Sky Top Apple Orchard (September 2023)

For one of our co-op adventures we wanted to go apple picking in North Carolina. The public school kids wanted to go too so we went on a Saturday. There are several orchards to choose from, but we decided to go to Sky Top Orchards. It was a great choice.

Allee, Jalen, Baylie, Kaitlyn, Natalie

Beth, Baylie, Kaitlyn, Allee, Natalie, Jalen, Me

joined by Gideon

Crazy Kids

I'm glad my  kids get the experience of picking their own produce. There is something very grounding about that.

View from the top.

Where's Adam?

So many apples!

Overview of the orchards!

The apple cider donuts were delicious!

My pretty girl.

It was a wonderful day.

David's 43rd

As has happened the last few years, David's birthday fell on a day when Baylie had a tennis match. This year, he chose to stop at Panda Express on the way home for dinner.

He didn't want a cake. He wanted Baylie to make her churro cookies.

He also got his favorite Cookies & Cream ice cream.

Jalen got David a new Phase10 game to replace the old one that was missing cards.

Grammy & Grandad sent him a personalized notebook and 100 bucks!

Baylie got him very appropriate socks.

I got him a family frame and adidas slides.

We also got him Nephite & Lamanite chess.

David is a fun dad and it is always fun to celebrate him. He is easy to please.

Peachtree Rock Trail

We are enjoying our co-op activities each Friday. It's a mix of different types of activities. One day, we headed for Peachtree Rock Trail - home of the only naturally occurring waterfall in the Midlands. We were joined by our friends the Edwards and Baileys.

Chloe, Allee, Luke, Gideon, and Jalen

Peach Tree Rock

Shortly after we got there, I hiked up this small hill to go to the bathroom. While doing my business, I lost my balance. I tumbled down the hill with my leggings around my knees and my bum swinging free in the air. Sadly, my knees went one direction and the rest of my body went another.

I knew immediately that something was wrong. Both my knees hurt and I was really worried I had hurt my knee that has had surgery. The other knee hurt worse, but they both hurt. So while everyone else went hiking, I sat and iced my knee with some lunch box ice packs. Fortunately, I had on compression sleeves and I was able to pull them up over my knees to help hold off some swelling.

I found a spot by the waterfall and waited. It was a lovely spot.

The next day when my knee was still hurting, I went to the orthopedic urgent care. It turned out that I had a torn MCL. I was given a brace and had to take it easy for a couple of weeks.

When I went back to the doctor, they wanted me to get an MRI, but when I saw the cost of that, I decided to just wait it out. It's been three months now and they're still sore, but I'm hoping they will continue to improve.

Kayaking (September 2023)

It had been a long time since we had kayaked down the river so we decided to get a trip in before it got too cold.

We quickly realized that Jalen had outgrown his kayak. It was barely keeping from sinking.

Baylie's kayak is still great, although can be difficult to steer.

David and I share an inflatable.

After this outing, we sold the pink kayak and purchased a second 2-seat inflatable. Unfortunately, due to a knee injury and weather, we weren't able to get it on the water.

The Saluda River is a beautiful place to kayak. We love tubing or kayaking the river.

Spike!

It has been a crazy week for getting free pets because we also got a bearded dragon! I started collecting dragons in junior high school and have long wanted a bearded dragon. It just seemed like a frivolous expense. We lucked out when this week we learned of a family who was looking to rehome their dragon because their daughter was going to college. They gave us the dragon and all the extras for free! We were so excited!

His name was Orangey, but Jalen renamed him Spike. We think that name fits him much better.

We felt like he needed some more stuff in his tank, so we bought him a climbing tree at PetsMart. he seemed to enjoy it.

He also seemed to really enjoy greens, but not crickets.

We took advantage of the tank to do a review on finding volume.

We got lucky because Tianna was in town for Repticon. She and her reptile expert buddies came to see our dragon and give us some advice on caring for Spike.

We learned that everything in his tank was too small and he needed some upgrades. Fortunately, they said his tank was big enough and we didn't need to buy a bigger one. We took the kids to Repticon (they couldn't believe everything they saw there) and we bought some improvements. We got new lights because one of his lights was too old and not giving off enough heat and the other one was too small. We also bought him a couple new carpets (the old one was gross) and a hammock.

His new digs look amazing!

Spike is pretty chill. We love him.

He loves his bath time.

I know buy things like roaches and worms. So weird.

We are loving the zoo! (Tashi is not as convinced that we need these new additions.)