The Zoo

The Johnsons gave Luke a family membership to the zoo for his birthday. Today we went to check it out.

Those are two lions right beside the boys. 

John's new sunglasses

Leopard and spy glasses

There's a really neat park right outside the zoo. This apparatus was a favorite.

Merry *achoo* Christmas!

Despite sneezes, sniffles, runny noses, and coughs, we had a nice Christmas. We opened presents at our house on the 20th so the kids had a few days to play with their new toys before we hopped in the car to see our families. Linda prepared an Italian feast on Christmas Eve for Charlie, Joe, Rachel, Tommy, and us. And, she gave me the most beautiful blanket that she crocheted. I'll treasure it. Then we spent Christmas Day at Grandpa and Grandma's house with Annie and Shane. Jane made a delicious prime rib roast, and we were spoiled rotten with gifts. Silly Jack was already planning what he's going to ask Santa for on the car ride home today. Luke told us he thought Santa did a pretty good job deciding what to get him, so maybe he didn't even need to tell Santa what to bring. I think I'm just going to ask Santa for good health next year. These colds are for the birds. My camera didn't get a lot of action this year, but here are just a few: 

Catching Up

With the busyness of the holiday season, blogging has gotten away from me. So, here's a little catch up post. 

We celebrated John's birthday last weekend. 

One of the local churches did a really neat live Nativity that we drove through last weekend.

We had a holiday party at our house yesterday. We invited all of our new friends from the neighborhood for hot chocolate, holly globs, games, and a gift exchange. 

Jack- 2014

Luke- 2014

Santa Visit and Letters to Santa

We went to visit Santa this morning, and the boys wrote their letters to Santa. It's going to be a Star Wars Christmas apparently. 

Happy Holidays!

The boys' Christmas card is going out earlier than mine this year. They made this online, and it was too cute not to share. 

Swamp Rabbit Sunday

Today we loaded up the bikes and set out to explore the Swamp Rabbit Trail. The Swamp Rabbit is a rail to trail conversion that runs for 20 miles through Greenville and up to Travelers Rest. This has been on my list of to-do's since we arrived in Greenville. The balmy 65 degree weather was just what we needed to get out and explore today. We only explored 5.5 miles of trail today, but I am certain we will back to explore more in the days to come.

We didn't see George today.

Here's what most of the trail looked like. This was an old railway, and the grades were generally pretty easy.

The boys enjoyed peering at the falls from the suspension bridge. These falls are close to the center of downtown Greenville.

Here's another view of the falls.

 We enjoyed lunch in a park near the falls.

We found this F-86 Sabre Jet on display along the path.

 Here's Jack doing his best sleeping Cheetah impersonation. Wild Kratts has really made an impression on this one.

 No Train Left Behind

Bonus Round: We returned home with our tree for this Christmas Season!

Star Student

DuPont State Forest

We hiked five miles in DuPont State Forest today. What a beautiful area of the country. John printed a map of the area for Jack. 

Jack spent the first half of the hike pretty obsessed with the map. 

He comes by that naturally. John had the map saved on his phone. 

We walked through this beautiful covered bridge. 

Luke saw a caterpillar and watched him cross the path.

We hiked up this huge hill and were rewarded with this beautiful lake.

We saw High Falls. 

When I read this sign to Luke, he was pretty hopeful that he would see a logging truck and a feller buncher. He saw the truck but no buncher.