Playing On The Bridge

Soccer season has returned and wouldn't you know it, neither boy has practice on the same night.  So...on Sam's night, Benny and I found ourselves with a couple of hours to kill.

We watched practice for an hour. We played games on the ITouch.  Then we walked over to our favorite spot, our new Veteran's Memorial Bridge.

The bridge joins our nice big rec park with the somewhat smaller "field" that the kids play soccer in.  (It is a donated patch of land connected to a chicken plant.  Parents are campaigning for some luxuries to be added to the field...things like benches or bleachers to sit on.  And lights.  But still. We are grateful to have a place to play.)

Anyway.  The bridge is very elegant in an understated way, and Benny and I like to stand on the bridge and play sticks.  Adapted from Winnie The Pooh, this is of course the game where you both toss sticks in the water and see who's floats out from under the bridge first.

Benny usually wins!

The Coosawattee River runs under the bridge. 

It was a nice night and the light was great.  Benny and I took some photos:

That's a blurred Benny in the background, tossing rocks into the water.  What boy on earth can be near water without throwing rocks into it?  That's what it's there for!

Marty was invited to the opening ceremony of the bridge because he was instrumental in donating some  beams to the cause.

Benny and I also visited the work-in-progress stone garden at the foot of the bridge; honoring soldiers from the area that date all the way back to the Revolution.

Benny took that picture.  He is actually quite the photographer and has a great eye.

Then I took his.

Then he took mine!

And another night in the lovely spring air (which has been so hard to come by lately) was tucked away. 

Love that bridge!

Soccer Season Has Begun

And this person is very happy about it.

The very first practice of the season was not even with his team, but he was so crushed to think there was a practice going on and he was not part of it that when he found out he dissolved into a heartbroken lump on the couch.  Fortunately the coach knows Sam and said he's welcome to practice with his team anytime. So we went to that practice and Sam got his soccer fix.  And last night he finally had his first official practice for his "real" team.

There was stretching.....

Running.......

And kicking.  Lots of kicking.  Hours of kicking.

After nearly three hours of practice, it got dark and everyone called it a day.  Sam said, "Can't I stay and take some goal shots?  Do we HAVE to quit?  Can't we stay?"

"No, Sam. It's 8pm and we still have to have dinner, baths, and go to bed and be ready for school tomorrow."

Sam:  "No fair."

Tell me about it!

Sam's Kick-The-Bucket List

Nope, not the good kind of Bucket List, where you write down all the things you want to do before you die.

This is Sam's list of 1000 Crazy Ways to Die.

Now I know that doesn't sound funny.  But this is how it is with boys. You take what you get.  Yeah, it would be nice to share a cute story about a tea party or a dress up fest or some new dolls. But I have boys and they are growing older and believe me, they talk about weird things sometimes.  These are my stories.

So Sam and his friend, while making the very long and dull bus ride home from school today, made this list. 

I only know about it because he and Benny were giggling over it in the backseat on the way home from Dairy Queen, and the conversation went along the lines of:

"Sammy, choose a number.  Nineteen?  That means you will be killed by a seal."

"Mom, choose a number. Eight? You are going to get it by a tsunami.  Marty chose eleven, he gets killed by a cat."

And on it went.

So I looked at the list and there are sixty items altogether.  Though it's kind of morbid, I will focus on the creativity shown in some of the possibilities....I do give them extra points for using their imagination.  And I like to encourage my kids to make lists. So.....


Some samples, with original spelling:


Explotion

Fork in the neck

2012

Hypertirmia   (hypothermia)

Big catipillar eats you

Brick in the head

Ivecular Snail bite  (Now I'm guessing this is a creature they just studied in school?)

Boil up

Be in a building while it crashes

Fish shoots you

Meteor Hit

Poison Pickle

Get Runover

Necular Tree (I have no idea.)

Electric Fence

Acid spitting snake gets you




And my favorite:   "Fake Baseball Bomb."

Yeah, I hate it when that happens!!

Spring Snowfall

We woke up this morning to this:

And this:

Didn't see that coming. 

Yes, beautiful downtwn Ellijay was pelted by a steady snowfall this morning for several hours.

I had two very hopeful boys heading out to school this morning.  They asked me, "Do you think school will be closed early?  Will school be cancelled?" about two hundred times during the drive.

But no, school was not cancelled.  The snow turned to rain, and then the rain turned to damp gloom.  So we packed in a full Monday. 

For now, we have to be content with snow-prints on the car, and a few photos. 

Snow in March in Georgia?  Unheard of!

Reading Rewards

What do you do for a third grader who, despite numerous snow days and half-days and chaos, still squeezes in enough reading to achieve 100% of his accelerated reader goal?

You throw an ice cream party, of course. 

First you set up lunch tables ON the stage of the auditorium.  Then the kids who made their goals go and get their lunch, and come to the auditorium, where they get to enjoy a semi-private lunch complete with the view from the stage, funky lights, and great music.  Not to mention a mom or two in attendance to serve up the treats.

 

Everyone was in high spirits.

And being St. Patrick's Day, there was a lot of green on the scene.

Kids got vanilla ice cream and choices of chocolate or caramel syrup, crushed oreos, chocolate chips, and sprinkles.  The whole thing was put on by the school librarian, and the food was donated.

Benny worked very hard to get his reading in, ace his quizzes, and make his goal.  He deserves every bite.  Way to go Benny!!

High Museum Of Art

Yes, this person was in the standard 3 o'clock in-the-afternoon coma position when someone came along and carved him.  Oh well......

We went to the High Museum of Art today, way out in the big city.

And I have to say, this museum is THE MOST unecessarily complicated building ever.  You could walk around for hours without finding any art of any kind.  I don't get it.  There's acres of empty space and they seem to take pride in hiding tiny little signs indicating where things are, regulating them to only being posted by elevators, which are also not easy to find.  Even the helpful maps you can pick up look as though they were deliberately designed to be as unhelpful, vague, and flat as possible. 

Aside from that, it's a lovely building and of course, the art is beyootiful.

Winding walkways....kids like them.  You can see two kids hanging on out on it in the middle.

Loved this piano from the 1800's.

I think my favorite thing of all were the intricate silver teapots on display.  This one has a greyhound and bird sculpted into the handle, see them?  If you look closely you can see the little fishing scene carved into the pot.  The scenes were the most detailed things you ever saw....this picture does not do it justice.  Pretty fascinating.

They had lovely paintings....

A needlepoint chair and lots of centuries-old furniture....

And last but not least......

This is what I look like when I wake up in the morning.

And finally, a mysterious house dead center of the city.  Why is it there?  What is the story?  We don't know, but it IS for sale.  Hmm......pack up the rocking chairs!

Puzzles

We had another rainy afternoon here....it is a very rainy week, and Sam has been home sick on top of it, so we are starting to get a little stir crazy.  And we have more rainy days ahead this week! Ugh!

Today we broke out a Christmas present from Gram that we hadn't played with yet.   They are called Connectagons, and they are colorful wooden puzzle chips you can stick together anywhich way you want.

Benny and I made this creation.

Then Benny made this one by himself.

He agreed to pose for a picture, then we talked about putting this all on "the blog."

Today was also highlighted by Gram sending (via Marty) my scrapbook stuff home, and tucked inside were two gifts for the boys.  One was tie-dyed T-shirts Gram made while at Myrtle Beach.  The boys really, really liked them.  The second thing was a bag of rocket balloons, which are a creation made entirely for boys, designed by a male (I am certain), which combine balloons, expulsion, and tremendous NOISE along with random billowing balloons all over the place. 

I made dinner, and then Benny and I made cookies, and finally there was nothing left to do but to succumb to being a TV Zombie.

But overall, fun was had, and we successfully muddled through another day indoors.

Bring on the spring sunshine....soon!

Pickles The Deer

Yesterday Marty, Amanda, and I went up to visit Marty's family.  We celebrated Granny's (Marty's mother) birthday.

  

We had lots of wonderful food, prepped by Cindy and Sherri, and wow, was it good.  Cindy is still serving up vegetables grown in her garden and home-preserved over the summer.  Yum!

  

After dinner we took a little walk and enjoyed the cool air.  There were still patches of snow on the ground.  Marty took a picture of this lovely barn.

  

Dennis walked us over the neighbor Mark's house.  He has a tame piebald deer there named Pickles. She is a tiny thing, but very gentle and sweet.  Her mother had twins in Mark's yard, and Pickles was not only born a piebald, but with weak legs as well.  She was rejected by the mother, who soon after disappeared with her remaining fawn.  Mark and his wife bottle-fed Pickles and raised her.  They kept her in a barn for the early part of her life, but now that Pickles is two, they keep the barn door open so she can come and go.  Though her walk is unsteady, she does get around. She stays close to home but likes to go visit the wild deer in the evenings.  But she is so tame that Mark and his wife even let her in the house once in a while!

  

See how little she is?

  

Then we headed back over the mountain, as Marty says, towards home.  There was a lovely winter sunset to watch on the way. I stopped and took this picture, but it hardly does justice to the view.

Happy Birthday, Granny!

SG Part Two

I was able to upload my photos to finish off this post.  We have been busy! Two days into the 'scrappin' retreat' and we have albums, cards, tags, you name it.

We spend a  lot of time at our little table.

Mom donated mountains of cards, Christmas embellishments, stickers and ribbon, and we all made Christmas cards.

Here are some of Mom's cards.  Aren't they nice?  Everyone is so creative and talented.

Mom and Martha, finishing the project I brought along.

We've had a great time, and I'm headed back tomorrow.  I am already looking forward to next year's gathering!