Fall break fun

It's been a while, so this could be epic.  I apologize now.....

Last weekend we went up to Charlotte in North Carolina.  Paul had bought a bike from eBay, for a very bargain price, so we went and picked it up.  It is quite old, with most of the original parts, but luckily it does not need too much work.  Plus paul is used to working on bikes and knows exactly what he is doing.  On the way back we stopped at the Spartanburg International Festival.  My fried Liene put me on to this.  They have been running this festival for about 28 years.  There were copious stands representing 33 countries.  Liene was manning the Latvian stand.  We said hello, had a quick look around, they headed back to the car.  If it had not been so hot we may have stuck around a bit longer, but it was warm, the boys were grumpy, and we were all tired from being in the car so long.

Oliver and Isaac have both been off on fall break for the last week, Oliver on the Monday and Tuesday, Isaac all week. We all went to Gymboree on Monday.  I had promised the boys they could play iPods while Seb did his session, but they were far to busy watching and encouraging Sebastian to take part. They were able to come and so the bubbles and parachute part which they absolutely loved.  They were really well behaved, and a privilege to call mine. 

Decorating pumpkins

Tuesday we chilled around the house, and went out after dinner to watch Oliver play baseball.  His team won again!

Wednesday Oliver was back at school.  Isaac, Seb and myself met up with our friend Tracey and her Isaac at Monkey Joes.  This is a big building with about 8 bouncy castles/houses/slides in it.  We went the week before, and Seb was not very keen.  But with his big brother there, he was all over it.  By the end he had been in every bounce house, and was even going down the very big slides all on his own.  It is so nice once he gets used to places.

2 Isaacs + Sebastian = Monkey Joe's fun

From here, we headed to our friend Anna's house for some lunch and a nice catch up for me.  Again the boys were awesome, really well behaved all day.  Both boys fell asleep on the way to get Oliver.  This was the first time in about a month that Isaac has fallen asleep in the day.  My boy is growing up.....   When we arrived home, the package from Grandad had arrived.  This contained loads of lego base plates, the boys spent the afternoon setting up their city.  Lego is huge in our house at the moment.  Oliver had another baseball game on Wednesday night.  They won again.  They have not lost a game all season...... 

I was supposed to have my exam on Wednesday.  Unfortunately my assignment scores were very low, so low that if I had got 100% in the exam, I still would have failed.  I chose to not put myself through the stress of revising for an exam I was not going to pass, especially since changing my degree.

Ouch!

I was practicing with Oliver at baseball on Wednesday night.  When I awoke Thursday morning, I noticed my ring finger was all swollen.  I managed to get my wedding ring off, then I noticed the shape of my engagement ring.  It was all bent!  But in such a way, it had made my finger swell up.  I tried to get it off using some lotion, but it would not budge, and managed to cut my finger.  Paul came home at lunchtime, and had a go at reshaping it while still on my finger.  He did this at various times during the evening.  The cuts are pretty deep, but the swelling has gone down.  I am waiting for the cuts to heal before I try and get it off again.  This has happened before with this ring, and we managed to get it repaired.  I will wait to get it off my finger before we decide what we are going to do (new ring, new ring!!!)

Friday, Oliver forgot his lunch box.  I didn't know what to do with the boys this day, so this gave me a few ideas.  After we had dropped Oliver's lunchbox back at school, Seb, Isaac and I headed to Conastee park for a quick play.  From there we headed to Dollar Tree for my monthly pilgrimage of arts and learning supplies for Seb and Isaac(I will do a post about homeschooling soon, I am just lining up all my resources).  I love Dollar Tree.  I got loads, and the joy is everything is a dollar.  I spent under $20!  The on to Bi-Lo, for the food shopping, where I spent significantly more.....  Paul came home from work early, to watch the England Football game.

Yesterday we took a walk round our subdivision (estate) in the morning.  I love walking round.  It makes our front garden seem not so messy.  Lots of people had Halloween decorations out, which the boys enjoyed.  In the afternoon we headed to Fall for Greenville. This is a foodie type festival held down Main Street in Greenville.  It is in its 32nd year.  They close off the whole of Main Street and a lot of the side roads.  There were tents from over 40 restaurants this year, 3 live music stages and a kids area.  We arrived about 4pm.  Man, it was busy.....and we don't do busy.

Busy!

But it was manageable, as there were breaks in the crowd in between the stands.  The boys enjoyed the kids area, and went on quite a few of the bouncy castles.  We headed further down the street towards Falls Park and got some food. The boys all had pizza from Mellow Mushroom.  Paul had a slider and I had some Irish nachos from Fitzpatricks Food and Spirits.  These were crisps covered in salsa with gooey cheese.  They were all yummy, and reasonably priced.  There was not an empty plate.  By now all the boys were tired, and it seemed to have got busier.  I think we arrived at just the right time.  It felt like the daytime people were leaving as we arrived, and the evening crowd arriving as we were leaving.  As I said, we don't really like things like this, but we really enjoyed Fall for Greenville.  I think we will be back next year.  

Today we attempted to go to IHOP for breakfast.  Because we wanted to watch the formula 1 first, we didn't end up leaving till 11.  By this time, all the churches were kicking out, and both the local IHOP's
had people waiting outside.  So we went to Frankie's fun park instead, where the boys got to play a couple of rounds of minigolf and some arcade games before heading into Johnny Rockets for some lunch.  Paul has headed off on a drive event this afternoon, so it is just me and the chimps till Tuesday.  

I knew this was going to be an essay!