Day Trip to Atlanta

The World of Coca-Cola had a few interesting areas, but for the most part was not worth the price of admission.

We found far too many disgusting flavors in the international tasting area--why mess with a good thing?

We washed out the bad tastes with the good ol' American flavors.

Then we headed across the block to the Georgia Aquarium--definitely worth the price of admission!

Waiting for the live dolphin show to start

It was a bit intense with a whole fictional sailors vs sea monster story with actors breaking into song at various times. The dolphin tricks were intertwined in the story.

Brennan freaked out and spent the whole show in tears.

Aidan liked it.

Marian moved up closer with Thomas in the hopes of getting splashed by the dolphins.

This exhibit ("Ocean Voyager") was immense to say the least!

Many LARGE fish in here including big manta rays and whale sharks

It's hard to describe the scale of the whale sharks, but this employee was a tall man himself.

Marian and Aidan waited in line for the chance to pop up in the penguin exhibit for a closer look.

Brennan was still jittery from the dolphin show, so he didn't want to go in any dark tunnel.

At the coral reef exhibit which had waves crashing at the top.

It was a very peaceful room.

More Outings

When Thomas came back into town, we went back to the Botanical Gardens at Clemson with Evan and Brennan, this time taking the the much prettier, shorter route!

Cabin from the mid-1800s.

Brennan enjoyed peeking in the windows

That afternoon, we took Marian, Aidan, and Brennan to Duke Power for the self-guided tour in their visitors center to learn all about nuclear energy! Aidan really liked it, so we went through a second time, and he asked to go back every day afterwards.

When you drive past it to get to the lake house, all you see through the trees is the white ball (I'm going to assume it's a water tower, since that's what it looks like to me), so the kids were surprised to find out this whole facility was hiding back there.

The butterfly chair in their Butterfly Garden

The kids making places light up on the map

Greenville Zoo

We made another day trip to Greenville to check out their zoo! It's small (took us about an hour and a half to see the whole thing) but very nice.

The reptile house had this ledge running along the whole wall for the littler ones to stand on so they could see in--very cute! Evan loved it!

More ledges for Evan

The bamboo forest

The boys were enthralled with the alligators and alligator turtle, while Marian was less than thrilled to be in the room with them.

They sold us some prepackaged crackers at the gate and said we could feed lots of the animals (elephants, giraffes,...) but we couldn't figure out how in the world you were supposed to get the food to those animals. Even throwing it to them, it would have landed too short for them to reach. So the goats got to eat 3 packages of crackers. They didn't mind!

Evan thought he should show them how it's done. He wasn't scared of them at all!

Tubing

Uncle Joe and Aunt Jackie gave the kids a thrill by taking us out tubing.

You couldn't go fast enough for Aidan

Marian would have liked to have been on the tube and just let the current take her wherever with no help from the boat. She kept wanting to slow down.

Back to South Carolina

For my birthday, Marian and I went to see "Harry Potter". There were only 4 other people in the theater with us. One perk of a small town in the bible belt!

So, to make it fair, I had to take Aidan to see "Transformers". I tried to get him to see "Captain America" but he was set on "Transformers". We were in the theater with 2 other people!

One of Evan and Brennan's favorite pastimes: run around with the laundry baskets on their heads!
Another favorite of theirs was Cooper, my cousin's dog, who was being babysat by my other aunt and uncle. Poor Cooper put up with a lot from these two.

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.