Two Week Weekly Wrap- Up: The Week I Went to North Carolina



This is a pretty long post since it's two of our weeks combined.  I was not here last Friday to post our weekly wrap- up.  Did you miss me?  I was busy having a grand time in North Carolina visiting my sister and aunt with my mom.  We had the best time!!



We were heading out hiking on Friday and I knew we wouldn't have much time for school so I just asked each boy to read and do some math.  The older two boys ended up starting some lessons on Duolingo.  Alec wants to learn French and ended up completing three lessons while Ian worked on learning some German.  We packed lunches and headed out to meet up with friends.  We FINALLY had a beautiful sunny day and the colors in the leaves are just starting to change.  We hiked for 2 hours (with frequent breaks since we do hike with little ones).  After hiking Ian headed off to work and Evan waited very impatiently for his new PS4 to come in (he bought it with his own money).  He has no games for it so he really couldn't do much with it but he was just happy to set it up for now.  He left around dinnertime for a sleepover and the rest of a us spent a quiet night at home.





Saturday morning Ian headed off to work with his grandfather and Evan was gone most of the day at his sleepover.  My husband took Alec with him to help with a brake job on the truck and then they spent the afternoon washing and cleaning both the car and truck.  I spent my morning packing my suitcase and making up a list of what I needed to get done before leaving Tuesday evening.  We spent our night as a family watching the new Tomb Raider movie.

Ian headed off with my husband on Sunday morning to finish putting the jet ski back together.  We had some minor problems with it at the end of the season and they've been fixing it back up.  They also had a tree to cut up that had fallen on a family members lot.  The younger boys and I spent the day at home.  I deep cleaned the whole kitchen.  In the evening we all played a few rounds of Scattegories together.



I went grocery shopping Monday and other than looking at our germ farm under the microscope we didn't do much in the way of school.  Evan had a friend coming over for the afternoon and I still wanted to clean the living room.  Once his friend came over they ended up asking if they could make their own Harry Potter wands and they had fun decorating their sticks with hot glue and paint.  They even watched a bit of the Prisioner of Azkaban.  We had a very fun afternoon catching up with our friends.




I took Alec to karate on Tuesday and then had a huge list of errands to run before heading out to pick up my mom and head to the hotel near the airport.  I dragged the boys with me thinking they were going to be spending a lot of time at home the next three days... I was wrong!

Wednesday my mom and I flew into Wilmington, North Carolina and drove out to surprise my sister and her family.   Her husband was the only one who knew we were coming down and boy was the rest of the family surprised!!  We spent most of the day with my sister and my aunt (who also lives near my sister).  From what I could tell on the phone calls home; Ian went to work for the afternoon screening loam and the younger two boys went to help my mother in law rake her yard.  They got breakfast out of it and I loved that they were helping out their grandmother and getting some exercise.  Alec also read a whole book each day I was gone and I heard about a fierce Monopoly game they all had going for a couple of nights too!

Sunrise from the plane window

Straight off the plane so ignore the rumpled clothes and wind tossed hair!  

Despite the tropical storm warnings my sister, mom, aunt and I went to check out the Cotton Exchange,  a local theater, and this really awesome art exhibit on Thursday.  Sadly the Cotton Exchange was closed; we couldn't tell if it was due to hurricane Florence or the fact that we were in the midst of a tropical storm watch/warning with hurricane Michael.  Luckily the sporadic showers and wind didn't put much of a damper on our plans and we had a yummy Italian lunch at Osteria Cicchetti before heading back to my aunt's new house for a home tour and some birthday cake and ice cream and more catching up.  Back at home, the boys went out to breakfast with my other mother in law (my husband's step mother) and I was thrilled to hear that she had Evan do some reading (Alec read another whole book).  Ian had gone to work with my husband and once they arrived home for the night they all went over to his dad's house for spaghetti and meatballs.

Rainbow on our morning walk 

The Cotton Exchange 






My mom and I finally made it down to Carolina Beach on Friday and walked around for a good hour shortly after sunrise.  The sun was shining and the temperatures were just perfect for a beach day so we packed up after breakfast and headed to Wrightsville beach for a fun afternoon with my sister, nephew, and aunt.  My aunt offered to cook a very delicious birthday dinner for my sister and we all spent the evening at my aunt's house having a ball reminiscing about old family trips and times.  We did not want to leave knowing our trip was really at it's end.  The boys went with my mother in law and she put them to work at their great great aunt's house cleaning her garage, flipping her mattress, and whatever other odd jobs needed doing.  As payment she took them to lunch and then Ian asked to get dropped off at work and my husband offered to pick up Chinese food for dinner.






Saturday morning my mom and I woke long before dawn for our trek to the airport.  We had a very long day of travel and while we had a fabulous fabulous time on our mini vacation we were anxious to get home to our husbands too.  Ian went to work with his grandfather for the day and the younger two boys helped their father with a scrap run, they returned some soda cans for money, and helped him out at the shop too.  My husband offered to do my laundry when I got home and Alec cooked dinner while I took a shower, cleaned out my suitcase, and ended up cleaning out the fridge too.  With all their eating out and their grandmothers taking such good care of them much of the food I had prepared before leaving ended up going bad but we all had a great time and I was so happy to see how well the house and the kids held up while I was gone.


I spent most of Sunday working on getting caught up on the blog, laundry, and housework. I also made a small batch of apple butter muffins. Ian headed off to work with his grandfather and the younger two boys spent most of their afternoon outside.  It was a bit cool but at least the sun was out!  We went with my husband to the sawmill and worked on both the planer and the saw itself repairing a few small pieces here and there.  After dinner Ian and his dad battled it out playing a few rounds of ping pong and then we played another few games of Scattergories before calling it a night.



I did a quick run to the grocery store on Monday and then the boys and I took a nice long hike in the woods before more rain and storms moved in.  After a quick run to the library on the way home from our hike we spent the rest of the day inside and tackled just about every school subject-- math, reading, grammar, science, art, history, German/French, etc.




Alec woke up just in time to get ready for Karate on Tuesday.  I walked on the track while he was at class and then the boys and I all tackled their schoolwork after lunch.  We watched an episode of How the States Got Their Shapes season 2, worked on math, reading, spelling, and foreign language before they finished for the day and we all sat around playing Scattergories.  I helped Ian clean his turtle tank and then got the boys dressed up and outside for their annual fall photos.  Ian left around dinnertime to go get a haircut and the younger boys and I enjoyed some time playing video games, watching TV, and relaxing.

Just one of the many rejected photos I took... it's still not easy to get good photos of all 3 regardless of their ages. 

We had beautiful sunny skies again on Wednesday and we decided to shorten our school day so we could squeeze in a trip to the Old Mistick Village.  I have been wanting to take the boys to check out this cute little area of shops and restaurants and we had a fabulous day for it.  We got a bit of Christmas shopping done, enjoyed some wood fired pizza for lunch and enjoyed free samples at a few of the local candy/ fudge shops.  Once home we played another few rounds of Scattergories.

We had the best lunch here!


It was so cold on Thursday that we decided to stay home.  The boys tackled a bit of schoolwork each working in math, doing some reading, foreign language or spelling, and together we covered science and history.  Alec and I decided to try out a new art project and had fun working in one of the new crafting books we bought yesterday.  Ian worked on his model car a few times throughout the day.  Evan decided to try reading the Wings of Fire graphic novel and discovered that he loves it so much that he read over 70 pages!  It seemed like he was curled up with that book every time I turned around.  Ian and Alec played a rousing game of Battleship and each boys spent at least 30 minutes getting in some exercise; Evan and I chose to talk a nice long hour walk in the woods all bundled up.

We found this cool sticker by number book at one of the stores yesterday and it's so fun!



Making molecules 

How was your week?

Linking Up With: TBB Loves




Comments

  1. Wow! What a great two weeks. Nice to see that the parts of Wilmington you were in look pretty good. I guess not everywhere was deeply affected by Florence. Love the ocean shots. Your boys get so many wonderful life experiences every single week.
    Blessings, Dawn

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah we were pleasantly surprised that most parts of Wilmington weren't looking all that bad. We did see piles of debris near the road and quite a few houses with patches and tarps on the roof but it looked so much better than we anticipated based on the news coverage. There were a few areas that were hard hit but we didn't see any.

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  2. I love this recap of your past two weeks. You got some really beautiful photos!!

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  3. Looks like you have been having a great time. Looks like lots of fun. Lovely photos. Thanks for sharing last week with us at The Weekend Blog Hop #Weekendbloghop

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