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How To Afford Adventure (When You Don’t Have a Fat Income)
There was a time, a very tiny sliver of a window of time, after college and before the onslaught of adoptions and births, that I was living in a two income, two full time employed people, home. Two incomes is a pretty sweet deal. Especially when the two incomes were both fair and generous and the debt ratio was nearly nil and the tiny home we were renting was quite the deal and our expenses were oh-so-low. During that time we could easily afford to travel – and we sometimes did. That was the year we made it to my only trip leaving the country (just barely) – Cancun,…
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Our Next Road Trip — And Your Helpful Ideas
This summer (or spring still, technically) we’ve got a gigantic old road trip in our future. I heart road trips. I like it all, really. The driving. The planning. The seeing stuff we’ve never seen. The seeing stuff we saw on other road trips. Stopping at our favorite traditional stops. Car games. Singing (the same songs)(endlessly) in the car. Laughing through the ridiculous – like circling the same exit in St. Louis six times. Building memories and loads of “remember that one time?”. Finding out which restaurant serves the “best of” something in each city we drive through. Best BBQ in Memphis. Best donut in Nashville. Best burger in…
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Local Beowulf Class: My Girls Loved It, Maybe Yours Will Too
Even though my official piece of paper declares that I have a degree in English and Theatre and Communications (it was so hard to choose), I am always looking for opportunities for my children to participate in the arts in memorable and challenging ways. I know that, even though the deepest core of my home education philosophy is reading and living books and art, I need other teachers and educators and perspectives and experiences feeding into my children’s hearts and minds. I believe they need to sit in the audience at theatre performances and I believe they need to step on stage sometimes too. I believe they need group discussions…
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Lost Valley Ranch: A Recap and A Memory
It’s during those long winter months and darker days when people like me start to think about spring and summer and vacations and trips and sunshine. It’s true, I like the planning nearly as much as I like the traveling. Well. I don’t know if that is entirely true. The point is, I love planning trips. I like looking at maps and measuring distances and thinking of ways to make the road trip fun. I like looking up funky road side attractions and making lists of where we could stop for the best BBQ in Nashville or the most delicious dessert in Kansas City. And thinking about summer makes me…
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Ripley’s Gatlinburg Attractions: A Review in Three Parts, Part 3 (Guinness World Records)
I’m including the same intro and review before and after each of these three reviews. You can read our family’s Mirror Maze Review here and our 5D Moving Theatre Review here. _________________ Gatlinburg in the winter is a different sort of town than Gatlinburg in the summer. When we took our recent adventure to the mountain town, we found it sleepy and quiet and that’s exactly the way we liked it. Traffic was minimal (except for the weekend) and the streets were not overcrowded and the restaurants had no wait time. Again – that’s exactly what we love – especially when we are always a party of six (at least) and generally…
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Ripley’s Gatlinburg Attractions: A Review in Three Parts, Part 2 (The 5D Moving Theatre)
I’m including the same intro and review before and after each of these three reviews. You can read our family’s Mirror Maze Review here. _________________ Gatlinburg in the winter is a different sort of town than Gatlinburg in the summer. When we took our recent adventure to the mountain town, we found it sleepy and quiet and that’s exactly the way we liked it. Traffic was minimal (except for the weekend) and the streets were not overcrowded and the restaurants had no wait time. Again – that’s exactly what we love – especially when we are always a party of six (at least) and generally tables for six are…
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Ripley’s Gatlinburg Attractions: A Review in Three Parts, Part 1 (The Mirror Maze)
Gatlinburg in the winter is a different sort of town than Gatlinburg in the summer. When we took our recent adventure to the mountain town, we found it sleepy and quiet and that’s exactly the way we liked it. Traffic was minimal (except for the weekend) and the streets were not overcrowded and the restaurants had no wait time. Again – that’s exactly what we love – especially when we are always a party of six (at least) and generally tables for six are not as readily available at peak times. The Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies was hands down our favorite activity of the week, but we had…
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On the Road: Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies
This month we touched a jellyfish, walked underneath a hammer head shark swimming right along above us and stood in awe at the weirdly awesome body of the sea horse dragon. And oh yes, we saw an octopus. I heart aquariums. (I also heart honesty and I’ll do my best to keep you guys informed – so, you should know that this post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the links, I’ll receive compensation.) We spent a week in the Tennessee mountains earlier this month and had the incredible opportunity to visit Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies in downtown Gatlinburg and…
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wednesday by the water
The fact that it is November is shocking to me. What is happening to the days? The years? All of it!! Also. My children went swimming today. In November. That feels crazy. We carry our Nature Notes with us on our adventures and today was so slam-packed full of nature happenings that our November 2 notecard is now full; we had to move to the back of the card! The list included: dolphins, a crow not two feet away making the most unusual noises – clicks and such – that I’ve never heard, sand dollar, one trillion hermit crabs, a starfish that was in the process of growing…
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two days. two stories.
Yesterday I dropped my phone. On a rock. Without a case. It’s my own fault. I like the phone case-less. I’ve been warned. One bazillion and three times by friends and family and strangers. “Get a case,” they said. “It’s too big of a risk,” they said. I’ve had a case handed to me actually. I put it on my phone in their presence to appease their concern. (Sorry Sarah and Brian.) And then I removed it. It’s been just fine for a good long run. A really good long run. But yesterday I was helping my son carry water out for the chickens. I was about to run…
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sunshine & apples
And some days are just so full of sunshine. Isn’t that the way it is – the rise and the fall and all the in between? Yesterday my dad breezed in the way my dad does. And – in a more planned but no less exciting manner – a sweet family friend joined us last night for a few days of good times and regular times. Today some really fun things happened: The weather was on point perfect. Some of the kids wore light and unnecessary long sleeved shirts. I wore both leggings AND a sleeveless shirt. (I heart the mild October ways here in the south. My…
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less words, more pictures
Did you guys forget it was Friday too because I wasn’t on my space here publishing a Five Finds Friday post? No? That’s fine. Me neither. It’s been a busy handful of days and my computer was here at my house – as was my dog and my friend Amy – but myself and my kids were not here. We’ve been a lot of places, actually. In the car. At the farm. At the beach. In the car. In the car. (Mostly that was me – all the extra “in the car”s.) There’s a lot to say and I’ll say it mostly later but it was an effort to…
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just the lovely remains of a weekend well spent
It’s only been like a matter of DAYS since I’ve last typed a blog post – right? Good grief we’ve crammed a lot of activity into those days somehow. Part unintentionally, part on purpose. Friday the kids and I attended the North Carolina Mountain State Fair. I’ve wanted to attend this shindig for years after seeing it annually advertised and this year I just decided we would go for it. (It helped that on Friday the entrance fee was completely waived for students and their teachers. I have students. I’m a teacher. I can afford free.) There was the Midway (not at all free) and its weird rides, its…
