Summerville Trip

For Memorial Day weekend we headed to Summerville to spend the weekend with Paul's parents. 

Paul was playing in a golf tournament so he had to go down Thursday evening so I sent Ruthie and JP with him. I figured they'd have a lot more fun hanging out with GiGi and PaPa then sitting around the house with me waiting to pick Emmie and Ellie up from school!

On Friday, the little kids headed to the Fire Museum to meet up with the Mrs. Rita and Megan. Megan and Paul grew up together and she has a 1yr old girl and a little boy who is just a little older than JP. 

Emmie had a field trip on Friday so I picked her and Ellie up after she got back from the field trip and we headed to Summerville. 

Friday afternoon Gin-g and I took the kids over to Mrs. Debbie's house to play on her swing set (and with all the fun outdoor toys she has!) and then we met up with Fred at Chick-fil-A.

JP loved the tractor!

After dinner the kids headed back to the house with the grandparents and I headed to the golf course to meet Paul for dinner. 

Our original plan for Saturday morning was to take the kiddos to the beach but the weather forecast was iffy so we headed to the pool instead. Paul had an afternoon tee time so he was able to join us! The kids had lots of fun and found some friends to play with! 

We headed back to the house Saturday and had lunch and while JP napped, I took the girls to visit my friend Susan and her husband and their sweet baby, Barrett. They have a pool at their house so the kiddos got some more swimming in and were very entertained by their dog who was also swimming in the pool! They also had so much fun playing with Barrett (and I got some sweet baby snuggles in!). 

We headed back to Summerville and got ready to go to the golf course for dinner and dancing! The kids always love the Saturday night festivities! Because Paul had a later tee time he was still playing when we got there so the kids got to watch him. JP was got to ride in the cart with Paul for the last few holes and he loved being "one of the guys". The girls found friends to play with and had a great time! 

Watching Paul

Playing on the golf course with Mary and Will. They all had the BEST time together! Mary and Will's dad grew up with Paul. I love the visual of these kids playing on the same golf course their daddy's grew up playing on!

Sunday, Ellie requested a trip to the park and the kids all loved it! Emmie and Ellie spent a LONG time on the tire swing having me spin them faster and push them higher!

I could watch this video over and over. It's not often I get those kind of giggles from my big girls!

JP and Ruthie were not as thrilled about spinning on the tire swing!

We had lunch at Moe's and then while JP and Emmie napped, Gin-g and I made a trip to the outlets. We had a great time shopping!

We headed back to Columbia Sunday after dinner. We had so much fun on our trip!

Preschool End of the Year!

Last day of Preschool

First day of Preschool

(WOW! I can not get over how Ruthie has grown up this school year!)

Ruthie had such a wonderful year of preschool this year! She was in the 3 year old class and went every Tuesday and Thursday. She had such wonderful teachers and loved all the friends she made at school! This year she had Mrs. Lisa and Mrs. Terri. Mrs. Terri has taught all of the girls when they were in the 3 year old class and Ruthie was SO excited to FINALLY get to be in Mrs. Terri's class! Ruthie learned SO much this year! She went to Letter Land once a week where they learned about a different letter each week and she would always come home and tell me what things started with that letter. They also went to music once a week. She loved singing us her songs and she often played "music class" with JP.

The preschool had an End of the Year celebration. All the preschool kids sang a few songs together and then the 4 year olds sang some on their own. After the program they had snacks outside and Ruthie got to give "goodbye for the summer" hugs to all the teachers!

Ruthie with Mrs. Terri (Mrs. Lisa wasn't able to be there the last day...we missed her!)

She's already looking forward to going back in the fall and being in the 4 year old class! (And JP is going to be very sad that he still has to wait one more year!)

Last Day of Preschool (Where did my babies go?!? These are big kids!)

First Day of Preschool

Weekend Fun

We had such a great weekend! We did a lot but we had lots of fun!

Friday night was the school carnival. They had to move it indoors because of rain so no dunk tank. Emmie was very disappointed because her teacher was going to be in the dunk tank. We still had a great time though! They had lots of games and bounce houses.

 Ellie, Emmie and Ruthie got their hair sprayed!

I told the kids they could pick a treat...either a snocone or cotton candy. Emmie and Ellie got cotton candy and Ruthie and JP got a snocone. Ellie really enjoyed her cotton candy...she scarfed it down! JP took a bite of the snocone and his expression was hilarious...that was not what he expected it to taste like!
JP was very hesitant about the bounce house at first but finally right before we left he got in. He just sat there for quite awhile and then finally he got up and jumped...and loved it!


Saturday morning we all headed to Soda City. Soda City is our local outdoor market. It is open every Saturday on Main St. We had never been but I've always heard how fun it was so since we actually had a weekend where Paul and I were both home and we had NOTHING going on so we went to check it out! (I've worked the past 2 Saturdays and Paul has been swamped with work the last few weeks so we really enjoyed our family time this weekend!) We had a great time! There was lots of live music, fun booths with creative things to look at (the kids loved the booth that had homemade clocks with all different themes) and lots of yummy food!

Watching our strawberry and Nutella crepe being made! Yumm!

The kids really loved the Dreher High School band! (Also the guy in the front had been playing his drum..that wasn't actually a drum but some type of box...all morning and he just joined in with the band...he was great!)

Snocones! JP was really into it this time.

BBQ nachos/sandwiches and chicken tacos from the BBQ Bus. It was a LOT of food and really good!

 After lunch the kids had fun finding rolly pollys!

Saturday evening Paul and I went to Bonefish to celebrate his birthday (a month late but better late than never!) and then we headed to The Baked Bear for dessert. The Baked Bear is a new ice cream place in Columbia. We can't do ice cream places with Ruthie because of the risk of cross contamination so this was our one chance to try it out! It was SO good but SO much ice cream/cookie.

hot pressed chocolate chip cookie with ice cream in the middle? yes please!

This afternoon we had a FULL day! We went to church this morning and then this afternoon Ruthie had a birthday party to go to, we had our church picnic, and an ALERT event(our district's gifted and talented program that Emmie is in). So Paul took Ruthie to the birthday party and I took everyone else to the ALERT event and then the church picnic. Conveniently the ALERT event was about 3 minutes from church.

Ruthie and Mary (the birthday girl)

Ruthie was really funny. She told Paul earlier today that she wanted him to drop her off at the party and not stay. So he dropped her off and sat in the car and did work...little Miss. Independent! After the party he took her to Moe's for dinner.

The ALERT event was really neat. They had all kinds of organizations set up and almost all of them had interactive activites for the kids. There was a wildlife rescue group, lots of organizations that do STEMS stuff, USC string project, RCSD, the library, a dog rescue organization, the state museum, the historical society, a science honors society from one of the local high schools, etc. We met up with Evelyn and the kids spent a little over 2 hours going from table to table. They got lots of freebies (including 2 free books!), did science experiments, piloted a simulated plane on the computer, found many animals to pet, played a violin, JP found a sandbox to play in, dug for fossils, played games, etc. So fun!

box turtle

face painting! Emmie was a fairy

Ellie chose Ivy

Emmie found a sweet friend

spinning the wheel! If they answered their question correctly they got smarties...JP just had to tell them his name lol!

Possum...the girls stalked the table until they brought out the possum. They were so excited!

playing Jenga...they did a great job and even JP kind of figured out the strategy for picking a piece to pull out.

Emmie LOVED playing the violin! 

Ellie REALLY loved the big bubble! She did it over and over.

JP worked hard to get the sign  up all by himself...he was so proud!

Love these girls!

Evelyn and Emmie with their ALERT teacher, Mrs. Lytle. She is the best!

After the ALERT event we headed to the church picnic. This was the first year we had been and it was really funny! They had a ride, bounce houses, balloon animals, a climbing wall, snocones, and dinner. We had a great time!

Ready to ride!

(JP really wanted to ride but I wasn't willing to ride with him...nor did I want to be stuck with a nauseated toddler if the ride didn't agree with him!)

JP had a ball in the bounce house!

His hamburger was HUGE! He did manage to eat all of it though!

After dinner we came home and got baths...JP was being a silly boy! 

Ellie told me she taught him to do this...sisters are so fun!

After baths the kids went next door for a few minutes to visit Mrs. Robbie and her cat Keekers. Every time we pull in or out of the driveway JP checks to see if Mrs. "Wobbie" is home. The other morning I told him she was home but probably still asleep...he said "go wake Mrs. Wobbie up!" I told her not to be shocked if she woke up one morning and there was a little face staring at her!

We had such a fun weekend and are looking forward to summer when we can do fun activities during the week too!