yet, especially since after about 7 weeks of the program, I developed some pretty bad shin splints and have had to cut my running back until they heal.

Rebecca did a great job, finishing the rather hilly course in 34:46.

Rebecca left earlier than the rest of us to register for the race. I came later with the kids. Unfortunately, it was complete chaos and couldn't find her before the race started. This picture is of the group she started in, but I haven't found her in it yet.

More than 3,500 people entered the race.

I figured our best chance of finding her was to wait by the finish line. The boys kept a close watch out for her.

Sure enough! There she is!

The kids loved cheering her on as she finished. "Go Mommy, Go!"

 Overall, Rebecca finished 521st out of 3,168 people who finished. In her 30-34 age group, she was 64 of 365. We're proud of you, hon!

A Welcome Visitor

Uncle Greg and Aunt Morgan had to go to a wedding one weekend recently and couldn't bring their dog, Sookie, along with them. Greg asked if we could watch her and we agreed. The kids were SO excited! They loved having a dog in the house again and Sookie was such a sweetheart. She immediately made herself at home on the couch and Olivia's bed. Olivia loved having her around to read books to. When Greg came to pick her up the next afternoon, the kids immediately wanted to know whe she could come back!

 

 

Colonial Williamsburg

After 2 fun-filled days at the Great Wolf Lodge, we spent our last day in Williamsburg walking around the Colonial Village.

 

The first stop in our walk was the Great Hopes Plantation, where we get a glimpse into the lives of 18th century farmers and slaves. We learned that kids as young as Gabe would be out in the fields working from dawn to dusk! I guess we really spoil our kids... :)

 

The kids thought the empty water bucket was heavy... heaven forbid it was full!

Olivia got to see some homemade dolls in the slave house. We learned that the small (16'x16') cabin housed 12-14 slaves.

She also got to try her hand at grinding some corn.

A saw pit was going with two guys hewing logs into beams for a new building in the village. They recently finished construction of a new armory (blacksmith) building and they used as many 18th century techniques as they could. A worker explained that some things, like cedar shingles are not as practical to create on-site sonce they don't have the right kind of cedars in the area, so they had them shipped in from Florida and Georgia.

 

Our next stop was a small building that housed all kinds of toys and clothes that kids would have had in the 1770s. All 3 of the kids immediately found the ball and peg toy and proceeded to spend at least 10 minutes trying their hands at it.

 

  

 

 

Bean toss was pretty popular, too.

Olivia learned about the different economic classes and how to tell them apart from pictures of their clothes, toys, dishes and houses.

"Shut The Box" is a game that they used to teach numbers and math for the kids. You flip all the numbers up and roll the dice. Then you knock down the number or numbers that you rolled. So a with a 7, you could knock down 5 and 2, 3 and 4, 6 and 1 or just 7. You keep rolling and knocking down numbers until you roll something you can't knock down. Then you add up the numbers you have left and whoever gets the lowest number wins.

 

 

 

 

We went to see the garden and a gardener was out turning the soil for planting fall crops. Olivia asked if it was hard to do by hand and he leet her try it out. She didn't think it was too hard, but a tiller would make it easier!

Next was the printer. Olivia thought it was amazing how many little letters they had to put together just to make one page.

 

I took the kids over to the new armory, which is actually a blacksmith. The Magazine is actually where they store weapons and powder.

 

The boys immediately gravitated to the keys.

Olivia thought the tongs were so neat because the were springy but didn't have a spring like ours at home.

We watched the smith make nails for a few minutes.

The shoemaker's shop. Whatever you do, don't call him a cobbler. Cobblers fix shoes.

 

 

 

 

 Our final stop of the day was at the revolutionary encampment. Olivia joined the other kids in training to use a musket.

 

 

 

 

"BOOM!"

 

For the ride home, we decided to take the Jamestown/Scotland ferry across the James River. We have taken it before and the kids always enjoy going on a boat.

 

 

We passed another ferry going the other way. It was the ferry we rode last time we came up.

Despite the lack of pictures, Emma was on the trip with us. :)