Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Field Trip to Bays Mountain Park

   Today was the first "official" field trip of our newly formed homeschool group. We met with moms Kelly, Rachael and Gloria and their kids (mostly boys) in Kingsport's Bays Mountain Park. It is the largest city park in Tennessee (over 3,500 acres). We started out with a picnic lunch and then got our tickets for the barge ride at 3 PM.

   We picked today to go to the park because they feed to wolves every Wednesday at 2 PM. After buying our barge tickets, we went on a little hike along the lake. We watched the otters in their enclosure and owls in the their pavilion. We enjoyed pleasant hiking weather and beautiful fall colors everywhere.
Hannah and her new boyfriend Zander

Hiking along the lake

Albino deer

Five year old boys

Hannah playing with the boys

Hannah was tired or as she put it 
"It was too much walking for her tickly feet"

   We stopped at the wolf enclosure shortly before 2 PM to watch the feeding. The park ranger arrived with their food - about 30 lbs of ground meat, 10 lbs for each wolf. They feed them twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The ranger explained that wolves eat about 20 lbs of meat once a week in the wild. We waited and waited but the wolves did not come to eat. Apparently they were not very hungry. We walked to the other side of the enclosure to see them.
One of the 3 wolves that live at Bays Mountain Park

   Stevie and Hannah were hungry and we walked over to the truck to get some snacks. After our snack we caught up with the group at the barge landing area. The barge was an oversized pontoon boat and took us on about a 30 minute ride around the lake. 
Hannah on the barge

Beaver lodge
It is about 30 years old and the walls are 2-3 feet thick

Stevie with Evan, Zander and Rachael

   After the barge ride we went into the visitor's center where they had large fish tanks, dinosaur exhibits and a play cave. The kids loved the cave and Stevie requested that we get a house with a cave. After some cave-time we all loaded up in our vehicles and drove home. We were pretty hungry and decided to check out a bar-b-q restaurant near our apartment. We did not like it, it was very expensive and the food was too spicy for the kids to eat. Oh well, lesson learned. 
   





Tuesday, October 29, 2013

The Owl and The Pussycat

   We stayed home most of the day except for a little trip to the playground. This morning when the kids came to our bed, Hannah recited almost the whole Owl and the Pussycat. She said it so beautifully with a great rhythm.
    We also got a call from the lawyer who is preparing the sale contract for the house. We have scheduled closing for December 11, 2013. It feels great to have an actual closing date.
   Here are a few pictures from today. Stevie is really getting the hang of riding a bike.





Monday, October 28, 2013

Daddy, Look He Has a Jet Pack!

   Our last few days have resembled more normal family life. I think we have all relaxed realizing that we just need to wait until the closing on our house and do not need to stress over looking for a house. Our apartment is getting more "inhabited" look although we still sit on folding chairs and have boxes stacked up in random corners. We actually bought a nice TV (of course, it is sitting on top of a very fancy TV stand made out of cardboard boxes). Stevie has been asking for Wii games (he has not played any for at least 2 months now) and the kids can watch Netflix on it too. We refuse to move furniture or anything heavy again and that is why we sit on folding chairs. The first thing we are going to do after we close on the house is to buy 2 recliners and have them delivered.
   Hannah found the wooden pieces that came with our Handwriting Without Tears program. She loves making letters with them but on Thursday she got more creative.

She created a person and said her name was Hannah. 
It looks more like a monkey if you asked me.

   We had to turn the heat on on Thursday night and on Friday morning we woke up to fresh 26 degrees. 
What is this stuff?

Crunchy ... cold ... 

... and pretty yummy!

   Since it was freezing outside, we decided to plan an indoor activity and went to Memorial Park Community Center swimming. The pool is heated to toasty 83 degrees and it was very pleasant. After our swim, Stevie saw an older man with an oxygen tank on his back in the men's locker room. He had to loudly  point him out to Dad - "Look, he has a jetpack!" Well, at least he was not commenting on the size of someone's behind or the amount of body hair (as he has done in the past). Hehe. 
   Saturday turned out to be a beautiful fall day with cooler temperatures following the cold front that just passed through this area. We had 3 pieces of land on our list to look at and we also wanted to drive to Shady Valley. Shady Valley is a small community just over the ridge from our future home. We have driven through there before and loved it. 
   As we drove through the Cherokee National Forest, we noticed patches of white snow here and there. It stayed cool enough in the valleys that the snow stayed on the ground. It was not much, but it was the second time in Hannah's and Stevie's life to see snow so it was exciting for us. We stopped at the parking lot where the Appalachian Trail crosses highway 91 (just about 15 minutes driving time from our future home) for some snowy fun:






   We went to a play ground on Sunday afternoon but did not stay long because Stevie fell and scratched the palm of his hand. It was not serious but pretty painful as he scratched off a pretty good chunk of skin. When we got home, we cleaned it out and put a large band-aid over it. Stevie told us that we should never ever go to that playground again because we know he likes to run and he got hurt while running there. 

   With that in mind (and Stevie's hand taped up with a band-aid and duct tape), we went back on Monday. This time with Stevie's bike and Hannah's tricycle. This was the first time without training wheels away from the apartment. Stevie did really well and rode his bike on the paved trail. Hannah rode her tricycle and played on the playground. Afterwards, we went to do our laundry and then headed home. I baked an apple pie and the kids got to eat some before going to bed.

Friday, October 25, 2013

Little Gymnasts

   On Wednesday, October 23, we went to gym in Johnson City for open gym. We made plans to meet Kelly, Alex, Rachael, Zander and Evan there. Hannah kept asking about girls and as we walked in, another mom came in with a 6 year old girl and a 3 year old boy. Since the little girl was the only girl there at the time, I approached her mom and we introduced the girls to each other. It turns out, Karen also homeschools. Samara is in first grade.
    While the kids played, we (moms) discussed forming a small homeschool group. Since our kids are still young, we do not want to go anything formal but we would like to do field trips together. We would like to have a field trip every other week. We planned our first trip to Bays Mountain Park in Kingsport on October 30.
   The kids had such fun! They played really hard for 2 hours.
Hannah with her new friends Samara and Nathan

Stevie jumping into the cube pit

Evan taking the leap with Rachael's and Steve's help

Zander jumping in
 
Stevie on the trampoline

Daddy throwing Hannah into the pit

She is flying

Getting ready for soft landing

Samara jumping in

Rachael and Evan in the cube pit

Stevie was so proud of himself when he learned to get on top of the vault by himself

More of Stevie jumping

   After going to the gym, we ate ham sandwiches in the truck and went to get a few things from our trailer across the street and also pick up mail from the post office.
   We had a plan to meet another homeschooling family from Erwin at the Sycamore Shoals Park in Elizabethton at 1:15. We got delayed at the trailer because we had to re-position the tarp over the top. I tried calling them but I only had their home number. We arrived at Sycamore Shoals at about 2 PM. They were still there and we talked for a little bit. But our kids were so tired from the gym, that we had to take them home to rest. 
   It was a really awesome day. We loved the gym and playing with friends there. 
   We stayed home the next day and worked on organizing our apartment. We made a quick trip to Walmart to get some shelves and hats for the whole family (the winter is coming fast). 


Thursday, October 24, 2013

Tuesday October 22

   We spent Tuesday morning at home getting our act together after a couple of days away. Around noon, we gathered all of our laundry and drove to the laundromat. The kids and Steve stayed there and played pinball. I went to the courthouse to get a new tag for my car (my Florida tag expires in about a week). I was surprised that it only cost $35 - this included a new tag and a new title. It seems that fees like this are much more reasonable here.
   After laundry, we drove to Valley Forge to meet Susan. Susan is on the other end of her homeschooling journey, she only has her youngest of six children at home. Hannah fell asleep in the truck on the way to Susan's house so Steve stayed with the kids and played with Stevie in the yard. I went for a nice walk with Susan. It was really nice and I am sure my legs will be sore tomorrow.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Driving home to Tennessee

Monday, October 21, 2013

   The hotel did not have anything with protein or without gluten for the kids to eat for breakfast and we set out to find a local restaurant called Hungry Bear. Our GPS could not find the address and suggested two similar addresses. We drove to the first one and it obviously was not it. Next we tried to get to the second address but the GPS kept turning us around and around Franklin until we saw a little restaurant that was serving breakfast. We ate there and then headed home.
   The mountains are so beautiful this time of year. They are magnificent by themselves but covered in so many shades of yellow and red and orange with green left here and there, they look magical. We enjoyed the views.
   We stopped at a scenic overlook on the Tennessee side, short distance past Sam's Gap where North Carolina and Tennessee meet.
Interstate 26 - this is the way we drove with our trailer 
but we did not see any of this beauty because it was after dark
 
Pit stop





Happy 75th Birthday, Mom!

   We celebrated mom's 75th birthday a little early, on Sunday, October 20, 2013. Mom was vacationing with Aunt Sally and Uncle Otto in Hiawassee, Georgia. Since Hiawassee is within 2-3 1/2 hours of driving time for several family members, we all got together for a picnic and birthday celebration. Brenda, Kurt, Ben, Kyle and Kaylie arrived from South Carolina along with Samantha, Chris, Jessie, Joey, Gabby, Rory and Alex. Bonnie and Ron came from Georgia and we enjoyed a beautiful drive through the Appalachian Mountains (mostly on the North Carolina side). Mom got to celebrate her birthday with all of her great-grand children with the exception of those that live in Australia were present.
   We met at the Towns County Park on the shores of Chatuge Lake. The park had a nice playground for all the little ones to enjoy. It was a beautiful day, not a single cloud in the sky. We enjoyed having so many family members together who do not get to see each other often.











The kids and I enjoyed the beach as well.


   We left Hiawassee at around 5 PM. It is about a 3 1/2 hour drive to Johnson City. We decided to stay at a hotel about 40 miles north of Hiawassee in Franklin, North Carolina. It was nice not to have to rush home. We ate dinner in the room and swam in the hotel pool afterwards.