Long time gone.......

I know it has been awhile since I last posted but things here seem to be crazier than ever. With three kids at three different schools, I seem to stay on the road most of the day. That doesn't leave much time for doing anything else and by late evening all I want to do is plop in the bed.


Last weekend we went to Tweetsie Railroad for Harrison's 5th birthday. He loves cowboys. In fact, he didn't want to stop wearing his boots when summer came. I told him, in an ever so nice way, that boots were meant for winter and jeans. Not for summer and shorts. Well, he fixed me because he chose to wear jeans for a better part of the summer. I would put out shorts for him to wear and down he would come with boots and jeans. I stopped fighting about it after awhile because it was a battle I just wasn't going to win. But back to our trip to Tweetsie.


My parent's joined us on the trip. We rented a pretty 2 bedroom cabin with a loft. The picture doesn't do it justice. It was beautifully decorated inside and was in a perfect location, about 6 miles to Blowing Rock and a mile from the Blue Ridge Parkway.


On Saturday when we got there, we headed to Linville Caverns. My parent's went to these caverns on their honeymoon, 45 years ago. I have been a few times since but am still awed every time I visit. The kids were amazed at the beautiful rock formations and enjoyed being able to walk in real caves. The picture of this stalactite reminds me of one of the sea creatures in Pirates of the Caribbean. It is actually covered with algae from the light that shines on it.

Saturday evening, we ate at a restaurant called The Canyons, that sat high up on the edge of a mountain and overlooked a beautiful valley. Sunday morning, we had a pancake breakfast (compliments of my mom, cook extraordinaire) and then headed to Tweetsie for the day. They have a steam engine that takes you for a ride around the park. During the ride, you experience Cowboy and Indian fights. During one particularly intense moment when and Indian ran by the train and jumped up at the window were Harrison was sitting, he looked at me and said "I am ready for this ride to be over, it's scaring me." The rest of our day was less intense and we all had fun on the rides and at the petting zoo.


Monday, we did some shopping in downtown Blowing Rock and then headed back home to get ready for school the next day. It ended up being a long day because we had to go back to Charlotte and load up the remainder of our stuff to haul to Charleston. We also had to make a detour to drop David off in Columbia so that he could be at his corporate office on Tuesday morning. By the time we got home, we were totally exhausted.


Tuesday was Harrison's first day of kindergarten. His teacher, Miss Pat, is a sweet English lady who has been teaching kindergarten for many years. She is going to have her hands full because Harrison's class is seven boys and one girl. He was excited to go and meet his new friends. His only complaint was that they didn't get recess. I asked him had they gone outside and he said that they had. I told him then that was recess but he didn't buy it. I guess he has something else in mind.


The rest of the week was a blur between shuttling kids to and fro and running all my errands and washing the loads of clothes that had accumulated since the last laundry session. I did get my new super duper extra large Whirlpool Duet front load washer and dryer this week so that helped with all the loads of laundry. And let me just tell you that I did not realize how bad my other dryer was until I started using the new one.


I am glad it is the weekend so I can get a little rest. We are going to visit my grandmother tomorrow for her birthday (it's today actually). I haven't seen her in awhile so I am really looking forward to spending some time with her. Haley is going to interview her for a class project. I am anxious to hear her answers to Haley's questions. I might even throw a few in myself.


Harrison is now hanging on me wanting me to go and find his Buddy (blanket) so I guess that will wrap this blog up. You can ignore them for only so long.