Rose Garden

Elsa came home early from school one day (poor thing threw up in the hall at school). She was feeling fine by the morning but we couldn't send her to school so she got to hang out with us for the day. We made a stop at the Raleigh Rose Garden and it was so fun to watch her play tag and hide-and-seek with Simon. He loved having Elsa around. The roses were in full bloom and stunning. We also made a quick stop at the awesome Laurel Hills playground before heading home to greet the other kids coming home from school.

Museum Park

We took Kristilyn to the North Carolina Museum of Art Park for a picnic before she had to fly home. We wandered around the trails there and made a stop at the kids' favorite spot, the Cloud Chamber (like a giant camera obscura that looks like a hobbit house).

Wilson Adventures

We made a quick visit to the State Farmers Market Saturday morning with Kristilyn (where Simon soaked himself in the drinking fountain) and then headed to the small town of Wilson, about an hour away. Our first stop in Wilson (after shakes and fries from Cookout) was Whirligig Park. It's home to many of Vollis Simpson's kinetic sculptures. It was a windy day which really made the sculptures move. It was really cool to watch all of them. The park is still under construction and the kids quickly figured out that they could talk to each other through all of the corrugated tubing. It was pretty funny.

Our main reason for visiting Wilson was to see their annual outdoor photo festival, "Eyes on Main Street." One hundred large-scale photographs from 100 photographers around the world are displayed on buildings and store windows along the main street of Wilson. The photographs were fantastic and the location was just as interesting, wandering along this old, seemingly deserted main street. There were so many great photo ops. We passed a fun mural and we also took a break from our photo stroll and popped into the Wilson Children's Museum which the kids loved. There were some great photography exhibits in there as well.