Lake Toxaway adventure 2011...

We are SO lucky to have such WONDERFUL relatives that allowed us to invade their home over the summer. Invading is just what a tribe like ours does! My cousin Lori has a second home in Lake Toxaway, a beautiful place in the NC mountains. It's on a lake, so beautiful & most of all PEACEFUL! That is when the tribe behaved & didn't argue! LOL! I'm SO very blessed to get to spend any time with Lori away from our "normal" lives. It just meant a lot to get to visit in the first place! It truly was just what the Doctor ordered, away from the "rat race" & some peace & quiet! With all the drama that we have been dealing with back in FL this was pure Heaven! She took us out tubing on the lake, hiking in the woods & even took in a little shopping in downtown Brevard. LOVE LOVE LOVE that town! The tribe thoroughly enjoyed themselves as did our "helper" Caitlynn. This was her first time in NC. Her first time tubing on a lake, first time hiking to see a waterfall, heck it was just a week full of "firsts" for her! SO happy to be able to be there for that!

 

and that was our...

Lake Toxaway adventure 2011...

Stone Mountain....

One of our first stops on this "adventure" of ours was in Atlanta, GA. We have family there so visiting some of the attractions there made perfect sense! Lucky for us my brother, their Uncle Jim, took off from work on what I think was one of thee HOTTEST days of July to hit the trails of Stone Mountain. If you have never heard of or been there you really need to go. It is said that it's the largest piece of exposed granite in the world. The most interesting part is that we only get to see 1/3 of the "mountain" because the other 2/3 of it is underground! They say it continues almost 10 miles below! AMAZING!!

They have a little theme park going on there, most of which were for children older than the tribe however I would definitely go back one day for them to enjoy. Besides the theme park there are camp sites, a train, a sky ride to to the" top of the rock", a night time laser show that makes the carving come to life & much much more. This is one of my most favorite photos from our trip! & I have to say that I still think Uncle Jim sort of looks like a park ranger! Must be the hat! hahah!

** One unadvertised tidbit of info for those wishing to lug their family there you do NOT have to buy admission to the theme park if you just want to see "Stone Mountain" **. Yep the "mountain" is FREE, you do however have to pay for parking but that is a HUGE savings when all you want to do is see God's creation! You can hike to the top for FREE or pay to ride the sky way. Pretty much everything extra costs $ so if you live in the Atlanta area it just might pay to get a seasonal pass. That way you can visit & do whatever you want whenever you want!

So this mama of quads highly recommends that while in Atlanta you make sure you stop and visit...

Stone Mountain...

apple & onion moments...

At my most recent MOPS meeting they had an AWESOME speaker talk about forms of parenting. Trust me I am NOT doing her talk justice but one part really struck a chord with me, well actually two parts. She mentioned how in her house they teach forgiveness. I thought we did too but something she has her kids do made me rethink what I should teach our tribe. When someone does something "bad" I have them sit in the time out chair to think about their actions & then I have them apologize to the party that was wronged but what I have not done was to have the wronged party say "I forgive you". I never realized how important that was until she spoke about it yesterday. WOW was that an "AHA moment" for me! The 2nd part of her talk was connection we need to have with our children. Having that 15 minutes together as a family whether it be at breakfast or dinner. How we need to communicate with each other about the good & bad moments from each day also known as the "Apple & Onion Moments". This was not the first t ime I had heard about this but today it really hit home with me. Now we almost always eat together so that was not new to me but asking about their good & bad moments was. I would always ask about their good moments & never thought to ask about what they did NOT like. How that played an important role in their day. I was not quite sure the tribe would understand what that meant but boy did they surprise me! I asked each of them what they enjoyed about their day & what they did not like at all. It was amazing to see what things they came up with. Cam told me that her "Apple" moment was going to speech & "Onion" moment was not being able to go to the park with her siblings. {We go to the park when she attends speech}. Bren said he liked the ducks at the park & did not like being up in the TALL tree. {He actually let me put him up on one of the branches!}. Aave liked going to the park but did NOT like the brown duck. {It was this weird duck that bounced his neck up & down as he/she walked}. Linz loved going by Daddy's work for a visit & did NOT like that TALL tree.{After looking at the tree she did not even attempt to climb it!}. This is something I am going to do every evening at dinner time. To make things more interesting I  am going to go out & get some props to use for these...

Picture taken from http://www.giftsforeducators.com

picture taken from http://www.gourmac.com

apple & onion moments...

Houston we have a problem...

Just the other night we went out for a School Fundraiser at Hurricane Grill, a local wing joint. A portion of the sales from the night would go back to the school what a FUN event! We LOVE fundraisers that help the tribes school so of course we were there! I have to say that I noticed quite a few things about this "tribe" of ours that night.

The first thing being that all quads want to be treated equally. Really, if two get something the other two better get it too! So when almost every restaurant we go to these days does NOT have enough booster chairs we tend to have a problem! This particular night they only had TWO boosters! Not two available boosters but two boosters for the entire place! NOT GOOD! Those of you that have more than two kids know that when you have only TWO of something the other two are left out. In this case the two in the boosters wanted to be left out! LOL! They are at that stage where they want to be considered as "BIG" but they are not there yet! sigh...

The second thing that I noticed was how "girly" Avery & Lindsey are becoming! Not that Camryn is not "girly" because she is, it's just that they are OVER THE TOP "girly". They LOVE lipstick, skirts that twirl, purses, cell phones & of course baby dolls! As they walked into the restaurant that night they each had a purse on their arm, yes I said purse! What's even funnier is that when they needed to use the restroom they carried them into the bathroom! It was CRAZY! This "girly" behavior did not just happen over night, it has evolved over the past year or so but strangely I just took "notice" of it! They even came up with items like diaper bags, purses, cell phones, car keys, baby dolls, etc... for their "Dear Santa" list. We will catch them wearing "high heels", holding their "baby" along with a purse over their shoulder, keys in their hand all while talking into their play cell phone. They are not even four yet!! I tell you we are doomed! LOL! An interesting tidbit is that Camryn does not do this nearly as much as Aave & Linz do! TOO TOO funny! =]
 

The third thing I noticed was how funny Brendan can be! He really does like to be the little comedian. If he says something that he thinks anyone finds funny he will say it over & over again! Well that night he made us burst out in laughter right there in the middle of our dinner! Camryn started counting one {Avery}, two {Lindsey}, three {Herself}girls at the table. {FYI apparently Mommy is not considered a girl, she is just a Mommy! LOL!} Brendan pipes up with there are FOUR girls, and then says "I'm a girl!". Daddy looks at him & says "Brendan do you have a Cootchie?" he replies "No". Brendan then says "I'm a girl with a penis!". I about died! If I was drinking something I think it would have shot out of my nose! You see this is what he wanted, he wanted that laugh & as we all laughed he repeated it over & over again! This is one of those moments when I should have stayed straight faced but I lost it! Now before you all start wondering about the little BOY of ours you need to know this is just him being the comedian that he is. So what if he likes dolls & the color pink?! =] Remember he does have THREE sisters so we can safely say that he is in touch with his feminine side! LOL! You see he knew that would draw a laugh so he went with it! However one might say...

Houston we have a problem...

ROAD TRIP 2010, NC edition...

Oh was this part of our mini "vacay" FUN! We headed over by car AGAIN this time to North Carolina to visit with my cousin Lori & her family at their house on Lake Toxaway. They have the MOST beautiful house on quite the lake! Not only is the view BEAUTIFUL, of the lake & mountains, it is also VERY peaceful there too!



This is the view from the back porch! Oh do your stresses just melt away when you look out on that!



Our road trip to NC was SO much better than the first leg of this journey. They actually cooperated & snoozed a little. YAY! The first morning in NC we took the tribe Gem Mining! It is a MUST if you visit the area! You buy a bucket of whichever type of rocks you want to mine & let them go to town! We decided on polished stones this trip. They each have their own "rock bag" to hold their "gems"! I think we had just about as much fun as they did!





After Gem Mining we headed over to my cousins house. She has this BIG porch that looks out onto the lake that we all eventually hung out on. It was SO relaxing to just rock on those rocking chairs! Ahh... I almost forgot that I had four munchkins there with us! hahah! You know Uncle Rick even put one of them to sleep! LOVE that! We drank wine & ate VERY well!













We started off the 4th of July weekend by heading back to Lori & Andy's house. It has everything a family needs to keep themselves occupied. I took a LONG strenuous walk up some steep hills with Lori before lunch. That mountain altitude does your lungs some good! Boy was I winded! Ahh... We then hung around the house & let the tribe just play. They rode their scooters, a bike & even did drew with some sidewalk chalk. They had a blast! We later lounged on the porch, went boating and just hung our with our "clan". Heck for those who saw us coming this is just a small sliver of those who claim to be related to us! If you think our family is big you should see the rest of the tribe! We are VERY outnumbered!





By the morning of the 4th it was time to get ready for the boat parade! You see the Lake Toxaway community holds their annual 4th of July boat parade & my cousins family participates EVERY year! They have judges & even give out prizes for the winners! So we strategized on what we should do & decided on the BP oil spill theme. Actually Missy, Mason's girlfriend, came up with it. It was done in good taste & the tribe took center stage. They each held up signs saying "Save our wildlife" and then Brendan was at the end holding up a rubber chicken with a black plastic bag wrapped around it's neck to look like it was oil drenched. Creative huh?! The big boys got the boat all decked out looking like it was in the middle of the oil spill ie: black garbage bags all along the sides & then we rubbed Sarah's black mascara ALL over us! Who would have thought one tube of mascara would go do far! LOL! Thank you Sarah for your contribution! Just as we were to approach the judges stand Camryn dropped her sign in the lake. Uh Oh! Just as soon as she dropped it Dylan dove in after it! He really saved the day! He got back in with the salvaged sign just in time for us to be judged! Quick thinking Dylan! Best part is that we took 2nd place! WOO HOO! They won a $400 tube to use on the lake! We know that tube will be used MANY times over!











Our 4th of July was not over yet because we still had the big BBQ at the club to attend. They had bounce houses, games & face painting. It truly was a kids paradise! Luckily for us we had a TON of family there to keep an eye on the tribe! Each child got some one on one time with someone. Cam of course had her Sarah. Bren had his fill of the boys! Devin, Mason & Dylan took good care of him. Aave & Linz bounced till they could bounce no more & later when the music got going they danced & danced! We had the best time! It was going to be yet again a LONG night! I know we are on vacation but they did not go to bed anywhere near their bed time! LOL!









Before leaving this mountain top paradise we just had to take the tribe tubing! This is a favorite pastime for all of the kids, adults too! In fact Dustyn is usually out there tubing when he is up here. However he could not make the trip this year. He had better things to do like going to the Daytona!! I think I might pass on a road trip with four three year olds too if I was invited there! LOL!





We were even able to sneak in a family photo again missing our "D". Too bad the lighting on either of them were not good or these photos would have been winners! [=





And that folks was our...


ROAD TRIP 2010, NC edition...

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