Nearly holiday time

hey y'all

Just a quick one to say HI!  We are off on holiday shortly, and I shall be blogging from the road, so stay tuned.

We are all well, and I just about survived my first full week with both boys off.  Man, they are loud and demanding, but I think thats just kids for you.  We saw plenty of friends and took multiple trips to the pool which helped burn off lots of energy.  It is so hot here now that you can really only do outdoor things in the morning, as the afternoons are hot or thundery.  Best time fore the pool (not in the thunder though!)

I am still just about managing to keep up the #yearofoliver on Instagram.  You see this little camera icon on the right???  If you click on it, it should take you to my Instagram account, even if you don't have one yourself.  There you can see all the delightful photos of Oliver.

Thats it…. Just wanted to touch in before we go.  Only a couple of days now, and I am still not packed…..  My mum would be shocked……….

Summer switch up

So the summer holidays are upon us.  11 weeks off for Oliver, 8 weeks for Isaac.  About a month ago I got together with some friends to discuss what we should do.  Given that we are away for nearly 3 weeks, and another friend is going away for nearly a month, organizing things is tricky.  Despite this, I felt motivated after coming home.  The boys and I sat down and did this

This is a rough plan of what we can do.  Hopefully there will be enough to keep everybody happy.  Oliver is having his operation a week before he goes back to school but Isaac will already be back by then. I honestly don't know how I keep up with everything sometimes.  Seb will continue going to school through the summer.  His is a day care, and he gets more from being there than being home with 2 smelly brothers.  Plus, he only does 3 mornings a week, and it will be nice for the other 2 to be able to do things with me, without me having to worry about a 3 year old.

We went to the zoo last week, first time in ages.  But we had to.  Joy the elephant is off for a better life in Colorado.  Due to AZA standards, Greenville are unable to keep an elephant of its own.  They were running lots of different events around the zoo in celebration of elephants, which my kids loved. 

Here is Isaac signing goodbye.  It will be sad to not have elephants at Greenville zoo anymore.  I know Seb in particular will find it hard not seeing the elephant when we go.  It's his favorite animal, and I don't think he quite understands.

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Another reason for going to Charlotte last week was to take a trip to ikea.  We had decided a while ago that it was time to get Seb out of his cot. I thought it best to wait till the boys were off school, so it wouldn't be too unsettling or tiring for everyone.  After a bit of debating around the store, we decided to invest in some bunkbeds.  They were not that much more expensive that a single, and when we move back to England, it will be highly unlikely we will have a house big enough for 3 single beds to start with.  Ikea was an absolute nightmare.  The queues were huge.  Paul queued while I took the boys for frozen yogurt.  He still wasn't at the front by the time they finished.  We went and got the car to wait for him.  It took ages, but we got the bunkbeds home.  Paul painted them last weekend, and we put them together in Oliver's room.  He has had bunkbeds before, so is used to them, it also gives us flexibility for sleep overs or if Seb is a nightmare when he goes to bed.

We went with garish yellow as we had it left over from the sandbox.  The thought is we will get some Kyle Busch/M&M stickers or decals to go on them, and make it into a Kyle Busch bed (next project!)

This then freed up Oliver's bed, which was the same as Isaac's before I decorated it.  I was going to stain it, but I don't have a lot of free time at the moment, so we decided to paint it.  Coat of white, followed by a coat of green (again left over from the sandbox).  The boys even helped to the green yesterday while I snoozed on the sofa.  Paul dismantled the cot (we will sell it), and put together the bed in Sebastian and Isaac's room today.  It has a new mattress and covers etc.

Seb loves it.  At certain times today he disappeared, only to be found in his bed, just lying there.  We put him to bed in it tonight.  He goes up at 7.30, Isaac at 8.  Seb was still awake when I took Isaac up.  This was followed by Isaac getting out of bed saying Seb was playing with the toys, trying to get in to his bed etc. The saving grace of bunkbeds.  Isaac got in the lower bunk in Oliver's room, we closed the doors, and they were both asleep with 20 minutes, with no issues.

Thank goodness for bunk beds.......

NASCAR Hall of Fame

Last Saturday we embarked on a trip to Charlotte, NC.  We had promised Oliver a trip to the NASCAR Hall of Fame as part of his birthday celebration.

We arrived fairly early, and queued to get tickets.  The queue was not long at all.

We decided on general admissions tickets, though they do lots of different packages that include things such as food, drink, audio tours and simulator rides.  The tickets are like little credit cards.

Once inside, you are ushered towards the Belk High Octane theater.  While waiting for the next showing, we registered out tickets, so we could use them at various other places around the building.  We were shown a movie on the history of NASCAR.  It was very interesting, though we knew quite a lot of it already.  After the film, you walk out into the great hall.  This contains different NASCAR's from the ages, starting with the Hudson Hornet in the 1950's, all the way to the modern era.  They are displayed on Glory Road.This is a replica of a track, with different degrees of banking.  At places, you can walk up the banking to see how steep it is.  They also have info on all the NASCAR tracks, and the different surfaces.  Very interesting (even to me!) 

The Steep Banking 

From there, you walk up the ramp to the Hall of Honor.  This is where NASCAR Hall of Fame inductees are honored.  It contains various cars and memorabilia from the inductees, and information on them all.  Again very interesting 

Pete Hamiltons famous Plymouth Superbird

Then it is on to the Race Week part of the building.  Here you get to see the goings on of a race team in the week leading up to a race.  There is a kids area, and lots of interesting things for adults to do.  This area is very hands on, and we were glad we went early, so it was no too busy.  We even got to walk through a big truck that transports the cars around, very cool. 

Daddy and Isaac working a pit stop

The bigger boys even got to have a go on an iRacing game, and set qualifying laps.  They loved it!  This is also where the race simulators were.  I thought that this would not be suitable for the boys, I thought they would be too little, but they may have been alright.  Plus you have to pay extra.  They are the iRacing games, inside actual size NASCAR's.  I kinda wish we had a go now, but hey ho! 

The simulator cars

From there we headed to the top floor, which contained Heritage Speedway, an area with individual exhibits about the history of NASCAR.  For people new to the sport, this was fascinating.  We then headed down in the elevator to the Great Hall, where we had missed the exhibit in the middle.  This was to do with women in the sport of NASCAR.  Again, fascinating.  The boys loved seeing Danica's car 

Danica Patrick's car

We really enjoyed the NASCAR Hall of Fame.  As a family who are just starting to get enthused about the sport, it was a great eye opener, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  The staff were friendly, polite and courteous.  It is well managed and maintained, with a lot of modern touches.  I would quite like to go back again in about 20 years time, when the current drivers are the inductees!  

We don't normally buy photo packages or spend a lot of time in the gift shops of places we visit, but this time we decided to buy the photos the staff had taken as we walked in.  It was well worth it.  

Cheese!!!

Wasn't meant to be a photo drop

So I am now the proud (!!!) parent of an eight year old.  Oliver had a good birthday, with a trip to Frankie's Fun Park, where he and Isaac raced each other in the go karts.  Isaac could barely see over the steering wheel, bless him.  We had dinner there also, which was very nice.

Here is Oliver with his cake.  I may have ordered one that was slightly too big....

Saturday morning we went to Cars and Coffee up at the Michelin headquarters on Pelham Road.  This is only the second one we have been to, they are on every month.  The boys loved it, and there was even a Ferrari, which Seb had kittens over.  It is one of his new words, except he calls it a 'errari'.  Thanks mum for the t-shirt, Oliver loves it.

We had a BBQ on Sunday, or as it was known in this house, race day.  What with the Monaco Grand Prix in the morning, the Indy 500 in the afternoon and the Nascar Charlotte race in the evening, there was no shortage of racing (I have 3 car mad boys, when is there ever a shortage of racing?!?).  We attempted ribs on the BBQ for the first time, and they were delicious.  Definitely something we will do again.

It was Memorial day Monday, which meant everyone was off.  We were able to see the hot air balloons from Aloft fly over the house every morning, which was lovely.  one day we will make that event, but at $20 each, it is not cheap, then there is the additional costs.... Maybe one day!

Instead, Oliver built his Millenium Falcon.  I was surprised how quickly he did it, it is a very complex set.  We got him some Technic Lego also, to possibly prepare him for the next step in his Lego career.

Another of Oliver's presents was a slot car set.  Scalectrix brand is not really rated over here, and difficult to get, so Paul found a Nascar Carrera set for a bargain price from a local independant toy store, OP Taylor's in Greenville.  This is the set Oliver got.  He then found a slightly different set on Craigslist even cheaper, from an expat who is on the move, so we ended up with that too.  Works well though, as the boys are able to have epic tracks.  Paul has download a track design app, so he is having great fun too!

Tuesday afternoon Seb and I spent some quality time at the pool.  I realized it would be our last afternoon just the 2 of us for about 12 weeks.  This photo was taken about 5 minutes before he toppled over from the same pose, and went head first under the water.  Didn't phase him, he just got out and jumped in again.  We are loving the pool this year, especially as it has now got really hot and humid.

Today was Oliver's beach day at school.  A half day, followed by another half day tomorrow, then he is done till the end of August.  Isaac chose to wear a shirt also today.  He now picks his own clothes in the morning.  He has some firm favorites, and some interesting combination.

Isaac has been having a hard time at school the last couple of weeks.  He is very emotional when things don't go as he expects, and is lashing out a lot.  Not sure what we are going to do about it yet, I have his conference in about 10 days time, so I will get a good chance to chat to his teacher then.  He is like it at home, but I have a feeling he may be getting bored/growing out of the Montessori way of learning.  We will see....

Thank you auntie Jen for Oliver's sticker album, he loves it. He has even managed to figure out how to do the stickers on his own.  If anyone has any Panini World Cup stickers spare/swaps, let me know and I will give you our address!  We already have some swaps from the many packets Jen sent!

Last but not least, I got my car back today after the deer incident.  Paul reckons the rear quater panel looks a bit different than it should but I can't tell.....I am just glad to have it back in time for our trip.  I will keep using the mini this week, then swap back to the X5.  I have missed my heads up display....

Obviously, the summer holidays are upon us, I hope to do a blog post in the next few days about what our rough plans are...…

********************Don't forget to look for #theyearofoliver******************************

Oliver is (almost) 8!!!

Tommorrow my biggest boy turns 8.  I can't quite believe where the time has gone....

My smallest baby (5lbs 14 oz), my earliest arrival (35 weeks).  We had to stay in the hospital for 11 days thanks to severe jandice.  Can't believe that was 8 years ago.

He walked at a year, nursed for 13 months, and took his time talking.  He was potty trained just before his 3rd birthday, about the same time he started talking.

He started preschool just before he turned 3, and really liked it (eventually).  He learned to ride his bike pretty early, and his stabilizers came off when he was nearly 5.

Oliver went from preschool to school with 3 pretty good friends, 2 Jacks and a Connor.  He settled in to school really well, and was reading by Christmas.  

He has always been obsessed with cars, he still is.  But now he loves lego and his brothers too.  Not forgetting computers.  He would play Xbox all day if we let him (we never do, we have very strict rules about this!!!)

Then we moved stateside.  He still loves computers, but is becoming a tiny bit more understanding about our rules.  He is in an awesome school, where he is excelling.  He reads a couple of grades ahead, and his math skills are amazing.  

Oliver has never been the most coordinated of children, though this has not held him back.  He loved street dance in the UK.

Now he plays baseball, and really enjoys it.  He plays an important role  in the outfield, and rarely strike out.  He can't wait to get to the pool and get swimming.

He is not the easiest of children, but there has never been a dull moment since he came along.  He has been through a serious operation already this year, with another to come (more on that in another post).  He can be the most caring, considerate of children in one breath, then the meanest in the next.  I think that is eight year olds....  Doesn't stop me from loving him, even if he does my head in sometimes!

Paul was looking for recent photos of him to put on his birthday cake.  It was hard to find one!!!  This leads me to #yearofOliver.  Plenty of people have done something similar to this, where you take a photo everyday for a year.  I shall be doing this for Oliver, starting on his birthday, and posting them to Instagram. You can find me under claregosling55.  If I remember, I will share them on Facebook and twitter too!

The BIG trip - the plan

So seeing as we are about a month away from our trip, I thought I would share our itinery as we have had requests from family.  So here goes....

These are all the journeys we will be doing.  It is about 2500+ miles in total! and that's just from accommodation to accommodation.  There are hotels and vacation rentals spread out across the trip, 9 different accommodations over 16 nights.  The longest we stay on one place is 3 nights.....

Leg 1- Simpsonville to Norfolk, 431 miles, 6 hours 50 minutes

We initially wanted to head straight to Washington, D.C., but it is just too far.  I decided on Norfolk, as it seemed a good place.  We have a hotel right on the beach, and intend to leave early, so when we finally get there we can check in and chuck the boys straight on to the beach, then into the pool.  We are only staying one night here.  

Leg 2 - Norfolk to Washington, D.C., 188 miles, 3 hours

On our journey to Washington, we are hoping to stop at Norfolk Naval Base and do a bus tour.  This is one of the biggest naval bases on the east coast with a very interesting history (find it here).

Our hotel in Washington is pretty central, with underground parking (at an additional cost of course). We are staying 2 nights, which gives us 1 full day and 1 maybe 2 half days.  We will see how we go! We want to see the monuments, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Air and Space museum.  And of course the White House!

Leg 3 - Washington, D.C. to New York, 231 miles, 4 hours 5 minutes 

We are actually staying in Queens.  We are renting a top floor apartment, for a very reasonable rate.  The hotels were soooooooo expensive, especially in Manhattan.  The area we are staying looks interesting but there is an Indian restaurant within walking distance, and the subway is 15 minutes walk.  We are staying 2 nights again, so the one full day we have we intend to jump on a subway and go in to Manhattan.  The subway will take us to a boat trip in lower Manhatten, plus the World Trade Centre site.  Then up to Central Park, where we want to go to the zoo, then to the Empire State Building and Times Square, then back over the Brooklyn Bridge, change trains at the Barclays Arena (Brooklyn nets basketball team play here) and head back to the apartment absolutely exhausted!

Leg 4 - New York to Douglas, MA, 185 miles, 3 hours 15 minutes

This looks like quite a scenic drive along the coast of the Long Island Sound.  We are staying in a cottage in Douglas for 2 nights.  The cottage has a lake at the back of the garden, supplied by a small spring, and the owner maintains a beach there, so hopefully the boys will enjoy it.  

I initially wanted to stay in Boston, but it was sooooo expensive.  Douglas is about an hour away from Boston, so we will take a day trip.  This is for me really.  I want to do some of the Freedom trail, the USS Constitution boat, and take in the culture (as much as you can in one day!).  It looks like such an amazing old city, depending on our first impressions, we may go back again at some point in the future.

Leg 5 - Douglas to Cortland, NY, 285 miles, 4 hours 40 minutes

This was actually the first thing I booked through Groupon.  2 nights in a resort with day passes to a water park on site.  I have looked at the water park, and it seems good for the boys.  It is in the Finger Lakes area of New York State, so will hopefully be very beautiful.  This is a good stop over point, with hopefully enough for the boys to do.  It is actually a pretty good deal when you throw in the water park tickets (they would be $150 for all of us if we weren't staying at the resort)

Leg 6 - Cortland, NY to Buffallo, NY via Niagra Falls, 187 miles, 3 hours

As we are up there, we may as well do Niagra Falls.  Due to complications with the car insurance, we cannot go into Canada, so will be seeing the falls from the American side.  We plan to do the Maid of the Mist boat trip, and take lots of photos.  Other than that there doesn't seem much to do.  We are staying in Buffalo for one night as it is cheaper.

Leg 7 - Buffalo, NY to Port Clinton, OH, 280 miles, 4 hours 30 minutes

We have booked a ground floor condo in Port Clinton on the shore of Lake Erie for 3 nights  It has a pool, a beach and a playground, and appears to be a walk into town.  From what I have seen, the Great Lakes are quite touristy.  There are a few islands in the lake which we may take a trip to, or there is a big amusement park about 30 minutes drive away. We will probably do a bit of exploring, and a lot of relaxing here

Leg 8 - Port Clinton, OH, to Indianapolis, IN, 256 miles, 4 hours 3 minutes

My boys want to see the race track.  If you know my boys, you will understand this.  We have a hotel booked right in the centre of the city, which is about a 20 minute drive from the track.  We are already booked on to a tour.  The boys are excited about this, as am I.  We will be in Indianapolis for 2 nights, so intend to have a little explore.  I can't imagine it is that different from any other medium size city in America, but we shall see.  We are planning on doing the zoo also, and possibly the children's museum, it gets very good reviews.  I have also just found out that the terra-cotta warriors are on a special exhibit there while we are in town.  Super exciting!!!! From here on in we are heading home....

Leg 9 - Indianapolis, IN, to Knoxville, TN, 340 miles, 5 hours

This is a one night stop to break up the journey.  You can even see Greenville on the map above.  This is a hotel with a cool pool, so hopefully it will be ok.  

So there you have it!  It is a lot to take in, many places will be seen, albeit briefly.  But we are not the kind of people who go and crazily explore one place, we like to just scratch the surface and get a feel for places.  It is going to be hard with the kids, but they are excited about seeing loads of different places, and watching lots of films, so hopefully it will all work out ok.  I have lots of stuff planned in my head to make it go as smoothly as possible....

I am going to try and blog as I go too.....wifi dependent of course! 

Another photo drop

Apologies again for being a very slack blogger.  We are just living life at the moment, nothing strange and startling happening, but we are having fun.

Here is a rough outline of what we have been up to.

We had our friends Rachel, Riley, Layla, Christy and Edmund round to play a few weeks ago.  It was so much fun, and the kids all played so well together, making it a nice time for the mummies to chat.

I have been throwing myself into my Uni work lately, doing my best to stay ahead, especially as we have the holiday coming up (more on that to come).  But something popped up in my Facebook feed on Wednesday morning, and I was taken with it straight away.  Basically it was a pack of preprinted c-v-c cards, perfect to assist Isaac in the first steps to reading and writing.  So I spent the morning cutting and laminating them.  Isaac and/or Seb have done these at least once a day since I made them.  Not always properly, but they are practicing pen control.

Yesterday was Isaac's International Festival.  Paul took the day off, so we all went along.  We did not dress Isaac up, as we don't really have any costumes to represent England.  Last year he wore his Liverpool shirt.  According to his teachers, he got quite upset when he saw everyone else dressed up, so they found this for him to wear.

He looks so cute, and so pleased with himself.  The festival was to the usual standards, and i bought some plants for the garden after (more to come on that too....).  We went out for lunch after, and both Seb and Isaac fell asleep on the way home.  Isaac slept for about an hour and a half, Seb for about 45 minutes.

I get a little worried about Seb sleeping in the day unpredicatably.  He is now potty trained!  In the weeks leading up to Easter, he had loads of nappy off time.  Rachel had sent me a really good book to assist in potty training, so over Easter we went for it.  Friday and Saturday were nappy off days, Sunday was pants only, Monday was pants and shorts.  Tuesday he went to school in pants, and held his wee all morning.  The Wednesday he went twice at school.  We are now 2 weeks in, and he is doing pretty good.  Very few accidents, and even doing number 2's on the toilet.  He is waking up in the morning dry, and the same if he falls asleep in the car.   I am so proud of him for doing this, particularly as he doesn't tell us.  He just takes himself to his potty when he needs to go, admittedly his pants are normally the other side of the room, but at least the liquid is in the potty.....  The next step is to get him a bed, then we will be completely over the baby stage.

Sob, sob.....