Asheboro

I love to travel. It doesn't have to be any big deal or to anywhere fancy. I just love any opportunity to explore a new place. Apparently, my love for adventuring has passed on to my children, and the other night one of them was lamenting at dinner that, "It's been over a year since we left the state!" How criminal. I reminded this child that while it was within North Carolina, we did travel to Asheboro over spring break. This child loved that trip, but that wasn't good enough.

So here is a little about the trip that doesn't count.

North Carolina has a really nice zoo. All of the billboards even advertise it as the world's largest zoo. And our passes to the local aquarium get us into the zoo for free. However, we had never carved out time to take the kids there. I wasn't able to take off a lot of time over spring break, but I was able to take a few days, which sounded like the perfect opportunity to explore the zoo.

In addition to having an aquarium pass, we have a museum pass that we planned to use to get into a nearby science museum. I had an easy, inexpensive little mini-break all planned out. But then the weather refused to cooperate. I hate when that happens. And the stress of trying to figure out another plan may have led to me having a little breakdown while sitting in our minivan in the Harris Teeter parking lot on the way out of town. I may have mentioned something about needing a vacation to plan a vacation. But it was a gorgeous day, and the driver of our vehicle (mercifully, not me) made an executive decision to head directly to the zoo. It was a good decision. The forecast was for torrential rain the next afternoon, and we opted to see half the zoo on Day 1 and the other half on Day 2.

We live about 3.5 hours from the zoo, and we stopped halfway for lunch at Arby's. Miraculously, this was our only stop (at least that I can recall six months later) and we made it to the zoo by early afternoon. When we arrived at the zoo, we were presented with the dilemma of going in through the entrance in the North American exhibit or the entrance in the African exhibit. We opted for North America, which was closest.

Many people had shared with me how large the zoo was, but it hadn't quite registered until I got there. Many parts of it look more like a nature preserve than a zoo, and it is filled with spacious outdoor areas where animals can actually roam. Five of us absolutely loved it, and the usual suspect spent the entire afternoon whining about how much walking was involved. We all did our best to ignore Usual Suspect since there was way too much fun to be had. And despite the zoo being so large, the exhibits were structured to allow us to get very close to some of the animals.

 

 

This guy kinda snuck up and was suddenly RIGHT THERE.

And Mike's highlight of the day was when a brown bear turned and I ended up with a picture of the brown bear's bum. Good stuff to an eight-year-old boy!

After checking out the animal exhibits on the North American side, we took the zoo tram back to the entrance. Thank goodness for the zoo tram. I think we would have all been feeling like the Usual Suspect if we had tried to make the mile-plus walk back to the entrance at that point. Once we were back near the entrance, the kids explored the playground and other hands -on areas. One of the kids' favorite spots was a man made creek and waterfall that they were allowed to play in. It was a fun and wet way to end that days' zoo adventure.

 

After walking around all afternoon, we were starving. We checked in at our hotel and then went looking for food. There were a lot of chain restaurants near our hotel, but we bravely checked Yelp for other recommendations. We ended up at a little Mexican restaurant that, quite frankly, looked rather sketchy on the outside, but was nicely decorated inside and had very friendly staff. The food was amazing, and the kids ate everything, including five baskets of chips. Whew.

We were greeted by highly overcast skies on the morning of Day 2, and we made sure to arrive at the African entrance of the zoo as soon as it opened. As spacious as the North American side had been, the African side took space to a whole new level. Many of the animals were in a safari area that was large enough you could take a bus tour of it. There was a walking path all along one side of it, and with the animals being spread out over so many acres, I was nervous about not being able to see them clearly. That was clearly not an issue for this ostrich who decided to come over and say hello. 

And the highlight of the day, if not the entire trip, for Mike was getting to watch the elephants use the bathroom. Not pretty, but definitely impressive.

It started raining on us around the time we were finishing our tour of the African side, so we quickly made it back to the tram station. We ended up having to wait a really long time for a tram, but thankfully we were under a cover and stayed dry. And the heavy rains didn't arrive until right after we boarded a tram.

We went back to our hotel to dry off then decided to head out to explore. Asheboro is pretty small, but they had a mall. After the kids spent over three hours in the tiny mall in Jacksonville, NC back in December, I had no doubts they we would find something to do there. The Asheboro mall wasn't large either, but it included a video arcade. That happened to have free play of classic video games like Ms. Pacman and Galaga they day we were there. And that, of course, was the highlight of Leon's trip. 

We ended the day with a simple dinner at the hotel - the kids had Lunchables and the grown ups ate Chinese take out from the mall. The kids and I then went swimming. And that night we slept - the really satisfied, deep sleep that comes after two days of walking in the fresh air. Our little vacation may not have counted as an official vacation to the kids, but it was very enjoyable and a great way to explore another part of North Carolina.

 

Swimmers

This summer, everyone in our family learned new things. I learned that jury duty is not all bad. (I had somehow made it to this point in my life without ever being summoned.) Jewel learned that it is okay to sometimes each sandwiches. She went to camp and they (gasp!) served Chick-Fil-A sandwiches one day. And she bravely tried eating it, bun and all. And discovered that this bread stuff is pretty tasty.  Only one more child to convince that it is okay to eat bread...

But, far more importantly, this summer the three stooges finally learned how to swim. This is something that has always been important to me. My mom took me to swimming lessons from the time I was itty-bitty, and I can't remember ever not being able to swim. I love to swim, and I wanted them to share that love they way they share my love of books. (Even Natalia is starting to like books, but that is a story for another day.) And living on a peninsula between the ocean and a river, water is a way of life in Wilmington. There are beach trips and pool parties and boat rides. Even if my kids didn't end up sharing my love for swimming, I wanted to at least feel comfortable that if they ever fell into water, they could get themselves to the surface and to safety.

Starting the day of his third birthday, there have been three separate incidents where Mike walked into water over his head and just stood there. Frozen. He never flailed or visibly panicked. He just shut down. Underwater. So there has been a lot of work to do to ensure he can survive in the water. Leon and Natalia, thankfully, have a little more sense than their brother, but they still aren't natural swimmers. (Jewel turned into quite the swimmer a couple of years ago, so thankfully, she is no longer a concern in the water.)

I've dutifully taken the kids to swimming lessons every summer, and by last summer, all three stooges could swim IF they were in a pool and IF someone reminded them what to do. It was a start. Unfortunately, life happened and by the time I got around to signing them up for swimming lessons this year, the first session we could get them into was in August. So that meant swimming all summer without lessons. Thankfully, we do most of our swimming at my parents' neighborhood pool that has plenty of shallow areas and a lifeguard on duty.

However, back in July, Leon and Mike were invited to a swim party. They started out swimming in the shallow end, but soon wanted to join all the other kids jumping off the diving board. Of course I said they could go, but that doesn't mean I wasn't dangerously close to having a heart attack while I watched them.

I think they know their limitations, because they started off jumping directly toward the ladder. The first time he hit the water, Mike got himself to the surface, he started moving his arms and legs, and he didn't actually go anywhere. His "freestyle" seemed to turn out an awful lot like treading water. Thankfully, he managed to eventually put it in gear and get himself to the side. (The whole time this was happened, I was dutifully biting my tongue to avoid yelling out encouragement and embarrassing him in front of his friends.) Leon, thankfully, jumped right in and had no issues.

The most amazing thing for me to see, though, was how much their confidence grew that afternoon. And how much better they got at swimming. Since that afternoon where I let them just be kids and figure it out, they've been swimming a ton. And when swimming lessons rolled around this year, they did great. Natalia is always competitive with her siblings, so she tried hard in swimming lessons too, and before I knew it, she was flying in to the 8-foot water right along with her brothers.

So now, of course, the trick is to continue to give them the freedom to (safely) grow their confidence as they try other new things that I might find a wee bit scary. As their mother, I reserve the right to continue to quietly have a heart attack on the side. But maybe even I will learn that they are usually just fine.

Birthday Girl

(For simplicity as I write this, I am referring to Oldest Girl as Jewel since that is the name she uses at home. My apologies if you know her by one of her approximately 12 other names.) 

This little one...

...recently turned 11. To celebrate her birthday, she decided to have a pool party with her besties. My parents have a really nice neighborhood pool near their house here, so we had a perfect location. (My parents primarily live in Ohio, so yes, we were going to throw a party when the parents were out of town. Woohoo!) I emailed the moms of the four invitees, and amazingly there was a date near Jewel's birthday when all four girls were available. We just needed nice weather. This summer has been a mix of extremely hot, humid days and thunderstorms. Neither one is great for swimming, because yes, it can be too hot to swim. We've experienced it. We've also postponed a birthday party due to a hurricane, so there is tropical weather to contend with in late August, too.

Not that it usually has much accuracy around here, but I started checking the forecast ten days out from the party. And I checked it daily. I just couldn't help myself. The weather fluctuated between abysmal (severe thunderstorms all day and a tropical system looming) to very promising. Thankfully, the morning of her party was gorgeous. And it was supposed to stay that way through the early afternoon before "tropical storm-ish" (yes, that is what the weather forecast said. Really) arrived in the evening. I realized we were going to be able to get in the party as planned.

Jewel's party was scheduled from 11:00 - 3:00, and the full plan was for everyone to meet at my parents' house, head out to lunch as a group, and then go back for swimming, ice cream sundaes, and presents. Jewel and I planned to head over early to decorate, and Jeff and the other kids would join us closer to the start of the party. We had planned to leave at 10:00 and, amazingly, by 9:45 we were ready to go. We had the many, many bags of things we needed loaded into the car and we were even dressed and looking semi-presentable. (The good part about having the party not at our house - less cleaning and yard work. The bad part about having the party not at our house - we actually had to plan ahead and take everything over. I'm more of a "grab things as you think of them" person when it comes to entertaining, so this was a bit of a challenge for me.) I walked outside and all but spun around in the sunshine while I waited for Jewel to join me. At the last second I grabbed a magazine to read since we would probably have extra time before the guests arrived.

We got in the car, buckled up, and then I went to start the car. I discovered it had a dead battery. Really dead. After 4 or 5 attempts to start the car, I grabbed Jeff who confirmed, yup, dead battery. So I assessed the situation. The rest of the family was not yet ready to go. Also, in order to get everyone to lunch, we needed both vehicles since we had 10 people to transport. Hmmm. I decided the best course of action was to do SOMETHING, so Jewel and I took off to decorate as planned.

While driving, options started running through my head. Back at our house, Jeff was doing the same thing. When Jewel and I arrived at my parents' house, we unloaded the car, put away the cold stuff for the sundaes, and started decorating. Jeff and I had a couple of phone discussions throughout this process. He had one plan. I had another. By the time the balloons were blown up and the streamers hung, we had agreed on a new plan. I stuck a note on the front door in case any guests arrived before we returned, and Jewel and I took off again.

We went home and grabbed Jeff and the siblings. The new plan included stopping by Taco Bell to buy them a 12 pack of tacos (and a bag of burritos. The kids have definitely started really EATING). That way they could chill out at the house while I took the other girls to lunch. The Taco Bell stop made me nervous because you never know how quickly you will get food there, but thankfully, we were pretty quick.

Of course by the time we got to the house, a guest was waiting for us. Thankfully everyone is good friends, and it was no big deal. Jewel enjoyed having a friend help her finish setting up the sundae bar for the party and the craft station where they planned to decorate beach balls.

The party itself was great. The only challenge was the girls had so much fun at lunch that we were there FOREVER, and we needed a little more time for the party. (Because four hours wasn't enough!) Thankfully I was able to get in touch with all of the parents, and everyone was allowed to stay a little longer. I was even able to corral everyone for a picture. (Shoving juice boxes in their hands helped. And it's not like we tried for anything silly like actually getting everyone to look at the camera.)

So we made it through another year AND another birthday party. Not bad.