Our Family of Six

Friday, September 11, 2015

Glencairn Gardens in Rock Hill, SC

For a playgroup, we went to Glencairn Gardens in Rock Hill, SC...about 25 minutes south of where we live. They are beautiful gardens. This particular day they were doing live music in the park. We went last year and enjoyed it, so we went again this year.

The kids enjoyed eating lunch outside on the blanket. Funny, I just noticed they are giving me the same facial expression. haha.

There's the live music. We sat kind of far away so the kids could play.

They played chase...but weren't quite sure what to do. haha...they just ran around for a bit.

We walked around and found these great swings. There's the twins and Charlotte.

Caught Kira grinning!

"Hold on Mom, let me adjust my glasses."

"K, now I am good." haha.

Beautiful, Happy Tiersha and Charlotte.

Balancing on the brick wall and ducking under the tree branch...that's skill, Kira.

This is as close as the twins would sit by each other.

Looking good Isak!

And my somewhat diva Kira. She is a sweet diva though. :)

I just about died when they all held hands, pretty much on their own.

The weather was just right, lunch was good and the company was great.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Haircuts, Ziplines and Brusters

Other things we did while our family was here...

Jenny cut my hair. She did amazing as always.

She cut Isak's hair. He did excellent and sat still while he ate his dum dum.

And even Kira let Jenny cut her hair...of course, she also enjoyed a dum dum.

It was a family event.

Grandpa helped entertain the twins while Jenny cut Nels's hair.

He came home from work just in time to get his hair cut too! Yep, we kept her busy. And we all loved our new looks.

The last day of their visit we decided to do something adventurous. We went to the White Water Center and did a rope course and zipline.

Nels isn't fond of heights so he was sweet and watched the twins with my mom.
We got our gear on...

And after a brief tutorial, we were ready for the rope course.

Nels gearing up to take care of the kiddos. :)

And here we go! It was exhilarating. I am so glad I got to do it. I would love to do that type of thing again too. The rope course starts out with a bridge like walkway with wood slats to walk on. Then it gets progressively more difficult until you only have one rope to walk on!

From a very far distance...Nels tried to get a picture. A couple of times on the course, I had to pause and take some deep breaths, focus and then move forward. My dad led the way, then me and then Jenny. It was so fun. And of course, the zipline zoomed by. It was a quick zipline.

See, Everyone survived. :)

Nels was a bit of stinker...

But we kissed and made up.

And now he is happy. haha.

We ate at Jim and Nick's for dinner and then took everyone to Brusters for ice cream.
My mom took this picture of Kira. It shows off her adorable haircut!

Pretty night sky and a sweet grandma feeding her sweet grandson some sweet ice cream.

And then they had to leave bright and early the next morning. :( We had a grand time! Thanks for coming!

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Biltmore in April

Lots of pictures coming your way...watch out! Ha ha. We love going to the Biltmore and we were happy to take my parents and Jenny to see this gigantic house, beautiful gardens and fantastic views.

We loaded up the van...and drove the two hours to Asheville.

We ate lunch at Zoe's Kitchen again. And it was yummy as always. Yes, the three times we went to the Biltmore we took our guests to Zoe's.

Look at sweet Kira...and her two purple cars. :)

And there's Isak rocking his red sunglasses.

Jenny was pretty excited about her salad. heehee. She's fun to be with.

It was a busy day, so we had ended up with a reserved time to tour the house that was 2 hours from a when we arrived. So we toured the gardens first. I love how green everything was and there's the house in the background.

Isak and Kira were so adorable. They saw these gorgeous hot pink flowers and ran to stand in front of them for a picture! I didn't even say anything, but I quickly got my camera out to snap some photos. They never really looked at me...but I still like the pictures.

Here they are getting situated...

Looking at the flowers....and not the camera.

Kira might be telling Isak how to stand.

And then she shows him how to stand. haha.

Oh Kira.

And then off to the gardens.

It ended up being in the 70's and I was pretty warm in my sweater!

Sweet parents.

Kira just had a blast holding her two cars and running around.

Isak stuck pretty close to his daddy.

I tried to get a pic with Nels and the twins...at least Kira gave me a smile.

Kira watched as Jenny and I got our picture taken.

And my mom took a picture of me taking a picture of my family.

I probably took ten...and this was the best one. oh well.

I took lots of photos of the kids on these antique white benches and chairs.

They were just sooooo cute.

I thought the set up was picturesque.

Sweet moment.

My mom took this one of me.

Both Jenny and I liked these flowers.

Flower art...fancy lady.

And my attempt at taking fancy pictures...

I was in awe at how different the gardens were from March. In April, all of the tulips were in bloom.

Love these white ones.

Another fancy flower lady.

Tulips and more tulips.

Running up the stairs.

And when Isak got to the top of the stairs, he stopped and turned around and gave me this cute look!!! Isn't he soooo adorable??

"Hey, Nels, go stand over there." :)

The group.

I wish I wore something other than red...I kind of clashed with everyone...Kira's pink and Jenny's coral. Oh well.

Kira loved to have Grandpa push her around.

The tour of the house was great. Nels and I shared an audio, but the kids were better when I just paid attention to them. I asked them all of the time, "What do you see?" and we would look at all of the different things in the room. They climbed every stair in the house, up and down.

Afterward we took pictures in front of the Biltmore Mansion.

Jenny is fun, she posed with me. Hee hee.