School Bells

Let me take a hiatus from the summer adventures to post back-to-school pictures.

Marian, Aidan, and Brennan all started back last week

Brennan is in Pre-K at a different school than last year, so he had a whole new slew of classmates, teachers, school, bus drivers (and bus pick-up time--ugh) to get used to. So far, so good! Teachers say he's doing great and playing well with the other kids. He protests being woken up so early (so do I), but it's nice only having to deal with one kid at a time. I let him sit for 10 minutes on the couch, then approach with clothes, then found that if I promised him we could go look at construction trucks outside, he would eat a waffle while waiting for the bus to arrive. He's been very happy about seeing the bus every morning, so yay for that!

Aidan started 2nd grade and seems to like his teacher. No complaints from him, except for homework--20 minutes of reading, gasp! Dare I tell him it gets worse?


Marian started 6th grade--middle school! Also going well, as far as I can tell. The only problem so far has been that her gym locker is too high up for her to be able to see it well enough to put the combination in. But I think she's getting the hang of it!

Evan started preschool (mother's day out) yesterday

Backpack was a little too heavy, but he liked wearing it around the house

The backpack won!

He was very gung-ho about it, striding down the hall in front of me. Ok, so he took a few wrong turns, but I don't think it was on purpose! He did really well at the cookie-lookie (meet the teacher) last week. They said he was the only one to wear his nametag, and never cried. So, I was wary as the other boys did fine at their cookie-lookies also, and would then cry on the first day, since now they knew it meant I was leaving them. Evan got a little clingy, but I managed to get him playing with one of the teachers and tiptoe away. I peeked in the window and I did see him start to cry, but I think it was b/c there were others who came in screaming, so it set them all off. The teachers said he was (the only one in their class) dancing to the music at chapel, so he was fine within minutes. He only fussed at naptime since sleeping on a napmat is a whole new experience, but did fall asleep. He was playing happily in the toy kitchen when I came to pick him up!

Kid Heaven

We spend the rest of the morning, lunch, and early afternoon at The Children's Museum of the Upstate in Greenville. It was WONDERFUL! We could have stayed there from open to close and the kids would have been highly entertained the entire time. 3 stories tall, everyone in the family had a corresponding wristband which the adults had to be scanned to open the doors to the cafeteria or leave through the front doors (no lost or run-away kids!), and even on a Saturday--it wasn't that busy! Must be nice to live in a small town!

Evy loved the water tables

There were even little water proof jackets and baby seats so even littler ones could get in on the action too!
On the other side of that room, the big kid water table involved more sciency with the motion of water, and currents, and a big water wheel showing the 'power of water', but still interactive and fun for them to try to get their boats to go where they wanted them to go.

A whole room full of music makers made of random things.

Evy with the warped mirror

Evan and Brennan loved 'driving' the recycling truck. I don't have any pics of Brennan on it, so it must be on Mom's camera.

Definitely Brennan's favorite area: construction zone!

The kids would fill the wheelbarrows with fake bricks, bring them over to the conveyor belt until the conveyor belt was full, then turn the wheel as fast as they could to make the bricks drop on the other side. Fascinated so many of them for the longest time!

So strong!!

Aidan was a pro at this 'crane'

Build your own car then race it

Big race cars!

Well, we were in Nascar country!

This Escher-like climbing zone was 2 stories tall

The power of the pulley

The grocery store is always a big hit!

Brennan is trying to put the entire bushel of lemons in his basket.

Marian loved helping the kids put all their items back on the shelves, and was ready to take over management of the whole store.

First Impressions Aren't Everything

So we decided to spend the morning in Greenville before meeting Gramps' 2pm airplane. First we stopped at the Children's Garden at Linky Stone Park. Here's what the Greenville website says:

"The Children's Garden is a multi-themed garden designed to enrich children's intelligence, creativity and well-being through exploration and discovery. The garden is located at Linky Stone Park, a 1.7-acre greenspace along the Reedy River, between downtown Greenville and the revitalized West End."

What it really is is just an area under an overpass, right after you've just gone through an iffy part of town (albeit along "Shoeless Joe Jackson Memorial" road) right before you get to downtown Greenville, that would have freaked us out enough to keep driving on by, except we were there on a Saturday and it's right next to a very popular biking/running trail (Swamp Rabbit Trail) and this is where a lot of people park. So there were enough cars and normal looking people around that the urge to keep driving past dissipated!

Someone did A LOT of work to fit as much as they did into such a tiny area. This ended up being MUCH more than met the eye at first glance!

Brennan in front of Hansel and Gretel's Gingerbread House in the 'Fairy Tale Forest'

Then there was a 'Storybook Garden'

The entrance to "The Secret Garden", one of Grammy's favorite books

Evan in 'The Secret Garden'

The boys checking out 'Peter Rabbit' and his story painted on the fence

Very cute turtle in the 'Sculpture Garden'

Evan making music in the 'Science Garden'

Brennan checking out his letter in the 'ABC Garden'

We had to go back to the 'Fairy Tale Forest' to check out the 3 bears that had been occupied when we first arrived.

There was also a '5 senses garden', 'rainbow garden', 'wildlife walk' and more! It was SUPER CUTE!

Greenville far exceeded my expectations, and there are still things there that we didn't get to go check out that I'd like to do next time. A "Mice on Main Street" hunt with clues online to find these 9 little mice sculptures along the street, and Main Street itself looked like it had really interesting shops and a festival was going on with the street blocked off when we went past on another weekend. They also have a minor league baseball team with a park that is supposed to be a replica of Fenway Park, so I'm sure that would be fun to do sometime also!

At the bottom of this link (http://www.greenvillesc.gov/ParksRec/ChildrensGarden.aspx) is a link for the 'map' of the garden, which I'm sure must be full of color in the spring time.

Garden Trail

Grammy and I took the kids to Clemson University to visit the Botanical Gardens there. We somehow missed the parking lot right at the front, and ended up parking near the back where the hiking trail through the woods is, not the nice pavered trail through the gardens.

So, by the time we figured out where we were and made our way through the woods to the duck pond, we were a hot, tired bunch.

Evan not only absolutely refused to get in the jogging stroller, if you set him down he wanted to go the opposite way of where you were trying to go! So he had to be carried the entire way.

Finally, some shade in the hosta gardens

The caboose was the highlight of the boys' day!

The A/C at Chick-fil-A was ours!

Visitors

My aunt and uncle were babysitting their 'grand-dogs' and brought them over for a swim and ride on their boat. Evan is such an animal lover, but especially for dogs! Instead of just saying 'dog', he sticks out his tongue and pants whenever he sees one.

Evan was happily feeding himself, the dogs, and anyone else who wanted a cracker

With Callie

He LOVES getting kisses and licks from dogs!

I'm sure Nala LOVED getting crackers from Evan!

The landscaper came over for a swim with his 4 boys who are almost exactly the same age as our kids (11, 8, 6, and 18 mos)

They're trying to catch fish in the buckets, with the favorite dock fish food--cheesy puffs!

We also spent some time this week with my cousin and her family, but sadly ended up with no pictures! Marian and Aidan loved hanging out with Emily, Joe, and Stevie, while Brennan had a great time with their Uncle Bob (also my cousin) and the water guns!

A Day in the Woods

We took Marian, Aidan, and Brennan for a hike that we though would end at a waterfall. It eventually did...

We started at a lookout point inside Duke Energy land.

Drove to a trailhead and made our lonely way through the forest.

Just as we reached the creek, we finally ran into some other people, who hike the trail every week in their retirement, to take note of what needs to be taken care of along the trail (fallen trees, etc). They told us the easy way to get to the waterfall, thank goodness!
Which is to hike the one mile back to the car, drive another mile or 2 up the road, and take the paved path 1/4 mile up the hill to the waterfall lookout!

Aha! This was a much more populated place!

Whitewater Falls in North Carolina

Aidan nearly got carsick on the way home from here. Too many windy roads for this Houston-native!