Fall 2016 - Fun Things

It's been a while, but let's see what we can remember ...

Books -

• Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe - we are going to the play next week, so we read this one.  Logan sometimes got bored, but eventually he really wanted to hear it.  Can't wait to see the play.
• Emil and the Detectives - just finished this one.  An older book, and the kids weren't sure at first, but they LOVED it.
• Jenny's Moonlight Adventure - a cute not too scary Halloween book.
• Andrew and I have been reading in bits and pieces Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites.
• Katsu and Andrew have been playing chess in lieu of night time reading.

Fun Things - 

• Odd Squad the movie - this was a major event for the kids this summer, but they loved it.
• Noah had a little birthday party.  We had a few kids over for a play date and sang and then had cupcakes.  He even got a couple presents.  It was fun and felt somewhat festive.  And then Katsu came home and we gave him our big present for him (a sand / water toy).
• OLYMPICS - we had a little opening ceremony party, though the kids got bored after awhile - let's be honest, I got bored after awhile.   We spent a lot of time watching the Olympics.  The boys loved the diving and the gymnastics.  Seth and Logan want to take gymnastics classes now.
• Katsu went to the youth baptismal trip, so we all drove out to Raleigh and dropped him off and then we went to the natural history center.  I was kind of grumpy, but the boys really enjoyed it since it's been a long time since we went.  Then, we picked up Katsu and drove to Chapel Hill.  We ate some yummy food at McAlisters and then went to the Planetarium.  We looked through the exhibits and then we watched a Magic Tree House Planetarium Show.  The boys loved it, except Noah who had a hard time sitting still.  So, I had to take him out at the end, but then I brought him back in for the Night Tonight.  Now, Logan wants a telescope and stars for his room.
• Birthday parties
• Andrew got new glasses.  His prescription changed quite a bit and the boys were somewhat well behaved during his appointment.  In fact, the doctors commented that this was the first time kids were there that they didn't have their eyes twitching by the end.
• Aunt Sarah came in town for several weeks to help with the kids while school started and to have fun with us.
• All the kids had dentist appointments.  It was pretty traumatic for Noah - he cried the whole time - but they all did fine and Logan is getting much better.  No cavities.  No concerns.  Seth still doesn't even have any wiggly teeth.
• Ward movie night - we watched Good Dinosaur.  We thought we had a party beforehand (it turned out not), so we ended up eating at Sonic beforehand.
• ECU started!  I am teaching two classes.  I lecture 9-10 M, W and 8-12 on Friday.
• My birthday.  It was a busy day - the kids had their open house at school.  But Sarah cooked dinner (chicken cordon bleu and cake) for me while I was at that, so that was nice.  I got 
• Watermelon Festival - we went to the parade and it was pretty fun, but so hot and humid.
• Elementary School (Andrew) - the kids started a week after ECU.  Andrew is in Ms. Zell's class and is also in the gifted program.  Ms. Zell seems to be a good teacher for him, but really Andrew is gone for the gifted program so much, it seems like he is hardly there or catching up on things all the time.  He goes to STRIDE (Gifted program) all day Monday.  He also has enrichment math (Thurs), enrichment reading, and super enrichment reading and super enrichment math (I think those are all on Friday).  So, he is gone almost 2 whole days each week.  Plus, he is taking orchestra and learning the viola in place of his regular music class.  It is supposed to be twice a week, but then he was missing all his PE (due to STRIDE) which isn't allowed, so it's just once a week for now.  He is doing pretty well at keeping up with practicing and also piano, though heaven forbid he practice when you tell him.  He does it whenever he feels like it.  He is also doing Battle of the Books (read 18 books and then answer quiz questions on them as a team), Leadership (helping the PE teachers again), and Running Club (they practice twice a week after school for a 5K next month - he is not very good or fast, but he is getting better and seems to somewhat enjoy it).
• Elementary School (Seth) - Seth is in Ms. Herring's class.  She is a new teacher this year.  She was also pregnant with twins boys (in addition to her one year old boy) and just had them a week ago.  So, he now has a permanent sub.  I am still not sure how I feel about her.  She seems fine, but I don't think she is engaging him as well as he should be.  He hasn't had any enrichment for math even though he is super far advanced.  As far as I can tell, the only thing that he has done is get a sign up to play the computer game Prodigy at home.  He LOVES this game and is always begging to play.  It gives math problems and then it is kind of like Final Fantasy type game.  The problems have been super hard - long division, greatest common multiples, graphing with coordinates, but he seems to be picking it up.  He didn't get a good grade in writing, but it was based on only one assessment, which I am not very happy about.  He is advanced in reading and has been loving to read Geronimo Stilton books.  They have been doing AR now in second grade, although the teachers don't seem to really know what they are doing.  Seth had a hard time taking the test on chapter books, but got to his goal super fast.  He always tries to take out the very hardest books that they will let him.  He has been learning about sound and music and just turned in a project making an instrument.  He had lots of ideas about using cleaning bottles and made some sort of blowing thing.  He worked on it all by himself and really didn't want any help or input.  Seth is still doing really well with piano.  Both boys are in the book 2B of Alfred Premiere Course.
• Seth went to a birthday party at AirU - a jumping trampoline place and he really wants to go back all the time.
• A couple football parties.  Aunt Sarah even came.
• I don't think we did much for Labor Day.  I don't really remember.  Maybe Katsu painted the walls?
• Sarah went back home.  Andrew was glad to get his room back, but Noah was really sad to miss his little buddy and cried about it for a couple days.
• Noah and Logan had their tea party at the preschool to meet their teachers.  Noah had a rough few days at the beginning of the year, but now he loves preschool and always talks about his friends at preschool and is sad when it's a day when Logan goes and he doesn't.
• Logan is in Ms. Shelley and Ms. Kim's class in the pirate room upstairs and goes 9-12 five days a week.  His room has pirate toys and all kinds of pirate decorations and has had several pirate crafts.  They even celebrated and dressed up for talk like a pirate day.  Ms. Shelley loves Logan and just thinks he is delightful and easy.  Logan is really enjoying the class and seems to be making friends and having fun with the other kids.  He also seems to be learning the letters they study at school pretty well.  Hopefully he will know all the letters by the time he starts kindergarten.  It has been a long slog (he knows all his numbers, though ...)  He keeps getting more literary skills and has started really picking out beginning and ending sounds in all the words he hears, so I am not too worried.  A funny thing from his preschool class - there is another boy who moved into his class who is named Logan F too.  So, Logan goes by Logan Funai.  He especially loves playing in the sand and I finally figured out why - his teacher brings back lots of shells and hides them there.  It's like a treasure hunt.
• Noah is in Ms. Jennifer's class.  He is in a 2 year old class that meets Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  He really loves the class now.  He plays and has circle time and reads stories and brings home simple crafts.  He plays on the playground for a long time and really enjoys that, too.
• Ward picnic - we had to pick up the meat, but it was at the wrong barbeque place and so we had to drive all around town.  It was kind of crazy and stressful, but the food was good and we brought home tons of leftovers.  Too bad the kids don't like north carolina bbq - more for us!
• High priest breakfast.  They remembered how much Logan liked bacon and got a whole pan full for him to bring home!
• Soccer - Katsu is coaching both teams (Logan and Seth).  It has been a little crazy, especially when it was so hot and we were worried about Katsu getting migraines.  But he has mostly enjoyed the teams (even though so many games have been cancelled due to weather).  And they have basically won all their games for both teams. Kind of crazy.  The season is almost done now - last games on Monday and then there will be a tournament for Seth's group.
• Curriculum Night & Preschool Orientation.  Lots of busy school meetings.
• Andrew had a cub scout activity at the nature center and went hiking and had lots of fun.  Noah and I ended up joining them in the nature center after their hike.
• Talk like a pirate day - Logan dressed up for school and then Logan and Noah and I went to Krispy Kreme with the boys dressed up and each got a box of donuts.  It was a fun day.
• We celebrated Angel Moroni Day by talking about how he appeared to Joseph Smith and then finding little scripture treasures made of chocolate.
• General Conference - we went though the 72 hour kits and ate up all the expiring food (probably a bad idea since the hurricane went through the next week ...) and the boys listened to a couple of the talks even, especially when they played bingo with the M&Ms.  It was a pretty fun weekend and nice to all be together at home.  Soccer games were cancelled due to rain, so we didn't even have to go anywhere.
• US Marine Band - Katsu took the boys.  Seth and Logan both fell asleep almost instantly, but Andrew really enjoyed the band and was very interested in the music.
• I have been in charge of the walking school bus - and we had our walk to school day.  The police accompanied us in the morning and we had banners.  The kids were a little wild, but they had a lot of fun.  They got goody bags and snacks in the afternoon on the way home.  Low key, but fun.
• Noah went and saw the puppet lady at the mall.  He didn't want to go, but he enjoyed it in the end and wants to go back another time.
• Andrew had a field trip to go and see an orchestra performance.  He enjoyed it.  We were supposed to have a performance that evening, but it was cancelled due to the hurricane.
• The hurricane blew through on Saturday Oct. 8.  Everything was cancelled, of course.  We sat at home and waited and watched.  The wind and rain were something treacherous.  We brought in everything from outside, thankfully, because it was much worse than we expected.  I have never seen such a storm.  Poor Noah was so scared - he was just wandering around saying "Rain hurt me" over and over again.  The other boys were a little nervous, but not too bad, but Noah would not go to sleep at all unless he was between me and Katsu.  He is still scared of any rain or storms, poor thing.  Our neighbor's trampoline flipped over their fence, but thankfully, other neighbors tied it down before it could have caused any damage.  We didn't lose power or anything harmful.  There was a huge amount of flash flooding in town, even the road behind ours was flooded badly in parts and many many roads were closed on Saturday and Sunday.  We did get a bit of water damage from rain coming through around the outdoor outlet cover, but thankfully nothing too bad.
• We just had a combined sacrament meeting service on Sunday.  Kind of crazy to see the damage from the storm.
• School - all of them - was cancelled for the entire next week.  We didn't venture far beyond the store and once to the library.  Many streets were closed and then Greenville started flooding from the Tar river through the whole week before finally peaking water levels on Friday.  Far from us, but not too far.  The whole region was flooded really.  Craziness.
• Preschool finally started the next week, but Andrew and Seth were still out on Monday.  We finally got our piano tuned (which the boys found somewhat interesting) and then we played a rousing game of Monopoly.  Boys finally went back to elementary school on Tuesday with a 2 hour delay.  And ECU started as well.  Katsu couldn't go to ECU the very first day it was closed (Monday the 10th), but he went into the lab most days the week it was closed, though sometimes came home early.  Thankfully the weather was good the week they were out, so they spent lots of time playing with friends and outside.
• The fire truck came to preschool.  According to Noah's teacher, he was petrified of it and refused to get on it.  I guess it was a little too big - he loves looking at them from afar.  Logan seemed to enjoy it.
• Thursday, on the way home from preschool, the car broke down.  Thankfully, Katsu could come and help out.  And thankfully, we were able to drive the car to the shop without needing a tow truck and the shop could look at it right away.  They had to order a part and the car could just stop anytime, so we have been down to one car, but hopefully it will be done on Monday.  We'll see!
• Friday, Katsu took Andrew, Seth, and Logan to see ECU's family fare production of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.  Katsu wasn't super impressed, but the kids enjoyed it and enjoyed spending time with him, of course.  They went to McDonald's afterwards and played checkers and had ice cream.
• Saturday, ALL the boys went and cleaned the church, then a full day of soccer boys, and then ALL the boys went to a church's fall festival.  We drive by it every day on the way to preschool or ECU and decided to try it.  The boys LOVED it.  There were 8 bouncy houses!  Plus cotton candy, hot dogs, and games and candy.  They stayed for a long time and loved it.

Noah in July 2016

Noah - turned 2.  I can't believe he is so old already.  I brought him into the doctor when we went to Logan's ear appointment and the nurse asked where the baby is - no one can believe he is so old already.

And, oh, boy, is he 2!  I swear, from the day of his birthday, he has been throwing the biggest fits ever.  I think they are maybe the worst of all the kids.  Or maybe not quite as bad as Andrew.  He will scream and writhe around on the floor for like 20 minutes and nothing will calm him down.  It could get interesting.  And, in typical toddler fashion, they are for ridiculous things, like when we couldn't figure out what he wanted for breakfast, so I let Andrew eat the fish because I thought Noah didn't want it, but in fact, he just wanted it cut.  He is a handful.

Noah sleeps pretty well.  He doesn't wake up every night anymore, maybe just every 3 nights or so.  It is so nice to pretty much have everyone sleep through the night.  Thought that would never happen.  He is pretty resistant to going to sleep, though.  Unless he is really tired, it can take a good hour of laying next to him to get him to sleep.  If he had his way, he would read 10 million stories, but I am trying to get him into a pattern of 3 books only.  He takes naps at least half the days.  But often, after laying down for 30 minutes, he still won't sleep.  On the days he does sleep, he will take a long nap usually and sometimes we have to wake him up.  So, kind of a weird schedule.  Maybe when school starts up again, it will be better.

Noah still loves to eat.  He also knows exactly what he wants to eat.  He can eat more fish than almost all of us.  He is done with sippy cups and does pretty well without spilling.  He is also done with his booster seats, so he pretty much eats like the rest of us now.  He just needs help with cutting things, which he is very demanding about.

Noah is starting preschool next month.  I am a little worried about him being in 3 days a week, but it will be better for my work schedule.  He is loving nursery finally.  They said he is talking and playing and laughing and just participating really well, so hopefully preschool will be good, too.  We have been talking it up a lot, so we'll see.

Noah is really good at playing by himself.  He also loves to play with his brothers.  He loves to run around in costumes and hats and swords and rough housing with everyone.  He likes to play with trucks and trains and little animals and people and blocks.  He is obsessed with guns.  He loves any and all guns.  He also loves ducks (which are any birds), so he had the best time at the farm.  He loves baseball and soccer and really any sport.  He loves to walk around with a bat and a hat on - all the time.  He likes to talk about "foul ball" and is starting to say baseball, too.

Noah loves reading and wants to spend a long time reading with me every day.

He loves to look at letters.  He calls them all "s", but he is interested in how they work.

He is talking more.  He has a pretty big vocabulary, but he isn't really putting words together in sentences.  They said if he still isn't in a couple months, call for a referral, but I think he might be starting to put some words together in the last couple days, so hopefully not.

Noah is a really sweet boy.  He kisses and hugs, but he is going through a huge Mommy phase.  He loves Katsu and runs to say goodbye to him in the morning and runs to him in the evening when the garage door opens.  He also really likes Seth - I think because Seth is athletic and they are a lot alike.  He talks about Seth all the time.  He will probably be sad when school starts again.

I am probably going to have a go at potty training with him this week to see how it goes.  I got annoyed when Noah was pooping in his swim diaper, so he started telling me when he needed to go to the potty and he will.  So, he will poop in a potty, at home or away, probably every day.  He is interested, so maybe it will work.  We'll see ...

July 2016

Books - Finished the Tale of Despereaux.  I think Seth liked it though I'm not so sure about Logan.  Almost finished with the Lemonade War, but not enjoying it, with Andrew.  I started the first Moomintroll book, but am not really enjoying it anymore than the one we read before, so maybe I won't read it.  Katsu spent the last two nights telling the boys fun stories, which they love.  Andrew has mostly been rereading books, loved the Seven Wonders books, read some of the Series of Unfortunate Events, but didn't seem to love them, and has been reading more of the Warriors books.  Seth has seemed to enjoy Geronimo Stilton books, especially the comic book ones.  Logan likes any and all books and Noah is in love with Froggy and Pookie.

Fun Things This Month:

• July 1st, we went and watched our neighbors put on fireworks.  One of them is a firefighter, so we felt pretty safe and they loved it.  Poor Logan missed it because he fell asleep and was super tired.  Andrew and Seth had a blast.  And afterwards, the other neighbor put up a big screen and projected "Zootopia".  So me and Andrew and Seth at least got to finally finish the movie.  It was a fun late night and even after putting on bug spray we all got eaten alive.
• The weekend of July 4th, we went to beach on Saturday.  It was a beautiful day and we had so much fun.  We went to Atlantic Beach, there has been several shark attacks in the weeks preceding, but we went anyways, because Fort Macon is our favorite.  The boys all love the beach and have fun making sand castles, running in the waves, on their boogie boards.  We went to the aquarium after dragging the boys away from the beach.  Noah was super excited to see the fish.  He loves fish and had a great time!  We stayed until it closed and then were super hungry so we stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner and the boys loved it of course.  We had a great, busy, tiring day.
• July 4th we had a low key day with a cookout for lunch.  In the evening, we headed over to a neighbor to watch the neighborhood fireworks.  They always have an amazing display.  This year, the rain looked like it was going to start, so they started a little earlier than usual.  I bought the boys flag glow sticks, which they loved.  But once the fireworks started, Noah got scared and I had to keep going in and out with him.  It was a beautiful huge display.  I have never seen anything in a neighborhood like that.  Then, Katsu set off a whole bunch of fireworks while the kids played with sparklers.  He got them back at his conference in Florida.  I guess now he will be a firework man.  It was really a great Independence Day.
• We saw Despicable Me 2 at the movie theater with friends.  Lots of fun.
• Noah got a fever right after the movie, so only the older 3 boys went and played at a friend's house.  They had a blast.  When I went to pick them up, Noah was so sad he couldn't go in the pool.  
• Play date on Thursday.
• Thursday was also Tanabata.  We went to the garden store and bought a little bamboo plant and that evening we wrote all our wishes on pieces of paper and put them out on the bamboo plant.  They were pretty cute.  Logan wished for pizza (he got his wish on Friday).  Seth wished to improve on video games.  I don't remember all the rest.
• Next Tuesday, we started Logan's swim lessons.  He only got in two lessons before he got his ear infection and we had to cancel the rest.  He was doing really well.  I guess next year ...
• We played in a friend's pool that afternoon.  The boys loved it.
• Chick fil a cow appreciation day.  We all loved dressing up as cows and had a yummy dinner.
• We had another play date.
• TRIP TO ASHEVILLE & GREAT SMOKY NATIONAL PARK
• As we got back, Seth had soccer camp from Monday to Thursday.  It was SOOO hot, the poor kid was worn out and dehydrated every day we picked him up.  I was very worn out just hauling the kids in and out and in and out of car seats.  High nineties with high humidity.  What a miserable week.  But Seth really had a fun time.
• Lots of dr appts with ear infection and well visits.
• Kung Fu Panda 3 at the library.  No M&Ms in the nose ... so we got to watch the whole movie.  Horray!
• Katsu and I went on a date finally (!) and tried out a new Jamaican restaurant.  There was no where to sit and we didn't want to just bring the food home, so we ended up to eating in the car and then went and got some frozen yogurt at a new place.  It was fun and the boys loved having pizza, cookies, popcorn and watching a movie with the babysitters.
• Saturday was just a lazy day at home with finally some rain!

Trip to Mountains, Part Eight

On a sort of side note ... Logan woke up on Saturday complaining that his ear had hurt the night before.  I saw where he had scratched his ear, but it looked okay, and he said it didn't hurt anymore.  I figured he got bit by something.  Later that day, it started draining yellow, then green, then black.  We were on the way home, so we just waited till Monday morning to go to the doctor, but the poor thing - it looked awful.  And by Monday he would complain if anyone so much as touched it.  The doctor couldn't even see his eardrum and swabbed it and sent it to the hospital to culture because she thought it must have something terrible in it.  Thankfully, it didn't grow anything that an antibiotic wouldn't cure and he was on antibiotics and ear drops.  It looks a lot better now.  But poor kid - I am betting it must have hurt a lot on Friday night.  I wish he had told us.

Saturday, we packed up our cabin (Dogwood Cove) and got into the car to drive.  Katsu had hurt his foot the night before at Fontana Lake, so we need to get bandaids and antibiotic cream at the pharmacy, but then we were ready to drive.  We drove all the way straight to the NC Transportation Museum - once we got in town, we ate some lunch and then headed over.  We meant to stop sooner and we were all starving, but we couldn't find anything!

After our stomachs were full, we went to the Transportation Museum in the town of Spencer, which looked really cute when we were driving through it.  It was super duper hot, especially after having been in the mountains.  Like 100 practically and super humid.  When we got there, we were just in time for the last train, so we bought our tickets (free again with our museum pass) and waited for the train.  It was nice and air conditioned and the boys, especially Noah, was super excited.  I had been a little bummed we didn't go on the (super expensive) train in Bryson City, but I think this was actually perfect.  It was a pretty boring train ride - just backward and forward, but Noah loved it.  The museum was actually a lot bigger than I was expecting.  We got off a bit earlier to get out at the Roundhouse.  We saw all the trains and go on any you could get on.  The roundhouse was pretty cool and the exhibits and trains were too.  I liked where they talked about the employees the best - horrible story about a person who fell in a vat of lye they used to clean all the engine parts. We went by the shop were they were working on trains.  We also went into the huge shop they used to work on the trains and saw some old cars.  They had another building with old bicycles and also the giftshop.  The gift shop had a train that went around the top of it and also a train table to play with.  It was so hot, but we sweltered through the heat and enjoyed ourselves, and on the plus side, it was practically empty - very few visitors.  Once we could pry the kids away from the train tables, we went back to our car and drove the last 30 minutes to Asheboro and our hotel.  We watched TV, relaxed, and then went to Cicis because that is the only thing the kids could agree upon.  Then, we were ready to watch TV and the kids went to bed too late.

Sunday, we woke up and got packed and went to the zoo.  Again, super super hot, but we walked around for a few hours.  We started in Africa, saw like one animal, and then took the tram to the North America side of the zoo.  Seth and Andrew were our navigators and everyone had to have a map.  We bought a teeny umbrella stroller at Walmart just so we could push Noah around and not rent a stroller.  I swear, we spent almost the entire zoo trip with one or another child at the bathroom.  Seriously.  At one point, the boys were walking and talking about poop and why they spend so long in the bathroom (the joys of having 4 boys).  Seth says "I had a poop so big it was like a poop tower".  This guy walking next to us burst out laughing and said "You can not tell me that was not funny."

Okay, back to the zoo.  Really enjoyed the air conditioned parts.  The polar bear was really cool - he would swim right up next to you on the glass and it is just amazing how large they are.  Also liked the puffins.  Andrew wanted to see everything at the zoo - by the time we got to Africa, the rest of us were fried, so he and Katsu went off to see more and we took the tram back.  The lady on the tram was really nice and stopped the tram by the animals until all the boys saw them.  There were a lot of yellow jackets everywhere at the zoo, too.  Yuck.

Anyways, it was nice couple hours.  Then, back to the car, and we drove all the way home.  It was so nice to be there!

Trip to Mountains, Part Seven

On Friday, we spent the day a little closer to our rental.  We went to the Deep Creek area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  It is only about 15 minutes from our rental.  We went on a waterfall hike – walking on different trails to see all 3.  The boys were a little reluctant to hike at first (they would rather watch TV or play video games every day), but it was a nice hike.  The first waterfall was pretty quick and nice.  We took pictures and then we were off on a horse trail.  We walked along, pointing out all the mushrooms and rocks along the way to get Noah to walk part of the way.  We saw a few horses near the end of the path and then walked to the second waterfall.  This one was magical.  There were butterflies everywhere.  We walked down to the falls and then Katsu and then little boys walked down across the stream to take pictures and see all the butterflies.  Then, we walked along the stream and saw all the kids tubing – we will have to go back another time and try it when Noah is older.  We got into the water near the third waterfall and played with rocks and made little towers.  It was cold, but so fun.  We went back to the car, drove to the picnic area and had our lunch.  We were pretty worn out, so we drove by the Road to Nowhere and then we just headed back to the rental and then went swimming in the lake.  Boys had fun, though Katsu hurt his foot playing with the boys.  So, we headed home, had dinner, and made another fire for marshmallows.  Boys played a game of National Park Monopoly.  It was a lot of fun, but we were all ready to head home.

Trip to the Mountains, Part Seven

Thursday we spent in the main part of the national park.  We went to the Mill first.  We hiked around first and saw where the water went into the Mill and then we went inside to see the Mill.  The employee didn’t seem very cheerful and it wasn’t too interesting.  But, we found the Junior Ranger program on bugs.  We hiked up just a little bit, saw an interesting slave graveyard and then got the tools to look for some bugs.  The boys really enjoyed it.  The ranger helping was Ranger Seth which we thought was interesting.  Seth and Logan had a little kit and had a harder time finding bugs at first, while Andrew and Noah got a spider and other little bugs which we tried to avoid the poison ivy.  Then, Logan got a really big centipede and it was super excited.  I was really impressed with the program and wished they had had more the couple days we were in the park.

Next, we drove to Clingman’s Dome.  We should have bought the brochure so we knew more about what we were driving through, but we didn’t really stop anywhere.  It was not quite what we expected – not like the Blue Ridge Parkway with all the nice overlooks.  But it was a nice drive up the mountain.  There was no parking, so we had to park way out just pulling off the road – a little nervewracking, but we ate our lunch in the car and  we walked up to the top and hiked up the trail.  It was pretty steep and I was carrying Noah and Logan was whining, but I promised him he could climb up the rocks at the beginning if he didn’t whine.  At the end of the hike is a huge observation tower.  We went up and the views were pretty good – stormy though.  We could see Mt. Mitchell and all around in all directions.  We hiked down to the bottom and then the boys clamored over the rocks.  We went back to the car.

Next, we drove a bit further to the Gap and took pictures and took a long bathroom break (Noah wanted to use and flush every single toilet … I think Katsu thought we fell in the toilet).  We were worn out, but we went back to the visitor center (this time no elk but also no rain).  We saw the mountain farm museum – again, kind of boring without brochures and it was SO hot.  Noah was happy to see the chickens and Logan tried one of the apples.  Then, Andrew and I went on a very quick hike to finish up his Junior Ranger badge.  Then, Andrew got his Junior Ranger badge, we drove to the grocery store, back to the rental, out swimming, with a big fire and smores and catching fireflies.