Summer's Not Over Yet!

Dan Nicolas Park in Salisbury, NC 

The hightlight of our visit to Dan Nicolas Park was gem mining. It's popular around here. The kids keep asking to do it again.

The park was awesome! It had a mini zoo where we saw bears, a wolf, and in this picture turtles. All animals native to NC. The park also had a mini train, carousel, nature center, farm, play equipment, spray park and putt putt.

We packed a picnic for lunch but before we left the kids got to pick out a treat.

I love when I get a picture of all 4 of them together.

A Very Special Visitor 

Uncle Andy was in Asheville for a wedding so he came to Charlotte and stayed several days with us.  Our activities included thift shoping, chain sawing, hiking, mushroom hunting, smores and Scrabble.

Day Trip to Asheville 

We took a day trip to Asheville to visit the Western North Carolina Nature Center. We all (even Joyce) bought a membership. The membership is good to a bunch of museums, aquariums, and zoos all over the US.  Grandma and Aaron are putting on a puppet show.  I love Addy and Benny's reactions.

Here's everyone looking at a white wolf. The nature center had animals native to NC.

My little monkey boys playing on a spider web.

We also went downtown and had lunch at the Mellow Mushroom. It was a beautiful day and we ate outside on their patio with live music.

Neighbors on Vacation 

Our nieghbors 2 doors down went on vacation and left us in charge of their cat. They are also letting us use their pool!

They go to our church and are in our small group. They have a son that is going into 6th grade that likes to hang out at our house.

The kids had a blast. Even Grandma got in the pool today.

Greensboro Science Museum 

Last weekend we drove just under 2 hrs to Greensboro NC to use our new membership.  The cost to get into this place was more than the cost of our membership!!!

Addy's looking at an anteater. The outside section of the museum was a zoo with a bunch of very cool animals.

Here's Josh admiring the Bengal tiger. There's a sign posted close to him that says watch out, tiger may mark his territory.

I think the kids are looking at a monkey but again I just like taking a picture of all 4 of them.

These musical fountains were so cool. They had water squirting between the rocks timed to music.

Inside the museum was a sciquarim. The highlight was touching the sting rays.

The aquarium part also had otters, penguins, and a few other neat things.

I found the most interesting part of the museum to be this 2 headed turtle found somewhere in NC.