-
Table Rock: There and Back Again
Last Sunday we pursued Adventure. We drove down Highway 11 and turned right. For years we’ve driven past this gigantic rock outcropping on our way to camping excursions. We’ve camped at the base of this giant rock known as Table Rock. We’ve hiked waterfalls near this rock. We’ve driven up to high peaks and seen this rock from a distance. But we’ve never made it to the rock, which had always seemed maybe too much or too far for an adventure with a family of mostly children. We’ve hiked four miles or so with the kids – and maybe there was even a five or six mile trek once too.…
-
Autumn’s Bounty
Weekends in October in the foothills. They’re made for apple picking and BBQ eating. Good friends reclining on the porch. Boys with Nerf swords and whiffle balls crowding the yard. Catching up and checking in and stories of this and that. Sunshine and morning runs. Cinnamon rolls and chocolate cake. Potato soup and homemade salsa. Late nights and conversation and falling asleep while watching Parenthood. It’s a comfortable kind of weekend. Weather just right for the afternoon sun to feel like a warm embrace on bare arms. (But maybe a tad too warm for a corn maze at high noon with eight children and four grown ups and lunch on…
-
Field Trip: The Carolina Honey Bee Company
Our Prairie Primer curriculum this year lends itself well to field trips. For various reasons I have not chosen to pursue every suggested field trip option. However, there are several field trip ideas that are just so handy, so nearby and so convenient, that it would be crazy to pass up the opportunity. Like the maple syrup store the week before. And last week – the honey store. For us – it was our friendly store The Carolina Honey Bee Company – located right here in Travelers Rest. All it took was a quick call and a simple question, “Can I bring my kids in for you to teach them a bit…
-
Prairie Primer: Maple Syrup Field Trip
The lesson guide suggested – visit a farm where maple syrup is being tapped. Well. It’s almost ninety degrees outside. In South Carolina. Must try to think of another avenue. I remembered a little store on Main Street in Hendersonville. Vermontage. I’d stopped in before, lured in off the street by a sign that read “maple cotton candy”. Spun sugar. Oh, how I love you. I had no idea spun sugar could be improved upon. Maple syrup. Oh, how I love you. A completely perfect marriage of melt-in-your-mouth gooey-ness and maple syrup sweetness. And so I called the number and asked this question, “Could I bring my children to your…
-
a wrinkle in time
Time passes differently out here on this beautiful piece of Virginia land. At home I feel as if my days run to this rhythm: Breakfast. Let’s do chores/errands/games/crafts/school. Wait – what? It’s lunch already? Okay, now let’s play/create/read/clean. Oh goodness, why haven’t I started dinner yet? Want to play a game/take a walk/feed the pets? Good grief, it’s already past bed time. Where did this day go? Cresting the slight hill and pulling into this sloping long-laned driveway must allow you to descend somehow into a wrinkle in time. Here the days move to a rhythm more like this: Waking to the sun. Alarms (all six) turned off. Slow breakfast…
-
what was I saying?
Oh yes. While our freezer was dying and our washer was waning, we were on a road trip. To that sweet land of Virginia to celebrate a kind and generous and hilariously fun family that I like to call my cousins. Amber was getting married. And my Piper Finnian was the flower girl to Amber. Amber. A grown up who was once a kid who once wore a white dress and served as the flower girl at my wedding nearly eighteen years ago. Me. A grown up who was once a kid who once wore a white dress and served as flower girl at Amber’s mother’s wedding about thirty years…
-
Again From The Dark
When you read this, I imagine I’ll be in a car with seven other people, trekking through one state to reach another. Whirlwind days. Sunshine and rain. Beach walk and icy cold water. Night swimming and late sleeping. Wedding rehearsal and wedding the real deal. Cousins. Family. Friends. Kids dressed up so sweetly I almost couldn’t bear to look. But of course I did. When I return home and have all the wonderful photos that Riley took this weekend at my disposal, I’ll share lots more. Tonight, however, I’m typing again in the dark at my brother’s house in my nephew’s bedroom and I’m too sleepy and too in-the-middle-of-it-all to…
-
driving. riding. typing in the dark.
This is a post typed on my phone well after midnight in a darkened bedroom with five of our children sleeping soundly on the floor around us at my cousin’s home in Virginia after an eight hour drive that didn’t even get started until after four o’clock in the afternoon and I’m thinking about letting it be one giant run-on sentence. Or maybe not. It’s a wedding weekend. Amber plus Daniel equals love, a nautically themed wedding near the ocean, an opportunity to see so many relatives that I love and a long drive across the entire state of North Carolina – the state which tries to separate me from…
-
a kayak experience. my favorite day of vacation.
I can’t believe it’s been weeks since we returned from the beach. Will I never cease being amazed/disappointed/confounded by the rapid passage of time? (I’m confident the only answer to that question is no!) It was such an active trip and by active I mean – we did stuff we have never been able to do on vacations before. Biking, for one. And for another – kayaking. I really love kayaking. But as a family of eight with young children, it was an event that seemed mostly out of our reach. First – because not everyone could paddle by themselves. Second – because renting anything adds up quickly times eight.…
-
a poem inspired by a poet.
Our last official school field trip was to Carl Sandburg’s house. If you perchance recall, I didn’t write the post I intended because I was overcome with distraction from the bittersweet surprise of my youngest son’s seemingly overnight growing up. The post I intended to write was more like this: First we toured the house. (I want to own his farm, Connemara. I want to save up/steal/inherit/find in a brown paper bag on the side of the highway an absolutely ludicrous amount of money. Then I want to use all of that money to purchase the land from the current owners – the National Park System. Then I plan to kick…
-
good morning Monday.
It’s Monday morning. And it’s raining. We just returned from a weekend camping trip at Lake Jocassee where it did not rain for almost the entire weekend. The camping trip was marvelous, lovely, fun, wonderful. This week I’m going to post more pictures from our weekend adventures but Kevin has the better ones on his phone so it’ll take a few days to wrangle the simple acts of clicking and sharing. But this morning I feel as if I’m going to ramble a little bit. (That is me, giving you fair warning.) Did I mention that it is raining? And has been for days here apparently. Our home is so…
-
Home Again.
We have returneth from whence we came. In other words …. we are back. A spring vacation to the beach was a new experience for our family. And, yes, we loved it. The sea. The sun. The breeze. The golf cart. The bikes. The kayaks. The pool. The together. The late sleeping. Loved. It. All. The problem with a return post that covers a week is that I actually have too many photos. Riley received a new camera as a graduation gift and she really broke it in last week. And Kevin took really fun underwater pictures with his phone. But not every shot has been downloaded. Yet. So I’m…
-
a distracted exit.
The days have been breezy beautiful. That’s good for life but a challenge for finishing strong these last few weeks of school. I confess – I think I want to spend my days outside digging in earth and playing games even more than the kids want to. Our regular schedule has been off. We’ve completely finished a few subjects – science, music appreciation, art, poetry, nature studies. Bergen’s blazed his way through his entire math curriculum. Our co-op has wrapped up for the school year. But we’ve got a few lingering tasks and you’d think being completely finished with several areas would open up space to more diligently complete the…
