Sunday, November 8, 2009

Mister Taylor's pictures and Sunday- Juner.

Mister Taylor sent over some pictures that he took this weekend.
Mister Taylor is our new favorite person. He helped Henry and I build this cool parking garage. I stopped what I was doing regularly to run up and hug him.

But even love didn't stop me from being a stinker and laying down in the middle of the road on our hike.
Henry really liked him too. On Friday, he requested that mama leave the room before his nap so Mister Taylor could read him his stories. And on Saturday, Mister Taylor helped us pick up beads when Henry dropped them on the floor. When mama asked him if there was something he wanted to saw to him. Hoping for a "thank you," instead Henry responded "Maybe...I love you?"

Here's a video that Mister Taylor took from behind the waterfall. It was almost loud enough to drown out the kids.


On Saturday night, mama and papa actually hired a babysitter (for the first time ever!) and headed down to try to get tickets to the Clemson football game. They couldn't scalp any tickets, but did have a good time watching from outside the stadium. They got to see the police escort and the buses that carried the team in for the "most exciting 25 seconds in college football" and even got to see 5,000+ balloons released from the stadium. The effect was cool, but mama was a little disturbed by what would happen to those thousands of balloons once they deflated and fell in the lake.

On Sunday, we headed to Greenville to visit the zoo again.
We rode in the van with mama and Mister Taylor and Papa followed in the rental car. Of course, the two least directionally-oriented people we know got lost on the way to the zoo. We stood around waiting and Henry wondered "Where are those freaky guys?" We're blaming this one on school and some other kid's older brother.

Once we finally went inside the zoo, I had a good time pointing out the legless lizard.

We took our picture in the hut.
And Henry pointed out every time he saw the word "Zoo."

Hey, how did those guys get in that cool jeep?

Watch out, world!

These kids look tired.

We found a little playground inside the zoo.

Though Henry preferred to ride a bear. (We thought it was funny that there are no bears at this zoo.)

The snapping turtles looked like dinosaurs. And Henry recited multiple pages from his "Days of the Dinosaurs" book, telling us that in the days of the dinosaurs, there were fish, turtles, dragonflies, and alligators. What a know-it-all.

I stopped for a coffee break.

This one is for you, Schlee. Baby goats!

We decided that it's time to put away Henry's t-rex shirt. That is too much belly to show, even on an 85 degree day. Yes, it was that hot.

end of videoMama likes the elephants. They are always doing something interesting.
We could hear the orangutans all the way across the zoo. They kept this up all at least thirty minutes. It was cool to see, but also cemented our conviction never to go in the jungle alone. They were kind of scary.We played at the playground afterward until we were too hot and tired to go any longer. Thanks for visiting us again, Mister Taylor!

Mister Taylor came back!- June.


Mama had some exciting new for us on Friday... Mister Taylor was coming to see us again!I decided not to mail myself to Grandma because Mister Taylor is so much fun.


We wanted to show him a good time, so we headed down to Anderson to see a balloon glow. Unfortunately, the people at the balloon festival can't read the schedules printed in the newspaper and online and the balloon glow was over by the time we got there. Boo, Anderson. But we did find a new barbeque joint that serves some excellent brisket and a sauce that was very close to the Lexington barbeque we miss from North Carolina.

On Saturday, we headed back to Stumphouse Mountain to show papa and Mister Taylor the train tunnel and waterfall. The effect was much better last time- foggy and dark. The tunnel was very spooky. This time it was very sunny and we could almost see the back of the tunnel form the entrance.

The waterfall was much better in good weather though.

We took the well maintained path down to the outlook.

Then we got WAY too bold and took what we thought was a path down the other side of the waterfall. It was more like rock-climbing than hiking. Luckily, there were two very helpful families to help pass kids down the rocks and help all of us over a rock with a 20 foot drop beside it.

But there was a big payoff when we got to the end of the path. We got to stand under the waterfall where Isaqueena hid! Go back and look at the picture of the waterfall to see how hidden this is.

Climbing back up was much easier than climbing down.
It was a beautiful fall day to be up in the mountains.

Back up top, Henry stood guard while we visited the port-o-potty. We skipped naps in favor of visiting our favorite restaurant in Wallhalla- Steakhouse Cafeteria. We love you and your delicious fried chicken.