Day 2: Slate Run Historical Farm & Creek

Today was our first full day in Ohio, and we decided to go to the nearby Slate Run Metro Park, to visit the historical farm, have a picnic lunch, and play in the creek.

Simon was happy to find some blackberries in the bushes next to the parking lot.

Alice enjoyed pumping water the old-fashioned way.

Simon enjoyed looking through the stereoscope at the historic home.

Alice's favorite part was the barn.

We got to see them raise hay using a horse and pulley system.

Simon liked meeting his fellow turkeys.

Some pig is going to be really happy with its dinner!

While Alice and Cam went back in the barn for a long time, Simon and I enjoyed hanging out in the shade of a tree with a view of the farm, where he gathered feathers and generally entertained himself.

After the farm, we drove to a different part of the park and had a picnic lunch.

Then we headed down to the creek for a couple of hours, where Zac and Simon looked for crawdads while Alice explored and drew on flat rocks.

Then we walked back to the parking lot and headed home for supper.

Day 1: The Drive from NC to OH

We left Cary around 9:30 am and expected to get to Ashville around 6:30 pm.

However, due to many traffic jams and the slowest, most crowded McDonald's on earth, we ended up getting to Cam's around 8:30.

The ipad helped a little bit, but the last house was still pretty rough as we were all going insane.

Packing Day

I woke up to Alice laying in bed next to me reading.

Due to my illness, we hadn't been to Ohio since December 2017, so I hadn't packed for a big trip in a long time. I love travelling but hate packing. I always make the packing lists in google docs so I can just modify them for each trip and print them out, rather than creating them from scratch each time. When I pulled up the packing list for Ohio summer 2017, it was fun to delete things like "night diapers for Simon" that showed how much we had progressed in the past two years. Of course, I had to add things like "ostomy supplies" that also reflected major changes in our lives.

Packing took all day because the kids and neighbors were underfoot and there were a thousand interruptions to my scavenger hunt.  A highlight of the packing experience was making sure Simon's new life-jacket fit.

They are animals

Bread Trees and June Bugs

A conversation at lunch today, when Simon was examining a sesame seed bun.
Simon: This is weird bread. I wonder how it grows like this.
Alice: Bread doesn't grow.
Simon: Then why does it have seeds on it?
Alice: They make the bread then put the seeds on after.
Simon: Oh.

At the pool later that afternoon, when Simon found a dead June Bug in the pool filter.
Simon: I'm going to put this on the side of your chair so no one takes it.
(Because in Simon's world, dead bugs are high theft items.)

Cheese Stick Eyebrows

I'm trying to be more of a "fun mom" on summer break, but I think these cheese stick eyebrows might reveal some of my true feelings...

Simon is sort of swimming

Today, Glenn and Murphy came over for an hour in the morning, then I dropped them off at camp.  Here, the kids pose on the cougar(?) outside the school building.

In the afternoon, we went to the pool, where Simon has been teaching himself how to swim.

Highlighter Art + Sick Simon + Glenn & Murphy

Alice's new art medium: highlighters on tissues.

When Simon finally got up, it was apparent he didn't feel well. He had a fever and slept for a couple hours on the living room floor. Alice read, and I did laundry. 

Luckily, Simon rebounded by noon and was mostly fine the rest of the day.  

To help my friend and neighbor Andrea who's getting a double mastectomy this week, I'm doing a bit of the pick up and drop-off for her kids at camp this week.  I picked them up today and then they played at our house for a while.

The kids all look nice and sweet, but they basically play war the whole time, with Alice and Glenn against Murphy and Simon.  They trash the basement by building "traps" for each other.

Cycles and Sunflowers

Zac took the kids to the art museum for the day so I could have a break after successfully completing my first week of summer break home with the kids.

They rode bikes around the art museum trails and checked out some of the new interactive art.

Cicada Anniversary + Durham Day

Today, we celebrated our 17 years of marriage by going out to Duck Donuts for breakfast.

Then, celebration over, we reverted to our normal weekend pattern: I took the kids out for the day so Zac could get stuff done around the house.  I took the kids to Durham for the day, where they played in the treehouses for a long time while I was able to talk to my friend Shanu on the phone. 

Alice wanted to take a picture of the sunflower with my phone, then she actually took a picture of me as well.

After lunch, we just so happened to run into Robyn and her kids (Oscar, Felix, Xavier), so then we just played with them the rest of the afternoon, mainly at the bug house.

"Simon, try to open your eyes when you smile."

"Ok, how's this?"

Summer Solstice

On Friday, the kids played while I prepared pasta salad and brownies for the summer solstice potluck pool party I was hosting for a few of the neighbors.

The nice thing about summer break is that there's actually time for the kids to help me cook and to take walks by the pond to gather goose feathers and for the kids to come up with their own crafts.  That's all we really ever need: more time.

The impetus for the pool party was that last year Alice kept asking to go to the pool in the evening, but it's really hard to do because of supper and bedtime. So we made a deal that we'd do it once a year on the summer solstice. But then last summer I was way too sick (especially in the evenings) to go to the pool, so we didn't do it.  This is my year to reclaim everything.  Then I thought, rather than just us, let's see if a few neighbors would like to join us.

It was great fun. We ate together up on the deck, then the ladies gathered and chatted on one end of the pool, while the men visited on the other, and the kids ran everywhere.