The Rest of the Griggs’ Visit and the Next Week

On Friday of the Griggs’ visit, we went out to White Bluff, TN, to visit our friend, Courtney, and her boys.  While there, I was sure to get a picture of the three of us.  Outside of my family, these are my two favorite people in the world, and I tend to get emotional when I think about all they mean to me:

We stayed at the Steeds’ for lunch and left about mid-afternoon.  From there, we ran to Cool Springs to get some workbooks that were at a good price, and while in the area, we picked up slices of cookie cake.  Charlotte wanted to do something to celebrate her and Luke’s birthdays, and cookie cake was the best option agreed on by all:

We enjoyed our cookie cake after supper that evening.
The Griggs left Saturday morning, and we were sad to see them go.  It was such a wonderful visit, and I’m so thankful, not only for my friendship with Molly, but for the friendships between our children.  We fully plan on them staying close forever!
Sunday was Father’s Day.  Greg, as usual, was at Impact for Father’s Day, but he met us for breakfast.  Luke was very proud of the Star Wars card he picked out, and he even decorated the envelope accordingly:

Both kids filled out a little “questionnaire” about their dad, and I love Anna’s answer for how she is like her dad:

“I am like my dad because I love others.”  What a great example he sets!
Can you tell from this picture that the kids felt like they hadn’t seen enough of their dad lately?

He’s been gone for most of June, and they missed him!
Because of Impact, Greg wasn’t able to attend church with us, but it was nice to have Gigi and Papa there!

They were in Nashville to drop Maddie, a teen, from Murphy, off at camp, and to take Luke and Jack to their house for a few days.  They were going to pick up Jack in Knoxville, but Luke was ready to go:

When they took Luke, I had charge of Maddie until the next afternoon when Senior Impact started for her.  Being from a small town, she had never been to a shopping mall.  To remedy that, we went to Opry Mill and stayed for three hours.  I can’t remember the last time I shopped that long!  Anna was particularly taken with all the mannequins:

That evening, Anna and Maddie played on the xBox Kinect:

The next day was Anna’s first day of ballet princess camp:

She loved it!
On Monday night, she and I went out to dinner and then came home to watch The Wizard of Oz.  Molly had gotten her into the soundtrack of Wicked while they were in town, and I think we are going to see the play together this year.  Before that, though, we needed to watch the movie.  Anna really enjoyed it.
On Tuesday after camp, we went back to the Discovery Center, per Anna’s fervent request:

Other than that, the third week of June was consumed by preparation for Luke’s 8th birthday party:

But that’s it’s own post…

Sun, Slide, and Splash Pad

On Thursday of the Griggs’ visit, we headed down to Murfreesboro for the day. One of their parks, the Wilderness Station, has a weekly “Nature Play Day,” that sounded simple, but fun.

I thought of this day as John’s day because the activities I picked were geared more to his age group.  I knew the older ones would enjoy them as well, though.  They had fun “fishing”….

…and making things out of clay.

There was also a tree to climb.

And dirt/mud to play in.

We were the last to leave Nature Play Day.  From there, we went to a picnic shelter and playground in the same park and had lunch.  Afterward, the kids played on the playground with two other homeschool families who happened to be friends with Luke and Anna from tutorial (small world!).

Once we were all done playing, we headed over to the Discovery Center, which was also in Murfreesboro.  In content, the Discovery Center reminds me a lot of the Children’s Museum in Charleston.  It’s lay-out is a lot better, though.  Everything is essentially in two huge rooms, one on each floor.  A huge slide connects the two floors, and was the first draw for our kids:

Anna’s favorite part of the center is the house/market area.  She can play with food all day.  Thankfully, so can Katie:

 

Luke loved the water works area.  However, he got soaked while working with pipes:

As he explained laughingly to the DC worker, “We have a pressure problem here!”  Thankfully, I still had a change of clothes for him.

The kids also loved the art area:

And Luke even dressed up like a fireman:

These are just some of the downstairs exhibits.  There were more upstairs, but I didn’t get any pictures.  After spending several hours in the Discovery Center, we headed home…by way of a splash pad:

Since our splash pad dreams had been dashed on Monday, I wanted to be sure to work one into our plans.  It’s silly, but I know that “not going to the splash pad we were promised” could end up being the primary memory of a trip (kids’ minds are so weird), so even though there had been minimal complaining over the splash pad, I made sure that we did visit one.

As much fun as the actual splash pad was, it seemed like the kids played even more on the periphery.

Here, they are making different animal prints.

While we were there, Molly took my car to a nearby Starbucks to pick us up something to drink.  I was proud that John didn’t scream when she left, which is his usual response.  He and I had bonded enough at Warner Park to make him cool with being left with me.  However, Molly took a little longer than expected, and after about fifteen minutes, John needed some snuggles from his sweet sister:

These two kids are so affectionate…and so adorable!

Of course, Anna had to get in on that action:

It was a long day, and we finally headed home for pizza.  We spent the rest of the evening hanging out outside:

And playing on the iPad:

And then…we only had one more day with the Griggs!

Nature Day at Warner Park

For day 3 of the Griggs’ visit, I had planned our iffiest lineup.  Warner Parks was offering a Jr. Naturalist nature class about bugs, and then I thought we’d go over to Cheekwood botanical gardens to see their “Big Bug” exhibit, which consists of giant insect sculptures.  I honestly wasn’t sure if any of this would be fun, but when I ran the idea by Molly, she said that Charlotte was really into bugs lately and to go ahead and sign the kids up.

This morning, then, we loaded the kids up in the van and headed over to Warner Park:

Only the three older kids were old enough for the class itself, which lasted two hours.

This picture belies their lack of enthusiasm.

This picture shows it more accurately:

Molly stayed in the class with them, and they had the option to leave and join the younger ones and I at any time, but they continually demurred.

At no time, however, did they seem impressed with the class…

My little Hermione still participated, though!

At one point, they played a “red light, green light” style game with insect stages of development.

And they also hunted in the garden with magnifying glasses for insects:

And looked for larvae in the creek:

Toward the end of class, when all that was a puppet show, craft, and the receiving of a badge, Molly asked them again if they wanted to leave.  Charlotte didn’t want to because she wanted her badge; Anna didn’t want to leave because she wanted to see the puppet show.

However, the puppet show, apparently, was the biggest disappointment of the day, leading to some classic faces from the kids:

Next it was time for the craft:

Then they got their badges and came met us for lunch.

While the kids were in class, I had the younger two.  The hard part was that A) John was unhappy about leaving his mom, and B) the play area that I had banked on cheering him up was essentially a mud pit.

The mud pit was like heaven for John, but he was good and just skirted the borders of the big puddle (under strict supervision from me), and just being in close proximity to the dirtiness cheered him up immensely.

For Katie, I had gotten a “treasure chest” from Michael’s, with some stick-ons to decorate it.  I had also found a nature scavenger hunt on Pinterest for us to do.  I tried to make it special for her because we were worried she might feel left out about missing class.  The “special surprise” worked like a charm:

Plus, she was amazing about letting others (like her brother and eventually the older kids) help her decorate.

After her box was ready, we all walked to a nearby creek and started scavenger hunting…

…and playing in the creek!

We had such a great time!

John was totally in his “happy place.”

He was loving life.

After the big kids got out of class, we all at lunch on a picnic table by the creek.

Afterward, the kids played a little more in the creek, and then the plan was to head over to Cheekwood.  However, when we loaded up, it started raining…and then continued to rain throughout the afternoon.  So we scrapped the Cheekwood plan for the day and just headed home, by way of Sweet CeCe’s:

The kids had a great afternoon at home.  We have been going and going all week, and it ended up being a great opportunity for them to hang out and relax.  So we spent the afternoon putting on Frozen shows:

Playing in the rain:

Painting:

Watching movies:

And “teaching the girls to build LEGO’s”.

It was the perfect respite in the middle of an otherwise busy week!