Southern Babies

Last week of 3rd Grade

The second week of June was also the last week of 3rd grade. It was a busy one.

They started the week with Econ day. This is one of the big 3rd grade projects the kids look forward to and dang if they don't leave it until the very last week of school. ugg! They really didn't give info out till 2-3 weeks before it was due. Months before I kept asking how many things did they have to make and sell and neither ever knew. Will made mazes. It seemed easy at first but he ended up spending a lot of time on them. He created 5 mazes and then we photo copied them. I made him add decorations to each maze. I told him he needed color on each one. It ended up taking him all day to decorate them and then we copied each one. He put a lot of work into it in the end and they all looked great. Lindy had to do something with dogs - of course. So we made homemade dog treats. Hers was a little more complicated finding all the ingredients - oat flour?? Never could find it but did you know you can make it with oatmeal and a food processor. The things I do for my kids. ha! She made two types of dog treats and we put one of each into a little snack bag. We made a cute little sticker for each bag. Her's turned out very cute too. We had some extras so Aiden got some and then we took some to the dog across the street.

We also had a fake birthday celebration for the kids' birthday at school. I usually pick a day at the very end of school to eat lunch with the kids and bring doughnuts and pretend it's their birthday since they have summer birthdays. Will picked Luke to eat with him and Lindy picked Adah.

Field Day was Wednesday, 6/7. The kids got to move down to the lower field and that is something they look forward to as a 3rd grader. K-2 is on the upper field and 3-5 on the lower field. The school does a great job and it's always organized and well run. We've heard they will never play the same games at field day the entire time they are there. The PE teacher has all the games on a rotation. Pretty cool I think! Will got to participate in the obstacle course challenge with his team this year. They have class versus class challenges in the upper grades. I had a dentist appointment that morning but was able to stop by and see them for a little while.

Friday, June 9th brought the last day of 3rd grade. I say it every year but man do they go fast. Too fast for my liking. Will had a great teacher and a fabulous year. We were all ready for Lindy's year to be over. We made it through but it was the roughest year she has had. It wasn't awful but we were glad it was done.

We celebrated the last day with frozen custard for a treat and we went to see the Captain Underpants movie. The kids liked it, Drew and I - not so much. Total 3rd grade humor that we don't always understand!

The kids started swimming lessons on Saturday morning. A refresher and chance to get stronger and more comfortable. We did with it with the high school life guard at the pool but it ended up being pretty good. She got Will to put his face in the water. That's a score!

Sunday we went to listen to the NC Big Brass Band at a local park with some church friends. It was a fun evening. The kids had fun running around and then playing on the playground.

I took the next week off of work to spend with the kids. We did swim lessons almost every day and worked around the house. I wanted them to have a few days to lounge and do nothing. Thursday I actually had to do work stuff - like attend a golf tournament. I met my parents that morning and they grabbed the kids and dog and took them back home with them and I headed to the golf tournament. I was there until about 3pm and then I headed to my parents. We spent the night and played in the pool the whole next day. We headed home Friday evening.

Saturday Lindy seemed to have some touch of a stomach bug and was sick all day. Sunday she was better so we rode to Bob's to celebrate Father's Day. We had lunch with Bob, Suzette, Anna and Brian. It was a nice afternoon and Will beat them all in Bocce ball.

Monday, June 20th the kids started their first camp of the summer. They only went three days though as we left for vacation on Thursday. They did three days at Imprints. It was dino week. They had a reptile person come in with animals and went to the movies. They missed the big field trip on Friday cause we left for vacation.

Will and Luke

Lindy and Adah

With a random big chair we found at BB&B

Field Day!

Luke, Will and Jackson

Lindy and Ms. Carter, her adaptive PE teacher

Lindy and Ms. Donna

Will and Ms. Munford

Will and Ms. Lipe

Lindy and Ms. Taylor

Lindy and Ms. Petross, who helped her with her hearing aids all year.

Last day of school!

Swimming lessons at the pool

Will and his finished puzzle

Happy Father's Day!

Bocce Shenanigans

Moving into June

The beginning of June brought all the end of school activities for the kids. The newest end of school activity was the EOG tests the kids had to take for the first time because they were in 3rd grade. I put no stock in standardized testing so we just told the kids to do the best they can. We just asked them to try the best and we knew they would do fine. Thankfully our school doesn't seem to dwell on them too awfully bad which is nice. They definitely have to prepare but I've been in other schools and seen a ton more pressure put on the kids. I did sign up to be an EOG hall monitor for two days. I sat in the hall for two hours each morning and got to read. After the spring I'd had at work I hadn't done much at school and I really enjoyed two hours of doing nothing. You just have to sit out there and make sure kids are quiet if they go to the bathroom. I did have to find the testing coordinator a couple times because of issues that came up.

Other much more fun things happened in June though. Friday, June 5th, Will got to go with one of his best buddies, Luke, to Great Wolf Lodge in Charlotte for his birthday. Will has never been to Great Wolf Lodge, doesn't love water, and hadn't ever spent the night with a friend. It was a recipe for disaster! ha! It actually turned out great. He loved it and wants us all to go back. I didn't think he'd have any problems spending the night away from us and he was fine. He said he loved the water slides (shocker!) and all the water park activities. His favorite thing was the Magic Quest. A scavenger hunt is right up his alley. Now I want to go check it out!

That same afternoon Lindy invited a friend, Adah, over to play. I got the girls from school and we actually went to the Humane Society. We stayed for over an hour and they went back and forth from the cats to the dogs. Adah is an animal lover like Lindy. We headed home and they played for awhile, we ordered pizza for dinner, and then we headed back to WS to meet Adah's mom. We met at the yogurt shop. They got yogurt and then we all headed our separate ways.

Saturday morning we were up early and headed out to Charlotte. It worked out pretty well that we were headed to Charlotte for a family reunion and Will was in Charlotte at the Great Wolf Lodge. We stopped and got him on the way and then headed to a local park to have the Southern Family Christmas! ha! We used to always get together with Bob's siblings every Christmas but as the families have all gotten bigger it was just harder and harder to find a day during December when we could all go. The siblings decided to try a different time of year. It seemed to work the beginning of June, even if it was blazing hot. We enjoyed catching up and seeing all the new babies being born. No kick ball this year, I think the fields were wet. We went back to Bob and Suzette's for a little while and then headed home.

At the Humane Society with Adah

Southern Family Reunion

Poor Joan!

1st Cousins

2nd Cousins

Going back to May

Hello?! Is it me you're looking for? The old Lionel Richie song seems appropriate since it's been so long since I've posted. I will try to get caught up. Going back to the middle of May.

I finished my fifth and final March for Babies walk on Saturday, May 20th. At the middle of January when my boss quit and my coworker was on maternity leave until March I didn't know if I would make it through the walk season. It was me, two interns and a part-time administrator. Somehow, someway, we made it through. My coworker came back, we hired a new boss and even by the last walk we got to hire a new part time person. It was the hardest spring of my career but I survived.

In the evening of 5/20 we went to the Greek Festival in town. It's always a big deal around here. It was my first time going and I was underwhelmed. The food was good and the church was pretty to see but there wasn't any dancing going on while we were there. Plus it was really hot. We didn't stay long.

We got an early call on 5/24 from the school that the power was out and said they could bring flashlights with them. This happened once a couple years ago and the kids thought it was so fun! It was out the entire day that time. Thankfully it was on around 10:30am this year.

That same day Lindy had a doctor's appointment at the ophthalmologist in Greensboro. She had started saying things were tilted. She explained it as if doors were leaning towards here. She said it a few times in the fall of 2016 and then stopped saying it. She ramped back up saying it so I had to get it checked on. Of course I feared her retinas were detaching. She had gotten new glasses but because she had said it in the fall with her old glasses, I couldn't just blame the glasses. Thankfully she checked out fine. Nothing had changed since her previous appointment which was reassuring. On the other hand, he had no idea whey she'd be saying that and didn't know of any conditions with that as a side effect. So while we were still stumped, at least we knew nothing bad was happening.

Memorial Day was the last weekend in May and we actually went and did something fun. We took a day trip to the mountains. Our planned destination was Linville Caverns. The kids had been with summer camp the year before but we had not been. About 5 minutes before we got there we saw a cute little cheese shop so we stopped to try their cheese and it was delicious. We enjoyed our visit and got some cheese for the road. Thankfully we got to Linville Caverns early because when we came out it was busy. We enjoyed our tour into the caverns except for it being really wet and our fast talking tour guide. They give guided tours and point out all kinds of things along the way. Our girl talked so fast you only caught about 1/2 of what she was saying. We had had days of rain the week before so it was dripping rain water most of the time. I had brought sweatshirts because it stays 52F in there year round so we were able to use the hoods on our sweatshirts as rain coats. It was neat to see the different rock formations. We left there and decided to stop by the nearby Linville Falls. It was a short walk to the falls, or should have been. The kids ran ahead and took a wrong turn and we ended up in the other parking lot. We finally got to the falls and we were blown away with how cool it was. Definitely didn't expect to find what we did. We finally headed out of there and made our way to Blowing Rock. Drew took the kids to the park in the middle of town and I looked through a few shops. We had dinner and then we finally headed down the mountain back home. It was a fun mountain day trip. It's fun to live in NC and be able to go to the mountains or beach. We just wish the beach was a little closer.

We finished out the long weekend by meeting GrandBob and Suzette at Dan Nicholas Park in Salisbury. We met for a picnic lunch and then just played at the park. Drew, Bob and Will played putt putt and Lindy, Suzette and I walked through the little zoo. Suzette and I also took the kids on the train. The kids played on the playground for a good while too. It was a great playground for Lindy. We had a fun day at the park with them.

Greek Festival