Sunday, June 29, 2014

Replacement Level

December 2014....

Duke Farms

It's been a beautiful summer weekend. Alison had a plan for us to check out Duke Farms, a local attraction, that I had known about for some time, but did not really know much about.

It turns out it's a pretty fascinating place. Tobacco magnate James Duke, consolidated thousands of acres of farmland in nearby Hillsborough. There are all sorts of man made lakes, and man made hills, it's a beautiful place. When he passed away, his daughter, "world's richest girl" Doris Duke, sued her mother and one of the awards from the suit was this property. She decorated it with the spoils of her globe-trotting and incredibly fascinating life. Eventually she opened it to the public, it was closed for a few years, but re-opened in 2012.

Our first trip basically ended when Jackie's peanut butter and jelly sandwich dropped in the dirt, maybe 30 minutes in. We spent another hour and change alternating between crying Catherine, and crying Jackie, and sometimes both, but it was still a pretty nice trip. I'm glad such a great place is nearby for us to explore, it's free, and we'll definitely be going back.

Jackie did a lot of running on the paths... which was a good thing, she slept pretty well that night.

Run...

More running

Enjoying the fountain

This was her silly picture, and pre pb&j drop

Catherine enjoying a cool beverage

It was tough to convince her to pose after the sandwich mishap

Looking for Bears.. I told her that her loud complaining scared them all away

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Pretend Camp

Jackie's pre-school offered some summer day camp sessions with a different theme each week. We had decided to send her for a few weeks to give her some additional activities over the summer and play with the other kids. This was the first week, and the theme was Animal Planet.

I am sorry to say though, that when I came home from work on Monday things were pretty grim. Jackie didn't want to talk about camp, she was quite argumentative in fact. Finally, after a little bit of dinner, I got some information out of her. It wasn't real camp you see... there were no tents, or s'mores, or any real camp things to do, and she was so disappointed. It was pretend camp.

Happily, she seems to have gotten over it. Yesterday, there was a petting zoo activity they kids got to see a dove, a wallaby, a fox, and a hedgehog. I saw the pictures on facebook that they school had posted, so when I got home I was asking her about the animals. I forgot one though, and she was happy to inform me that she got to pet a chinchilla, whatever that is.

So things have been going better at pretend camp, apparently they have ice pops. They were kind enough to send this photo along of Jackie enjoying a grape one after a rough morning of running through sprinklers. When I asked how camp went while I was home for lunch, she reminded me it was not camp, it was pretend camp.


Thursday, June 19, 2014

Back From the Dead?

Well.. well.. well... here we are.

A happy Father's Day was had.

Dad and the Girls

Pool time

Stand up...

...and Celebrate!

Shucking Corn with Great Grandma