Wilmington Trip - Day 1

The kids and I went to Wilmington over 2 weeks ago now so it's about time I start blogging about the trip!!!

So, the kids and I left Franklin on June 15th around 6 am and started heading east.  We had gotten back from our mountain trip only 6 days earlier but the boys did amazing on the drive.  It was long - it took us about 12 hours.  But the boys watched several movies, took a nap, and didn't complain much.  I was able to listen to an audio book most of the drive which helped to keep me awake (my biggest concern with driving so far without another adult).  We stopped quite a bit so the boys could run around and because Carter requires a lot of potty breaks since he tends to drink several cups of water during the day.

We finally got to my mom's house just after 7 am Eastern.  I wanted to keep the boys on Central time though so it was still 2 hours before their normal bedtime.  And since they had been cooped up in the car all day, I decided we should head over to the beach for a little play time.

We drove over to Wrightsville Beach which is about 20 minutes from my mom's house.

It was a beautiful evening - no clouds and great lighting with the sun setting.  And not too hot.  The boys ran around, used their giant shovels to dig holes, and collected shells.  They even put their feet in the water a little bit.  With the lighting being so great, the pictures of them turned out pretty good!

If only it were this easy to dig holes in our yard when we have new plants to put in!!!

Pelicans kept flying by in lines over the breakers.

Cute boy!

Carter specialized in collecting the biggest shells he could find which were usually oyster shells.

Cute and silly boy!

Carter got "smart" and started picking up his shells with his shovel and having my mom put them in his bucket.

Finally the boys decided to get their feet wet.

Rylan wasn't too sure about it and as soon as the water got to him (or close to him),  he took off running!

The boys started digging up scoops of sand and throwing it into the incoming waves.

This was great until one time Carter threw his shovel with his sand and it started going back out with the water.  He tried to catch it, slipped, and landed face first in the receding water.  We got his shovel, but he was not happy about being wet and sandy!  I took off Carter's shirt which appeased him enough and he continued to play for awhile.

Such a pretty night!!!

When we got back to my mom's house, I unpacked the car and got the boys' room set up for them.  My mom his a two bedroom house so the boys were able to share the guest room (Carter in the bed and Rylan in his playyard) and I took the sleeper sofa in the living room.  Both bedrooms are off the living room but it worked out great because my mom and I could still watch tv in her room after putting the kids to bed without waking them up.  The boys got to bed a little after their normal time and fell asleep fast.  I wasn't far behind - the drive wore me out!

Music

It's always fun hanging out with Daddy because he comes up with different things to do!

When I got back from running on Saturday morning, I found the boys hanging in the screen porch and listening to music.  They were so happy!

Letterboxing & Scavenger Hunt

On Wednesday the boys and I headed to downtown Franklin to find a couple of letterboxes and do a scavenger hunt.

We started off in a parking lot for Fort Granger Park but headed along the railroad tracks instead.  We had to count 119 railroad ties for the location of the letterbox.  Carter was leading, then me, and Rylan was last.  Rylan started yelling at me but I couldn't understand him at first.  He had stopped because a snake had crossed right in front of him!  The snake curled up under the tracks and kept sticking it's tongue out at us.  I'm pretty sure it was a garter snake but since I wasn't 100% sure, we moved on after I took a picture.

We worked on counting as we moved along the tracks.

The box was in a hole in an old wall next to the tracks (it's in the center of this picture).

After finding it we headed back to the car to drive to the next letterbox.

The next box was hidden in between building at The Factory.  Again we had to count railroad ties but these were part of the walkway.

The letterbox was hidden in the bushes behind the boys in this picture.

We also got another hitchhiker in the last box so hopefully I'll find a letterbox to place it in the next time we are out of town.

Our next stop was downtown Franklin to play tourists.

I had been looking at tours of downtown and noticed that one of the bookstores sells a scavenger hunt for kids that is designed by the tour company.  I thought it would be fun for Carter and we picked one up.  It was $11 and included the booklet, a pencil, a crayon, and patch.

Unfortunately Carter and I thought the scavenger hunt was a little lame and much shorter than we had anticipated.  It was the preschool version - maybe the one for older kids is better.  But Carter still seemed to have fun during it looking for things.  We were just disappointed when we were done in less than 15 minutes!

Posing in front of the old courthouse ...

Finding a clock ...

Carter had to do a rubbing of an elevation marker ...

A picture of the kids in the square in the middle of the traffic circle (that was fun getting to!) ...

Before heading home for a nap, we went over to Sweet CeCe's for ice cream.  One of Carter's classmates gave each kid in the class a gift card at the end of the year so we decided to finally use it.

Both kids got their usual.

Rylan got strawberry ice cream with gummy bears (and some gummy worms this time!) ...

Carter got vanilla ice cream with rainbow AND chocolate sprinkles ...

Yum!

Coloring

Carter is FINALLY making an effort to color in the lines.  He likes to color so fast that he just doesn't have time to be careful :)

Here is a coloring sheet from the library that he did about a month ago.  I really like that he tried to do all the colors right too!

Carter does like to draw people a lot.  I like this outdoor scene of him and Brian.

Rylan completely shocked me when he colored this dinosaur before his party.  He took his time and really tried to color in the lines.  He may be better than Carter!

3 Year Old Checkup

Rylan had his three-year-old checkup on Monday.  It was a pretty uneventful appointment and he is doing great.  After getting all his measurements done, Rylan even got his blood pressure checked - he's so old! :)

Rylan's 3 year stats:

• Weight: 35 lbs (80th percentile)
• Height: 37 inches (50th percentile)

For comparison, Rylan's 2 year stats:

• Weight: 30 lbs, 12 oz (80-85th percentile)
• Height: 34 inches (45th percentile)

I modified the percentile for Rylan's weight above.  When the nurse charted it, she gave him a percentile of 97th.  I don't deny that Rylan is a bigger boy - he always has been.  But I just couldn't believe he had increased that much when he's been appearing to slim down.  So I pulled up the CDC chart that our doctor uses and plotted his weight myself and got only 80th percentile, which makes a lot more sense to me.

But while we were in the office and thinking that Rylan's weight percentile had gone up quite a bit, we talked a lot about portion size and making sure we are making good decisions.  Our pediatrician though was pretty happy with what Rylan eats (at least that he doesn't eat much junk) and wasn't overly concerned.

The only other concern I had was how Rylan reacts to bug bites.  The pediatrician's only recommendation was to wear bug spray all the time to try to prevent them and then give him benadryl whenever they swell a lot.  I asked if we should be concerned about bee stings since Rylan hadn't had any yet and she didn't think those would be any worse for him than other kids.  She did recommend though carrying benadryl with me all the time, just in case.

Oh, and Rylan's ear is back to normal, finally!  That kid can swell!!!

Animals Galore!

We had a lot of animal encounters at the beginning of the week!

On Monday we went to the zoo.  As usual, we started off at the playground while it was still cool.

Then we fed the lorikeets.

Rylan got a little annoyed that this bird decided to peck his hand on the railing after he finished eating from his cup!

The hand washing station is pretty cool with water coming out of the birds' mouths (and air coming out of the other end to dry your hands!).

In the petting area, there were a pair of baby camels.  This massive guys are only 4 1/2 months old!!!

After the zoo, I took the boys running on the greenway because it was much cooler than normal so they could handle a mid-day run in the stroller.  Rylan slept through the run but Carter and I got to see a family of deer with a cute baby!

On Tuesday we attended a program at the Brentwood Library with the Natural History Educational Company.  It was pretty good but the guy doing the show was odd.  He didn't seem to like kids, at all.  He kept reprimanding them for the littlest things (like sitting with their legs in front of them on the floor instead of criss-crossed).

But the kids did get to see a salamander, turtle, possum, raccoon, and bobcat up close!

Sounds Game

We still had 3 of our 5 tickets for Sunday Sounds games so we finally got around to using another set of tickets last Sunday.  Rain was threatening all around but it ended up staying dry (and really cool - it was perfect!).

All the boys had their baseball hats (though there was very little cooperation for a picture).

Rylan wore his hat backwards most of the evening - too cute!!!

The last two games we were at were afternoon games.  This game started at 6:35 pm and we stayed until around 9 (we left at the end of the 7th inning).  We'd had late nights 3 of the last 4 nights and decided we needed to get the boys to bed!