Summer Break 2017

The end of summer break is upon us.  I go back to work tomorrow, and the kids start back next week.  This summer has flown by, but we've had some fun.  Below are some of the things that we've accomplished in our time off.

We finally made it out to Laura Walker State Park to see the new boardwalk.

We found one geocache along the trail at Laura Walker.  This is not impressive because we searched for three and only found the one.  We remain the worst geocachers ever.

 I tried to convince the kids to swim in the lake, but they were not having it.

 Owen attended a three day basketball camp, which he loved.

 Those basketball skills came in handy later in the summer when we went to see the Globetrotters and Owen was chosen to be in the show.

 He was so excited to be chosen.

 The kids participated in summer reading at the library and attended a few of the programs.  The coolest program was a STEM camp that taught the kids how to use a soldering iron.  Parents were required to participate with their children because those irons are hot.  Owen did so well with this.  He used the iron to assemble a "Weevil Eye" kit and it worked.

 After hearing the safety lesson before the soldering workshop, Olivia decided that working with the hot iron was not for her.  So, she did a circuit class instead.

We only had the opportunity to visit Wild Adventures once this summer, and we spent most of the time in the water park.  The kids have gotten to where they like being in the wave pool, so that's where we camped out.



The summer of 2017 was a good one, and I hate to see it go.  Still, we are excited about starting back to school and getting back into our routine.

50th Surprise

Brian's first cousin Brandon turned the big 5-0 last week, and we went up to North Carolina to attend his surprise party.  He was definitely surprised.  Brandon's wife Sandy really went all out.  She had lots of people come from out of town to surprise him, and she had tons of food brought in.  It was really well-planned.  We enjoyed our visit immensely.  We got to catch up with all of the family and meet some other really great people.  Melanie rode up with us, and she also had a really good time.

Since we were only an hour and a half away from Carowinds, we decided to check out the park.  Carowinds is home to Fury 325 (which is the current #1 steel coaster in the world) and Intimidator (current #8 steel coaster). This was the kids first giga-coaster (over 300 feet).  We were impressed with the park overall.  There was a solid line-up of coasters and a good balance of other rides as well.  They also had an attached water park that we visited during the middle of the day because it was sweltering.  The good news is that the heat kept a lot of people in the water park all day, so the lines for the rides in the amusement park were relatively short.

We had such a great weekend, and we can't wait to see everyone again.

Beach Collage

I had so many great pictures from the beach this year, that I've decided to post a few more.

The Deep End

 The kids spent a lot of time in the pool this year.  Unlike years past, a lot of time was spent in the deep end this year.  We had some diving toys, and the kids played with those quite a bit.  Owen, Audrey, and Julianna all made great gains during the week, and were all swimming along with the other kids by the end of the week.

 Audrey went from not wanting to swim in the deep end to going all over the place.

 Julianna was swimming underwater well by the end of the week.

Owen started swimming underwater and diving.  I feel much better about his swimming abilities now than I did before our vacation.

Fishing Week

 Brian always refers to beach week as "fishing week" because that is his favorite vacation activity.  He spends most of his time on the pier.  The kids have also caught the fishing bug, and this is also their number one beach activity. Brian and the kids caught lots of fish (and a couple of sharks) this week.

 A lot of the fishing happens at night.  I think that our crew cleaned Walmart out of all the their headlamps.

Of course, the expectation is that the kids will do all of the "dirty work" themselves- including baiting their hooks, handling the fish, and even some cleaning.  

I'm glad that the kids like doing this with their dad.

The Beach

 Sitting on the beach is my favorite thing to do during the week.  I would usually go down after lunch and stay about 3 hours or so.  The kids came to the beach several times as well.  Their favorite thing to do on the beach is boogie board.  Here are some of my favorite beach pictures from this year.

 Gigi bought the older girls matching swimsuits, and they looked super-cute.