Planes, just me and the small ones

Yoozers, it's been a bit too long since I posted a catch up post.  I will try and keep this brief

Paul was away for part of last week.  The boys and I survived well.  We didn't really do much, just the normal mundane stuff.

Last weekend there was a special event at Greenville downtown airport.  My friend has posted in more detail about it here.  3 very old airplanes were at the airport all weekend for people to tour (for a price, it would have been $40 for all of us), or to take a flight in. They were the Consolidated B-24 Liberator “Witchcraft” WWII Heavy Bomber, the P-51 Mustang Fighter “Betty Jane” and a vintage Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress ”Nine O Nine". We headed there on the Sunday morning, and managed to see them from a distance (we were not prepared to pay).  The boys liked them, but they had more fun playing in the park next to the Runway Cafe.

Paul was then away again this week, all week this time.  The first half was spent at Carolina Motor Speedway near Columbia, then the second half at Talladega.  Again, the boys and I survived just fine!  I will admit, I have not done much homeschooling type stuff with Seb.  I just have not had the energy to dedicate to it.  We did the usual Gymboree on Monday.  Tuesday we stayed in all day, as we were going to our friend Liene's house for dinner.  The boys all had a great time, ate plenty of pizza, and played really well.  Liene gave me a couple of puzzle boards for Seb, which he loves

It occurred to me that we left all this kind of thing behind in the UK, as we deemed it too babyish.  Silly me....  Seb is awesome with them, and I hope it gets him interested in puzzled.

Wednesday we had another quiet day, as we were off to baseball in the evening.  This meant a very early dinner, particularly as we had to be there even earlier for Oliver to have photos done.  Man, it was cold.  Like really cold.  Thank goodness his game was at 6.  In the last 2 weeks Oliver has had 2 baseball games, they are still undefeated.  Oliver did really well in this one.  He did some good fielding in the in and out field. He is not a baseball natural, think he needs to watch it a bit more on TV.  He also got a couple more runs under his belt which was good.

The last 2 nights have been really cold, like 4 degrees celcius at night.  The heating is now on upstairs and downstairs.  It really feels like winter out there, never mind fall...

Yesterday morning I went for the open morning at Oliver's school, mainly to check out the primer (kindergarten) rooms.  I was assigned parent ambassador, and a senior student, who turned out to be the librarians boy.  Obviously I took Seb.  He was good as gold during all the introductory chats and speeches.  Then we went on the tour. I got a good look at the primer classrooms.  They are all quite different, each one matches the personality of the teachers, who seem lovely.  I got to look at some of the work they were doing, very good. I was thoroughly impressed.  Next we went to the 4th and 3rd grade classroom, as I wanted to see  what Oliver has to come.  We are in for some fun....  I came away really wanting Isaac to go next year.  It felt right for him.  

We met our good friends Christy and Edmund at the zoo.  It was all decked out for Boo in the Zoo which takes place this weekend and last weekend.  This is billed as a safe, non-scary trick-or-treat event for kids 12 & under.  We are not planning on doing it this year, due to other plans, and the fact Oliver and Isaac really want to do trick or treating round our neighbourhood. 

This morning Anna came round to look after Isaac and Seb while I went for Isaacs conference at school.  He is doing really well, he just needs to choose trickier work and become more interested in letters and words.  I asked her a bit about kindergarten next year.  Once the 3-4 year olds are gone, they cover up a lot of the classroom, and focus on tricky work which entails maths, literacy  letters and words. Plus they get homework. She also said that those who started kindergarten unable to read, were generally reading by christmas.  I came away feeling very pleased with Isaac for the progress he is making.  I also felt happy that if he ends up staying there, he will really excel academically, as well as socially.  

Paul came home this afternoon, woohooo.  He even picked up Oliver for me, so Isaac and I watched a film, and had a chilled day before the chaos of this weekend.....

Don't forget to check out my Facebook page, there is a little giveaway going on right now

And my Twitter feed, follow me and I shall lead you down the merry path, mmwwwaaaahhhhh....

Before I forget, my awesome sis-in-law has set up a blogging thing for November.  Find the link here.  I shall be partaking in some of the blogs.  The idea is to write about a topic she has put up for each day.  There are a few that catch my eye that I am already looking forward to.  So if you are an experienced blogger, or new to this writing malarky,  please, have a little look.  If you decide to do it, make sure you link back to her blog.  Could  be a lot of fun....

Now to continue drinking beer packing

Long week

What a week.... To start with, paul was away Monday to Friday.  That made things hard.  Oliver's baseball season began this week.  He had 3 practices, all of them at 7.15pm, for an hour.  So I had to take all 3 chimps to Heritage Park.  This obviously resulted in 3 very late nights for all the boys, and mummy.  His team seems good, they are a mix of second and third graders.  As with last season, there are a couple of kids who are really good, but some don't have a very good attitude.....

Oliver also went back to school this week.  He had half days on Monday and Tuesday, when Isaac was in lunch and learn.  Then back to full days for the rest of the week, when Isaac was on half days.  It has been nice to have Isaac to myself in the afternoon while Seb sleeps (normally....)

Both Oliver and Isaac have had their well child check ups at the doctors in the last 10 days. They need a South Carolina immunization record so they can go to school. These involved full physicals with their new doctor.  i must say, she is awesome.  only problem with going to the doctors is it takes about an hour each time.   They both needed some jabs, 2 for Oliver, 1 for Isaac.  They both cried, it's difficult to say who cried the most...  Other than that, they are both fine.  Oliver is light, Isaac is more average.  Isaac's height has jumped about 3 percentiles in the last year.  I think he will be the biggest in both height and weight out of all the boys.  Seb has got his on Friday, should be interesting.....

Seb had his first session at Gymboree on Monday.  He cried for about a quarter of the time.  He eventually got used to the equipment, and was quite keen, but did not like it when they started doing singing and circle time.  He did however join in some of the 'kitchen helper' pretend play activities the ladies did.  I have signed him up for a month.  He will get used to it, it will do him good to listen to other adults, and I think he will come round to the singing and activities.  I have been getting him to sing along to songs on the radio in the car to help his vocalization. His favorites are 'blurred lines' (it's so cute, I sing the words, them he tries to copy, it is awesome.....) and 'heaven'.  He is best with songs that have sounds rather than words.  After we dropped Isaac at school on Monday, having already taken Oliver, Seb was so chatty.  He is getting there, I know it is just a matter of time before we can't shut him up either.  

As Paul had been away, we have been keeping busy.  We went to the pool after school on Monday and Tuesday.  

Out for dinner with Liene and her chimps on Tuesday night.  Gotta love Carolina Ale Houses kids eat for 99 cents.  It was an interesting dinner, all the kids ate, and were well behaved.  Think it is something we will be doing again.  Wednesday morning we had to go and get Oliver a helmet for baseball.  Oh the joys of being a second grader, they now need helmets.  I thought it would break   the bank, but it wasn't too bad.  We had some time to kill, so stopped in at Barnes and Noble to look at the books, and Seb played with the Thomas trains.  

I will mention now, Liene is in a poll for best Southern Mom blog on Circle of Moms.  She is an awesome writer, and has won many accolades already.  Please take the time to read her blog and vote.  I know she will appreciate it.  You can currently find it under the pending tab.

This is the link http://www.circleofmoms.com/top25/Top-25-Southern-Moms-2013 

As for our home activities this week..... Seb has played with playdoh and lego at the same time, painted with cars, 

finger painted, brown bear matching game.  He helped me make cakes.  This was rather humorous.  I gave him some choc chips to eat while I did the tricky bits.  He proceeded in putting  these into the cake cases, instead of eating them.  So they are chocolate heavy cakes.  No complaints so far.  We met up with some friends at the park, and at the zoo.  He was very good on both occasions.  I have rarely used his bat wing reins.  Such an improvement.   He has also done the toothpick games on numerous occasions.  When we were tidying up the paints, he got the magnetic letters out, and started putting them into the roll of kitchen paper. 

 I ran with this (and another idea I saw on Pinterest), and cut a hole in the plastic lid of a coffee tin.  Seb then put all the magnetic letters into this instead.  This is a favorite activity.  He seems to love putting things into slots.  I have tried to get him to help sort the letters into colors first, but every time I do it, he messes it up!!!  Never mind, these things will come.  

Isaac has done painting with lego and cars this week.  He loved it.  This then led on to him cleaning everything after.  Then he decided he wanted to clean all his hero factory bits.  

This took a good chunk of time.  I have been offering Isaac computer time in the afternoon before Oliver comes home, and he has refused most of the time.  Both him and Oliver are having such a good time playing together with the Hero Factory, or watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (I so remember this from being a kid....,).  They have such a beautiful relationship.  They are a right team.  But such hard work.  They answer to each other before answering to mummy or daddy.  Isaac wanted to get the Playmobil out on Friday  afternoon.  

I agreed, but thought we would go the whole hog and get it all out.  Needless to say, he played with it for about an hour before he started asking when Oliver was coming home.  It was packed away before bedtime (but at least I got the opportunity to sort it all out, and store it better, so sad......) 

Paul has finished the cat box.  It is cool, heavy, but cool.  Plus the cat uses it.  Makes the litter tray very inconspicuous, even if it does look like Snoopys home.  

His next task: a small bookcase for the reading corner.

As I say a busy week.  Hoping next week won't be so chaotic, but I doubt it........

USS Yorktown, Charleston, waterpark

So we awoke early (thanks boys...) and eager for our next days adventures.  We left our friends at the house and headed towards Charleston.

Top Gun plane

We had already decided to visit Patriots Point.  This is an area of Charleston harbor which is home to various American Navy ships and aircraft. You can also get a boat to Fort Sumter from here.  We parked up, suncreamed the boys and headed in. We decided to let Seb walk, using his bat reins, as getting the buggy around could have been difficult.  It was reasonably priced, and as we had 3 small ones we even managed to hitch a ride on a golf cart from the entrance to the ship itself.  USS Yorktown was big.  Everything was really well laid out as a museum.  It is only when you start learning about these things, as a foreigner, that you come to realize just how much military action the US has seen.  We spent a good couple of hours exploring this huge aircraft carrier, and barely scratched the surface.  By lunch time the boys and I were beginning to wilt, in need of food we headed back to dry land.  On our way out, we stopped in the Vietnam Support Base.  Again, this is a war I know very little about, it is before my time, and not really relevant to British history, so it is not studied in depth at school (I did WWI, WWII and the bit in between for my GCSE history).  I would love to learn more about it.  I am finding that the longer I am here, the more I want to know about world affairs, not just an islands past present and future.

Lunchtime

From there we headed into Charleston.  We traveled down to the very base of the city, and had a drive round.  Having driven through the historic area of Georgetown on out way to Myrtle Beach, we knew what to expect.  Only this was on a larger, grander scale.  People have told us that one of the reasons Charleston has so many old historic houses is due to the poverty that was abundant after the Civil War.  This prevented people from knocking down houses and building afresh.  Instead they had to 'make do and mend'.  The South Carolina Historical Society have played a big part in this.  They hold open days at various times of the year to different houses and gardens.  Not something my boys would put up with....  We found somewhere to park (yes, even in historic Charleston we found a multistory), and walked till we found a place we deemed suitable for the kids.  So we ended up in an Irish pub, Molly Darcy's.  It was quiet, we were given a seat by the table football, which the boys loved, and we were all starving (If I remember, I will blog about this on Feeding Goslings).  We left via the back door, and stumbled across the area where they keep all the horse and carriages.  The boys loved seeing the animals, but we deemed the rides themselves a little expensive (and boring for boys).

Customs House

So we kept walking and stumbled upon the City Market.  We must have entered it from about half way back down towards main street.  It was heaving, so busy.  It was hard to stop and look at anything.  In between the buildings were roads, which the horse and carriages were using. As we headed towards main street, the items for sale became more touristy.  We exited opposite Customs House.

One big boat

In the water behind, we could see a huge cruise liner.  We headed towards the water, passing a freight train, full of BMW X5's. We walked towards the Waterfront Park, which like most city parks here, had a water feature the boys could run around in.  We got them down to their pants, but they are a pair of chickens, and after 5 minutes standing on the edge, it was time to redress them and move on.  By now it was really hot.  We had seen a couple of water parks advertised locally so headed to try one out.

On the way to Splash Island, Sebastian finally fell asleep.  We paid our state park entrance fee, and headed to the water park.  Parked up, put Seb in the buggy, where he went back to sleep.  The boys got changed, I sat on a lounger while Seb slept and the others played in the water.  It had clouded over, but it was still really hot.  Seb must have slept for an hour before waking up and realizing where he was.  All the boys loved this place, and really didn't want to leave.  So much so, that we were the last paying customers out of the park.  We headed back to the house for a final evening with our friends, before going our separate ways the next morning.

We had to leave very early the next morning, as Oliver had his end of year pool party at a friends house.  After driving part of the way home, I was very tired, and the weather was looking pants.  We managed to persuade him to stay at home, and go to the pool instead.  Bad mummy alert, but I was very relieved.  We spent the afternoon vegging around the house, relaxing and watching 'Wreck it Ralph' for the umpteenth time.....

McClellanville and Myrtle Beach

Hello.....

Sorry this has been so long coming, I have been throwing myself into Uni work since coming back from the coast.  I think I will start this there.

The house

We left on thursday morning, had a nice leisurely  drive down.  Stopped for some lunch at Wendy's.  It would appear we have a regular stopping area around Orangeburg, which is full of fast food restaurants.  It is about half way from here to the coast, so that worked well for us. We were staying in a small fishing village called McClellanville, about an hour up the coast from Charleston.  It was very picturesque and small, with very few houses, many of which were holiday homes.  We arrived just after 3, the boys got settled in and awaited out friends who we were sharing the house with.  Whilst we were settling in, we took a walk down to the end of the garden, onto our dock.  As I looked down the sides, I thought I could see lots of big bugs.  On closer inspection, they turned out to be crabs, and there was hundreds of them.  We got to the end of the dock and were just debating the likelihood of there being dolphins in the water when, literally 20 feet in front of us, the backs of 2 dolphins appeared.  Magical.  They were swimming up the water, and we saw them again.  It is so amazing to be able to see dolphins so close in the wild.  It is something I think I will never get used to seeing on the coast here.

The dock

Our friends arrived just after 6, so we fired up the barbie.  The boys (there were 5 boys aging from 1 to 6 in the house, thank goodness out nearest neighbors were a good distance away)  ate dinner well, and continued to play while we cracked on with the beer.  Got all the children in bed by 9, and settled onto the screened porch to enjoy some adult time, and compare plans for the next day.  Prior to booking this trip, my friend had expressed a very keen interest on taking a trip to Bulls Island.  Initially I thought it was a great idea for us too.  At the last minute we decided not to do it.  We did not think the boys would enjoy it, and would moan the whole time.  Also the price of the ferry for a family of 5 was pretty steep.  They were very organized, and lucky in the fact their children are still young enough to be carried.  I could not imagine Oliver's stamina.... It would have been a nightmare.  We discussed lots of interesting topics, always nice to find out peoples view points and history, especially if you have not known them long.  We all turned in fairly early.

Ferris wheel as Myrtle Beach

Instead of doing Bulls Island, we decided to do Myrtle Beach.  This has been described to us as a redneck version of Blackpool.  We were already aware that there was a biker convention going on in the town.  We left the house about 9.30, and headed up that way (it was 60 miles away).  About 30 miles from Myrtle Beach, we became aware of the numbers of bikers on the road, and this increased proportional as we approached the destination.  The best way I can think of to describe Myrtle Beach???  At first glance in reminded me of a very small version of Miami.  If I had to describe a British coastal town that it is like, I think I would say Southend-on-Sea.  We drove through it first.  Loads of big hotels, some slightly better quality than others.... Obviously there was the bikers to factor in, the place had a busy vibe, despite the big amusement and water parks not being open yet (that happens this weekend).  We decided to look for somewhere to park, and went with the most convenient (definitely not the cheapest) option of parking right under the ferris wheel, practically on the beach.  We took a little stroll down the broad walk, man it was HOT.  We turned back to the car, and Paul went and grabbed the beach stuff.  The beach was lovely, though the sand quite grainy.  I later discovered, if you dig down about half a foot, you reach a layer of shells.  The sea was refreshing after the heat, with all 3 boys going in at some point.  Oliver loved the water, as did Seb.  Isaac, not so keen.  We managed to persuade him.  The tide was coming in by then, so we had to move up the beach. The sand near the broad walk was baking, too hot, lunchtime.

the beach

Paul chucked all the beach stuff back in the car, while we waited, in the shade on the broad walk (trust me, it was HOT).  We went to Landshark on the beach for lunch, I will not say too much, as I hope to blog about it fairly soon.  This was just under the ferris wheel.  After lunch we decide to try and walk to one of the piers, but we walked on the street front, until we found an arcade.  The boys were ever so keen, so we took them in.  Of all the games I had the change for, they decided to play an old fashioned levers and pull back baseball game.  Isaac was awesome, though he was just pulling levers and pressing buttons.  Think Oliver is too used to working out a strategy, so he went through quarters very quickly. Once my coins had run out, we exited on to the broad walk, and continued to the pier.  It was a fair distance. We got about half way there when we realized it was too hot, the boys would never make it, and neither would we.  We decided to turn back towards the other one.  En route, I stopped in a souvenir shop, hoping for my usual magnet and mug combo.  This place was full of shells.  So many shells.  There were a few  I liked, but the shear volume put me off..... I felt a bit funny.  I know people take from the sea all the time, it has been going on as long as humans have been on this planet, but this felt extreme.  Its almost like I got an attack of the conscious.  I know these items have already been taken from the sea, but I didn't like the magnitude of the destruction for pure commercial gain.  I left the store quite quickly, and we continued our merry walk past the ferris wheel to the other pier.  It was nice to see the hotels from the beach side.  Most of them had good pools, and a few even had beach bars.  And they were all pretty busy.  We reached the next pier.  Of course you had to enter through the gift shop, then pay a dollar for the privilege of going on the pier.  As my cash was all gone, we had to skip it.  But the boys were greta, very understanding.  I think by then they were all wilting in the heat, as were Paul and I.  We had seen quite a few mini golf courses on the way in.  So with the promise of mini golf, we were able to get them in the car, and leave Myrtle Beach.

I will say now, I really like Myrtle Beach.  I would like to go back there again before our time here is up.  I want to stay in one of the beach front hotels with an awesome pool, and chill, catch some rays and let the boys play.  I would not want to do it for more than 3 nights, I think we would all be bored by then.  It would be nice to park the car in a hotel car park and walk everywhere for a few days.

We stopped at mini golf for the boys, they enjoyed it.  Oliver has a good swing, Isaac's needs work.  He is so left handed it is unreal, but tries to swing like a right handed person would.  We don't keep score, neither of them are good enough for it (yet...).  They really enjoy it.  We passed more bikers on the way out.

We arrived back at the house, where Liene had ice cream waiting for the kids.  They sure were grateful.    We took ours to the local park, a 10 minute walk from the house.  This was next to McClellanville museum, which was closed, but looked very interesting.  There was a big look out tower nearby, and we took a little wander on to the community dock.  By now the boys were in need of dinner, so we took them back to the house, just as our friends were getting back from their walk down our dock.  We fed them, bathed them (they were covered in sand) and got them into bed as quick as we could.

Link-a-dee-link

It has finally stopped raining, and it might even be starting to get warm, huzzah!!!!!!

So a run down of our week

Tuesday - We went to our good friend Liene's house.  The boys were able to play out in the garden, we had a delicious strawberry cake for lunch and a good time was had by all.  If you get the chance to read her blog, do so, it is awesome....  Oliver had a baseball game in the evening.  He played well, but this is the first game in which he has effectively 'struck out'.  He has developed a good swing, so his hand eye coordination is not quite as good as it was with cricket, though it is improving.  Just as the final innings was beginning it started to pitter patter with rain.  By the time the game was over, it was chucking it down, and most of the adults were sheltering in the dug out, before making a mad dash to the car.

Boys in a Dodge Viper

Wednesday - Instead of meeting at the zoo, we decided to go to our friends house.  They have a massive back yard, so the boys were able to play out.  They was another lady who I met when I first got here, but haven't seen since.  It was nice to catch up.  Isaac even got to drive a car, ok a mini one, round the garden which he LOVED.  We have not told Oliver yet, he would be sooooo jealous.  From here we headed to get Oliver, then back down the interstate to the BMW Performance Centre.  Paul and many of his work colleagues knew about an event taking place that afternoon, where the One Lap of America cars where coming on their epic drive to set a lap time in a time trial.  I just skim read the history of this event, and it is fascinating, thought up by the guy who wrote the screen plays for Cannonball Run and Smokey and the Bandit II.  The boys loved the cars stationary, and got even more excited to see them on the track.  I thought Seb would freak at the noise (he had not slept, and had been scared by the sound of the mini car at my friends), but oh no, he loved it.....  Probably more than the other 2 put together.  Their concentration levels go very quickly.  We stopped for some fast food on the way home.

Thursday - We met up with Christy and Edmund at Conastee park.  That was fun, and very hot.  The boys played in the park before we decided to walk down towards the lake, and do some of the trails.  Just as we were getting near, a gentleman warned us that he had just moved a cottonmouth snake off one of the trails.  We risked it, and walked for a little, but we were ever so aware and observant of what was around us.  Seb held my hand, and Isaac and Edmund walked very near us.  Oliver had another baseball game in the evening.  This was a rain make up game from earlier in the season.  Only 8 players from Olivers team showed!!!! It was a bit of a shame, but they managed to get 3 innings in, which was good.  It also meant the game lasted an hour rather than the usual 40 minutes.

Friday - We were off to the zoo to meet our friday morning group.  I was feeling brave, and decided to let Seb walk.  As I drove in to the car park, I was struck by the amount of school buses.  There were at least 5 parked up, and while we were waiting for out friends, at least another 5 pulled up.  I have never seen the zoo so busy.  It was a madhouse.  Admittedly, most of the kid were well behaved, and a lot of our group had buggies, or 4 year olds.  Seb was good as gold walking, he did pretty much the whole zoo, and held my hand for most of it.  As I had knackered Seb out in the morning, he went straight to sleep when we got back from getting Isaac.  Isaac and I had a relaxing afternoon watching Cars 2 an playing computers.  I **may** have fallen asleep on the sofa.....  Oliver had yet another baseball game. The heavens opened 20 minutes before it started, just a short sharp shower, and 2 minute before we got an email to say it was cancelled.  At this time, 11 players from Oliver's team were warming up on the field.  They decided to play the game anyway, and Oliver's team sportingly gave up some players to the other team, who were decidedly lacking in players.  We all went to watch this one, which resulted in wet and muddy Sebastian and Isaac...

So the weekend... I was not feeling to good yesterday. Paul indulged in some yard work and put my washing line up.  We went out for dinner. I was able to put my first load out today, it was dry in about 2 hours.  The ground is very soft from all the rain, and seeing as it is mainly clay, we have had to put some extra support for the pole in.  I have every faith that it will stay up.  I am almost looking forward to doing more washing, so it can dry cheaply and fast.....  We had a BBQ for lunch today, very tasty, and I didn't have to cook, seeing as it is Mothers Day out here.  I got some flowers, picked from the garden by Isaac and Paul.  Oliver had a little decorated pot, some soil and a packet of seeds, all nicely wrapped up for me.  It was very thoughtful.  After the BBQ, we headed to the pool.  It opened yesterday, and we got the gate code from the landlord.  As it is not a heated pool, the cover has been off for a couple of weeks in an attempt to get some heat in to it.  It kinda worked.....  It was chilly, but nice to sit on the edge and assist small boys in and out.  I did not go further done the steps than my knees....  I am looking forward to when it is really hot (yes I really am!!!)  as it will be sooooooo refreshing....

Wow, this was not meant to be epic.....  Here are next weeks highlights.....
Monday, to a friends.  Tuesday, the neighbors round.  Wednesday, the zoo.  Thursday-Sunday off to the coast!!!!  Can't wait to get away.  Should be good fun...

Right, I am off to watch Wicked Tuna (so awesome.......)