NG N SG +3: FL Summer 2015 Part I

Our summer break was broken in two parts. Back in May we visited FL for a couple of weeks, did the Disney thing and then went back to GA so Nick and I could teach June-mester. We made sure that we had quality time with each of the kids.

Nick and Ellie at Small World ride on their "mind, body, soul time" trip

Liam finally shows us a picture ready face.....the trick is he has to be underwater.

We returned to GA and the kids had a couple of summer camps. I signed up the boys for a FitMix camp but Ellie ended up taking up Liam's spot even though it was meant for 4 year olds and above. She followed directions so well and just loved it.

The all took their final swim lessons with their VSU instructors who have graduated and are moving on to graduate school elsewhere. Liam and Ellie will miss them terribly and I hope they adjust quickly to their new instructors once we return.

Since Valdosta doesn't have public pools, we don't have anywhere to take the kids to practice their swimming or have pool fun when we're up there. Father's Day weekend we decided to get a hotel room for the night so we could use the pool all day. It was a good plan in theory but the pool wasn't heated and half of it was indoors which we thought would be a good thing but Liam was not into it. He said he only wanted Abuela's pool because it is warm. The kids do enjoy hotel rooms so they still were excited that they were going to sleep in a hotel room and the Drury Inn offers free popcorn and drinks so they got a kick out of that.

We also visited a nearby blueberry farm in Valdosta. We'd never seen blueberry bushes so I was surprised at how big these were and how many berries they all produced. The kids each got a bucket and went to town picking away.

We picked 2 lbs of blueberries for $4 (not certified organic but not sprayed with any pesticides either so this is a really good deal to me).

On another weekend, we took a trip to Gainesville to visit the Florida Museum of Natural History with FREE admission. This is one of the things we miss most about being near a "real" city. Liam in particular really misses the children's museums from Charlotte so he was happy when we told him this would be like the Nature Museum in Charlotte.

We love this apron!

Back home we entertained ourselves cooking, playing, reading, etc. Below, Ellie is making "daddy's granola" because she ate the last bowl. She was super concentrated on this task. I offered her a bigger spoon to scoop it out and she declined it. One tablespoon at a time, she filled that pan.