More Bradford Farm Photos

We had such a good time, I had to add a few more photos from The Bradford Store.

Happy Birthday, Cam!

Catching up on my posting. Happy 4th Birthday to our friend Cam! Cam had a wonderful farm-themed birthday party complete with hats and real live animals. Fletcher enjoyed petting the animals and riding the pony. Thanks to Emily and Shaun for hosting such an enjoyable party. Cam, we love you and hope you have an excellent year!

Check out Cam's Aunt Rebecca's photos (wonderful photographer) of the big event!

Friday Fun

Fletcher and I went to Dunkin' Donuts today. Fletcher had a sweet treat and I tried the new egg white omelet on flat bread (less than 300 calories). Yum! We then headed to The Bradford Store in Davidson where we looked through the little country store, tromped through the corn field, watched the blacksmith, and fed tomatoes and squash to a big, beautiful, brown cow. We missed the sunflowers for the season which they had rows and rows of, probably a month ago. We headed to Concord Mills for some lunch and to ride the carousel.

Fletcher the Scientist

Fletcher has been doing "experiments" for a while now, mostly he just mixes things together from the kitchen to see what kind of concoction he can make and sometimes we bake them to see how they change when heated. But we do try to do some real experiments sometimes too and have enjoyed watching what happen when you add baking soda to vinegar, etc. Yesterday, Fletcher was in the mood for experimenting in the kitchen and as I was not in the mood to wash every dish we own (often the result of Fletcher's time spent in the kitchen without direct supervision) I decided to be his assistant as we tested pantry items to see what dissolves and what does not dissolve when added to water. Here are our results from yesterday and additional tests today:
Flour: Dissolved
Baking Powder: Dissolved
Oatmeal: Did not dissolve
Cinnamon: Did not dissolve
Baking Soda: Dissolved
Brown Sugar: Dissolved
Salt: Dissolved
Tea from a Tea Bag: Did not dissolve

After this we mixed all the solutions into one bowl and tested and recorded the temperature then added 5 ice cubes and tested and recorded again. We formed a theory (that the temperature goes down 15 degrees with every 5 added ice cubes) but our theory was disproved when we added 5 more cubes and nothing happened.

Do you think the School of Math and Science takes kindergarteners?

Ahoy!

Fletcher attended Treasure Hunt camp at Children's Theater of Charlotte at ImaginOn this week. He loved it and did a great job. The children had sessions of music, art, and drama each day and on Friday showed off what they had made and learned for parents. We were so proud of Fletcher!

The pirate theme continued at home where we read pirate and treasure picture books, hunted for treasure outside, and sang songs about pirates.

To build upon the pirate theme even more, Fletcher and I headed to Charlotte at Play today where, in addition to many other fun and interactive exhibits, there is a pirate ship, pirate costumes, and treasure chests. We had a great time being pirates (see Fletcher telling me to "batten down the hatches" in the photo above), a knight and a queen (Fletcher saved me from the fire-breathing dragon), builders, camping out, and more.

Reedy Creek Park

Fletcher and I had a wonderful afternoon at Reedy Creek Park in Cornelius on Sunday. We ate a snack at a picnic table overlooking the lake which was full of boats on this beautiful day. We walked along the water's edge, turned over rocks, used sticks and rocks as levers and fulcrums, saw a duck family, geese, and squirrels, walked through the woods, played on the playground, and really enjoyed each others company.

We are so fortunate to live in a place where we have all the benefits of the lake, a wonderful park system, libraries every few miles, as well as a less than 1/2 hour drive to all the attractions of uptown Charlotte. When I get anxious to move, I have to remind myself of all of these little luxuries!

Last year at this time I could not wait for Fletcher to go back to preschool (ugh, did I really say that?)but this summer has gone by way too fast and I am going to miss my boy when preschool begins in early September.

Morning at the Mall

I always feel guilty when I submit Fletcher to materialism and commercialism, but Friday was too darn hot to be outside, so we headed to Concord Mills, one of the most material and commercial places on the planet. However we did enjoy ourselves. We rode the carousel, ate food court grub, perused books at the book store, shopped at the education store (love it!) and Fletcher made a new friend at Build-a-Bear Workshop.

Lake Fun

Wednesday morning Fletcher and I met Tonya, Emma Kate, and Jack as well Whitney, Quintin, and Griffin at the beach at Jetton where the kids enjoyed playing in the sand and water. From there we headed to Walter Henderson Park for some more fun on the playground before it got too hot.

Interesting group of facts: Whitney is the wife of Trey Small. Ed and I worked with Trey at Applebee's "back in the day," Trey and Chris were best friends. Tonya and I were best friends and roommates. Trey introduced Tonya and Chris. Trey met Whitney, married and moved to Kansas and had 2 kids. Tonya and Chris are married with 2 kids. Ed and I are married with 1 child. Trey and Whitney just moved back to the Charlotte area.

Fletcher and Mandy

Wednesday I took Fletcher and Mandy to the library and then we stopped by the Farmer's Market near our house and one of my favorite photo spots, the Caboose. These two had fun and thought it was funny for them to turn their backs when I wanted to take a photo of them together. I love these pics and I love Mandy and she is as sweet as she is beautiful!

Discovering Dinosuars and Pompeii

Monday Fletcher and I headed uptown to Discovery Place to check out the dinosaur exhibit before it "makes tracks" for another city and to see the new Pompeii exhibit, too. Both were awesome! Fletcher and I had just finished reading Vacation Under the Volcano by Mary Pope Osborne (one of the Magic Tree House series books) and therefore the Pompeii exhibit was relevant and interesting to us both. Fletcher remembered a lot from the story and had many questions and comments. (We're really into natural disasters right now!) The replica dinosaurs in that exhibit were amazing and Fletcher's favorite part was the area where you could build your own dinosaur and the Paleo Lab where we sifted through a small bucket of dirt with a sifter, brushes, and other small tools to find fossils. We found lots of sharks teeth and shells in ours which we brought home to add to Fletcher's box of souvenirs. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful place like Discovery Place where kids can learn and be exposed to so much!

Fletcher and Sophie

Here are a few pics of Fletcher and Sophie at the park on Wednesday of last week having great fun. Cathy and Louis, Fletcher has a new favorite hat!

Household Projects:UPDATE

Update: Ok, so we've have sunk our teeth into projects and we're off!
1. We have chosen new granite counter tops with under mounted sink and extended island to be installed on 11/18 (as it turns out, granite is cheaper than other solid surfaces! Who knew?)
2. Removed wallpaper boarder in the kitchen today while kids rested (bye, bye fruity boarder!)
3. Got Fletcher the bunk bed he has wanted for about 2 years over the weekend and got it put together on Saturday. Fletcher is lovin' it and his room is now his favorite place! He didn't want to leave the house on Sunday.
4. Have gotten rid of at least 6 pieces of furniture that we had been saving for "our next home" (that in the mean time was taking up valuable space in our current one!).
5. Having upstairs carpet cleaned on Friday.
6. Collecting estimates on flooring installation (downstairs), painting (entire interior), and lighting (2 new pendants over the kitchen island).

To save $$ we will be doing as much of the work that we can ourselves like tearing out the old counter tops and tearing up the old carpet and vinyl downstairs. I'll keep you all posted and will add photos of progress when we have some. Wish us luck!


I have wanted a new home for a while now, but to no avail. So my latest scheme is to do some stuff to our current house to make it more livable. We've been here 8 years and things are ready for repair/replacement but we've continuously said that we'd wait and do all the fixing-up when we were ready to sell, but now I think we should go ahead and make plans for projects so that we can enjoy the new stuff, too. So here is my wish list of things to do around the house:
New floors entire downstairs: laminate hardwoods
New carpet on stairs and upstairs: frieze or berber
New paint in entire house: neutral golden shade and white trim
New kitchen countertops: solid surface with integrated sink and larger island surface
Fletcher needs a real bed (sleeping on a futon and has wanted a bunk bed for a long time) and Ed and I need new bedroom furniture as well (same stuff I got when I moved to Charlotte in 1994)

Ed says we will not take out any kind of loan to do any of this which means it will happen very slowly. I'll keep you posted. Who knows what order things should be done in? Should the floors be before the paint, etc.?

Doing Our Part

Ed and I spent $70 (gasp!) on Energy Saver light bulbs at Lowe's the other day in hopes of never having to change light bulbs again and saving the planet. They are expensive but the packaging says they will save us hundreds in energy costs. However, our water bill was over $400 this month due to a running toilet (double gasp!). Hope to remedy that problem today.

Other ways to do our part:
Turn off the water while you're brushing your teeth.
Use reusable grocery bags.
Fill a water bottle with water and put it in your toilet tanks to take up space so that it takes less water to fill the tank.
Take showers and make them as short as possible.
Teach your kids (and yourself) to turn off lights not in use. I can't stand to be in a dark house but am making an effort to turn off lights that aren't needed.
Only run your dishwasher and washing machine when you have a full load.
Recycle, Free-cycle, consume less, and take other steps to reduce your carbon footprint.