A Year+ Later...

I can't believe it's been 15 months since I've done anything on this blog. And it's not that there haven't been blog-worthy events going on around here. There have also been family trips, cute pictures, growing (like weeds!) boys, and homeschooling. Not to mention Pinterest. Oh, Pinterest. My total obsession. I think I could write a blog just about Pinterest. But I digress. I am going to give this blog another go. Mostly because I have been horrible about correspondence to relatives, who would like to know about the doings of the kids and whatnot. But also because I would like to have some documentation myself, you know, for when I actually get around to doing the boys' scrapbooks. Ahem. Moving on.

They say when you are really behind on something that it is best to start with current information. So I will start with what we did this evening. First let me say that I have been loving Groupon, Deal Chicken, and Living Social. We have gotten some amazing deals with these websites, not least of all tonight's adventure: Christmas in the Cave, at Cherokee Caverns. Half price on the admission tickets, plus Blake was free. Score! We had a great time, with one exception - the parking situation was AWFUL. Way too narrow, and scary when you have 3 small children in tow. It was even worse when we were leaving. One of the worst parking experiences ever (and I am not a fan of parking lots anywhere to begin with). The only other negative might be that it just wasn't long enough - we would have loved to spelunk for at least an hour, but you could get through this in about 15 minutes. But a very nice way to spend 15 minutes, it was (we may have lingered to stretch it to 30, but that's still 15 minutes less than the time it took to get there). They had many treats for sale, but we resisted (we brought our dinner with us to eat on the way home), as well as a few crafty items. They had a couple of other things for kids, including a machine that was generating smoke bubbles, and we all enjoyed popping some of those (coolest bubbles ever!).

It also piqued an interest in the boys to further study caves, and as it just so happens, I have a unit study on caves in my arsenal. So we will definitely be doing this study sometime within the next semester, and we'll be taking a field trip for more spelunking as well. I have been spelunking in my youth, but it was very neat to see a cave all festooned with Christmas lights and decorations. There was even live music, and a Santa Claus with whom to get pictures taken. The boys ended up getting 4 pieces of peppermint candy along the way, which they loved, although it definitely had an effect on bedtime (especially for Josh, who is, as we are finding out, sensitive to food additives - especially red food dye, which of course is in candy canes!). Anyway, all in all, it was a very fun time, and I would do it again as long as I had another Groupon (I don't think I'd pay full price). Have a look:

Pretty neat, eh?
So hopefully I can get back into some sort of blogging routine, as I think about it a lot, and I really don't have any excuses not to. So if you are a reader, welcome back! My hope is that you will be delighted with the exploits of my children, entertained with our stories, and possibly even informed every now and again.