Summer Pictures

I have some random pictures from this summer that don't need their own post ...

Rylan's baseball team went to a Sounds game at the end of the season (I still need to post about that) and the big boys got their picture with the mascot, Booster.

Sonic had $0.79 Transformer slushes one day.

I took the boys to the Country Music Hall of Fame to see the puppet show "String City" again this year.  It's filled with music that somewhat covers the history of country music.  It's a great show and the boys loved it again!

They made their own puppets afterwards.

I found a nest of baby birds in one of our boxwood bushes when I was spreading mulch.  The next day they left the nest.  This was the last one to figure out how to fly.

I took the kids to the splash pad and park at Port Royal one morning.  It was between thunderstorms and we pretty much had the place to ourselves (it was awesome!).

The storms didn't hold off forever ...

We tried making our own snow cones one day by chopping ice in the blender and adding snow cone syrup to the top.  The boys liked them!

There are lots of contests at the Brentwood Library each week.  We have been there 3-4 times a week for all the programs I signed the big boys up for this summer so we have entered a lot of them.  The boys finally won one - estimating the number of DumDums in a jar.  I guessed for Gray and we got it exactly right (118).

The programs have been amazing this summer and it's all because of the great elementary age director that had been there less than a year.  Unfortunately she's moving on to teach theater at a high school in Nashville.  We are going to miss her a lot!

We went to Chick-fil-A for free chicken on "dress-like-a-cow" day.  Evie joined us because we were picking her up from the camp that she and Carter had that day.

The Franklin Rec Center opened up their new splash pad finally.  We went about a week after it opened and were a little disappointed that half of it wasn't working and that there was no supervision of wild kids on the slides.  But the boys still had fun.  Though I'm not sure we'll be back anytime soon.

Rylan & Gray ...

 Carter & Gray ...

Camping Trip - Day 3

When we woke up in the morning, there was a nice break in the rain.  It had rained off and on during the night but our tent did great and we stayed completely dry.  We were able to pack everything up and eat breakfast without getting wet.

We had decided to drive up to a national park we hadn't been to before on our way home - Cumberland Gap National Historic Park.  Again, going there added some distance to our trip but it wasn't too bad and it was nice to drive some new roads.

Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate.  It poured and poured all day.  There were flash flooding warnings everywhere we were.  We still made it up to the park and even hiked about a mile (most of it in the rain).  And we stopped at the visitor's center and stamped the boys passport books.  But we were still disappointed that we didn't get to do any real hiking.

The short hike we did was on the Tennessee Road Trail to the Wilderness Road Trail.  

We passed a place called the Iron Furnace on the way.

We turned around where the trail crossed Gap Creek.

Gray refused to wear his hood and sported a nice hairdo!

Though the last day wasn't what we'd hoped, we had a great time.  And we finally camped with three kids and they all did great!

Camping Trip - Day 2

After our first night camping as a family of five, we were up early (of course).  We had bagels for breakfast and then packed up our daypacks for our first hike of the day.  We parked at Massey Gap in Grayson Highlands SP and started up the Rhododendron Trail.  We quickly joined up with the Appalachian Trail.  At about a mile we left the state park and entered Mount Rogers National Recreation Area.  We continued on the AT until we turned around at about 2.75 miles.  We changed things up a little and took the Wilburn Ridge Trail for about 0.7 miles on the way back (it pretty much parallels the AT but is a little rockier).

The boys at the trailhead:

And where we joined up with the AT:

Gray isn't in as many pictures because he was on my back in the carrier.

Most of the hike is exposed and completely different than other hikes we've taken the boys on.

At about 1.7 miles, we found what we had come to see ... wild ponies!

We didn't know ahead of time, but we chose an awesome time to visit the area because there were several babies!

We were sure to keep a little distance between the ponies and us, but they weren't scared of us at all and weren't bothered by us either.

This guy's mane was pretty awesome:

We went on top of a rock outcrop, had a snack, and watched the ponies from a distance for awhile.

This dude's mane was even better.  I read that their a pony nicknamed Fabio and I have a feeling this could be him!

We eventually continued on with our hike.  We crossed a more enclosed rocky hill with a good amount of rhododendron in bloom.

There is a little "tunnel" you have to cross through between the huge boulders.

After coming out of the rhododendron and rocks, we found another group of ponies.  There was a group of hikers by them petting them and so the ponies were coming up to us too (probably in hopes of getting some food - we saw plenty of people trying to feed them even though it's prohibited).

This little guy was super cute!!!

We continued on just a bit to a rock outcropping and stopped for lunch.

After lunch we headed back towards the trailhead.

We saw another group of ponies once we crossed back into Grayson Highlands.  This mama was munching away on the grass next to her baby who was sound asleep!

We finished our hike in the early afternoon and then returned back to our campsite.  We didn't get cell service in the park but we heard thunder and the sky was dark in the distance through the trees.  We expected rain overnight but didn't know when it would come in.  We decided we had enough time to fit in another short hike and were able to convince the boys they could do it.

We started the hike from our campsite.  We took Stamper's Branch Trail with our goal of turning around after we found a letterbox on the trail.

Brian carried Gray this time.

This hike was completely different than the first hike of the day.  It was in the the woods with complete tree cover the entire hike.

There was a creek close to our turnaround point with several blooming azaleas in the area.

After our hike we knew we weren't going to stay dry much longer so we quickly got a fire going and roasted hot dogs.  We finished dinner just in time and then got into the tent for awhile as the rain poured down.

After the rain ended, we took a walk around the campground and then chilled for a bit.  The tent camping area had cleared out and there was only one other person that we could see.

The rain started to come in again eventually and we decided it was time for bed!