The Wilson 6 Chronicles

Word of warning before you start reading- this post is pic heavy so if you have a slow connection (do people even have dial-up anymore?), go grab a beer because you might be here awhile. Anyway, we continued our adventure week by heading up to Tweetsie Railroad on Thursday. I've never been up there and the kids love trains so we thought it would be fun. Plus, it was close (yay for short car rides) and fairly inexpensive. We were all just glad to get to go on a vacation. It has been 2 years since we went on a vacation. We went to the beach shortly after Eleanor was born but the next summer we moved to Florida so that summer was odd (and one could argue that living in FL is kind of live being on vacation) and then last summer, I was pregnant. Not that being pregnant makes you unable to travel but it makes it tiring. But I digress. So we woke up at the crack of dawn on Thursday and headed up to Blowing Rock. After a driving altercation that ended with me rolling down the window to flip off an obnoxious driver who tried to cause a wreck, we made it up there in pretty good time. And off we went for a few hours of Old West fun. First we went on a train ride. That was pretty cool. Until we got to the part where the "savage" Indians attacked the train and I realized that, bless my bleeding liberal heart, this was kind of uncomfortable for me. I mean, the Native Americans were way mistreated by the white people so I knew that Zachary and I would have to have a talk in a few days.







(Justin again shows why he is the undisputed master of the self-portrait.)



After the train ride, we stopped off to let the kids look a the "jail" before heading up to the next part of the park. Eleanor immediately started freaking out and wailing, "I don't want to go to jail. I don't want to go to jail." So I grabbed her and we walked over the horses so she could ride for a second.

We stopped off to give the boys a chance to look inside of a tee pee. Again, I knew that a talk about Native American culture might be in our future.
I think the boys would really like to have a tee pee.

So we headed up tot he next part of the park where they had a few rides. Including a Ferris wheel. Let's all keep in mind that Justin is not a fan of heights so I was a little incredulous when he asked the Middles if they want to ride with him. So off they went. Justin recorded a video of them going around- let's just say that watching it makes my tummy hurt...from laughing so hard. I might try to upload it later but it will probably take forever because it is long. But oh so funny. Let's just say that he was trying not to totally freak the hell out and Eleanor kept trying to lean over the rail to look down. Zachary had to ride alone since I didn't want to take Harper on it but he seemed to enjoy it.

The boys and I headed over to ride the cars. Zachary and Alden rode the lead car and Eleanor and I followed behind them. I let Eleanor steer the car and we spent most of the short trip in the wall. We headed back over towards the Ferris wheel because the guy was starting up the planes and helicopters ride and, on the way, Eleanor managed to walked straight into a pole. A metal pole. The one that they had chain hanging from to herd people into an organized line. Yep, walked straight into it. I only mention this in case you notice a big red lump on the side of her head later. She walked into a pole.

Then we headed up to the very top of the park to feed the animals. Zachary and I took the chairlift (omg- I love chairlifts) and Justin walked the rest of the kid up the hill on a gravel trail. There was a bus he could ride but he wanted the exercise, I suppose. UP there, the kids rode in boats and we fed some deer and goats. Basically the same animals that the girls saw at the zoo a few weeks ago, just a few more of them.

And that was it. We took the bus back down the hill. Stopped in a few of the shops and bought the kids some fun stuff that will drive me crazy for at least a month including a really cool carved bow and arrow set for Zachary. We took one last look at the train and headed off to our hotel. Next up, Grandfather Mountain.

With Justin being home all last week after a month in Canada, we took the opportunity to get the heck out of Boiling Springs for some summer time fun. So, on Tuesday, we headed up to Carowinds. I have to admit- I was really excited about this because I love love love rides. I will ride anything with a seatbelt and/or restraint bar and the higher and faster it goes, the better for me. Plus, I have tons of wonderful memories tied up in the annual visits that we made to Carowinds as a child. Seriously, I could draw you a map of the layout of the park in 1989. I remember riding the Scooby Doo roller coaster with my daddy and always having my picture taken in the Fred Flintstone car that has a Fred sitting there with his arm out. You could probably measure my growth by looking at those pictures from every year. I remember rides that are long gone from the park (White Lightning and the Flintstone cars) and always riding the same white horse on the carousel. I was majorly looking forward to seeing my kids get to enjoy some of the same rides (although many of them have different names now) and hoping to get some riding in for myself. We almost decided not to go because, as of Monday night, the weather prediction was a 60% chance of rain and who wants to be at Carowinds in the rain with 4 kids? But we decided to play odds and it really paid off for us- the day was slightly overcast and cooler and there were no lines for most of the rides. The kids were able to ride things multiple times because there were never any kids waiting to ride them afterwards. Yay. And the behavior of the kids was at a level that I have never seen before. They were so good. Eleanor was in her element because we let her walk and choose the ride which meant lots of independence. And being independent is the color of Eleanor's happy place. Alden was his normal happy self and Zachary was able to ride all of the big rides including some coasters that I didn't think he would ride. Eleanor had a near meltdown when Diego tried to talk to her and now she can relate an entire narrative that (didn't) occur between the two of them. Along the times of him trying to hug her and her setting boundaries, then calling him stupid. Alden has a similar get-away-from-me reaction with SpongeBob. I don't ever recall being afraid of the characters that walked around the park. If I remember correctly, there is a picture of me with Jabberjaw floating around somewhere and I was pretty young. I am guessing that I was older than the Middle though. It really turned out to be a fun day full of rides, Icees, soft serve ice cream in a cone, and no meltdowns. Unfortunately, the camera was left in the van so all of the pictures come courtesy of my iPhone. Getting ready to ride the balloons with the boys. Quick confession- this was the first ride that I have ever ridden that made me feel sick. I had just ridden the Nighthawk (awesome- you are inverted and ride blind for the most part!) which didn't faze me but I think since I was riding this ride with my back to the direction we were spinning, it freaked out my system. I definitely had to do some cleansing breathes.
Harper's first carousel ride
Flying the planes. Again, in my day, these were black and white (and maybe red) and I recall fighting with Shannon on making the plane go up and down.
Wiped out from all of the excitement (and humidity)

Later in the week, we spent some time in the mountains so those pics will come later this week. All in all, we had a fun, family time week with Justin being home. And speaking of Justin, a quick Happy Father's Day to wonderful dad. We all love you very much!

I had decided a few weeks ago that we were not going to let this summer slip by us the same way summer has for the past few years. We tend to play outside a lot in the month or so before school is out but once school is out and the heat really hits, I tend to cocoon inside. But not this year- I decided that once a week, we were going on a field trip. Of course, thinking it and doing it are 2 different things. We began our inaugural field trip adventure by going geocaching. We haven't been in ages because 1. Justin has been gone since the weather has gotten warm enough to get out and 2. I have been very hesitant to try to take the kids alone. I mean, out of control kids plus nature does not equal a good combination. But reservations be damned and off we set this morning get some 'caching done. We headed to Pacolet to get a few there and ended in Gaffney. In Pacolet, we were nearly carried off by the gnats and drowning in the humidity but we managed to get 2 there before we had to break for lunch. After lunch, we headed to pick up a cache at the Michael Gaffney cabin (in Gaffney obviously) only to be thwarted by the super friendly volunteer who was happy to show the kids various animal skins and talk about the history of the cabin. We finished up at the Possum Trot School where the kids ran wild.



I hope that we can stick to this resolution for the entire summer because the kids really seemed to have a blast and I know that they were happy to be able to get out of the house for something other than running errands. Plus Zachary managed to pick up quite a bit of history form his personal historical tourguide (me) and the volunteer at the cabin and that is never a bad thing.