Vacation Part 3…June in Black Mountain

So here we are in Black Mountain.  The cool mountains.  My home.  The rain comes almost every afternoon and sometimes in the middle of the night and sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, many times with thunder and lightening.  But one adapts.  I had Jerry send warmer clothes… well, warmer sleeping clothes.  Suddenly, life is slowing down a little for us.  Our stay here is for almost 5 weeks.  We procure a pass to my folks’ community pool and hit some parks.  The first week was WAY to cold to go anywhere near the pool (which on the warmest of days is still frigid!)

One rainy afternoon, I walked into the garage to find my mom showing the kiddos how to throw pottery.

The local Park and Recs has it together.  Once a week they offer free music.  Each night has a food vendor that donates it proceeds to a community non-profit.  It’s nice to go and support the community and not be surrounded by too much stuff!  Bonus, the kids have a blast.

We don’t have lightening bugs on the coast, so they are super special here.  Once it gets to dark to catch them… of course, one stops by the park to play in the pitch black.

AND while we have arrived, we have been staying up a bit later.  I mean it’s not really dark enough to catch the fireflies until 8:30, so you know, bedtime is late.  Elijah handles that okay, but Grace sometimes has a hard time.  Luckily, we have our bikes here and Elijah is okay playing on his own some.  But when she’s up, they play well together as well.

On Father’s Day a HUGE storm knocked the power out.  Grace decided to go to church with my folks and Elijah and I had the morning to ourselves… or until my folks called to pick the littlest up.  After church and the pick up, we had a little lunch, a little nap, and then had a little party.  In attendance was LAURA TINY LEGS!!!  My kids’ best friend!

A couple of years ago, my parents had some swings installed.  My kids love the swings.  BUT my kids love the back of my folks truck at least as much.  They love it so much.  They love to play in it, BUT they also love to ride in it.  We only drive within the community, but they LOVE to go anywhere… to take the trash, to go to the pool, to ride around.  heh.

So it did eventually get warmer….-ish so we hit the pool.

Last year I bought a TON of sparklers… and both kids were totally freaked out by them.  SO as a preemptive strike I bought some early this year and we played with them BEFORE the 4th.  This worked out well.  And really, why should they just be used on July 4th.  They are a ton of fun!  The first night went well, but Gracie got a little worried the second night and needed some cover on her arms… and apparently her head. heh.

This year both kids took swim lessons.  We were so impressed last year, so we went on and did it again this summer too.  Originally, we had Elijah and Grace signed up to be in the same class.  But once we saw Elijah in the pool earlier this summer, we knew he had retained and added on to what he learned last year (can’t imagine what he would have been doing had he had access to a pool this winter…) we removed him from the beginner class and put him in the next level.  So Grace was on her own… well with 3 other kiddos.  Coach Hannah was back this summer and that sorta sealed the deal with Grace!  Gracie did great.  The water was FREEZING (the air wasn’t that warm either!)  But she pulled through every day.

During the week of swim lessons, we had lots of fun.  We went to the Christmount pool almost every afternoon, but we also played at the creek and park, played frisbee and rode bikes in the driveway, jumped in puddles discovered and explored a Greenway, and got to play some more with Lauratinylegs both at home and at the park for some music and dancing.

And thus ends June.  Phew!  This entry took days to write and I have videos that I wanted to add, but this program is killing me a little bit.  I may or may not come back and add them.  Hopefully July’s entry won’t take as much effort, though I feel like once I realized how quickly time was passing we started squeezing more and more into the days.

A preview of July: the 4th, presents from dad, Elijah’s swim lessons, blackberry picking and evening/night hike down Old Fort, creek hiking (or lack thereof), geo board building, Triple Falls, Morganton, and more Lauratinylegs!  PHEW!  EDIT!!!  ADDED VIDEOS!!!!