This week was light on formal schoolwork but heavy on fun for all of us! A last summer fling before the real and steady nose-to-the-grindstone begins next week. Please pardon the insane amount of pictures for this post. I couldn’t leave any of them out so if you are not a grandma or relation, please feel free to skim. : )
Monday: We had a normal day of school on Monday (so normal that I’ll leave out the nuts-and-bolts of what we checked off our lists this time).
Tuesday: We visited our Classical Conversations tutorial for orientation and meet-and-greet day! It was a fun and busy time there as the girls met their tutors and I met the class that I will be working with this coming year. I have a little group of abecedarians (5 and young 6’s, kindergarten age) and it looks like B will be in my group!
After CC, we snuck in a quick orthodontist check for N1 and she got her front four braces on today. She’s been a little sore, but otherwise a trooper about the whole thing. She thinks they are pretty cool (when they aren’t impeding with her eating) and I think they make her look older. : )
After N1’s appointment, we headed home to load up with the (and, a-hem, finish packing) and hit the road for a three-day trip to Chattanooga! T had a work meeting so the kids and I tagged along. Chattanooga is a beautiful, visitor friendly city and we enjoyed our time there!
Photo taken from the pedestrian walking bridge overlooking the Tennessee River. The building with the pointed roof on the left is the Tennessee Aquarium.
Wednesday: We hit up the Children’s Discovery Museum. This year the boy was in heaven as we wandered and played and explored. He and B (and N2 to some extent) are just the right target ages for this museum and enjoyed exploring the music, art and doctor areas. N1 was in heaven in their large art center. We easily spent three hours there before they were ready to move on and find some lunch.
Thursday: We saved our favorite stop for day two – the Tennessee Aquarium! The aquarium is made up of two large buildings – one that houses fresh water animals and one that is for oceanic life. We spent the morning viewing the fresh water fish. I am amazed by God’s creativity in the creatures that He created that live in the water, rarely visible to the normal, everyday eye!
Some of our favorites: (1) seahorses; (2) a large (LARGE) fresh water fish; (3) Russian sturgeon (these are some of the fish that give us caviar); (4) the aquarium has a butterfly habitat and we spotted this giant butterfly/moth that was just beautiful. It was probably the size of one of the girls’ hands! (5) Shark! (6) Large crab – tiny children.
This pic below isn’t a great pic, but I like it for a couple of reasons. One, the two shadows at the bottom are B and the boy and she’s telling him about the fish. (He has slept through the dive show we watched which was a good thing – the divers in the tanks freaked him out with their masks and gear). Two, this picture shows the immense size of the tank in the oceanic building. This tank was approximately 36 feet deep in the deepest section, 100 feet long, and 50 feet wide. An immense tank!
A stop in the shark cage is always fun. : )
You will have to indulge me if I share several photos of the same animal – jellyfish are my favorite! I am just in awe of their translucent bodies and filmy, wispy “tails”. They amaze me at how delicate they are.
We found time for some reading while hanging in the hotel room. (N2 finished her first big chapter book – Ramona the Pest soon after we got home from this trip!)
Friday: Did you know that there is a Towing Museum? There is and it’s in Chattanooga where the tow truck was invented in the early 1900’s. We have a boy that is very into cars right now, so we made a stop here on Friday while T was on a break from his meeting. You can see some of the tow trucks below – I was surprised by the huge range in size of the different models!
The one on the below left is the tire of a WW2 tow truck used by General Patton on the shores of Normandy. Look at how big the tires are! I loved the yellow tow truck on the below right as well – check out the wood paneling on the 1935 Ford!
This is the biggest tow truck ever built, and there were only four ever made. This big daddy can pull up to 70 tons. It was HUGE!
After depositing T back at his meeting for the wrap-up, we went for a long walk over the pedestrian bridge in Chattanooga. Needed to get some energy out before drive home later that evening. : )
At the end of the bridge, once you get over the Tennessee River is Coolidge Park with a very invited splash park. After a quick dig through the luggage to make sure we had enough dry clothes left to get us home, the kids went splashing for a big as a last romp during our time in Chattanooga.
And with that, we said good-bye to Chattanooga. Now it’s back home and back to our normal routine. While most will take a small break on Monday for Labor Day, we are going to hit the books to prepare for our first full day of CC on Tuesday. All our weekly activities – CC, Awana, and our Friday Bible study – start up this week so there will be no lack of things to report in our next weekly wrap-up!
Oh, Chattanooga is so much fun! I think we've been to all these places except the tow truck museum and maybe the children's museum (all these museums blur together after a while). Looks like y'all had a blast! :-)
ReplyDeleteTHAT all looks fun!
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