Greenville, SC

After Summersville, we made our way down to Greenville, SC.  We spent some time with Will's relatives, Norma & Henry and Brenda, went to the Children's Museum and explored Downtown Greenville, especially Main Street and Falls Park, before attending the wedding festivities (which will be another post). 

The falls that give Falls Park its name

We bumped into the Campbells and meandered around with them

Family Photo

More pics of us and the Campbells

Will was kind enough to scare the heron into flight so I could take a photo.  I don't think the photographer that arrived at the "scene" a few seconds later was so thrilled with us ... whoops!

Susan and Dan ran off with our kids (thank you!), so we went for a coffee, just the two of us.  And took a photo to prove it.

The hotel lobby from the top floor.  The picture was taken from the glass elevator.  Probably the coolest hotel lobby I've seen

Yes, another hotel lobby picture.  Did I mention I thought it was cool?  :-)

Summersville Lake, WV

Our week-long "Rachel and Brad are getting married and we are going to the wedding" trip started with a couple of nights in a lovely cabin near Summersville Lake in WV.  The leaves were in near-peak color, and even though the weather wasn't totally what we had hoped for, we did have a wonderful time, and even managed to get in a little hike in the sunshine.  Annelee liked it so much that she asked almost every time we got in the car during the remainder of the trip "Are we going back to our cabin now?".

The playground was in full view (and within earshot) of the playground, so the girls could roam over there while the parents sat in front of the cabin sipping a glass of wine.   We enjoyed the jacuzzi hot tub, Will made yummy food, and I took a picture or two.  We will definitely have to come back some other time to explore WV a little more.

Even though we were just near a lake, not the sea, the retreat sported its very own lighthouse

Hot tub fun

I took about a bazillion road pictures while we were driving around and exploring

The two queens of the WV hills!

One of the three overviews that we visited on our short hike

Proof that we all went together (and that my camera has a self-timer function ;-)  )

Hiking back up from the last overlook

Vivian and her beloved hiking sticks

Scenic view

More road pictures from inside the car

Lake Summersville ... it gets drained every year to provide for white-water rafting, which is why the water-level is so low

Our cabin

Vivian and her teddy bears ... are we finally out of the silly-posed-smile phase?

I then took about 20 pictures of Annelee to get a nice one of her, but she is clearly still very firmly entrenched in the silly phase ...

New River Gorge Bridge - you can walk underneath the top road - definitely something to put on my bucket list!

I love how the mist swirls around the bridge

The road to the bottom of the lake to get another view of the bridge

The bridge viewed from near the bottom

More scenery

Finger Painting

Today is the first of a handful of days where there is no Kindergarten for one reason or another.  We had big plans for today, to ride the T and see the fountain and the duck.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't having any of it, and rain was forecast for the day.  So, instead, Rowan came over to play, and we did some finger painting.

I love how the three girls started off daintily drawing with their fingers, and then finally started delving into hand prints and mixing some of the colors.

Carefully, one fingerprint at a time, apply paint to paper

Colorful self-portrait

Drawing the rainbow

Vivian often has red hair in her self-portraits at the moment

Rowan refused to look AND smile.  I caught a smile anyways.

Hand-painting is much more fun!

Ready for hand front-, back- and side-prints

Rowan's picture

Vivian's picture

Annelee's picture

Biker Chicks

Let's start with an only semi-related note.  This is gone and we finally have a beautiful working front-door again.  While it was very annoying that we had to go through the garage all the time, I didn't think it had stopped us from enjoying being out front ... but it clearly had, because as soon as we had a bit of free time today, the girls demanded to go out front and ride their bikes for the first time in a long time.

Rowan was very sweet and passed her old and too small bike onto Annelee, so she graduated to a full bike with pedals, and did quite well.  Vivian then demanded that I take her training wheels off, and I have to confess I did this only reluctantly.  I didn't think she was quite ready for this.  But I'm glad I did it anyways, because after just a few times of me jogging down the street holding her up, Vivian managed to ride the bike all by herself!!!  The video below is one of her first successful solo attempts, and still quite wobbly.  By late afternoon, she was much more proficient.

I'm proud of her achievement, but I have to say, I'm even more proud of her getting right back on that bike after taking a big tumble down  a slope where she scraped and bruised her hip.  She's turning into quite the dedicated tough cookie when she wants to be, and I like that a lot.

All photos and videos are from my cell phone, so the quality is not the greatest, but it shows you how well they are both doing, anyways.

Still struggling to maintain speed when she isn't going downhill, but she loves the bike much more than the balance bike

No problem with speed here ... look how her skirt is flapping in the wind!

Click here if you can't view the video of Annelee below:



Click here if you can't view the video of Vivian below: