Our mostly soggy, but super fun mountain getaway!

We drove to Blowing Rock, NC and our little cabin the day of the 4th of July. We listened to the rain pour down on the roof all afternoon as we explored our place and then relaxed before heading out for dinner. We chose a friendly BBQ place...

The rain was coming down so hard as we drove back that night that we sat in the car for about 20 minutes with hopes of it letting up so we could get inside without getting soaked to the bone.  We finally braved it one at a time with Dad holding the umbrella up and down the steps from the cabin to the car.  He was definitely soaked in the end!  We listened to the rain come down all night long... The next morning we headed up the mountain to visit Linville Caverns.  It was still pretty rainy, and we were warned it was drippy on the tour, so we all got one of these to wear...

What a fascinating, beautiful thing to see natural caves inside the mountainside!  The kids all enjoyed the tour until the end when the guide let us experience total darkness.  Presley especially got a little scared, but she was a trooper!

There was a great indoor pool at the resort we stayed at.  In fact, we went swimming two days in a row and had the pool mostly to ourselves - fun!

The hot tub made it even better of course!  On the morning of my birthday we went to breakfast at a little cafe in Boone - check out how much food is still on MY plate after everyone else's had been cleared.  I got the big breakfast with a little of everything, yum!

A little later we went to check out the famous and original Mast General Store in Blowing Rock...

there was a great park nearby that would have been even more fun had it not been raining so much.  It was soggy, but gorgious!  And we were enjoying our first day without having to worry about the rain so much.  It would come and go, but we did see the sun on my birthday!  In fact, later that day we decided to go float down one of the slower moving rivers nearby.  What an adventure!  Although we spent way to much time waiting and waiting to get on our tubes, when we finally got in, the sun sparkled off the water for most of the time and with our tubes all tied together we had a pretty uneventful float down (except for the occasional tree branches we ran into and Avery's tantrum about the dirty water and bugs in her tube).  At the end though, we had quite the moment when the river guides were trying to get us pulled to the side and out of the water.  The water level of the river was extremely high and they had a hard time getting out to us - we almost floated on by....Hmmm...

After we said goodbye to our cabin on the last day of our stay, we headed to Grandfather Mountain.  There were clear skies and we were hopeful we'd have a good view when we got to the top.

Here we are crossing the famous bridge,

and standing a mile high in the air.

Of course the kids wanted to climb as far as they could...and the view we had was spectacular.  Nothing beats the green and beauty of NC mountains!

After a little picnic lunch we went to see the black bears at the nature reserve close by.

Caleb has a favorite stuffed animal that he's had since we moved here.  "Blacky" got to come along and see the real thing too.

We took a jaunt through the gift shop of course.  Aaron took this artsy picture of these bottles of wine because of the name, but we'll also remember them because someone bumped the display and a few bottles went crashing to the ground :)  We were lucky not to have to pay for them and got to spend some money on souvenirs - more stuffed animals and a collector's baseball.

We finished off our little trip with a really big and really tasty ice cream cone - perfect!

Summer so far...

Well, June came and went pretty quick for us, but we sure did a lot...here are some of the highlights!

Presley lost her first tooth!  

We started to frequent the pool, and the girls are swimming like fish!

Took Preston on a lot of walks...

and watched our tomato plants grow.

Caleb's second grade year came to an end.  Here he is with his teacher, Ms. Biggers, who by the way is his very favorite so far!

We talked to dad via computer quite a bit because he went to Los Angeles twice in June! (Caleb cleverly took this picture while talking to him).

Caleb discovered quickly what it's like to stay home almost all day because babies need to nap :)

So, activities like this mega bubble blowing with dishsoap, socks and empty water bottles came in handy to pass the time!

We all went fishing on one especially cool, beautiful evening at Crabtree Lake.  First time for most of us and we kept losing our hot dogs off our hooks, Avery hated the bugs and we got discouraged because everyone else but us seemed to catch something, but we had fun!

Caleb finished up his spring baseball season.  He won the award of most-improved defense this year!

Avery and Presley had a blast learning how to dance hip-hop,

Caleb spent a week at scout camp where he mastered the art of shooting b-b guns,

and the girls got to spend their afternoons for that same week at Safety Town!  It was great practice for kindergarten, especially because they were each in their own separate little class.  They loved sharing and comparing information after each day was over :)

Preschool graduates!

The girls performed for us on their graduation day, and it was so much fun to see them with all their friends! First, the classes walked in and sang some songs and then they left for a few minutes to put their caps and gowns on. When they marched back in again, they got their diplomas and sang some more - the words to the songs were so sweet and fitting and brought tears to my eyes. Can't believe their preschool experience has come to an end!

Ms. Cathy and Ms. Carmen were wonderful teachers!

Warmer weather means...

Turtles! He was such an awesome one that Dad even put a red mark on his shell so we could let him go and keep track of him...

Strawberry picking of course!

Preston joined our afternoons...

Sidewalk chalk, hopscotch and sisters - what more could you ask for?

And on Memorial Day we went on our very first real family hike - great weather, beautiful woods and most important, positive attitudes until the very end!

2013 Music Recital

The kids had their music recital the other night - Avery and Presley have now completed the first year of the Let's Play Music program and Caleb has completed the second year.  Some of the songs they sang together, like Do Re Mi and then other songs they sang while the bells were being played, or the keyboards.  It was so fun to watch the girls perform this year - they were right in the front with their cute faces...it was also a little tricky sometimes to have three kids performing at once because you can't always watch all of them at the same time!

This was a song Caleb played like a pro while the girls played the bells on the other side of the room:

And here are the girls playing another song on the bells, perfectly!

I think I was smiling ear to ear the entire time I watched the recital - it's so much fun to see them show off what they have worked hard on all year!