Day Trip

With Daddy working a summer job while school is out, we are having a different kind of summer than we are used to. He has this one week at home so we planned some fun things to do. 

Today was a day trip to Stone Mountain State Park. We wanted to go somewhere within a couple hours of home and somewhere we'd never been. Perfect!

          Lovely cumulus mediocris

Stone Mountain was originally part of the Hutchinson homestead, made into a state park in 1969. We began our visit with a picnic and then moved on to hike to the falls. 

You actually start at the top and work your way down, quite opposite than usual. 

From here we walked down a million steps. 512 to be exact. 

And ended here:

How cool is that?! It was amazing and beautiful. We loved playing at the base of the falls. The water was still cold! Grace held a salamander and Curtiss saw 3 water snakes. 

We then began the exhausting hike back UP all. those. stairs. But we made it back to the van and drove to the homestead. Where I had my husband drive to the handicap parking lot. Cause we were all not up to another 2 mile hike. 

Three generations lived in this cabin, built in 1855. The first generation raised 8 children in the original section, in just three rooms. One of their sons added on a bit and he also raised 8 children here. As we walked through the farm we realized what was in their backyard. 

I thought of my son-in-law, who likes to rock climb, because they allow that here. I can't imagine! We did a very scaled down version of that at the base. 

That blurred image is my son and all the rock climbing I want to witness! We headed back to the cabin for a last look. 

As I took this picture I thought of all the children this porch has seen. I wondered about all the memories made on this homestead. Did someone write them down? Or are they gone from this earth, like their creators?

 

It was a lovely day. 

Around the house

We are currently turning our lawn into food!

Our first tomato...

Zucchini 

Swiss Chard is yummy, we are eating it almost every day. 

And the first echinacea. 

Someone else is growing, too. 

Testing

Trying out blogging from my phone!

Worst Blogger Ever

Daddy and Silas enjoy the sun.

 Yep, that's me. Worst ever! It might have something to do with the nine other people in my life. Keeps me busy. Today I'm holding a sick fevery baby a lot, so I have to be sitting. So voila, a blog post. Here are some ramblings...

We got to take a long overdue trip to Florida in January. So nice to get away from the cool weather and see my mom and dad down there. We also had a great visit with my Aunt Nancy and family and my cousin Courtney and her fam.

Enjoying the lake while sleepy cold alligators aren't a worry.

Warm enough to wade!

Lots of nature finds

Dock in my mom's backyard. Lots of time spent there.

Little man, swinging. 6 months old!

Hilarious lizard! Grace loves the lizards there.

 One of my favorite things we did while there was a visit to Margery Rawlings home. Such a sweet florida cracker home and grove. When she died, her husband put everything in storage and the home and land was donated to the University. After some years, it got to be too much financially for the college to keep up and it was given to the state. Her husband was still alive and took everything out of storage, donated it and them came himself and set it up just as it had been when she was living there! The house and everything in it is 95% original. Even the books on her shelf are exact copies of what she had there, the originals being kept safe in a humidity regulated environment. She stipulated that her place would never be used for commercial gain so you'll not find a bookshop or souvenirs there. Just her lovely home, some ducks and chickens, a small grove and some old wild citrus trees.

She wrote The Yearling right here.

The Royal Road to Romance by Haliburton on her shelf!

 Ms. Rawlings liked to entertain and cook for friends, she also owned a place at the beach and her husband owned and operated a hotel in St. Augustine (now the Ripely's museum). She didn't like all the people there so spent a lot of time at Cross Creek even after her success. I really enjoyed reading 'Cross Creek', about her life there, in the middle of this visit. It made it so real. She spent quite a few years, struggling on this farm before The Yearling brought her fame and cash. It was also part of the reason her first marriage ended.

Such a lovely comfortable home. Gregory Peck stayed here as a guest while filming The Yearling.

How my children enjoy Ms. Rawlings tangerines.

Yummy

Sunset at my mom's.

 This picture was snapped at the beginning of Jan, at the end of a lovely 2 weeks with Kaley and Jack here. I have missed my Girl so much. We had a great time just going to the grocery store and getting coffee. She was a peach and drove me up to Asheville for an errand. I hate how I look in this picture! But I am trying to stop avoiding the camera and being so critical of my pics as I want my kids and grandchildren to have them! It's really hard for me. But it's a perfect picture of Kaley with her cute new hair do. Which she has changed again already :/

A Good Monday

I actually did have a good Monday. And after some really bad nights around here, some sickness and some general hard parenting times, and that missing my Girl really bad that finally hit me,  that was a welcome thing.

A good friend really let me talk out some problems I've been having in parenting my two little boys, ages 3 and 5. It's so good to have friends who listen, give you lots of grace and unconditional love and great suggestions! So I am reading little people books, snuggling more, communicating better, being calmer and that is really going a long way with disciplining these little guys. Me, the CM nut (children are persons treat them as such) forgets that my little men are people and get gruff and angry and horribly tired and impatient with them. It has been a good reminder.

My two older children, 14 and 12, spontaneously decided they needed to work more independently. WOW This was great as I am feeling stretched very thinly these days, see paragraph above. They have always schooled at level together, but my almost 15yo son is in high school now and has really matured lately. His sister is not so mature in some ways and I am not anxious to rush that. Because then this happens:

Sigh. And then she will grow up too fast and move far away to somewhere cold and crazy like Minneapolis and I will miss all the long talks and coffee runs and new music she was always bringing me and drat if they don't become  your friends and then you are just supposed to live without them?!.


Ahem. Back to my Monday.  They also decided that he should pull ahead. Maybe she is more mature than I realized.

This is great. I could have pushed this sooner but said 12yo daughter can be extremely stubborn (don't know where that came from) and having this be partly her idea was very helpful. We quickly scanned the shelves for her own history and literature books, scaled down a notch, and found the perfect fit in quite a few books. Curtiss quickly pulled ahead and I am offering him a few more books I was holding back so as not to overwhelm Grace. Oh, it's beautiful.

The best son a mom could want. And totally by the grace of God, not by my parenting.

And lastly, my baby turned 4months old today! He is almost a whopping 20lbs and learning to use his little hands so well. His gift to me today? He took my face in his little hands, very systematically. So SWEET!

Wonder where he got those cheeks?

This picture really captures how he looks well!

Little somethings I am making and selling. Exciting!