North Carolina, May 2006
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We took an early Memorial Day trip down to North Carolina to visit with David's folks and brother's family and to see how his mom is progressing after her stroke. David decided we should drive down while Robert was sleeping, so we left about 8pm Wednesday night and got in around 3:30am. That was silly (but we did get a little more time to visit that way). We took lots of walks around the block (no mean feat in that neighborhood) and really enjoyed the Thursday weather with a trip to the park in Valle Crucis. Robert had a great time on the playground equipment there. | ||||||||
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| And the park service was doing work on the park so Robert had a great chance to watch a big yellow digger in action. They were cleaning up some debris not too far from the play houses (and Robert really enjoyed the play houses -- especially watching the digger work from the porch). |
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The park has two play houses; one of them with a Mast Store sign in honor of the Mast Store that's just across a couple farm fields from the park. From the play houses (and diggers) we headed to the river to splash a bit... Did I mention this is a great park? |
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A little bit of catch rounded out the day nicely. What a difference a couple weeks makes: note the weather from early April last year for Robert's baptism (in the photo below from his Baptism photos.) | |||||||
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Between rainy spells on Friday, Robert (with a little help from Sarah) turned the stone lantern in the back yard into a Fairy House. There was a lot of work to do sorting rocks around the fairy house, gathering firewood for the fairy house, putting leaves in the fairy house, and rolling rocks off the roof of the fairy house. We did some shopping in the afternoon and then played in the puddles and with bubbles after the storm passed. And, of course, took a walk around the block after the rains. |
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Saturday, the weather was nicer (actually getting toward hot) and we headed to
Grandfather Mountain to look at the animals.
Most were still having their afternoon naps after Robert woke up from his, but the bear was fun to watch... Robert was not too sure about getting close enough to touch, even if he was touching a sculpture in the visitor center. |
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| Robert enjoyed the mile high swinging bridge and he walked across it on the way back, holding on to two hands. | |||||||
| And everyone enjoyed the views and spectacular weather. |
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We finished up Saturday with Spinach Quesadillas with Steve, Helen and Aaron. | |||||||
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THE blueberry photo from Steve: Clearly, Robert is a blueberry fan.... |
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| Before we headed back to DC on Sunday, there was some time to play with blocks in Seven Devils. Then we briefly visited with Steve, Helen and Aaron. And Aaron showed Robert a cool box you can disappear into and then pop out of. Robert thought that was just great fun. Even more fun was the train set Aaron passed along to Robert that he (and his dad) are now enjoying. Our next stop in was in Wilksboro for lunch before Robert slept until just south of Petersburg. | |||||||
| We had a nice run around the playground at Fox school in Richmond before an extremely mediocre dinner at Strawberry Street Cafe (where David worked in high school -- when the food was better, or at least hot). And after dinner, we walked by David's old house, 2112 Stuart Avenue. Robert was a great traveling companion the whole time. No need to try to drive while he's asleep. |
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