Showing posts with label heleena. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heleena. Show all posts

Impression 5, a Third Visit, in as Many Weeks

For Emily and William's first Friday of summer, we went to Impression 5, again!  Grace asked if we could invite Heleena, and since she lives so close, and there would be no additional cost, since we can bring guests, I said yes, and Heleena came along with us!  

I had also invited Avia, at the time she was unsure of her schedule, but she was able to join us too!  We missed Alice who still has another week of school left!!!

We arrived twenty minutes early, and the parking lot was empty! They were playing four corners while waiting.





Emily got a little wet. oops.



The bubble room was pretty empty, and by 1030, we realized that there were no field trips there.  So, the kids were there with only a smattering of other little kids and their caregivers!

William spent 80% of his visit in the bubble room!















My mom had parked and walked to meet us, anticipating a full parking lot, so she and Emily left for a while to explore the downtown path and get her car before the parking meter ran out.






We went to two pop up events.  The first was finger printing, which they thought was okay.  They enjoyed the fish building way more!

I told them that if a small child came over, they had to immediately stop and surrender the space to the  one for whom the space is designed. They played longer than I thought they would, and no little kids came over while they were there.

Juliet blew a bubble...

...and William caught it!

William made a 'snowman.'

By 1230 everyone was winding down, so once Emily got back, we loaded up the car to go home.

It was a nice change for the twins to have a friend along, and they enjoyed getting to stay until they were done!  I think it will be a few weeks before we go back again, but that's the fun thing about summer, you just never know!

After we dropped off Heleena, I took the kids to pick out donuts for national donut day!  QD had their donuts on sale for $1 each!  This is the pile that made it back home, with one for Daddy and one for Alice since they were still at work and school.  The pickings were pretty slim, but we were all just happy to have something.


I'm glad we did a 'stay until you're done day' without Alice, because she prefers events that have an end time, and so the next time we go, it should be easier for everyone to be happy!

later days

edit 6-8-25: backdated for continuity.

All the Other stories

These pictures didn't really fit anywhere else, so I'm adding them here.

My mom and a I drove up to Owosso for a rummage sale.  It's only about an hour away, but far enough that we wanted to explore a little bit afterward.  We ended up in the most organized junk shop ever.  Things were piled together, but the aisles were tall and packed and layered with any number of items!  It wasn't dirty or smelly as these places can be, but there was a LOT to look at.  The gentlemen ran a sign store too, and so there were signs for every occasion!  Naturally, when I saw Hank Williams, I had to take a picture* to share with Billy! 


And I've officially read the CB Strike series too many times, because my first thought was, oh, would this be something he could use? lol. 

After a doctor's appointment in Charlotte, I had around 40 unplanned minutes before the thrift shops opened.  Thankfully, there was a Biggby nearby, and so I got some coffee to enjoy before going shopping! 

Billy and I went to Beerfest at the Ballpark last weekend.  It was a chilly day, but didn't rain on us like the last Beerfest we went to!

I do love the setup of this stadium (even though their purse policy drives me crazy**.)


These seats were different, and we don't know why, but the red part is chipping paint, so they were green to match the other seats once upon a time.  My guess is that they are for someone being honored there that game?  There was no placard, and I feel like I don't end up at many baseball games here, but plenty of events!


Two of the revelers had some fancy accessories!   There was a guy in a beer hat.


And a guy with beer stein socks!!  They were way cool.  But it was a chilly day, so he might have suffered in the name of fashion. 

The pizza was served in base shaped boxes!  So cute. = )


This 'modern' design totally makes me think of my childhood, when we had 70s leftovers.

Our Uber driver dropped us off right at the entrance, but we thought it might be a little tricker for them to find where to pick us up, so we walked the mile down to a bar called Leroy's that Billy has wanted to visit for forever!  

We crossed under 496, and between the roads, rivers, and bike lanes, the space underneath the interstate is totally broken up!


When we arrived, it turns out that even my mom has been here before us!  Despite sounding like a dive bar, it was actually more of a diner!  That wasn't a bad thing, but we were tired and not terribly hungry, so we ordered and took it to go.


And our Uber driver, Elvis, had no problem finding where to collect us.

***********

I'm retelling a story that my mom told me from last week, because I would like to laugh about it for years to come.

One day when my mom collected Emily from track, Emily was telling her that she was pulled out of class for a superlatives picture! She was voted "Most Likely to Save the World." My mom obviously thought that was pretty cool, but when she said as much to Emily, Emily responded, yeah, it would be, except that last year Alice was voted "Most Likely to Take Over the World."

***********

During a different week, for lunch Billy and I went to Dagwoods.  We didn't have any expectations, so they had a fighting chance, but it turns out that they are really good!  It is a total dive bar, and the decor makes it look like you are on the 'outside;' just like in Night at the Roxbury!  Though, the outside doesn't look like the inside.

Billy's olive burger didn't come with a tray or plate or anything, just wrapped in wax paper!  Apparently, Billy wasn't ready for me to take a picture. lol.

My Philly cheesesteak was the best I've had since moving up here!  Now I know where to go when I have a craving!

On the first day of walking Alice, Emily, William, Grace, and Juliet to either their bus stops or school, I stopped on the way home for an iced latte from our little shop here in town.  It totally hit the spot, and made a beautiful day even better!

Kristy was telling us about the price of common painkillers increasing with the tariffs going into effect.  While I'm not terribly concerned, it was a cheap enough purchase to keep and store, just in case.


For reading night, Emily came with me, because I thought I was running a book sale in the library, and I wanted the twins to have someone they could quickly reach out to if they needed someone.  The sale ended up not happening, so I was able to attend with them after all!


The blacklight pens were so popular, they had to shut the room down before the event was over!


Comparing answers.  Don't we all wish we could have a twin!?

Grace playing a different game with Renae.


And Emily participated a bit, but in lieu of her peers spent time on phone.


My haul from the Mason Methodist Church and Mason Presbyterian Church sales!


One of my best rummage sale finds, so far, this season was a snap circuit kit! William played with it all evening, and included Grace when she was home.  This must have been on the Reading night!


I got a heart shaped chip!

I was nearby a restaurant that had 'famed' Dubai bar desserts.  I tried it, but was not super impressed.  I liked it enough to later buy one from Horrocks that was much better!  The inside was more of a nougat, vs the crunchy feel of the one pictured here.


Heleena had her birthday party, the weekend before the twins', at the Charlotte pool!  It was a really neat party, and her mom said that it wasn't very expensive!  Maybe our next party can be there!  Everyone in this picture was at the twins' party the following week, plus a few more. = )

Juliet and Kennedy spent the most time in the pool while I was there!

It's been a fun month, and May is looking just as enjoyable! = )

later days

*for $22 a picture was preferable to buying the sign which would essentially just be junk, as it has nowhere to go!

**only tiny purses, 4x6 maybe?, are allowed, or slightly larger clear ones.  That's fine, but men have cargo shorts that are literally larger than that!  I don't understand how my purse is more of a security issue than a man's pocket.  It always seems to be cold when we go, but sometime, I swear I'm going to wear men's cargo pants and hove my purse into one pocket and my skirt into another, just to see what happens.