Week In Review

This last week flew by - with a holiday in the beginning and a couple of activities planned, I thought it best to post it all in one shot.

4th of July:

We love spending part of the 4th of July at our town's celebration.
Watermelon, bubbles, lemonade, hayrides,

people in costume - shooting off guns (it only worked a couple of times - the others were duds).

The historic tavern was open for tours - it was the first time we had been. It was amazing to see how small it is and cool to see items from that time period.
Natalie loved the hats.

They had a tent with water misting. The kids had fun running through - some of the other kids there spent so much time in the mist that they were soaked!
The Daughters of the American Revolution had a big cake to celebrate and everyone got a piece (or two).

We met some friends there and invited them over (along with a couple of other families) to swim in the river and have dinner.

Right before everyone was coming over it started storming - thunder, lightening, pouring rain.
So, we had an early dinner and played games. After that they storm had passed and we went out for an evening swim. The rain started up again (always fun to swim in the rain) and Logan didn't last too long.

So, a couple of us went back up to the house, but most of the others stayed. Robert even got some fishing in.

We love living in such a wonderful country with all the freedoms and bounteous blessing we have.

Fernbank Museum:

About a week ago, Alyssa mentioned how much she would like to go to a museum this summer. I had heard a lot about the Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta and thought we would check it out.

We went on Wednesday because they were having free hot dogs on Wednesday during the summer - so we brought along some brownies and Capri Sun drinks and were set for the day. Dinosaurs are always a hit, so it was cool to have them right out in front of the building and an exhibit inside.

They have an exhibit on Mythic Creatures running through August. I think this area was Natalie's favorite.

Mermaids, unicorns, Pegasus, dragons, and more.

It was fun to see that almost every group of people throughout the world have their own version of the same mythical creatures.

The kids had fun looking around the gift shop area after the exhibit - fun things to play with.

There is an area called "Sensing Nature" with hands on activities dealing with water, light, and sound.

They have another interactive area called "NatureQuest" where we could have stayed in the whole time! It was very cool.

We all had so much fun!
Natalie and Logan were tired before we even saw everything - so, we got a year membership (at $15 more than what we paid to get in for one day, it is well worth it and now we can come back again and again).

Stone Mountain:

We have some friends that moved into the area at the beginning of the year and they had not been to Stone Mountain yet - so we took a very warm, ok HOT, hike up the mountain.

Above at the half-way mark and below at the top!
I carried Logan most of the way up the mountain and was very glad that he didn't ask for a shoulder ride down the mountain as well!

The hike is well worth it, and not too long. You can see the Atlanta skyline hiking up and this is the overlook to the lake around Stone Mountain - we are standing on the top of the side that has the carving.

The kids liked finding rocks to climb over and under! Alyssa said it was really cool (crawling and temperature wise) under the rock.

Afterward we had a picnic dinner and rested until the laser show that evening.
I had made Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies (a friend had posted it on a blog or facebook) - I'll try a few different things the next time I make them, but they were very yummy.

Robert came with a couple of people from lab (who are visiting - one from China, the other from India) in time to throw around a football for a while and then watch the laser show.
The laser show was a bit different than when we saw it in April - they change it periodically. We like some of the new things, but over all we (everyone in the family) like the old one better.
It is still fun to be right up close to the laser show and fireworks.
There is a lot more of Stone Mountain that I noticed on the map that I'd love to check out. But, I think I'll wait until it cools off a bit.
The girls were wiped out the next day but finally got up enough energy in the afternoon to go swimming with some friends and then stay at their place for dinner later. Another late night and fun end of the week for them.
Summer is now moving along too quickly - there are Back to School displays in the stores and still things we want to pack into our last few weeks!
Stay tuned.