Labor Day Weekend with the Mitchells

 Andy's sister and her family came to visit us over Labor Day weekend.  We took them to one of our new favorite places, the Eno River, to Jordan Lake, and to a Duke football game.  It was a action packed weekend, but we really enjoyed having them visit.
     

 ENO RIVER

We took our cousins to Eno River with us.  The waterfall area is our favorite!

Calais getting ready to go down the waterfall.

Atlas

Daniel loves to pose!

Guard going down the water slide.

The water was lower than last time, but Eliza still wanted to be at the bottom of the waterfall the whole time.

Holden and Daniel

The guys decided that they needed to redirect the flow of water and started moving rocks to make a dam.

Some of the rocks were pretty big.

Eliza and Holden

Eliza eating and supervising the dam building.

Filling in the small gaps.

Atlas and Bradley caught this minnow with the Frisbee.

More supervisors.

Atlas gathering water plants to help fill in the gaps at the dam.

DUKE GAME

Margaret and Marek are our neighbors and they helped us get some tickets to the Duke Game.

Getting some grub before the game.

Daniel, Andy, Atlas, Hunter, Daniel, Calais and Melissa

I stayed with Eliza, Holden, Bradley and Guard.  I would have liked to go to the game, but I am glad I got the little ones to bed early so that Sunday wasn't as long!

Watching the game.

Found you!

The seats were right across from the goal line.

They did fireworks at half time.  I think Duke ended up losing the game, but everyone who went had a lot of fun.  Thanks again Margaret and Marek for arranging such a fun evening!!!

Sept. 3, 2011

JORDAN LAKE

The lake was lower than we have ever seen it before.  There were also a few fish floating near the surface making them easy to catch.  Atlas caught this Large mouth bass with in five minutes of being there.

The guys examining the fish to see how it might have expired!

They found quite the fishing lure in there!

Bradley enjoying the water.

Andy next the the pipe seperating the swim area from the rest of the lake.

Eliza playing on the pipe.

As you can see the water wasn't very deep.

Andy falling over the pipe going after a football.

This is his endzone dance!

Calais riding the pipe.

Hunter decided that it looked like fun to catch the ball by diving over the pipe.

Eliza wanted in on the action.  

We also built some sand castles.  

Calais, Bradley and Atlas were the main archetechs on this one.

Eliza and I watching as Andy, Atlas and Daniel swimming to the bouy and back.  She was sad that I wouldn't let her go with them.

The swimmers were greeted by all the little people who weren't allowed to go out!  Atlas also found some sunglasses in the  water when they got back.

Hunter gave us his best Top Gun pose.

The guys decided to build a real sand castle after lunch complete with a moat.

Digging out the moat to let the water in.

Guard was overseeing the flood waters.

Just before we left Andy and Eliza caught a small Big Mouth Bass.  Eliza didn't think it was all that exciting.

Daddy's little girl!!

Sept. 5, 2011

He's back!

Okay, so Andy isn't the subject of this post.  However, he gave me a pretty good reaction when he saw this way cool carrot we grew.  I guess it is technically two carrots.

This is the subject of the post!  I found this little guy again when I was out weeding on the side of the house.  We looked up some info on eastern box turtles and found somethings they like to eat.  We tried to make him comfy, but he just kept trying to escape.  I had to put the container in the sink to keep him from escaping. 

Another escape attempt!  We only kept him for a day and then released him back into the wilds of our side yard.   Hopefully we will see our little turtle again.  We really need to name him/her.

 We had the opportunity to have the Elders over for Family Night.  Eliza loved them!  She kept bringing them toys to play with.

Eliza and Elder Waniel

Elder Rigamoto being introduced to our little turtle.

Elder Waniel meeting our little turtle.

We always enjoy having the Elders over and visit with them.

First day in First Grade!

 Bradley started school last week.  It is hard to believe that I now have a first grader. 

Eliza is at the stage where she has to bring something with her when we go places.  She just happened to pick this horse that is almost as big as her to carry around that day.

 Eliza, Daniel and Bradley

It was pretty bright so they were having a hard time looking at the camera.

Daniel, Ms. Souchek and Bradley

Ms. Souchek is the school librarian and Daniel loves her!  She lets him check out books under Bradley's name.  He asks all the time if we can go get another book!

Technically this was the second day of school, but I forgot my camera the first day.  It turned out better this way though.  There were less people crowding the halls and it made it easier to get some pictures.  We are excited about this school year and hope things go as well as last year!

Aug. 26, 2011

Birthday Celebration:Part 2

Happy 6th Birthday!!

Bradley has finally reached the ripe old age of 6!

He got some Star Wars figures and a big Woody for his birthday.

Since he prefers ice cream to cake we did ice cream cakes this year.  They were a little smaller than I thought, so we got two.  Then Bradley helped me decide what should be on top.  Bradley also picked all the decorations and helped get them up!

Bradley with his ice cream cakes.

Bradley & Macy

We invited a couple people from church to have dinner with us and then some neighbors joined us for ice cream cake. 

Daniel, Bradley, Macy and Oliver

They were very excited for cake!  We want to thank Marek and Margaret for letting us use their freezer to store our ice cream cake!  It was a fun day and we are especially grateful Bradley is part of our family.

Aug. 21, 2011

A Birthday Celebration: Part 1

Since Bradley's birthday was on Sunday this year we decided to do something fun as a family on Saturday.  When I asked him what he wanted to do he said, "Go on a family bike ride."  I told him that we could do that in the morning and asked if there was anything else he would want to do.  He said, "Go to the carnival."  I haven't seen any around here, but a neighbor did tell me about a town with little rides at the park.  Saturday morning we had scones for breakfast and then went for a bike ride.  We stopped at the playground at his school on the way home to play for a while.  Then we headed home to make a  picnic and head to Burlington, NC to enjoy the park.

 The boys thought we should ride the train first thing.  Eliza wasn't sure how she felt about the train.

Then we headed over to the boats.

Eliza and Bradley took turns ringing the bell.

After the boats we headed over to the car ride.

Daniel got to drive this little yellow jeep all by himself.  He was so excited!!

 Bradley was good enough to ride with Eliza to make sure she didn't try to stand up or bail out during the ride.  She is a little bit crazy like that.

Next we rode the carousel.  It was made in the early 1900's.  Unfortunately the kids all got on in the same area, so half the carousel was empty and the other part was packed!  It made it difficult to get a good picture, so I made them pose on their way out.

By this time Eliza was too starving to do any more rides, so we took a brake for lunch.  

While we were eating the boys rode the last ride...the Airplanes!  They loved this ride and actually did this one twice.  They were pretending to drop bombs on the "bads" as they went around and around.  The only problem was getting them to look at the camera!

After doing all the rides we decided to head over to downtown Burlington to see a restored caboose.  Eliza didn't think she had had enough playing yet and kept running away.

Daniel at the brake wheel on the caboose.

Bradley sitting up top in the lookout seat.  The fireman and brakeman would sit in these seats and watch for smoke or anything else that might alert them to a problem on the train.

The conductor, fireman and brakeman would eat and sleep in the caboose.

Daniel and Eliza

We really enjoyed exploring a new area.  Burlington has some really fun areas and we definitely recommend checking out the Burlington City Park.

Aug. 20, 2011