4th of July Weekend and First Grandparent Camp

VBS week wore us out but we did manage to have some fun on Saturday.  We caught up on chores in the morning and then we went to visit the Korner's Folly, a landmark in town that we had not yet visited.  Will asked if we could go and we had a pretty random and free afternoon so we checked it out.  It was a really cool and quirky house in town.  It's hard to even explain what it is.  It's an old house but it was setup super weird.  Some rooms were not even 6 feet tall.  Some had the tiniest doorways ever.   It was a great self guided tour that we really enjoyed. 

Saturday evening we had some friends over for dinner.  Drew was on call but he rarely actually gets called out.  In the 10 months he has worked for Hospice he has been called twice.  Wouldn't you know it that he got a call and had to leave that evening.   We had a chaotic evening without him.  He normally grills and I had to do that and the dog wouldn't really calm down.  It was fun but kind of crazy. 

After church on Sunday, we packed up and headed to my parents' to celebrate the 4th of July with them.  Sunday we swam in the pool and my mom and I went shopping Sunday evening at Target.  That evening my mom and I took the kids to town to see the fireworks that the town of Mooresville puts on. 

Monday was the 4th of July and we just had a day of playing in the pool.  We walked down to one of their neighbors and fed the fish off his dock and we fed these huge crawfish he found.  I've never seen them so big!!  That evening two of their neighbor friends came over for dinner.   One of them (same one we fed fish with) went swimming with Lindy and Will and they had a blast with him.   We had a nice evening getting to know their friends and neighbors. 

Tuesday morning Drew and I got up and drove home.  We dropped the dog and headed to work.  The kids stayed with my parents the rest of the week. 

They did a lot of swimming, they went to Lego time at the local library, played with my dad's erector set, and played and swam with the neighbor kids across the street.  They had a good time and the week went by quickly. 

Friday afternoon I left work and went home to pick up the dog.  I headed back to meet my parents' and make a kid - dog exchange.  I took the kids and they took the dog.   We came back and we went over to Ed and Jamie's to see baby Ellie.  She is getting big and fun.  Lindy got to help give her a bath and I got to give her a bottle and rock her to sleep! 

We spent the rest of the weekend packing for our beach trip.  We had church on Sunday morning and our friends from our old church, Faith, and friends from the UMAR houses came to worship with us.  We had a great morning seeing everyone. 

Korner's Folly tour

 The top floor is a theatre with a stage.  My family all did a talent.

 There was a kissing corner in one of the rooms.

 July 3rd fireworks!

 July 4th Fun!

 Throwing Pop-its!

 Feeding fish with Mr. Ric.

 Playing in the pool with Mr. Ric

Staying with grandparents apparently means Diet Coke.   

 Lego night at the library

 Building with the Erector Set

 Loving on Sadie Jo

 Hanging with cousins Molly and Ellie

 Brushing Ellie's hair

 

VBS

The last week of June was all vacation bible school!!  What a fun and exhausting week it was!  Our church had not done a VBS in over 12 years.  Three of us worked together to pull one off.  I think it turned out great and I think everyone loved it and had fun!  The crazy part is that we planned the VBS in a little over 5 weeks.   A lot of hard work but we did it!  We did the Workshop of Wonders VBS from a couple years ago.

The week started on Monday morning with the kids going back to camp.  It was the same program, but this time it was in WS.  They enjoyed the week but the camp was much bigger than the week before.  I don't think either of them loved that.  But they had friends there from school so that was fun.  The theme of the week was the Olympics.  They took a big field trip on Wednesday.  They went to the Charlotte Panthers stadium to take a tour.  They didn't get to go in the Panthers locker room but they went in the visitors.  They also went to a park to play.  Their field trip on Friday was to a local park in the morning to play Frisbee golf and then to the bowling alley in the afternoon. 

VBS began each night at 6:30pm and lasted till 8:30pm.  We all had long days of work and camp and then doing VBS each night.  Drew was the opening/closing ceremony leader each night.   He also led the elementary aged kids around to each station.  I was the bible story room each night.  I had three groups rotate through each night.  I also did all the powerpoints and music for the opening/closing ceremonies.  We were proud of our little church for all the volunteers that made the week happen.  We had 23 kids participate which was a great number.  Ten are regular church members and the rest were grandkids and a few neighbors.  We had a four day VBS so we were done on Thursday night. 

Sunday we had VBS Sunday at church.  The kids and leaders sang all the songs and Drew talked about what we learned.  It was a nice wrap up to what we learned last week.  The air conditioning broke in the sanctuary so it was a hot morning to do some dancing! 

Some pictures from our Workshop of Wonders:

 

Our set for the Opening and Closing Ceremony

Drew as 'Sandy Paper'

 The VBS Adult Leaders

First Week of Camp

Wow.  I just pulled up the blog to see how long it's been and I was shocked.  I thought it had been maybe two weeks - not a month!!  I have a lot of catching up to do!  We shall see how good the old memory is from the end of June!

I had just taken a week off of work and we had gone to Lake Junaluska for Drew's annual meeting.  We got home on Sunday, June 19th (Father's Day) with plans to resume our daily lives with work and new camps.

With Drew's new job, I needed to find more childcare type camps for a few weeks this summer.  We chose to go with the same program they do for afterschool as we are pretty familiar with the program.  The kids woke up on Monday morning planning to go to their first week of camp.  The theme was A Walk on the Wild Side which meant they would learn about Africa and lots of animals throughout the week.  Right after breakfast Lindy mentioned her stomach hurt.  That's not uncommon for her to say but then she went and threw up.  What? What?   Our plans for Monday were completely foiled now.  I did end up taking Will to camp but I ended up staying home with Lindy.  Will was super nervous when I dropped him off because he was going to a completely new place where he didn't know anyone.  As much as Lindy and Will argue like normal brothers and sisters, I think they take comfort in at least knowing someone wherever they go.   Will ended up having a great day at camp (whew!) and Lindy ended up throwing up occasionally throughout the day.  It wasn't consistent which was weird.  She did throw up a couple times that evening but I thought for sure she would get a good night's sleep and be okay in the morning.  I did have a plan b in case she felt a little off or puny and thought we would probably go with that for Tuesday.

After a full night of sleep, Lindy calls us in her room Tuesday morning at 5am and proceeds to throw up consistently for the next 4 hours.   She shocked me!  Plan C - me staying home again with her went into effect.  Will mentioned his stomach hurt a little and with a sick sister I thought there was a real chance he could get sick so he stayed home from camp, too.  He never ended up throwing up but Lindy did enough for the whole house.  Every ice chip or sip of 7 up came right back up.  I finally pulled out an old home remedy of my grandfather's and gave her some warm jello (just warm water with some jello powder in it).  That finally did the trick.  It was the only thing that finally stayed down.  By Tuesday evening she was good to go and acting like herself.  No one else ended up sick and no one we know was sick so who knows where that came from. 

Wednesday both went to camp and they went on their first field trip.  They went to Kersey Valley to learn about honey bees.  They also go to do gem mining and they went to play at a park.  Friday they went on a big field trip to the NC Zoo in Asheboro.  I took the stroller for Lindy as I knew there was no way she could walk that far in the hot summer heat.  So far she doesn't seem to mind still being pushed.  She said all the kids took turns pushing her and I think she ate it up. 

Saturday we got up and headed to WS in the morning.  We went to a couple book stores to cash in on their free summer reading programs, out for lunch, and to the Reynolda House to see the Ansel Adams exhibit.  We also toured the Reynolda House which was a first for me.  The kids and I toured together and eventually lost Drew.  We got home and my parents arrived.  We had a leak under our sink and my dad fixed my sink which was great.  We ate dinner and visited. 

Sunday Lynn came for church and lunch.  We went to eat lunch after and then we headed to the church to start decorating for vacation bible school. Lynn stayed with the kids which was great so Drew could come help at church.  That evening we went to the visitation of a former church member out in Walnut Cove.  We saw lots of old friends and didn't get home till 9pm. 

I think that sums up the week.  Or at least what I can remember! 

I took one picture that week......  Enjoy it!