bike ride

We took advantage of Oliver's last day of preschool and did a long bike ride while he was at school. The bike trailer gets a little tight with both boys in it and they tend to fight with each other so it was nice to just have Simon. We rode the American Tobacco Trail and started where I had ended my half marathon so we could see what the rest of the trail was like. We did the last 10 miles of the trail. It ends right in downtown Durham by the ballpark which is fun. We were hoping to have lunch but ran out of time so we had a quick snack and then rode the 10 miles back to the car. So much of the trail was lined with honeysuckle and it smelled so good.

saturday outing: beach day + baseball fail

We had a wonderful afternoon at Falls Lake while my parents were here. We spent hours relaxing in the sand and playing in the water. The kids loved it.

Simon ate a lot of sand.

The girls created this perfect little mini pool for Simon. He loved it.

We decided to go straight to downtown Durham and check out a Durham Bulls baseball game. We had never been to the stadium. When we arrived, the only available seats were lawn seating. We figured that would be fine but when we got to the "lawn" section, we discovered it was a tiny space, on a pretty steep hill, that was already pretty full. It was really uncomfortable to sit on a hill (and Simon had a hard time not rolling down) packed in a tiny spot. Plus the sun was directly in front of us, beating down, so we really couldn't see anything. We realized it just wasn't going to work. So we tried to attempt to get some food and all the lines were super long. The kids were wearing down at this point (Oliver was throwing a fit because we wouldn't let him play on the playground in the stadium...they charged $8!!! per kid to use it!) so we finally just decided to bail and go find dinner somewhere. We'll have to try again sometime with reserved seating and seats that don't face the setting sun. And maybe we'll get a babysitter.

We did enjoy checking out downtown Durham and the Tobacco Campus.

Duke Gardens with Grandma and Grandpa

We loved having Grandma and Grandpa Black come for a visit at the beginning of March. The first few days of their visit were cold and rainy so we mostly hung out at home. Ben's dad kept busy in our garage, assembling a playhouse we had purchased at Costco. It took several hours to put together so we were glad to have his help. The kids were THRILLED with the finished product (more on that later).

The rain finally stopped and we had a beautiful weekend with warmer temperatures. We drove to the Duke University campus in Durham and walked around the Sarah P. Duke Gardens. Buds and flowers were just beginning to pop up. We were there again yesterday at the peak of blossoms and it was amazing to see the difference a month makes.

Amelia and Elsa performed for us.

raleigh road trip

Earlier in the summer we took a quick weekend road trip to the Raleigh/Durham area in North Carolina. We woke the kids up early in the morning and had chocolate milk and muffins on the road. It turned out perfectly because we missed the usual weekend traffic on 95 South and the kids fell back asleep in the car. Our first stop was brunch at Nosh in Durham. It was so delicious. We devoured everything on the table. It was just down the street from the Sarah P. Duke Gardens on the Duke University campus so we spent some time wandering through the beautiful gardens. That's about all I took photos of for some reason. The rest of the weekend was spent exploring Raleigh. And swimming in the hotel pool. We attempted to go out to eat for dinner downtown but it started pouring rain and a few of the kids fell asleep while we were driving around so in the end we just picked up pizza from Mellow Mushroom (can't go wrong there) and had dinner in our hotel room.

Ben's awesome portobello burger and my savory egg patties. We also had the world's best cinnamon roll here. 

Matching brothers.