Father's Day Weekend at Lake Junaluska

School's out and we had a wonderful first week!  I took the whole week off and spent it with the kids.  I spent the morning cleaning the house each day.  We had swimming lessons Monday and Wednesday evenings.  Tuesday we went to our neighborhood pool in the afternoon.  Wednesday we met Mimo and Aunt Anna for lunch and they took the kids for a couple hours while I ran some errands. 

Thursday morning I got the three of us, and the dog, packed up and we headed out to my parents.  We got there for lunch and we ended up swimming for a little bit.  The kids are doing well with their swimming.  Will has come a long way!  We can pretty much say he is a swimmer, although he has more to learn.  He usually tries to keep his head out of the water but he is even getting better at going under.  Thursday at my parents' he actually jumped off the diving board and swam to the ladder!!  With no floats and no help!!   Lindy has no problem going under the water and is working hard at the swimming basics.  She actually swims under water much better than above water.  She needs to work on keeping her nose and mouth shut and not drinking half the pool.

We got changed and we continued on our way up to Lake Junaluska for the weekend.  We headed to Katie's parents' mountain house and it was good to be back.  We weren't able to go last June for various reasons and the kids were beyond excited to be back.  So excited that I almost had to send them packing back home.  We had dinner out and then we made s'mores down by the lake.  Will got involved in a game of hide and seek and Lindy and Claire hung out.  We saw Martha so she came to say hi as well.

Friday we spent a lazy morning lounging around the mountain house.  Finally the kids had calmed down a lot.  We finally got ready and out the door and went to play putt putt.  We also went treasure hunting in downtown Waynesboro for a little while.  We got back to the house and not long after Kris and Drew arrived.  We had dinner at Butts on the Creek, a Lake Junaluska tradition, with a friend of ours.   Katie and I ended the evening walking the dog around the lake.  We bumped into Martha early in our walk and she joined us for a beautiful evening walk.  It wasn't a stroll - Martha doesn't stroll - but it was good exercise!

Saturday after the business sessions we headed for an adventure in Bryson City.  We headed to Deep Creek for a picnic and for tubing.  We have never taken the kids tubing before but we had a blast!  You rent tubes and you walk your tubes up and you can get on the creek a ton of different places.  It took all of us to make it work because someone had to carry Lindy and someone had to carry multiple tubes.  Someone also had to stay back with Maisy, the Bryants' dog.  The kids had a blast.  I had Lindy tied to me each trip down the creek.  We started off with Will tied but we untied him the second time.  I still kept ahold of the rope because he would float to parts of the creek and get stuck because he didn't weigh much.  We took three trips down with the kids and then eventually rode the tubes farther down to turn them in.  We finished the evening eating dinner and walking around downtown Bryson City.  We had never been but we loved Bryson City.  Such a cute place! 

Sunday morning we packed up, cleaned up and headed down the mountain around 11am.  We had to pick the dog up from my parents so we celebrated Father's Day with a delicious lunch.  We swam for a bit before finally going home. 

We love our trips to Lake Junaluska and appreciate Katie letting us stay with them so many years.  Last year was the first year the kids have not been there.  They even went when I was pregnant!  They have so much fun playing with Micah and Claire.  It's so pretty and we so enjoy our weekend up there!  We are keeping our fingers crossed that Katie's dad's talk of selling it will never actually happen!!

Pics of our fun weekend!

Swimming on Tuesday

 S'mores with Ms. Katie Thursday night

 Fort they built on Friday

 Putt putt Friday afternoon

 While treasure hunting Friday afternoon we found a Japanese slot machine.  All the kids had fun with it!

 

 Our annual pictures with the sign. 

 Other years click 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

 On our walk Friday evening

 Lindy was all over Mr. Kris.  Thankfully he is very kind to her!

 Tubing Saturday at Deep Creek

 Dancing to some music after dinner.

 Father's Day and our annual porch swing picture!

 Giving Daddy his presents

 The kids in front of the mountain house.

 Lunch and swimming with my dad on Father's Day.

 Lindy made this Sunday evening with silly putty.  I thought it was so creative!

School's Out for Summer

We had our last week of second grade last week.  I can't get over how fast time is going.  I swear we were just starting second grade and now it's over.  Done.  Forever.  My babes are growing toooooo fast.  I don't like it. 

The week ended up quite busy with all the end of year activities.  Will had finished his musical instrument and turned it in on the Friday before.  He made a ukulele all by himself.   He imagined the whole thing himself and knew to put the rubber bands at different lengths to get different sounds.  He made a pick to play the ukulele, too.  He finished it up by painting it blue. 

Lindy wanted some drums so we came up with a take on a set of tenor drums.  Being the ever resourceful people we are, we used the big can from her Helen Keller project as the center drum.  We got a bunch of other sized cans as well.  She painted each can a different color and then we hot glued them onto the big can.  We glued a ribbon on as well so she could wear it.  She took it in on Tuesday but didn't get to present it that day.  On Wednesday she told me that it got squished on the table and some of her cans were off.  I went in on Thursday to check and she was right.  Half the cans were off!!  agagag!  I ended up taping everything back on.  I guess the hot glue didn't hold very well.  I'm glad she said something so I could go in and fix it. 

Monday we celebrated Lindy's summer birthday.  I got doughnuts and took them to school and ate lunch with her.  She wanted me to sit with her class instead of asking a friend to sit with us at the special tables.  They had eaten s'mores that morning and she was full and didn't even eat her own doughnuts!  We have worked hard on her saying when she is full so I was very glad she told me she was full (instead of eating one and throwing up!).   Mimo had also come that day to eat lunch with Will.  She also sat at the table with him and his friends because there were so many parents eating with kids. 

Another big event that took place at school was field day on Wednesday.  It was a beautiful day for field day.  The sun was shining and it wasn't crazy hot.  I went over to watch some of the games and they were all new.  The PE teacher has a rotation of games so that the kids never play the same games at field day during their time there.  That is crazy but super cool!   The kids think this is one of the best days of the year! 

The other activities of the week included swim lessons.  We started them on Monday night and they go on Mondays and Wednesdays.  We are doing them at the local YMCA.  They are in different groups and in different pools.  It's quite annoying.  The first night I went back and forth to see both.  Ever since the first night Drew has gone as well so we have one in each pool.  I think Will will definitely learn to swim by the end.  I think we'll still have to do some work with Lindy.  I think it's hard in a group and she can't see or hear the instructor that well.  Her pool is a little bit better in terms of it being quieter with less echo but it's still in a group with 5 other kids.  We'll do a month of these and then figure out what to do next.  Our neighborhood pool does lessons so we might have to keep those up in July.  I think private may be what she truly needs.  Those usually come with a hefty price tag but we'll do what we need to!

The last day of school came up on Friday.  So fast!!!!  Second grade came and went in the blink of an eye.  They both had fantastic years of school.   They enjoyed their 2nd grade year out in the pod.  It's the only grade out of the main buildings but it's kind of a rite of passage to get to spend a year in the pod.  Lindy loved it because she was directly across from her vision teacher.   That worked out great!  Now her vision teacher is moving into the new building so it works that Lindy is done in the pod, too.  I picked them up from school on Friday and we headed to get frozen yogurt with one of Will's friends and his mom and sister.  We continued the fun by heading to the see the Angry Birds movie with them as well.  The movie was actually pretty cute and funny.  After the exciting afternoon we headed home for dinner and a night in. 

Saturday we slept in and we hung around the house.  We headed to the pool early afternoon and we swam for a few hours.  I think we will enjoy our neighborhood pool.  Between swim lessons and just being in the water more, I hope the kids are swimmers at the end of the summer.  Saturday evening we headed to downtown to go to the Ribfest.  We met up with Mimo, Anna and Brian.  Besides eating dinner, Drew wanted to hear a band we had heard perform two years ago in New Orleans.  It wasn't scheduled to start until 9:30pm but hey it's summer.  We were sorely disappointed in the evening though.   I had a stomach ache (that lasted 2 days) and didn't feel well.  There wasn't much for the kids to do so they were bored.  We finished listening to one band and 9:30pm came and went.   We were unfortunately entertained by a very struggling magician and finally they came on at 10:30pm.  The sound was awful and not working right and we decided to call it a night.  The kids and I were more than ready.  I feel bad Drew didn't get to hear the band but it was just a big disappointment. 

Sunday we had church and then we went to a neighborhood potluck at the pool that evening.  We swam for a couple hours before heading home.

 

Sweet girl!



 Homemade tenor drums

 Homemade ukulele

 Swim lessons

 Field day games

 Last day of 2nd grade!  Lindy was not in a smiley mood that morning. 

 Finally got her to smile!

 Will and his teacher, Ms. Fala

 Lindy and Ms. Donna, her vision teacher

 Lindy and her teacher, Ms. Phelps

 FroYo with Ben

 Angry Birds!

 Saturday night right as we were leaving the band came out in the crowd. 

 The Lost Bayou Ramblers