Showing posts with label Beach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beach. Show all posts

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Homeschool Day at the Lake

We got to head to the lake with our homeschool co-op.  Everyone had so much fun!

Declan and I hung out under the tree while the big kids played in the water and sand.

Chandler

Fiona

Claire

Look at those unsocialized homeschoolers!

Fun in the sand!

After everybody started going home the five of us went for a little hike around the lake.  There is a nice clear trail with little creeks and waterfalls.  One of the kids favorite hikes!  

Ducks!

On part of the trail. 

I love these days with my children, I know they are going to flit by!

Monday, July 29, 2013

Family Day at the Lake

On Sunday Daddy finally had a day off and we took a family trip to the lake.  It was so beautiful and COLD!  This was a mountain stream fed lake i.e. melted snow and even at the end of July the water is still freezing.  But the kids had fun and even little Fiona enjoyed putting her feet in the water.  We went early and practically had the lake to ourselves and later when people started getting there we packed our stuff back in the van and hiked the loop around the lake.  So many pretty spots and the kids loved it!  We have said all summer that we wanted to take the kids to the lake and to go hiking and we were able to do both in one day!  And of course this post wouldn't be complete without pictures!


Fiona getting her toes muddy

The kids even got Daddy in that cold water!

Fiona and I on the beach

I love this picture of Daddy and Fiona!

She liked the water!



Off on the hike!


My beautiful Claire


She had to take a picture by this "cool tree"
 
One of the many creeks going into the lake
My adventurers

Monday, January 2, 2012

A New Year

Wow, 2012.  I feel futuristic.

I am starting 2012 out with a promise to myself to step up our school schedule.  As of now my goal as been 3 days of schoolwork with Claire per week - it is only Kindergarten!  But this semester I want to do 4 days a week to begin preparing her for 5 days a week next year in 1st Grade.  At least there will be no complaints from Claire.  She adores doing schoolwork!


Going from this
To this
I have hope that this will be a year of new beginnings for our family.  We plan and pray to move our little family this year.  The opportunities are disappearing in our little mountain town.  It's a small town and everyone here is really struggling.  Daddy and I have never loved this town and only live here because we just never left after moving out on our own.  We do have family here and we will miss them, but we need more for our children.  We have narrowed down the plan to move to the Charleston, SC area.  Daddy and I both lived near the ocean as children and we miss it so much.  Last year was the first time we were able to take our children to the beach and we want that more.  We want our children to experience museums and concerts regularly.  Here it is an hour to the nearest museum and Claire always ends up carsick from the curvy, mountain roads.  It is a beautiful place to live, but we need more.  I will enjoy getting to vacation here!


I will miss friends and family, but I look forward to new beginnings.  I look forward to Claire and Chandler playing on the beach, shopping at Target regularly (right now the nearest one is an hour away), exploring museums and historical districts, flat country and salt air.  Claire will be starting 1st grade in the fall and we are discussing adding to our family once we are settled.  It's exciting and intimidating and wonderful and scary all at once.

As of now we are just trickling money into our moving fund and purging things out of our house.  So much planning and organizing to do!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Nine Years? Already??

<--- Awww, look how young we were! Nine years ago today, Daddy and I got married. It's been nine years of domestic bliss. Some wonderful years, some very difficult years (I'm looking at you 2009!) but every one of them were worth it. He is my best friend, we still laugh and giggle together and he still tries to molest me in the hallway. He's the best daddy I know. He adores our children and they adore him. Claire says she's going to marry him. (When I say that she can't because I married him she says that we can share him. It's hard to tell your 5 year old that you aren't the sharing type!) I thank God everyday for giving me such a great, caring, hard-working guy.

Nine years ago I was beginning to hate the word "wedding" and I turned to my fiance and said, "I don't care about all this! I just want to marry you! We already have the condo on Hilton Head for the honeymoon, why don't we just ditch this wedding, head down there a day early and get married on the beach where we wanted anyway??" And so we did. It was perfect. We told everyone that they were welcome to come if they wanted. We ended up with 16 guests. My mother and siblings (3), my paternal grandparents (2), Daddy's father, mother, stepfather and siblings (6) and a good friend of mine and Daddy's two best friends with their girlfriends (5). We got married at 5pm on a beautiful, hot sunny day and we all headed to a local steakhouse afterwards. It was exactly what I wanted, casual and small, and the best part of the day that was I ended up married to the best man I know!

Saturday, May 21, 2011

We left our hearts in Charleston ...

Last weekend we had a wonderful opportunity to go to Charleston, SC for a couple of days. My brother-in-law lives there and he was so excited to see the kids. He promised three days of worn out kids! And he was right!

We planned on leaving at 6am and we were on the road at 6:09am! Even with giving the kids frequent run around breaks we got to Charleston at 12:30. We immediately met up with brother-in-law and headed to his house which just happened to be 2 blocks from a beautiful beach access. My children have never seen the beach and it was wonderful! The Girl just dove on in and didn't even let me get my pants off before we were in the water! She had a wonderful time jumping waves with her uncle and Daddy. Little Man is my more cautious child and he was a little nervous when we saw the waves. He kept saying, "Hurt! Hurt!". So I just sat with him at the edge of the waves and we played in the sand and waved "Hi Water!" and "Bye Water!" as the waves came up to us. Eventually the waves came closer and closer and he had no problem when we were sitting in the water. By Sunday (our last day there) he was jumping (little) waves and yelling "Fun! Fun!". That's my tough guy! He may be a little nervous and cautious about new things, but once he watches for a little while and as long as we are patient he will jump on in! :)

Saturday we walked around downtown and saw a neat little farmer's market in the park. The kids got to ride a pony - which they LOVED! Could The Girl have had a bigger grin on her face? Then we walked next to the water down to see Battery Park. At that point we were all hot so we decided to go to the beach by the fort on Sullivan's Island, but a storm was starting to blow in so we took a few pictures at the fort and headed for dinner. It rained while we were eating and was a beautiful, cool evening by the time we got out.

Sunday we got to go back to the beach. It was low tide and we found some wonderful creatures. The kids loved seeing the hermit crabs, starfish, conch, and few dead jellyfish. The Girl decided to start a shell collection and we found her some really neat ones! After a few hours we headed to the pool to rinse the salt off and play a little more before having to head back to the mountains. It was hard leaving. The Girl said , "I want to live in Charleston, Mommy. Our town is yucky!" ;) We ended up tearing ourselves away at 3 in the afternoon, so we didn't get home until 9 at night. And it was SO cold! We left a gorgeous, sunny, 80 degree day in Charleston and came back to a cloudy, rainy, chilly 50 degree evening! Brrr!! Take me back!!

Beach pictures: