Before the Rain

This weekend has been hectic, and I am really grateful we spent Memorial Day weekend relaxing and enjoying life. I had originally planned to spend the long weekend taking care of a number of household projects that I haven't been able to get to in recent months. However, the forecast was for a great deal of rain all weekend, and we decided to take advantage of nice weather outdoors while we could before we were forced to head indoors.

UNCW is currently operating under summer hours where we have a condensed work week and the university closes at lunchtime on Friday. It's a fantastic schedule, and last weekend I was able to take advantage of it and leave early enough that I was able to pick up the kids from the bus after school. Shortly after everyone got home, we headed out to Lewis Farms where we managed to pick about eight pounds of fresh strawberries and blueberries. Most days that week had included both heavy rain and bright sunshine and although that made for slightly flooded fields, it also made for amazing berries. As we picked, Boss Lady was clearly in charge of the group.

 

Friday night we took the kids to their first "grown up" party. It was an engagement party for a friend from work, and I had no idea how it would go. I filled my purse with card games for the kids to play and I filled their ears with promises that we would not stay that long. I was apparently concerned for no reason, because it turns out all the kids need for a good time is "Alexa" and cupcakes. They ended up having a great time and making many new friends, all who are in their 40s and 50s, by sharing their love and knowledge of 80s music.

Nati has been bugging me to take her to the main library downtown. I am pretty sure she only wanted to go there to play with the toys in the children's area, but who am I to turn down a trip to a library? We headed there on Saturday morning, and we began our time there by exploring the small outdoor garden. It includes several stations where the kids can play music as well as a large outdoor checkers/chess set, and the kids enjoyed playing out there.

Oh, library humor!

 

Natalia did have fun playing inside the library, including putting together these flowers that even I would struggle to kill.

 

After the library, we ran errands and ate lunch. Saturday afternoon it was still nice, so we headed outside to play. Although they had no use for sidewalk chalk when they were itty bitties, the kids are now obsessed with it. We are the proud owners of a Crayola box of sidewalk chalk with 48 colors (there is even black chalk!), and the kids put it to good use.

 

Even after all these years, Jewel loves Abby Cadabby.

 

Saturday evening included grilled salmon and a fire in the fire pit in the back yard. 

 

I love that these guys are content to just sit and read by the fire. 

It was amazingly still nice on Sunday, and we ended up spending all afternoon swimming with friends at their pool party.

 

The rain finally arrived on Sunday night, and when it showed up, it did not mess around. It continued all day Monday, and at one point it was coming down so hard the kids stood on the porch and watched our neighbor's white van (waaay down the street. I wasn't leaving the porch in the rain) get covered up to its bumper in water. Thankfully, our neighborhood drains extremely well, and the street was clear again within an hour of the rain slowing down.

 

Last weekend was so enjoyable and a great reminder that life is too short not to make time to kick back and just enjoy time with family and friends.

Weekends

Lately, I have been very intentional with my time. I would like to think this is part of an effort to be more mindful, or at least more organized, but in reality, it is just about survival. If I don't focus on everything I do and the reason I do it, I would spend all of my time running around like a chicken with its head cutoff. (As it is, I probably spend at least half my time that way, but at least it isn't all my time.)

This morning I carved out 45 minutes to spend writing before the kids got up, and I really enjoyed that time. Technology can actually be amazing, and I spent that time laying in bed, drafting a blog post on my phone. Of course, as soon as a certain youngest child skipped into the room at 7am exactly, she grabbed my phone, and everything I had been working on is now permanently "saving" and cannot be opened. So I am starting over with writing this. 

As I look at how I spend my time, I have been more intentional about carving out time to write and spend in the kitchen, because both things make me deliriously happy. (Even when they don't go as planned, they still tend to soothe me. I admit to having been a bit annoyed that this morning's writing disappeared, just like I was less than thrilled when I had an epic baking disaster last Wednesday night, but at the same time, it means I get to spend more time writing and baking as I do those things over. And I am generally okay with that.)

When it comes to weekends, my weekends must include three things. I am happiest when my weekends include time outside, time with my family, and time in my kitchen. (Writing is just a bonus.) Thankfully, the stars have aligned, and I have had plenty of time for all three elements the past two weekends.

Warmer weather means naturally getting more time outside, usually with the family. Overall, it's been a cool spring here (like it has been so many other places), and we've only made one trip to the beach so far. It was only in the upper 60s while we were out there, but that didn't stop the kids from finding a tidal pool and immediately jumping in. Personally, I kept my distance from the chilly water!

 
 

It's also that time of year when most of our weekends begin with berry picking. Currently, strawberries are in season, although there are already little green berries on the blueberry bushes around here. The kids have no idea how lucky we are!

 

Often, we spend our weekend afternoons just hanging out in our yard.

 

The kids have clearly surpassed my ability to draw with sidewalk chalk. (I am basically limited to hearts, stars, and rainbows.)

 

Sometimes, our family time involves indoor activities. Last Sunday it was a little chilly, but Jewel brought home passes to Cameron Art Museum the week before, and it seemed like we were just destined to go. We had never been before, and it wasn't until we were walking around that I marveled that we had not only considered taking our children to an art museum, but that we were there for at least 15 minutes before it occurred to me that allowing four children to wander around a building full of fragile items might not be the greatest idea ever. Thankfully, they did well and seemed to actually enjoy a lot of it. They only stumbled upon one piece intended "for mature audiences only" (at least that I am aware of), and they enjoyed finding this interactive sculpture of a camper that they could climb in. As soon as he sat down, Mike channeled "Magical Mystery Tour" and announced, "If you look to your left, ladies and gentlemen, the view is not very inspiring. Ah, but if you look to your right…"

 

When my weekends are like this, and I get to do the things I enjoy, on Sunday nights I can relax and get ready for the week ahead. And that is a good thing.

Spring Break

For six school years now, we have been spoiled with a year round school schedule, meaning our kids go to school for nine weeks and then get three weeks off all year. I cannot say enough good things about this schedule. It is better for the kids, the teachers, and at least for this set of parents. It is so nice to have that time off to recharge. We've also gotten very spoiled and used to traveling when most other kids are in school. Sadly, with Oldest Child heading off to middle school in August (yikes!) our days of this schedule are coming to an end since the middle school follows a traditional school calendar. Having kids on different school calendars comes with a different set of benefits, like more individual time with them and fewer lunches to pack on a single day, but I will really miss this schedule.

The kids are finishing up their three weeks of spring break. I had it all planned that I would take off a week over spring break so we could travel a little and catch up on things at home. And as we've done before, I wanted the week off to coincide with a time when most kids were in school. But then, without going into detail, life happened, and taking off a week was definitely not an option. Thankfully, I was able to take three days off from work and time it so it made Easter weekend six days long. The shorter schedule definitely prevented me from being able to catch up at home, but it did allow plenty of time for family fun.

Our break began with a trip to Defy Gravity, an indoor trampoline park. We received a gift card for Christmas  (thanks Grandpa Gene and Gran!) and it was our first chance to go. Everyone had fun, and we escaped with no serious injuries. (I'm not generally a worrier about these things, but ever since I heard business for the local orthopedic practice quintupled since the place opened, I am a little nervous.)

 

Next, we got ready for Easter. The kids love reading my Parents magazine, and this year they found a project for dying Easter eggs by covering a cookie sheet in shaving cream, swirling food coloring in the shaving cream, and letting the eggs sit in the mixture.We were not wowed by the process, but we didn't hate it either, and the kids loved experimenting with a new craft technique.

 

Easter morning we headed to Airlie Gardens. I know this is azalea season in southeast North Carolina, but I loved these tulips. 

 

And, yes, the azaleas were pretty darn spectacular.

 

The day after Easter, we headed off for a different sort of trip. Jeff and his best friend had been able to get tickets to go see a practice round of the Masters Tournament, and the kids and I tagged along. We actually stayed in Columbia, South Carolina which is about an hour from the tournament in Augusta, Georgia. While the guys were off watching golf, the kids and I headed to Riverbanks Zoo and Garden. We went on a gorgeous day during spring break week for local schools, and it was packed. It made us incredibly grateful that we had been able to go to Florida last fall in late September/early October, because the lines at the zoo were longer than any lines we experienced at Legoland or the Disney parks. Still, we had a pretty good time and we each consumed roughly our body weight in Icees. Mike loves turtles and Leon loves penguins, and both were thrilled to find multiple species of their favorite animals in real form as well as represented in statues and painted rocks.

 

Mike also found this brick at the zoo with his name on it! 

 

Because it had been so hot, after the zoo we went for a long swim at the hotel before heading to dinner. Dinner was nothing fancy, but the kids loved it. We had also received a gift card for Panera (gift cards for experiences are definitely our favorite presents!) that had been burning a hole in my wallet, and the kids were very excited to finally use it. We had planned to go swimming again after dinner, but between seven hours at the zoo and the pre-dinner swim, the kids were pretty zombie-fied, so we spent the evening just relaxing in the hotel room watching Chopped. While watching one of their favorite shows, the kids finally really relaxed, and it kinda felt perfect. Like a real break before life got insane again. Like a spring break.

Enchanted Car Wash

The kids finished school last Friday and are now enjoying one of their long breaks. They are ready for the time away from school, and I am ready for time away from having five lunches (I eat too!) ready by 7:04 each morning. It also means that maybe, just maybe, I will have a few minutes to write over the next few weeks.

Since the last time I wrote, we have taken three trips, celebrated two birthdays, and survived two holidays. Not bad. There is much to say, but I will keep it simple and start with last weekend.

November marked our ten year anniversary of living in Wilmington. It's been a great ten years, but it has also been a hectic ten years, and there are lot of Wilmington events and traditions that we never made time to enjoy. One of those traditions is seeing the lights of Enchanted Airlie at Airlie Gardens, and this year we finally made time to go. (And I even planned far enough ahead to get tickets!)

I really enjoyed seeing Enchanted Airlie, and I am pretty sure the kids enjoyed it, even if mean old Mom would not let them buy snacks.

After Enchanted Airlie, we stopped at the Barnes and Noble Cafe for cookies and cupcakes. (See, Mom isn't so mean after all!) On the way home from our evening o' fun, the gas light came on in the van. We realized we had never seen the gas light in our current van, and when it came on, a message popped up on the GPS asking if we would like it to direct us to the closest gas station. Jeff  and I were discussing how handy this feature was, when a certain boy child, who will not be named, became very concerned. His concern, in turn, led a certain little sister to get agitated. Within 30 seconds, I am pretty sure all but one of our children were convinced that there was impending doom and we might die at any moment because the car was low on gas. This was clearly the kind of thing my little worriers would lose sleep over. So we decided to head to a gas station, even though it was a bit out of the way.

One of our many recent adventures was a trip to Richmond, Virginia last weekend where we got to see my brother Alex and a whole lot of snow. That also met a lot of salt on the road, so while we were at the gas station, we decided to go through the automatic car wash.

I am certain my children have been through an automatic car wash before. I can recall being in there before with the same boy child fretting that the sign said to lower antennas and I had NOT lowered the antenna. I am certain he feared this also meant impending doom and death. But despite my memories of that prior near brush with death in the automatic car wash, they apparently had no such memories. And they found the automatic car wash to AMAZING. As in the most spectacular thing they have seen since Legoland in September. And we went to Disney World three days after Legoland.

They were enthralled the entire time we were in the car wash. They went to bed talking about the car wash. They woke up talking about the car wash. I am pretty sure that if Santa fails to come through, I can just take them to the car wash on Christmas Day, and all will be well with the world. So next year, I suppose, we should skip Enchanted Airlie and head to the car wash. Or maybe we'll just do both again.

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.