Other summer main events

This summer we enjoyed several visits from cousin Benny. He would come down from Charlotte, NC to stay with Mimi and Pop Pop for about a week at a time. On the very first week of summer, Benny was in town. The kids and I went with him, Mimi, and Pop Pop to hike at Table Rock. We had a picnic and then set out on what was probably a 2-mile hike. 2 miles is an awfully long way with 4 little kids and 2 feeble old people. Luckily there were built-in breaks at a couple of different swimming holes.

Claire was sick with a bit of a cold and was a bit underwhelmed with the experience. She kept asking to go climb the mountains, not understanding that's kind of what we were doing. She also referenced Dollywood several times. I'd love to have been inside her head as she tried to reconcile her expectations of the day's outing with what was actually happening. With more than half the hike remaining, she was ready for a nap. I carried her the rest of the way and she may have fallen asleep at some point.

Back in May, I had joined a gym and in the summer they began offering a kids' class. We all spent just about every morning during the summer working out. One day a week they had "snack attack", when the kids got to help prepare a healthy snack to eat. This, of course, was always their favorite day.

In mid-July we slipped away for a quick trip to Savannah. We stayed with Aunt Lisa, and though we only stayed the weekend, we crammed a ton of fun stuff into the days we had there. Of course we spent one full day at the beach. It was so much fun and, once Claire got used to the ocean, we could hardly keep her out. Later that evening, we took Lisa to dinner for her birthday.

The next day we did some shopping in the morning. Nathanael and Claire rode a little train, and all three kids enjoyed checking out the boats and ATVs. Later, we went to the Savannah Wildlife Refuge to hunt for alligators. It was a HOT day and the gators must have been trying to stay cool, hidden in the water. It took quite a while to spot one, but the kids were pretty pleased when our final count ended up around 5. We, of course, rounded out the weekend with plenty of junk food. 

The first of August, we were invited to spend a day on the lake with Mark and Crystal. It was so much fun!! All three kids braved tubing and couldn't get enough. I only feared for their lives when Sam and Nathanael rode with no adults. I was just waiting for one of them to pop right off that thing! We played until dinnertime and then parked the boat at a restaurant for dinner. 

Lastly, as previously documented, we took a quick road trip to bike the Virginia Creeper Trail in Damascus, VA. The original plan was to bike the trail on the day we arrived and again the following day. Even without Mimi's crash, those plans would have been null and void because of how wet and muddy everything got during our ride. It was definitely a ride to remember. 

Staying in a hotel with three kids is not my favorite. Usually we sleep one adult and one kid in one bed, and one adult and two kids in the other. Somehow, I always get the short end of the stick. After breakfast the next day, given Mimi's questionable condition and our dampened spirits, we just headed home. We did, however, take a pit stop at Bristol Motor Speedway just to check it out. They typically offer tours, but this day they were not. However, they told us we could go on in and check things out for ourselves. Having never been to any sort of racing event, the place was certainly pretty impressive.